What feeds your soul when nobody's watching?

Have you ever found yourself drawn to something that seems utterly unproductive yet feels essential to your wellbeing? That's exactly what we explore in this heartfelt conversation that begins with home projects but quickly delves into the deeper spaces of what truly nourishes our souls.

Lisa kicks things off sharing her triumph of finally renovating her mailbox after months of planning—complete with a glossy black post and custom vinyl decals. This evolves into a discussion about her family's seasonal bucket list chalkboard where cherished activities get the attention they deserve. "If it's not on the list," Jess notes, "it stays in the someday pile instead of the actionable now-we're-doing-it pile." This visual representation of family values not only creates accountability but offers visitors a glimpse into what matters most in their home.

The conversation shifts to parenting philosophies as we unpack the sometimes tedious but ultimately rewarding practice of consistently teaching children to ask politely for what they need. Those repetitive moments of redirecting a child's "I'm THIRSTY" or "I want water" to "May I please have some water?" build crucial life skills—though we laugh about the irony of making parenting harder in the short term to make life better in the long term.

But the heart of our discussion emerges when Lisa shares a profound moment of lying under a flowering tree in the park, allowing her mind to wander freely without productive intention. This seemingly simple act resulted in unexpected clarity and deep rejuvenation. "I kept coming up with all these things I wanted to unpack," she reflects, "not because I was trying to be productive, but because my mind finally had space to wander."

This leads us to grapple with important questions: How do we identify the activities that truly feed our souls? How do we make space for them in busy lives? And perhaps most crucially—how do we ensure we recognize these soul-nourishing opportunities before we reach the breaking point of desperately needing them?

We'd love to hear what feeds your soul when nobody's watching. Share your thoughts with us or simply take a moment today to ask yourself what your soul might be calling for that you've been too busy to notice.

Chapters

• 0:00 Jess's Mailbox Renovation Project
• 9:51 Family Bucket Lists and Values
• 17:32 Parenting Patience and Teaching Manners
• 25:36 Lisa's Soul-Nourishing Tree Moment
• 35:36 Finding and Making Space for Soul Care
• 46:17 Reflections and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Jess: 0:00

Hey, it's Jess and Lisa.

Lisa: 0:02

We've got stories to share From our hearts to your ears. Lots to unpack there. Tune in every week you won't want to miss. Dive deep into life with Jess and Lisa.

Jess: 0:21

We're Jess and Lisa, two best friends in our forties living in Maryland. This podcast is about life, motherhood, leadership and everything in between.

Lisa: 0:30

We're navigating the messy middle of personal and professional life and have learned that having someone along the way who just gets it makes the journey less hard.

Jess: 0:39

So each week, we'll share something from our own lives and unpack it together in real time. Our hope is that, as we process and reflect, it'll inspire you to do the same wherever you are.

Lisa: 0:53

Hi, hello, happy Friday, thank you, same to you. How's it going? It's good, it's really good. Well, I mean, it's Friday and I did something today that I have been planning to do for like I don't know seven months. So yeah, I've been dreaming of doing this for seven months what was it um. I rehabbed our mailbox. Tell me more about what that meansbed our mailbox.

Jess: 1:23

Tell me more about what that means.

Lisa: 1:25

So our mailbox and associated post. We have like a post that sits in the ground and then the mailbox is attached to that Sort of like. It's almost like a T shaped post and then the mailbox sits on that and we moved in and changed nothing about our house, including said mailbox. Actually, I think my husband did replace the mailbox because I think the mailbox itself was quite dilapidated, but not anything else. It just we had a new mailbox and he put these very unattractive reflective stickers that like peeled up at the corners and they were just like really, really, really basic. And because I take so many walks around the neighborhood I get to see everybody's mailboxes and I fell in love with this one down the street and so I basically just completely replicated their mailbox.

Jess: 2:19

This is like keeping up with the Joneses. Yeah, mailbox edition. So what was so special about their mailbox that you liked so?

Lisa: 2:26

much. Well, the post itself was troublesome because it was like two different colors that had faded and it was like very non-color. Like you wouldn't be able to pick this color out of a color wheel because it was just a non-color Somewhere between pink and gray, don't know why I mean.

Jess: 2:42

Let's be fair, I wouldn't be able to pick it out of a color wheel anyway.

Lisa: 2:47

Possibly so. So I was like, well, that's got to be glossy black, because that's what the people down the street have Glossy black post and I was like, must have glossy black also, really wanted to steal their very fine decal, because it was a decal that they had on their mailbox, not the little wretched stickers that you get for a dollar 50 at Ace Hardware.

Jess: 3:11

Wait, what's the difference between a decal and a sticker? Well, a decal is more expensive.

Lisa: 3:18

A decal is one of those like vinyl decals that you get custom from Etsy or some other place that you put your. So I put our street number and then our whole street address, so the whole, the full address is on there as well. And then I went the extra mile I will say the extra mile and got an extra decal for the inside of the mailbox that when you pull down the flap it says thank you and there's like a little envelope with a heart on it.

Jess: 3:48

That's really cute, ours. When you pull it down it just has the previous homeowner's name crossed out and then our name. I think our mail carrier from 10 years ago put it there.

Lisa: 3:59

It's still there. I never thought to put our names on the inside of the mailbox. It's actually quite clever, okay. Well, we'll see.

Lisa: 4:08

It took me an extra long amount of time to add the decal to the mailbox, which makes me feel like it might not stay very well or it might not come up, I don't know. It's hard to say. It was really hard to get because our mailbox is not like that like really smooth, glossy. It's almost like a textured mailbox. It's like the aluminum was like textured very slightly, and so I get the sense that it might not adhere very well. So we will see. But anyway, the point of my story, the very long story, is that it looks so pretty right now and so I made sure to take a picture because maybe it won't stay that way. But we have the glossy black post now, we have the rehabbed decal on the mailbox and I'm just so smitten with it. I feel like people are going to go on their walks around the neighborhood and see my brand new rehabbed mailbox and think what mighty fine mailbox that indeed that is.

Jess: 5:06

I bet they will. It's one of those things that it creates the visual friction Like you see it every day and it bugs you just a little bit every day. And then, now that it's gone, it's like, oh, oh, that's so much better.

Lisa: 5:19

Yeah, and I even put it on our family's spring bucket list to do, not because it was a family activity that led us to living the bigger life, necessarily, but because I really, really wanted to do it. And I have found that if I put it on our family bucket list it is much more likely to actually get done, because then I get to cross it off and we all know how I love crossing things off.

Jess: 5:40

In your house where you have the big chalkboards, yes, and then you just have all of the things that you want to do. Yeah, I don't know if we've ever talked about it on the podcast. I don't think we have.

Lisa: 5:50

Yeah, it's an amalgam of ideas from a couple other sources, and one of them there's a decal, because apparently I guess I just love vinyl decals.

Lisa: 6:00

Above it it says live the bigger life, and that comes from the happier podcast with Gretchen Rubin, and that's one of their phrases that they use, and so it's something that I've adopted for our family. But then there's a chalkboard underneath it that has the season, and then you know anywhere from like 20 to 30 items that we want to do in that season, and some of them are kind of small and easily done, like this this season, for spring, we had go out to dinner. Well, I think we've. You know, we've done that time and time again at this point, so, but it was something that the kids really wanted to do, and so I put it on there for them and it's about half and half my ideas and their wishes and desires, and it just gets them invested in it. So, even if it's something like I want to jump rope, okay great, let's put jump rope on there and we'll make sure to jump rope this season or something like that, something easy.

Jess: 6:54

Yeah, I think my kids would definitely benefit from something like that, because they ask for things and they say when can we do this or can we do this? And they say when can we do this or can we do this? And it's like, for example, going to the Rita's Italian ice shop oh, I just went there last night. It should be on our list for the season because we keep meaning to Right, it's like if it doesn't get planned, it doesn't happen Exactly, and if it's not on the list, it stays in the someday pile instead of the actionable. Now we're doing it pile. Yes, you've got me thinking about how to implement that.

Lisa: 7:34

Yeah, this system just works well for us, but I could see lots of different iterations of this working for other people. It just helps you kind of focus your free time and not squander it. It's so easy to squander extra time because everyone just loves to relax, right Like who doesn't love relaxed time. So this just helps us kind of be a little bit more mindful about it and it's really for me. It's almost like an accountability thing for me and then kind of, by extension, my family who has to go along with all of my ideas.

Jess: 8:09

Right right, our family is definitely a homebody family, and so I think in the past, you and I have talked about this way of not becoming overscheduled but also still doing some of these things, and I think it probably comes down to how many are we trying to do in a season, in a month, whatever, and that's that's. Maybe. The difference is, if I look at a season, we have 12 weekends, we decide we're only going to do one thing each weekend from this bucket list. Well then, we can structure our time in a really kind of easy way. That still also brings in some of that novelty and the getting stuff done aspect of when can we?

Lisa: 8:57

Yeah, and I think I've now learned, after doing this for a few years, that certain seasons are just inherently busier than others. For a few years that like certain seasons are just inherently busier than others, and so I put items on there according to how busy we're going to be. Like I know that spring is one of the busiest seasons, it just is. There's sports, there's stuff going on, it's end of year, like there's just so much going on, and for us spring is March, april, may. Those are the three months that encompass the spring bucket list, because it's by quarter. So I know that there's going to be all this activity.

Lisa: 9:29

So I try to pare down accordingly and like not be so ambitious, because then it just feels like you're failing If you don't get, you know, a lot of the things done that you want to.

Lisa: 9:38

It kind of feels a bit like a failure. So, whereas in winter there's very little going on other than Christmas and the holidays, so I make them mostly Christmas-oriented and then I know we're going to have time to do other indoor stuff. So yeah, I've learned definitely some lessons for this over time. But then I love it too, because when people come in my house they see the big chalkboard on the wall because it's in a very prominent location in our kitchen and they I feel like they get a sense for who my family is by that, if they don't know us super well. It's a kind of big flashing neon sign of like this is what we're about. I don't even have to tell you because you can just read kind of what we're about here. So, and it is a, you know, as Phoebe Buffay from Friends would say, it's an opportunity to be creative. So I get to design, you know, a seasonal picture in chalk paint on it and stuff like that. So I get to feel a little bit creative when I do it.

Jess: 10:39

So yeah, I like that aspect of it. It's hard for me to say what the family you know, what somebody who didn't know you would think of coming into your space, because I knew you before the space. But I do think it's right. It's like, in the organizational sense, that's the equivalent of putting your values on the wall, which I also have long planned to do.

Jess: 11:07

I was just going to bring that up. Yeah, I think it's very related and there is that accountability, there's that commitment that you're making to have those things on the list.

Lisa: 11:18

So certainly yeah, it's kind of like your family's personal brand, Certainly.

Jess: 11:25

Yeah, it's kind of like your family's personal brand. Yeah, I think so. I don't really feel guilty if we don't get stuff done, but it's. But there is maybe that pang of like. Oh well, I guess we'll try again next year. I feel this way about berry and food picking where we really want to go for strawberry season, Very big in our area of the world for sure.

Lisa: 11:47

Like it is the thing you do in fall, it is the thing you do in summer. Like yes.

Jess: 11:51

And if I'm not paying attention, the season just passes by and then I'm like, oh well, guess I'll try again next year.

Lisa: 11:59

Yeah, I don't necessarily feel I always put at least one thing on the list that is probably overly ambitious and we strive for it, we work for it, but if it doesn't happen I'm never upset about it. I just put it on the next one if it makes sense seasonally to do so, or we put it on when it comes around again a year later. But the mailbox one it's been on three season lists, not officially but like unofficially. And then this year, this season, I put it on officially and, lo and behold, the thing gets done. So there is definitely benefit to putting something on a checklist that you have to walk past 30 times a day. Again, the visual friction, totally. In fact, it is positioned directly at the bottom of the stairs so that you cannot not see it as many times as you come downstairs or enter the kitchen. So truly, you know in your face.

Lisa: 13:04

Yeah, but I like it and I feel really good about it. I feel, I'm glad that it looks like I wanted it to look, especially since there were many times in the process that I questioned my abilities. I will say that Because, as it turns out, mailboxes attach to posts through screws that are on the inside of the mailbox. So you took it off. Yeah, I had to take it off in order to like, manipulate it and clean it and do everything that I needed to do. And I had to really wrestle with the toolboxes the I don't know 40 toolboxes that we have in our garage that I know almost nothing about. And did I find the correct tools? No, no, I did not. Did I figure it out anyway? Did you find?

Jess: 13:52

a tool that worked.

Lisa: 13:52

Yes, by golly, I figured it out because I was not going to not figure it out today. So I sort of MacGyvered together a couple of different things. But working in the in a four inch wide mailbox is pretty tricky, it turns out. Yeah, it is. So my fingers are a little raw from like hand turning screws and things like that. But um, but I did it. I am super interested to know the other four members of my family all walk past this.

Lisa: 14:26

They all walk past it. How many times a day are they actually going to notice? So I will check back in next time, perhaps on the out of four that we have that have noticed it, I suspect my middle child would be the first to notice, perhaps my oldest, but that would be the ones.

Jess: 14:48

Yeah, that would track with what I know about your middle, and I also wonder if they'll notice when you cross it off the list, maybe before they even notice that it has been done.

Lisa: 15:03

Maybe I don't know how often they're actually like looking at that to see. So now my five-year-old and my eight-year-old both can read, so now they can actually see those things and take them in. But I don't know, I don't know if they actually see it or if it's that like white noise, kind of like visual white noise to them. It's definitely not to me, because it's a checklist and I'm very tuned to checklists, but I wonder if they will notice that yeah, yeah tbd I also made a change in my house today.

Jess: 15:38

You did, let's hear it did. We had a snack box up at the top on the counter. It was an old Harry and David box, and we used to have a snack drawer. And then my youngest was a menace when it came to the snack drawer and so we had to move everything into the snack box. And now he's very cute when he asks to stand on the stool so he can get a snack in the box, which is also very cute. That's insanely cute.

Jess: 16:07

I was cleaning a little bit today. My in-laws are in town and you know, one of those things that I probably should outsource, but I have not yet, is kind of the finer cleaning details of my house and when, for anybody who's listening, who has small children I think we talked about it in the last episode it's like it's so, it's like cleaning when they're playing, it's it's feels very difficult. So I was doing that a little bit today before they my in-laws came and I looked at the counter and I was like there's too much stuff on this counter and then I just decided to put everything back in the snack drawer and I too am wondering I don't know if that's going to be a change that sticks, yeah or, if anybody will notice it, I impulse control being what it is at three, I mean it's a real roll of the dice, I know.

Jess: 17:10

So we'll see. Okay, he is very sweet. He's a very sweet kid, and sometimes he surprises me where I'll do something and then, several minutes later, he'll say thank you for giving me that thing, mama. That's so cool. And so maybe he'll notice that there's a snack drawer again and he'll say thank you for filling the snack drawer. Or maybe he will try to eat all of the things in the snack drawer. I don't know.

Lisa: 17:43

I have noticed similar behavior with my three-year-old. I see her as more grateful and gracious than I remember my other two at that age being. And I'm wondering is it because we parent our third? So in our case not necessarily in every case, but, like I think you and I both have parented much more mindfully, as our like, as we have become more of a mom, you know, from like the beginning to now or is it because they're seeing the behavior of their siblings? But then again, I wouldn't necessarily put their siblings, like at least my three-year-old siblings, in the category of being incredibly grateful or gracious all the time. So I feel like it's not that and it's probably more due to the way I parent now and the mindfulness that I display in terms of being grateful and saying the things that I want them to say, being that demonstrative force rather than a punitive force, maybe.

Jess: 18:50

Right, what you model versus what you enforce? I don't know. That's a really good question. It's hard to answer because I think I want to believe that I'm I can recognize that I've changed and also I want to believe that I'm I modeled those things consistently for my older two also Do you think you did Like?

Lisa: 19:13

do you genuinely believe that you did? You're very consistent. I know I'm not. That's why I'm not. There's no judgment from me. I know that I was not nearly as consistent with that with my older as I am now.

Jess: 19:27

I'm trying to think back. I'm trying to think back. The most consistent thing that we do is whoever does not cook dinner, the other person thanks them for making dinner. That's very, very consistent and has been forever. I don't know, it could also be that my youngest is in a different school, so this could just be a module that they're working on, yeah, or maybe it's. Maybe he's just starting to develop.

Lisa: 20:03

Maybe he's just starting to develop that. I do feel like your kids in general. I noticed and you know I'm a non parental adult in their life but I feel like I noticed them being more, having more of those manners, words in general, than maybe my kids did.

Jess: 20:19

We're obnoxious about it, I think, where our kids will say something like I want water.

Lisa: 20:30

And we say that's neat, Thank you for telling me that you want water. And then they pause.

Jess: 20:36

They're like oh, give me some water. You're like whoops, we went the wrong way. No, and so we do have kind of this back and forth, especially now with the little. But where he'll start? He'll say something like a demand and I'll say, oh, bud, it sounds like you want something. What should you do?

Jess: 20:59

And he'll say ask nicely. And then I'll say, okay, how would that sound? And so there's a lot of we spend a lot of time on that. And so then it gets to the point where I can just look at him and say mama. And he'll say, mama, may I have some ice water please? He'll put together the whole thing.

Lisa: 21:18

But I mean, like, when they say good parenting is hard, this is, this is what they're referring to. How easy would it be for him to say I want water. I need to say here's some water and that's the end of the conversation. You've just described going back and forth three, four, five times with your kids just to give them the same cup of water that they would have gotten with the first attempt.

Jess: 21:44

Right, and the story I'm telling myself about it is it's building their frustration, tolerance, and it's also teaching them how to ask directly for what they want, which I think is just such a hard skill in general. It's such a good one though. It is, and it's one that I continually relearn in adulthood.

Lisa: 22:04

Oh, a hundred percent. It's something I wish I had more of. So I think I mean, yeah, that is that is exactly what we're doing when we, when we have hard parent, when parenting is hard Parenting is only hard for people who are really giving a crap about it and doing all of the things Like that's, that's what it is, that's the whole thing.

Jess: 22:28

I think parenting is just hard.

Lisa: 22:30

I don't think it's hard if you're not trying. If you sit your kid in front of a TV for 12 hours a day and you give them everything that they quote unquote want because they say they want it, that's not terribly hard now. It will be terribly hard at some point maybe not for you, for them.

Jess: 22:49

I think it is hard, though I think there's there's still. There's an assumption maybe, that if somebody were to do that, it's because they don't care, and I don't think that that's necessarily true, and so I think. I think what makes parenting hard is that we care and because we don't know what the long-term effects of our actions are going to be, and so we're just all kind of winging it.

Lisa: 23:17

Yeah, some of us are just yeah, everyone's just winging it in a different way. Everyone's buying into a certain strategy. Yeah, yeah, and who's to say what strategy is going to be? And it's different for every kid, so it's like you can't even cross compare anyway. You'd have to have a sample size of literally hundreds of thousands of children to be able to draw any kind of conclusions on it.

Jess: 23:43

And who knows, I mean, maybe my son only asks nicely to us, because that's it.

Lisa: 23:51

I know that other caregivers it's the dream that your kid just like goes into somebody else's house and they're just blown away by like how polite and amazing they are and you get this report back.

Lisa: 24:02

You know, I feel like this is like the, the fever dream of all adults, that your kid goes to someone else's house and the parent is just like falling all over themselves with compliments about how wonderful and gracious and sweet they were. It's like, well, of course, because I make them ask nicely for every cup of water. Of course they're that nice.

Jess: 24:20

I feel like that. There are just different challenges, though. I mean, I think we've talked about it there was this occasion where my oldest went over to someone else's house and they put on a movie and it was a movie she hadn't seen and she got really spooked by it and I said, sweetheart, you can always say no. She said, but it was offered. And so I'm realizing that there's maybe this other mental model that we didn't even know was in play, that if something is offered you must take it. And so, yeah, I don't know Interesting.

Lisa: 24:58

Super interesting. Yeah, I can't imagine you ever having a paradigm in your health so that if you're offered something you must take it.

Jess: 25:06

Right, I mean, I don't think so, I don't think we have that, but clearly, she yeah Well, yeah she, she.

Lisa: 25:11

We have that, but clearly she yeah Well, yeah, she got that impression Exactly Interesting.

Jess: 25:16

Yeah, and even the power differential between children and adults. I think that is probably more likely. What would happen is the adult would be like what just happened this child just asked me for something and now I'm inconvenienced and I have to do the thing.

Lisa: 25:35

Yeah.

Jess: 25:36

I don't know. So true, oh my gosh, we have been. We just we didn't even unpack really anything.

Lisa: 25:43

No, we haven't. We haven't so far. But I, I am, I am unpacking. I mean I'm unpacking so many things because, yeah, well, I'm gonna have, like I'm gonna talk about something. I was kind of unpacking yesterday that is like an unpack of an unpack okay, I want to hear your unpack okay. So it's like it's like layered unpacking. So I did something as I was sort of I don't know the word, cold feels weird, feels weird. Anyway, yesterday in our area of the world was gorgeous, like undeniably gorgeous, pollen notwithstanding, there was a lot of pollen and I have a beautiful park.

Lisa: 26:33

across the very small like road that leads to my house, there's a great, lovely park and in this park there are some gorgeous fruit trees with blossoms and leaves and things like that. And this one particular tree and this one particular spot was just calling to me. And even though I have so much to do and there is unlimited amount of time I could spend, you know, on LinkedIn or emails or whatever the thing is, I could sit right here in the spot that I'm currently in at my desk and do things, and instead I followed the call. I got the blanket down that we use for picnics, I got my water, I got my headphones and I trotted across the street and I laid the blanket down and I laid under the tree and I looked up at the sky and listened to the shins because they're amazing and literally watched planes make lines in the sky for like 45 minutes straight.

Lisa: 27:47

I love this, and so the unpack of the unpack is like that is undeniably good for my soul. And yet I like, if you told me right now to make a list of things that are good for my soul, I could probably come up with a few. Talking to you would probably be on the list. Yoga would probably be on the list. Yoga would probably be on the list somewhere. Um, I don't know that laying under a tree with a cool breeze and a warm sun would necessarily be on my list, but it should be because it is, and listening, lovely and I was like how do we identify, or should we identify, the things that are undeniably good for?

Lisa: 28:41

our soul that literally almost none of these things are going to have like a tangible benefit, right, like, truly, like, other than being good for my soul, laying under a tree there's truly, I'm not benefiting anybody other than me and my insides. But like what are those things? How do we make space for them? And like what, what are they really giving us back? And then, as I was laying under the tree, listening to my music which, if you know anything about the shins, it's nonsensical. There's no lyrics to follow, there's no storyline to follow, so your mind can truly wander.

Lisa: 29:23

And I was just sitting there letting my brain wander. And this was directly after we talked yesterday about the space that we need, the time that we need to kind of mentally put together all the stuff that we learn and everything that we go through in our day. And I was just truly. My mind was just ping ponging, not in like a, not in a frenetic way, but just in a. I am just giving myself the space and time to let my brain do its thing across the library or the, whatever you want to call it, the museum of my mind.

Lisa: 30:02

And so making space for things that fill our soul and like even knowing what they are. And then the time and space given to no particular thought, and I wasn't meditating, I wasn't doing anything like that other than just letting my brain wander. I probably came up with accidentally five or six things that I wanted to unpack on the podcast, or six things that I wanted to unpack on the podcast. They just started coming to my brain because I was letting it just go, just like no leash open road, just go, just go, just run. And it was, I felt, so amazing I can't even tell you so I think that there are kind of two pieces to this.

Jess: 30:51

The first is how do I find the things that are good for my soul, yeah, and the second is how do I make room for the things that are good for my soul?

Lisa: 31:02

Right, and I really wanted to talk about the first, the former of those, since we talk so much about time. Anyway, but like identifying those things I don't even know how to go about in a vacuum, thinking about the things that are good for my soul, like I think you kind of have to do them and feel them and like sort of open yourself up to that if that makes sense. Like I think I was very open yesterday to that experience because not having a job affords me a little bit, a little bit of extra space, not a ton, but a little bit of extra space in my schedule, and so I didn't feel the need to be productive in that moment. And I think when you, when you hollow that out and it's not just time, there's more to it than time, it's also openness.

Jess: 31:58

What you just said is prickling for me this I didn't have to be productive, because that feels like a paradigm shift from before, like if Lisa's in a funk, give her something that she can be productive in Totally. And so I'm wondering is it that there was no external pressure to be productive or that there's been this reframe, that integration time is productive and it's productive in a different way?

Lisa: 32:29

I don't know. I honestly don't know. That's part of what I'm unpacking is like. How did I kind of happen into this and how do I get more of it?

Jess: 32:39

Mm-hmm, yeah, you said you felt called, but that felt like too strong of a phrase, I mean.

Lisa: 32:47

I just there's so many, there's so many. You know, I don't know contexts for the idea of a calling or something like that, so I just didn't. I didn't want to put too much of like a spiritual spin on it. I don't know what it was other than it was just it just looked lovely and I just kept picturing myself laying there and I couldn't shake it and like I almost abandoned it too, which was the other thing about it.

Lisa: 33:11

I got the blanket, I got the water, I got the headphones and I'm going outside and I'm like, well, I could just sit right here on the porch. We're only talking about 25 yards difference here. This is not a far. I didn't have to hike to get there. But I saw the chairs on the front portion. I was like, oh, I could just plop myself here and not even bother trotting across the road. But I said no, no, no, no, don't do that. Go do the thing that you came out here to do. And I know, I know for a fact, if I would have sat myself in that chair, I would have been sitting and I would have been scrolling on social media Guaranteed no question in my mind about it whatsoever. But because I went to the tree, because I went to the park and laid there. I had no ambition, no productive mechanism going in my head, and yet I was still being productive, sort of accidentally, because I kept, because my mind was wandering, I kept coming up with all these things I wanted to unpack.

Jess: 34:11

What was it when you felt that call of I need to go lie down under that tree? Yeah, Can you describe that feeling? What was going on for you?

Lisa: 34:21

I don't know. I kept getting a sense of like peace, maybe, and like possibility, because I think there was this absence of necessity. Not that I didn't have things to do. There's always I mean, as a mom, as a person, as somebody who owns a home there's always things to do. I literally my laundry has been sitting in the dryer for two days, like I could have folded laundry instead. Sure, but I didn't need to fold the laundry, obviously, cause it's still in the dryer. Yeah, I just felt this like this absence of um, pressure, I guess. And it was maybe the absence of the pressure that allowed me to even see the tree to begin with. Otherwise I maybe wouldn't even see it there, I would just go about the things and I would be focused down. I'd be focused in on the computer or on the checklist or on the, whatever it was. But I didn't have to, I was looking out the window.

Jess: 35:25

I'm just wondering what your intuition was maybe telling you that you needed and, to your point, being absent of this pressure system, you didn't have all of these things that were kind of clouding your intuition to what your body needed and to what your mind needed, yeah, and so I think a key part of this is that you checked in with yourself to say, to notice that, wow, I feel so much better after having done that. Yeah, but I'm still. I'm still wondering like what could, what could your sign be before that, to even see the opportunity?

Lisa: 36:12

I feel like it's similar to when somebody is saying I need a vacation. Right, when you get to the point when you're saying you need a vacation and then you go on vacation and let's assume you're not with children, especially small children and you go there and you sit and you watch the waves or you do whatever and you feel absolutely rejuvenated. This was like a mini version of that, but, like, what your point is is like don't get to the point where you're saying like I need a vacation in order to survive. What's going on right now, like the point at which you're saying I need a vacation, is like probably past the point that you should have one, mm-hmm. And so what is the? I think my point is like if you know what turns your soul on, if you know what feeds that part of you, if you do it more often, you will see it more often.

Jess: 37:09

I think that's my point, absolutely, I think that's true.

Lisa: 37:11

Yeah. And so if you know those things and you I'm not even saying like build them in, but like maybe I'm saying build them in. I'm not sure exactly what I'm saying, but like, if you don't know what they are, you're certainly not going to stumble upon them very often, and then you're not going to look for them very often either.

Jess: 37:30

So maybe this becomes kind of a recursive cycle, where you do something, you check in with your soul, you say how do I feel now compared to before? Is that something that I should be doing more often in terms of I would put it under the umbrella of self-care?

Lisa: 37:48

is is caring for it's total. It's. It's self-care of another color. Yeah, exactly Right.

Jess: 37:54

And so, if that if it is, if it passes through that flow chart checkpoint, then it goes into the how often, maybe peeling back the layers. What is it that I got out of this? I got a sense of released mental energy, because now those thoughts are not just bouncing around my head, they became clear and I can put them somewhere. And then do I need to build that in more often? Because you're right, like if you circling all the way back to the beginning of our conversation, if it's not scheduled, if you don't make time for it, if you're not able to see it, then you're not going to make it happen, right?

Lisa: 38:39

Right, exactly.

Lisa: 38:40

It's kind of like the checklist, right, like, yeah, exactly, if it's not, if it's not in your visual scope or, in this case, it's not in your I don't know identity scope or something like that, if it's not seen as part of you, you're not going to see it, even if it is a part of you.

Lisa: 38:58

If you're, if you're, if you're not recognizing it or you're not what's the word Naming it or identifying it or or recognizing it when you see it, it's just going to be so much harder to fill that piece in. So, anyway, I just, even after just 45 minutes and, like I said, I was somewhat even, you know, taken in and out of this journey because I kept thinking of things and I had two phone calls with people because I just so happened to people and I still felt so overwhelmed with the peace that I got from this situation, even in just that short amount of time. So I just I can't even imagine, I can't even imagine what more of that would do, and it makes me wonder whether it's something that multiplies, whether it's something that gets deeper. Does it get shallower if you do more of it, like, I don't know? I don't know because I don't really do a whole lot of it.

Jess: 40:03

Well, it seems like something to experiment with, yeah totally.

Lisa: 40:06

I do a whole lot of it, but it seems like something to experiment with.

Jess: 40:07

Yeah, you know is it is the. Basically, what you're saying is is the reason that this was so profound because I was so deep in the hole and it just right, it made it. It was so meaningful and so noticeably different than my normal existence. Or is it because this is just an awe inspiring experience that every time I have it it's going to increase my connectedness?

Lisa: 40:30

or peace, and I think it was, in part, additionally beneficial or additionally transformative, because it is precisely the kind of activity that I envisioned myself doing during this layoff time that I had yet to make any time for. I have been so incredibly busy in the best possible way, but, like, so incredibly busy there's so many things going on with my family and with job searching and all of that, that I really hadn't done a whole lot of nothing. And so it maybe it felt more more of that because I was finally giving myself the thing that I knew I deserved and wanted, yeah, and I was fulfilling that sort of secret promise to myself to slow down and do nice things for me, like, do nice things for those pieces of me inside.

Jess: 41:33

Right.

Lisa: 41:35

I hope that's partially what it was. It feels like it was. It's so hard to know.

Jess: 41:41

Yeah, it is, but it's also one of the things where I don't think you can know until you do, and then you can decide.

Lisa: 41:53

Maybe it's just the cherry on top of the sundae, I don't know.

Jess: 41:56

Yeah, so what are you thinking about? How are you going to run this experiment?

Lisa: 42:04

I think the first thing to do is to start, you know, identifying the obvious things that are good for my soul, and then maybe, maybe it's a rack and stack sort of approach, I don't know, I don't know how to integrate it, but I feel like once you do there's, there's definitely a corollary somewhere here and I wish I could get my brain to kind of think about it right now. But, like, when you do something more, you do something more, and so I feel like if I identify the things and I do them more, I will more easily do them more. Not in a habit forming sort of way I don't mean it like that, although like habits are very useful for stuff that you want to change in your life, obviously. But that call that I was talking about and like you asked me, how do I identify that I want or need this thing?

Jess: 43:02

Like maybe in doing it more, the pattern will emerge and then it's more easily recognizable, I guess in that way, yeah, I wonder if, if even just asking yourself what you need and what you want in in that unscheduled time might be a way to start experimenting.

Lisa: 43:25

Well, see, that's what scares me, though, though, is like when I go back to work and I go back to very scheduled time, that is it going to get all like flushed away again? Is it going to get, is it going to get so subsumed by all of the rigor and all of the schedule that you know? It doesn't. It can't even poke its little head out of a hole, because you know the ground's covered and all of the things that you're doing and all of the schedules and all of the requirements of life, maybe all the more reason to ask yourself that now, now exactly.

Jess: 43:58

To figure out. What are those? What of those things becomes non-negotiable? And if that is, that once a month you get to go lie under a tree for 45 minutes, I feel like that's not so bad, I'm envisioning me in the exact same scenario on the exact same kind of day, laying under a tree, but my kids are home.

Lisa: 44:22

We would be stacked tall like pancakes, literally. They would be on top of me, as big as possible, like in my face, like on my person. I'm just envisioning like trying to get any kind of like peace, and quiet and deep thoughts going when they're trampling me.

Jess: 44:41

No, this is definitely a weekday activity when the children are in school, I know for sure.

Lisa: 44:48

Oh man. I love it, but I also love it when it's not on top of me, right.

Jess: 44:55

And then maybe someday they can lie next to you. I have this kind of idyllic version of what you described for my family, where we have the big blanket out and we're all lying in the backyard staring up at the clouds, and it's like that scene from up where they're making all of the shapes in the clouds, but for all of us as a family to have our heads together and then are looking, you know, at all of the things. I'm sure we can make that happen. I'm sure we can, but the idea of that right now makes my eyes itchy, because your eyes are already itchy. I know it's so bad. Well, thanks for unpacking with me today. Thank you.

Lisa: 45:40

It makes me want to go back under that tree, and yet I can't, because my children get off a bus in two minutes. I mean I could. I could they could find me there maybe. Oh, they would be so thrilled by that.

Jess: 45:54

and then you'd have a pancake, and then I went to the bottom of the stack of pancakes for sure, yep well, thank you so much for unpacking and I'm glad your soul is in a happier place that you were able to do that.

Lisa: 46:07

My soul is lovely and all the better after talking to you Always. Okay, that's the thing about soulmates is they make your soul happy. That's true.

Jess: 46:22

I always feel like I am not great at reciprocating those feelings verbally.

Lisa: 46:31

To me or to people in general?

Jess: 46:34

Yes, yes, yes to you and to people in general.

Lisa: 46:40

It has never dampened my enthusiasm.

Jess: 46:44

Right, I'm just thinking like does this become a podcast gimmick where you know the end of the episode is Lisa professing her undying love for Jess and Jess being like you too?

Lisa: 46:57

Yeah, I'm totally fine with that. I have squared that just fine in my mind.

Jess: 47:05

Yeah, yeah.

Lisa: 47:05

Yeah.

Jess: 47:06

Well, you, you know that the love is there.

Lisa: 47:09

Of course I do.

Jess: 47:10

I always appreciate our conversations.

Lisa: 47:13

Likewise.

Jess: 47:15

All right.

Lisa: 47:16

All right?

Jess: 47:16

Well, I'll catch you next time, you surely will.

Lisa: 47:21

Bye, bye. Hey, it's Jess and Lisa. We've got stories to share.

Jess: 47:41

Bye with Jess and Lisa.

Lisa: 47:50

Tune in every week you won't want to miss. Dive deep into life with Jess and Lisa.