Take Heart

Self-care Isn’t Selfish: Redirecting Survival of a Special Needs Mom

• Amy J Brown, Carrie Holt and Sara Clime • Season 3 • Episode 126

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On this episode of Take Heart Special Mom Podcast, we delve into the importance of self-care for special needs moms. Sara England, a mother of three, shares her experience with burnout and the lessons she's learned about prioritizing her wellness. We discuss the challenges of balancing self-care with the demands of caring for a child with special needs, strategies for setting boundaries and saying no, and the importance of small moments of joy. The episode also covers the speaker's struggles with infertility, miscarriage, and her journey to prioritize self-care to keep her rejuvenated for the long haul.  Join us to learn actionable tips for implementing self-care into your daily routine and how even small actions can lead to personal growth and change. 

Eps. 126; May 2, 2023


Key Moments:
[1:12]  From a nurse to a stay-at-home mom
[7:18] Sara’s infertility journey
[15:07] Hitting a wall & setting up boundaries
[18:46] Taking care of your children is taking care of you
[24:05] Burned out
[28:35] How much is too much for our kids and therapy?
[32:56] Mental assessment…what brings me joy?

 Resources:
Check out Sara’s FREE Special Need Moms Survival Guide! Sara also has a FREE Caregiver Burnout guide to help you begin to heal and prevent burnout!
The Fitness Planner: A 12 Week Health and Fitness Journal to Track Meals, Workouts and Weight Loss for Women - Exercise and Food Journal

If you enjoyed the show:

Sara England
What I realize is it doesn't really matter when he does things. Why was I in such a hurry? Why was I trying to kill myself with so many therapists? He is going to do things when he's ready to do them in his own time. I needed to learn that the hard way. It resulted in us taking an entire summer off of therapy with him, and it was the best thing.

Sara Clime
Welcome to Take Heart, where our goal is to offer encouragement, give hope and insight, so you can flourish in your journey as a special needs mom. As we explore monthly themes and share inspiring stories and practical tips, our desire is for you to feel connected and encouraged. 

Hi, it's Sara this week. My guest today is Sara England. Sara is a Health and Wellness Advocate, and she believes in self-care and finding and choosing joy in life. I absolutely love your stuff on Instagram. Before we got on here was telling Sara that I would see her stuff pop up on Instagram, and I immediately got excited. I really like your stuff. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your family, and about your journey.

Sara England
I'm a mom of three. We've been married for almost 12 years to my husband Pat. My three kids, Maddie, who's nine and we have Noah, he’s six, and Sam just turned five. Sam is our little guy who has special needs. He has Down Syndrome. He also was a micro preemie, and I didn't even know that there was such a thing until he came along. A micro preemie is essentially a baby born before 27 weeks. He was a 25, weeker, five days, 25 weeks, five days weighing one pound, seven ounces. He was only 12 inches long. He is in every sense of the word, a miracle child. We were literally thrown into the world of being a special needs mom; we did have a prenatal diagnosis with him, so we did know he was going to have Down Syndrome. We did not know he was going to come so early. So many things through this journey, I have found all these like God-wings, I call them because by trade i am a cardiothoracic ICU nurse. I'm a nurse-turned stay-at-home mom. 
It is so crazy because whenever I graduated, I thought I'm not going to work in the NICU. I can't watch these babies. I can't do it. I was not strong enough to do that. Kind of crazy, right? I went on to do adults and it was so wild because of so many of the conditions that Sam ended up having, I ended up taking care of a pediatric version of it. It's so wild being on the other side. After spending so many years at the bedside and then now being on this side as a parent; it was wild. He ultimately spent close to seven months in the hospital during his first year of life. He came home with a feeding tube and on BiPAP and oxygen. We were really then thrown into the medical needs world. I have learned and grown and been continually surprised by this journey. It has brought me to my lowest of lows and my highest of highs. Every time I think about how did we get through that? I'm thinking God's grace. He's a miracle. He was meant to be here. He's continually showing us over and over again all these little miracles, and he's really taught us to appreciate things for what they are. To not take things for granted, to be honest, I think is the biggest thing that he's really brought into our lives - is to appreciate every little tiny moment because it all matters.

Sara Clime
I knew you were a nurse, but I didn't know you were that type of nurse. I love how we always have these plans like I can't do that; I don't want to do that, and so we go our own direction. I always picture God sitting there thinking alright, well she'll find out soon enough. I have a different plan for her, but she can do this. She's strong enough for this, she's going to find out

Sara England
I feel the exact way. There was a reason I had the training that I did and the path that I ended up going down in the nursing world because it truly prepared us for everything that was to come with him. I had no idea, even though me avoiding the NICU as a graduating nurse. I'm gonna bring you back it back into your life. 

Sara Clime
Yeah, yeah. One of our missions at Take Heart is for our listeners to know hope and joy, and connection. Your Instagram page and the links you have on there are phenomenal. You have a special needs mom survival guide that you have a link to on your page. It is phenomenal. I love it. It's this free guide. One of the things that I did whenever I first saw a reel of yours is...I don't want to give all of it away because I want people to go on there. I'm a definite overthinker. I can overthink anything. It's typically right before I go to bed. One of the things that you always talk about is choosing joy. I love the way that you phrase that is choosing joy. Another thing you talk about is doing a brain dump. You said that you do this every Sunday is that you make a list of all the things. You have a lot of little things that you do. Maybe they're not little, I think some of them are big. 
When you put them individually, I say minor because they're sustainable. I think too often we see this big picture with your son; he has all of these needs. When you are first thrown into this world, you have this journey set in front of you that seems probably insurmountable. How are we going to tackle this? Over the past five years, you've been doing this with Sam. You've learned these little techniques. How has your faith, or how has your tenacity? or how have you learned to grow as a special needs mom? 

Sara England
Previous to Sam (a little backstory), it was really hard for my husband and me to have children. I had a miscarriage before Maddie and two before Noah. I was already on a self-discovery because that kind of experience really allows you to question your ability as a woman to carry a child. There was a lot of faith growing at that time. There was a lot of questioning, a lot of trust, a lot of waiting, and so on. By the time Noah came along, I was not in a good place. I love my mother for the world. I tell her this all the time because she just retired, and she says, "I can finally take care of myself." Mom, you should have been doing it this whole time. She felt too overwhelmed. This is literally why I'm doing this now because I knew my mother was amazing. She always made me feel so good, like I could do anything. She didn't show me how to take care of herself. I was feeling all these ways. Pat said, "You need something for yourself. You need to be taking care of yourself." I was home with these kids all day, and I was drowning. I needed to start figuring it out and putting the tools together. I'm not somebody who was raised exercising all the time and eating healthy. It was not the way I was raised. I wanted to embody those values because I wanted our kids to be raised in a different environment.

Carrie M Holt
Before we continue our podcast today, here's something you should know. Have you pre-ordered The Other Side of Special: Navigating the Messy, Emotional, Joy-Filled Life of a Special Needs Mom? If you preorder our book,  you will get a free copy of the audiobook and some other amazing pre-order bonuses. Our book would also make an excellent Mother's Day gift. Order today on Amazon, Baker, and other online retailers. If you have any questions, you can go to our website: www.takeheartspecialmoms.com/books Now let's get back to the podcast. 

Sara England
I was doing some self-reflection: well, if I want to do this, what are the little stepping stones I can start? I had already started the whole wellness, okay, I'm gonna start exercising, and I'm not eating fast food all the time. Small little things that were sustainable for me even before Sam. I can't do extremes. I don't do anything extreme  I like good-enough parenting and good enough exercise. I do it to make me feel good, but I'm not doing anything for hours on end; 

I needed realistic and sustainable. I was able to find things that really fit into my life, and then started working on myself: my confidence and having more self-compassion, cutting myself some slack, and not putting so much pressure on myself as I always had. When Sam came along, I was already starting these habits, and I felt good. Then our world came crashing down. How do I sustain these things? with every season, it has looked massively different. One piece that I think is important to both Pat and I was that we had little check-ins that we would do with each other. You need to go do this. We both knew that we would both be self-sacrificing. We could both just stay in the NICU forever or run ourselves ragged into the ground. We did some days because that's just the nature of the situation; you're gonna literally hit your lowest lows. There was always a check engine light situation. Okay, we've hit a wall; what do we need to do? You need to take a break today and not go up there. It killed me to do that. The NICU space was broken into these three windows. I want to say it was two months in, and I was getting sick. I can just feel my body. I was getting mastitis and all this stuff. He said, "You need to stay away." It's so hard - this juxtaposition of I need to be there for my child; I need to be home with my other children. I need to be bringing milk. I need to be involved in his care. Especially as a nurse, I thought I needed to know every detail. It was the sense of control of the situation. I was really learning to control what I could control and to give the rest up to God because I couldn't help myself. I couldn't control what the doctor was going to tell me that day with him. Me focusing internally on things that I could control if our life were chaotic, I'd start making lists. I would take everything out of my brain. If I felt myself getting into I'm going to have a panic attack, I'm gonna have a breakdown, I'd go for a walk. I would exercise. 

It's so bizarre because I talk to women a lot. It's like time and energy are exchanged, right? You don't have the energy to do anything, and you also don't Have the time to do anything. I really think that it's we can be going full steam ahead, and at some point, you're going to hit a wall. What you can do to prevent yourself from hitting the wall is usually these little things, these tiny joys, little pieces of gratitude, little pieces of I'm gonna just take a break right now, I'm gonna go for a walk instead of calling this person back. I think so often, we think that it has to be these grand gestures all the time. If I have to start exercising, I need to go run a marathon. If I want to start eating healthy, we're overhauling our entire pantry. Everything doesn't need to be grand. Sam teaches me this, these little small steps make the most impact. I really started focusing on that in the NICU. I started calling them tiny joys. It was two or three things I could focus on to find good because my world didn't feel good. My world felt hard every time I left the house. Noah was 17 months old when Sam was born, which is a baby. To this day, it is still one of my things where I'm subconsciously giving him more to make up for that - a repair. He's fine. I missed so much. I was at the lowest of some of the lows. How do I keep moving one step forward? I don't really feel like I've mastered anything. What's more, how did I keep myself afloat? 
How did I keep our family afloat? Even when it feels like it's impossible, I always feel like there's a small thing that you can focus on and redirect. I think because I had started implementing some of these small habits when he was born, I knew how good they made me feel. I wanted to keep doing those things. I think the biggest piece is nothing is linear. There were plenty of times when he was in the hospital, in the PICU, when Pat and I literally lived up there because we didn't necessarily trust the medical situation that was happening. I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this feeling: I can't even leave because I don't want him here by himself. He was a baby; we are his voice. Coming home from that thing, I was in a bad spot. My hair was starting to fall out. 

Stress does a number on you when you're in an intense situation. I had literally hit a wall. I can either repair this and see that I deserve the time and give myself the self-compassion and not keep putting more guilt on myself and not keep saying I don't have the time, but I need to make the time, or I'm going to end up in the hospital like. I think it's so hard for special needs moms to break free of the guilt. This isn't a season; it lasts forever. There's always something that seems more important. I'm not saying that your child's needs aren't more important. What I'm saying is that my survival was his survival. Taking little tiny pieces for me was how I made sure that everything else was going to run. Let's be very clear, I have forgotten to pick the children up. There are lots of times when I have no perfection, I have good enough parenting. I forget things. I drop the ball. I was telling somebody the other day whenever I start to really get bad with that, I know I have too much on my plate. These self-reflection pieces that I've learned have allowed me, especially in year five, we're not doing extra therapy. I'm not taking on any more. The kids don't need another extracurricular. We are setting those boundaries and allowing myself to say no, and not feel guilty about it. If I don't feel like dealing with therapy that day, then we don't go, and everybody else is happier. Giving yourself a whole lot of grace, but also in the same breath saying, "If this is forever, as it is, we're our children's moms forever. How can I show up best for me, so I can show up best for my family in this situation? It was a culmination of things that I've learned over time. That Sunday brain-dumping thing, my husband and I implemented that right before COVID hit because there were so many moving pieces: his work travel schedule, Sam was in a ton of therapies, and he was having so many weekly appointments. I thought I'm one person. I cannot do this all myself. How can I be in all these places? There was a period of two years, or Noah was at a preschool, Maddie was in elementary school, and Sam was going to a different place. I need help, and there's only so much I can do. What can I take off my plate? What can you take on? What can you help me do? Little by little it kind of evolved into having more systems and things to make my life a little bit easier, which in turn made me so much more patient and so much happier as a mom. 

Sara Clime
As you said, this is the long haul. We're in it for the long haul. Within that, there will be smaller periods of time,  and those will look different. Going with the flow is going to be very important. You're not gonna be able to do everything all the time. I'm not an extreme kind of person. I learned that very early. February 8 was 11 years of my son's diagnosis. I'm still learning, I still mess up. When my oldest son was around 14, I sent him to the bus stop. It was five degrees below zero, and school was canceled. He comes back and says, "There's no school!" You're 14. It's time for you to learn when you're in school or not. You just learn to go with it. I could have beat myself up. I think you use the terms refocus and redirect. That's really all you can do. You can only refocus, redirect and realize that it did not work. How can I prevent this from happening again? You have a lot of really good resources on Instagram. I'm not gonna give it all up because I want people to go there. I would highly recommend people to go and download it. There's a lot of reflection that I think is really important as moms in general. When you are a mom, it's very easy to focus on your children. I was also raised, and my mom was raised, where, as a woman, it is your job to take care of your children. I think you don't learn the exercise routines or the self-care. Self-care wasn't a term for a parent. You have a fitness planner on Amazon, which s also tracks your gratitude. It's the non-measurable goals that are so important in life. That's what I really appreciate about what you do. It's health and wellness, and it is self-care, but there are so many times where I think the term self-care can be skewed in a way that especially as a special needs mom. We think, I spent $600 on medical equipment, am I supposed to take my kid to a pedicure? That's not happening. I don't have the time, I don't even know where the place is. Trust me, I get a pedicure every once in a while so I'm not knocking it. I'm sure somebody's going to listen to this and say, "I just saw you getting one." I am not knocking anyone. I get them. I think we don't spend enough time thinking about what is the internal self-care that is such a vital part of nourishing ourselves, so we can nourish our children. For Maddie, Noah and Sam, and even Pat, when you take care of yourself, you're a better version of yourself for them. It sounds so cliche, but it's so true, right?

Sara England
If you are somebody who's listening to this and does not embody any of the qualities of self-care, I want to offer a little bit of encouragement. If you knew me, in my 20s...my husband, who's in the military, was in Special Forces, actually. Taking care of his body and training was part of his job. He could not get me to do anything with them. If it is not a core value of yours yet, or you can evolve and grow and change, and it can become that way. I wasn't always that way. I learned that taking care of myself was so much more than the cliche of having chocolate or a bubble bath. It became me addressing my core needs of being self-compassionate because basis, I am a huge internalize. I was a negative thinker. Everything was happening to me. I think a lot of that came out of the infertility. I was not a positive person. 

Trying to find gratitude in a situation when your child is in the hospital, people are going to think you're insane, right? How can you possibly find anything to be grateful for? Well, there was somebody who happened to Venmo me $50, I went and got a pedicure that day. It was a small thing that I did for myself without feeling guilty for it. I can leave the NICU and go do that. I think the peace is when you're in an acute situation with your child, I'm just going to use the hospital because that's the most relatable. When your child is in the hospital, it's not going to be realistic for you. If Sam was in the PICU, I wasn't leaving to go get a pedicure because it was a different situation. Maybe there isn't a way where you can leave and get that ten, twenty, thirty minutes of respite. You could put an earbud in when your kid is resting, or when they're doing therapy, walk out of the room. Go sit in silence. Sometimes it feels all woo-woo.

Recently over the last few years, I hit a wall with burnout with Sam. I had. I really learned that if I ignored this for long enough, I was going to crash. I thought that exercise and eating decent were going to fix all the things. I was still saying yes to everything. I was still having poor boundaries. I was still taking on way too much. I was still trying to control way too much. There are so many other pieces to the puzzle that just because I was exercising doesn't mean everything was roses and daisies. I started having symptoms. I was getting migraines, and my body was whatever you need to take on less; you have to do less, you cannot do anymore. You can't keep going full steam ahead without replenishing the energy. I hit that wall. I need to stop saying yes to everything, trying to be supermom and doing all the therapies. There's this thing. I don't know if it is with all special needs moms, but I feel with kids like Sam, it was very much: how many therapists can we do? What were you doing? Trying to bridge the gap? He's almost sitting up. Oh, he's almost doing this. What I realized is, it doesn't really matter when he does things. Why was I in such a hurry? Why was I trying to kill myself with so many therapies; he is going to do things when he's ready to do them, in his own time. I needed to learn that the hard way. It resulted in us taking an entire summer off of therapy with him. It was the best thing. I had to give permission to myself to not feel guilty about it. I need this break. It was during COVID, actually. We were trying to do virtual therapy. I was having all these migraines, and I was not sleeping and having terrible nights. The stress was getting to me. I feel like a big piece with Sam doing therapy is when someone tells me he needs to work on something, all I hear is I'm not doing enough. It's never enough. I go to therapy too. It's a big thing that I've talked about her with. It's never enough. She says, "That's not what it is, but that's how I internalize it, whatever. I was maxing myself out trying to do all these things. We're gonna get there, we're gonna get there, but he will get there on his own time, no matter how much therapy he's doing. It's still not going to speed up the process. I need to separate myself when they're giving me advice or in an IEP meeting when they're telling me we need to do more, we need to do more. I need to thin. I have the power to say no; he's my child. 

I have the power to direct this conversation. More is not always better with him; we've really learned that. I needed to remind myself just because they were telling me he needed more did not mean I was not doing enough. That whole sentiment was really what allowed me to know I needed to take a chill pill. I need to stop pushing so much and running myself ragged with trying to do things for him because it was very draining. God opened up my eyes so many ways of how I think about that.

I also have this thing, as he gets older, where I say: wear more glasses, wear more AFOs, feed yourself more, more oral exercises. At some point, I also want him to feel that the work he does is enough. I'll give you an example of this. It's so interesting, right? My oldest, Maddie, actually has dyslexia. We are three for three with IEPs. Maddie has one for dyslexia. Noah has one for speech. We're an IEP family over here, which is fine. 

Sara Clime
Good times.

Sara England
It's so interesting because we go into her IEP meeting, and they say, "We don't want her to do too much reading at home because we want her to know that she does enough in school, that she is working hard enough." I was like, okay, for a typical child, like, you're doing enough, and it shows her that she's doing enough because she's working so hard in school and all this stuff. Ironic, right? We go into Sam's IEP, and they say, "Well, you could add on OT, and have you tried aquatic therapy and horse therapy? I mean every other thing on the Internet. Mind you, he goes to an inclusive preschool where he is very lucky to receive some services there. Now not only do we have to come home, and we have to do more, somehow between the hours of 3:30 and bedtime. It's this perspective that I am trying to constantly remind myself of more isn't always better. I know that Maddie and Sam Have very different needs, and I totally get that, but I find it so interesting that for her, she can come home and be a kid.

Sara Clime
Enough is enough. 

Sara England
With Sam, there's always gonna be more, and I hate that sentiment because right now, he might not be able to say I'm done. I need a break. I'm that pulse for him. That's the big thing I'm trying to take on right now - really level out the amount of therapy and letting him be a kid. I was telling some moms the other day. I went to the special needs mom meet up, and I said, "I want him to be happy; have a good quality of life." I'm not trying to be the most. I don't find joy in that. I know, he certainly doesn't. 

He's a little five-year-old that just wants to play and watch Paw Patrol. It's so hard the feeling when you hear these checklists and milestones and things, and then you talk about him going to elementary school in a year. I can only do so much. We can only take on so much. I'm constantly in my head affirming myself. You're doing enough. He's fine. He's healthy. That's all we've ever wanted is for him to be healthy. Everything else is just extra.

Sara Clime
There's something to be said about being mentally and emotionally healthy as well, to be happy and joy-filled. That's just as important. We've said very early on with my son because my son has a shortened life expectancy. Would we want him to have a couple of extra years and be miserable, or do we want him to be happy? To what end? What will those couple extra years be if all of it's filled with him being hooked up to something in the hospital? As you said, you're gonna have to say no to things. Your body will tell you no. You either have to say no, or your life will say no for you. I learned very early on that I would rather pick what I need to say no to because, eventually, my body will shut down. You only have so much to give. It's okay not to like every aspect. I don't like every aspect of being a mom in general. There are parts of it that I think this kind of stinks. I don't want to do it. Especially with being a special needs mom, there's a lot of it that it's just hard. Why not make it as easy on you as possible? It goes back to that refocus, and redirect, refocus, and redirect. Implement these little bits of...what did you call them? Tiny joys? I love that.

Sara England  32:56
It's just recognizing what your core needs are. Sometimes, we forget even who we were before kids, or maybe our interests have changed, or maybe the things we find joy in have changed. Some good reflection exercises: What makes me happy? What would make me happy? What is one thing (everybody can do one) that would fill my cup in a day? Think of something tangible, that's going to refuel you. Don't say clean the house. Nobody gets fueled by cleaning. Don't get fueled by doing another task. That's not what I mean. Allow yourself to be a little selfish. What do you actually like? I always joke, as moms, who has hobbies? Nobody really has hobbies. Maybe it's a coloring thing, or you really enjoy reading, or you like listening to podcasts, or you like being outside or going for a walk. How can you carve that into your day? I do understand that there are certain scenarios where it's impossible. I think that that's where the all or nothing mentality comes in, where there can be some small thing that we can do to get connected with who we are. I'm definitely not the same person as I was when we were younger. I'm honestly a much better version of myself. I think Sam has really made me grow. I had to. I had to grow and evolve in order to be the mom that he needed me to be.


Sara Clime
I think that's one of the things that I loved about the Survival Guide. There are a lot of little things that you can implement. If you make them habits, you're going go through the seasons of your life where you might go weeks where you really don't even have that five minutes for yourself. I've gone through times when I'm in the hospital. There's really not any give and take. There are times when you just can't. But, if you implement these in those seasons where you do have that margin. The moments when you don't, the seasons when you don't, you are going to be able to refocus and redirect that much quicker. Because you're going to be able to notice something's off. The moment I am able to walk down to the cafeteria, or at least go outside and take a walk around the hospital, whatever it is, you're going to be able to know what to do to give yourself that margin.

Sara England
It creates those little pieces of resilience that you can keep going for the next time. I think that's the thing. I know we're probably not done with certain things. All I'm doing is trying to prepare myself and build up tools to navigate the situation. I think about it often. What would it have been like to go through all those hospital stays now that the kids are older? As hard as it was when they were little? Noah doesn't remember. Maddie barely does. I really think it's so big to teach our kids that we're not perfect creatures that they see me make mistakes and they see me repair. I think that that's the biggest piece that I want to teach them is that I do not always get things right. I forget things a lot. But I repair. I think that that's the biggest thing we can do is for our kids, especially when it comes to sibling relationships. For the longest time, with Sam's health, many things with him came first. Now that he's healthy, I think it's so important for them to see us choosing them. Everybody goes to the swim meet if they can. Then there's not so much of that sibling attention issue. 

Sara Clime
Well, I could sit here and talk to you forever. I have one question. I always tell people, I both love and hate this question. I'm going to ask it anyway. If you could go back and tell yourself one piece of advice when you were sitting there in the NICU, like you said, with your hair falling out? If you could go back and give yourself any advice. First of all, would you, and if you would, what would it be?

Sara England
I think I'd go back and tell myself two things: it's not always going to be this hard, and to cut myself some slack. I put a whole lot of pressure on myself that was just me adding it. It wasn't that I had an unsupportive spouse. Most of my stress was me thinking and having too high of expectations for myself because of either what I was seeing or maybe the way my own mom mothered me. My mom didn't have a special needs child. 

As amazing as she is, she doesn't have the same battles and struggles that I do. The other day I told her that Pat and I are thinking of taking the big kids on a trip, just the two of them without Sam. Sam's terrified of water. It's a whole thing. I really think it's important for them to have experiences, and if we can't all do it as a family. It was a hard realization for me to realize we can't all have the same experiences together. Me four years ago, there's no way I would have even tolerated that idea because that's not what a mother would do. What mother can separate their kids and do things separately? Because I was living in a world where we were separated. Allow yourself to evolve and grow and not put so much pressure on yourself of how you were raised or the things that you're used to, or the way that you've done things. Just because things are different doesn't mean that they're wrong or that you can't find a new way to flourish in your journey to be the mom that you want to be. Allow yourself time to get there because nobody figures it out especially even in the first few years. I still don't feel like I have it figured out because things are ever-changing. I would really tell myself to chill out, not put so much pressure on myself. I know things were so stressful, but not to set impossible standards for myself that I was trying to accomplish and please everyone and do all the things because, ultimately, that was what was leading me down into burnout. I was trying to do too much for everybody.

Sara Clime
We will have links to everything on your Instagram page in our show notes. I get your newsletter, and I have that download. Your posts and your reels have this element of joy to it. There's an authenticity to it that I really appreciate. I don't think people take the time to really take it into consideration. We try to say we've got our all under control. Everything's great, everything's wonderful, or we completely fall apart. I think you do a beautiful job of finding that middle ground of that balance of it all. I think that that's wonderful. You Have just a lot of really good stuff. So really appreciate What you're doing for the community. So thank you so much there. Yeah.

Sara England
Thank you so much for having me.

Sara Clime
Thank you for joining us. This week on Take Heart. Our prayer each week is for your heart to be encouraged. We're grateful you were walking on this journey with us. If you Have any questions or comments, follow the links in our show notes. We love hearing from our listeners. All our resources, including an entire written transcript of this episode, are available on our website take part special moms.com