239 | Simplifying Health and Living Naturally: Bite-Sized Tips from Dr. Autumn Dugas

Feeling drained, overwhelmed, and stuck in the endless cycle of caring for everyone but yourself? In this episode of the Moms Without Capes Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Dugas, a naturopathic doctor who specializes in breaking down health and wellness into bite-sized, practical tips for ‘busy moms. Together, we discuss how simplifying your approach to health and embracing natural living can help you reclaim your energy, reduce stress, and reconnect with the woman you are beyond motherhood.

From time-saving strategies and natural remedies to improving sleep and letting go of perfectionism, this conversation is packed with actionable steps to ease the overwhelm and create space for you. If you’ve been longing to feel more balanced and in control of your life, this episode is a must-listen!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Simple, actionable tips to reclaim your energy and reduce stress.
• How to use natural remedies to support your mental and physical well-being.
• Practical ways to improve sleep and boost energy levels.
• Why simplifying your approach to health can make self-care feel manageable and guilt-free.
• The importance of letting go of perfectionism and embracing small, intentional changes.

To learn more about Dr. Autumn Dugas, visit https://www.regennd.com/ or follow her on social:

Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/dr.autumndugas/

To schedule a 15 minute consultation to see if therapy could help with your journey, go to www.momswithoutcapes.com/start (This is for moms who live in Montana ONLY)

Transcript

Autumn Dugas
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[00:00:00] Are you feeling like you're running on empty, stuck in a cycle of exhaustion, guilt, and overwhelm? Let's explore how simplifying your approach to health and wellness can make a huge difference in your daily life, helping you reclaim your energy, reduce your stress, and finally make space for you. Imagine having the tools to feel more present, more in control, and less like you're drowning under the weight of motherhood.

From time saving strategies to natural remedies for burnout and stress, this episode is all about giving you small, actionable steps to make your life easier and more fulfilling. Hi there, I'm Onnie, a mental health therapist and a mom of six who is passionate about helping you let go of the super mom hustle and carve out space for yourself in the chaos of motherhood.

It's time to put you first. Back on your to do list. This is Moms Without Capes. In today's episode, I sit down with Dr. Autumn [00:01:00] Dugas, a naturopathic doctor, and also, by the way, my doctor. We discuss how simplifying health and wellness can help moms feel more in control, less overwhelmed, and more connected to themselves.

We dive into practical bite sized strategies that moms can implement to reclaim their energy, reduce stress, and create balance without guilt or perfectionism. Dr. Dugas shares insights on defining personal health goals, addressing mom guilt, and making small sustainable changes that can have a lasting impact on both moms and their families.

From prioritizing gut health to managing emotional eating, and breaking free from societal pressures, this conversation is packed with actionable advice to help moms take control of their wellbeing and set a positive example for their children. And at the end of today's episode, I'll share how you can get even more value from the Moms Without Capes podcast so that you are armed with [00:02:00] the mindset.

and action steps to make the journey back to yourself even easier. Without further ado, let's dive into today's conversation.

How can simplifying our approach to health and wellness help moms feel less overwhelmed and more in control? 

That is a great question. So I think when we think about health and wellness, especially when it comes to our kiddos or our own health, it's Immediately overwhelming.

not only do you have the internet and social media telling you what to do, but then you have your mom, friends and family. it's just so overwhelming.

when I start talking to parents, one of the first things I say is we're just going to take a step back we first need to define what health is. And really what health is, it's finding this sense of the center. It's allowing you to be able to thrive being your best and highest self.

And I think what happens, especially in the beginning of someone's health and wellness journey, [00:03:00] it's so overwhelming. It actually causes more dysfunction within the body because it causes so much stress and this thought of. not doing enough. There's so many different things, like if you just look at diet and nutrition, there's so many different ways that you can go with that and you always feel like you're not doing it right.

You always feel like there's something else you could be doing, and what that does is it starts to take that confidence down a little bit. It starts to change the way you're thinking about health. And now, all of a sudden, it's either really restrictive or we can't do any of it because it's all too much to do.

Really defining what health is and understanding that little things every day make so much more of an impact than trying to do it all at one time. that storybook about the tortoise and the hare. really applies to health. You can come out and do all the big diet things, all the big nutrition things immediately, and you're going to burn out with it.

And then it's actually going to do the opposite of what health is. So those little things that we do every day is what creates health in [00:04:00] someone's life. And really when we mean health in someone's life, we're talking about balance, like your foundations. Are you sleeping? Are you having adequate bowel movements?

When you go to bed at night, do you feel a sense of, Contentment. Do you feel a sense of happiness, or are you ruminating in your head about all the things that happened or could have happened? Do you have really good relationships? What's your stress like? Have you had water that day? I think we just need to bring it back down to the foundational pieces, start there, and then we layer.

Because so many health things that I see, especially with kiddos, are because something in that foundational era It's not where it needs to be. So we start at the bottom, which hopefully gives you a lot of peace because those are easy things that we can do. We can easily track water. We can easily make a better sleeping environment and then we can work through some of those things that are causing stress and then we build from there.

So I think health has to be something, get it back to the basics. Yes, absolutely. 

what you [00:05:00] mentioned was having a target. the first thing we start with is defining what health looks like for you because yeah, if you go into a bookstore, you go on Amazon and you look at all of the diet and health books, you are going to have so many choices to choose from and it can really just be confusing because it's just all of this information and some people have found success doing one way and other people have found it and then you're like, just, Yeah, what do I do?

And that just cripples you into a point of not taking any action because you don't have a target. You don't have a direction to go or any clarity around it. So a little background information is when I was introduced to you was at a retreat. And it was at Heather's retreat.

Yes. And you had brought up, I think you even brought it up on the slide, about the, functional medicine matrix. What is that called? 

Yep. Is that the functional medicine matrix? 

and that was what turned me onto the whole naturopathic path [00:06:00] because I was like, oh my gosh.

Everybody is for a quick fix. for so many years I had made it my full time job to work on my health and that became very overwhelming and structured I felt very trapped it worked, but it wasn't working for my life. It worked until it didn't work. And I think that's what I liked about the naturopathic because it was making those easy changes.

That wasn't all or nothing. wasn't a necessary prescription because it was very personalized and it was like, okay, what is working for me now? when it doesn't let's change it and make just those small tweaks rather than feeling completely like I failed. 

Yeah, and I think it's something that especially because we're talking about families and moms and kiddos. I think there is an empowerment and a privilege of being able to be a mom and really going through your own health journey kiddos are watching you [00:07:00] They see you and whether they quite understand it when they're little, they watch the things that you do.

They watch the habits that you have. And I think one thing that I've really seen especially with women is how critical we are of ourselves and how little girls from such an early age learn how to look at themselves in the mirror based on how their mother looks at themselves in the mirror. And if they're critiquing and they're doing those things, little girls learn how to do that.

If they're sitting down to dinner and they want to have dessert, And then they are watching how their mother criticizes themselves afterwards it creates this pathway in their brain that somewhere they're going to default back to that and being able to take on learning how to create your own health journey.

It's so important only for you, but at a generational level. And absolutely. it's such an empowerment thing that you get to do this, you get to take a step back and look at your own health and what that functional, medicine matrix looks like maybe I'll send you a link to it.

it really is just looking at the different aspects of one's life, their health. What your [00:08:00] stress looks like come the foundations we just talked about, but how all of those incorporate into the center of being, which is what your happiness and your health looks like and learning how they all connect with each other.

when you sit down with someone, like a natural product doctor, a functional medicine doctor, we go through those things. We start with the basics. We learn about your life, what you are, and then, in some cases, we can actually sit down with the matrix and connect the dots and then we can start to take those steps back and how we can make new changes in that.

But I just thought that was a really cool thing as a mother How much influence you have over your family's health when you start taking control of your own health without it being overwhelming. 

Yeah. That was one of the things that impressed me the most the first session I had with you, Oh, my gosh, you even asked me if I use dryer sheets.

it's an hour and a half. no doctor has ever even spent more than 15 minutes. And they were like, yeah, you need to do this, where you, I felt like. Understood, like explored other areas to see what little tweaks could be made rather than just giving this [00:09:00] overgeneralized prescription of health, and workout.

Yes. Exactly. And you are spot on because as a mom of five daughters and even my son. this morning, my 14 year old standing in the mirror, we have full size mirrors like on our closet doors and she's looking at herself she's just at that age where she's spending more time on her hair and makeup experimenting and doing all these things 

She's mom, your mirror makes me look fat. And I'm like, what? I have such conflict because I don't want her to. Have that self image and I don't feel equipped this is my number five child. you would think I would know, I can just see the disappointment in her face and like the, I can't even explain it, but it was just sad to me. And I was just like, no, I'm like, all mirrors are different. trying to talk to her but I feel this tremendous responsibility to shape that.

Self image of each of our children and even talking about me going to the doctor [00:10:00] it's not about weight, I think that's a cultural thing and because to me that was 

how I, that was my focus for so long that it's hard to switch gears and say, it's these other things I need to be paying attention to how I feel not being out of breath. those other wins. because I am so conditioned to focus on those things.

I have to be intentional about how I'm talking to myself and to my kids about health. 

Yes. 

And really having those conversations is important, even if I don't know how to do them. I tell my kids all the time. I have no idea what the heck I'm doing. 

Honestly, I love it.

Do any of us though? Really? 

Including having conversations with you about this, but I just know that I need to work on it. You need to work on it. We just need to do it together. Absolutely. Yeah. So what, Ma, let's talk about guilt, right? What are your thoughts on it?

Have you experienced it? And how does it like relate to us, [00:11:00] our health journey? 

I have experienced guilt before. So guilt is look on a spectrum guilt has the lowest vibrational energy and keeps us very low.

next to depression. I also work with the oncology side of things with cancer and in interviewing lots of patients when we're working through their cancer diagnosis One of the biggest threads that comes through is some source of really intense guilt they share, A divorce that came and maybe there was something that they did, or didn't do with their family or their kiddos. it's a really strong sense of guilt At a cellular level, everything is moving with energy. 

Your mitochondria is the powerhouse of your cell, and that has things like CoQ10, that move to make those ATPs or energy part of your cell. when you have guilt that ladens your body, it actually slows down the mitochondria 

there's more debris in the cells we're not able to use ourselves as efficiently because the energy waves through our body holding us down. there are tests that test your [00:12:00] voltage which are, very cool. 

that like your frequency, like the frequency levels and stuff?

Okay. 

And if you take individuals who have been diagnosed with cancer their voltage is so low. a part of that comes from the way that we hold our emotional sense of self, the way that we hold that. And as you were working through, especially in the oncology space, working through guilt, working through those things that we have a lot of shame over, that's a huge part of treatment anger, I think, is really close to that.

It's a higher energy level, but it's still close. It's in that same family. And often what I tell people is it's really hard to heal something that you hate. And that includes your body, includes yourself. It's really hard to heal you if you hate yourself, if you have shame about yourself, if you want to continue to hide behind something or the world or this fake mask that you put on that everything is okay.

And so mom guilt is something that we just use all the time. I have mom guilt about this. It really breaks my heart that it's something that we use so [00:13:00] naturally, but it's because it happens all the time. And I'm a mom and I feel it quite often. I will say that I do have a really supportive husband who really helps to bring those things back for me.

And reminds me of the things that caused me mom guilt. If you work all day. And then your baby's home and you haven't gone to the gym yet and you go to the gym this gives you this sense of mom guilt. I should be home with my family right now. I should be with her. it is hard to balance because there's only so many hours of the day.

let's say I don't go to the gym. Now I'm just feeling really crummy. I really need to move my body. I get home and then my little one, her name was Aurora. spills milk. my response is frustration. I'm really frustrated that she spilled it and I'm gonna have to spend more time cleaning that up.

And then what happens? Then I yell at her and then she cries and then I'm frustrated and then we go to bed I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have said that. I should have been different. it's because I didn't take the time to take care of myself.

And maybe for you, that's not working out. Maybe that's a walk. Maybe that's a bath. [00:14:00] Those things are very much a part of our health and stepping back and knowing that taking care of yourself should not be a source of mom guilt. It is foundational. If you don't take the time to do those things, it starts to shift things inside of yourselves.

when you show up for your family, you're actually not showing up. You're showing up half of who you are. You're showing up a third of who you are. And then what your family gets is tired, frustrated you. They deserve better. You deserve better. And the way that you do that is by taking care of you.

you need to make those times to do things that society has made women feel like. You have to be the stay at home mom. You have to work the 80 hours a week. You have to make the nutritious meals from scratch all the time. And every game and no sugar, nothing. It all needs to be perfect. And guess what?

You can't. 

You cannot 

Yeah. It's not realistic. It's unrealistic. But as women, Instagram tells you this. Other people can do it. Why can't, I do it? what's [00:15:00] wrong with me? Nothing. If you look at what society looks like right now, the amount of antidepressant anti anxiety medication that women are on skyrocketed.

Yes. 

The amount of medication your children are on, ADHD medication, depression medication, anxiety medication skyrocketed. And I feel like a huge part of that comes from when we started taking motherhood out into culture and allowing culture to decide what motherhood looks like. And with that, we relinquished what our health looks like and it's not going to be the same for every person.

And I think that dealing with guilt, shame is foundational to really finding your health and honestly to creating a thriving family. Because what you hold your kids are going to learn how to hold too. Learning to break those cycles. 

That was amazing. I was just like, I'm just going to let her go because there was so much stuff.

There was so much stuff right there. not [00:16:00] just the guilt, like I know the question was about guilt, but like you just brought it like all of the emotions. And just suppressing them and the frequencies and like all of the things that I share in this podcast about self care and the importance of it and why we need to do it and all that.

And you just brought it down to the cellular level I've never heard before about the frequencies and being able to. when you backtrack and like, when you don't self care or you don't make space in your day to do the things that you need to do 

And the emotions just come straight from there so being kind to yourself and being able to set boundaries around your time and energy so that you can do the things that. Are not just good for you and your health, but have that ripple effect to your children, sometimes that's the angle I have to go with because often I'm working with moms who struggle with self worth and they don't even see themselves worthy of making space for in their life, but they are used to doing things for their kids or their family.

Okay. And [00:17:00] so that might be the entry point of if you're not going to do it for yourself, do it for your family, do it for those kids that are watching you and learning from you. the epidemic right now with the increased meds, it's crazy. And it really does come down to we need to slow down.

We need to slow down because there's so many things that we could be doing or like that society and culture is telling us that we need to do in order to be good moms shutting out the noise and really getting back to the basics and saying, what is good for me and what do I need?

It's going to be that what we need to do, for mom's juggling endless roles and responsibilities, where would be the best place to start? And I know we just talked about the basics, but to be able to get away from like medications and unnatural ways of [00:18:00] dealing with anxiety and stress. 

I think that's a great question.

I think 1 of the 1st things is if we're going to look at anything within the body itself, the low hanging fruit of that is going to be your gut health. your neurotransmitters, which are the things that are your happy hormones, things that help with your emotions. a.

Large majority of them are produced in the gut. the environment that we live in is just full of different types of toxins. And then, so what you can't control are the things that we put into your body. like making sure that in your house, we have alternatives of things like late plugins or those plugins.

Since those things come in, I really destroy and recap in the body. Things that are like processed sugar. That's an easy one. It's hard around the holidays to really look at those. But obviously processed sugars, artificial coloring, those type of things. Let's start with the gut and the 1st thing is, again, what we put into our bodies.

A big rule of thumb is. Whole foods. Start there. And we make little swaps with that. So let's say [00:19:00] at lunch you really to grab chips because you like the crunch, like the salty, and that's a really easy thing to do. And so maybe a quick transition would be, let's do, like the, dried bananas.

Those are crunchy. Those are a little bit sweet. You can get those with the salt on there. And then maybe the next thing after that would be we're gonna go maybe more into berries. And so it's a transitional, not we give everything up. But if we're gonna start somewhere, especially with the anxiety and the mental emotional support, you gotta start with the gut.

So really looking at what you're putting into your body. And I say start with one meal. Pick one meal for the next month that we're really going to start to make some changes with, and that could be a snack. It could be what you're grabbing at nighttime before bed. Start with something really simple, and then we move out from there.

But if we, especially when it comes to women and kiddos, because your hormones are really intricately connected to all of these things. If we are going to make any sort of changes like that, we have to do that 1st. food sensitivities are another huge 1 paying attention to those.

And we can talk about that more if we want to. I would say, starting [00:20:00] with the gut 1st and foremost. 

among the confusion that we receive from all of the books and the gurus and the health gurus was, the exercise and the nutrition.

What do we start with? I've heard people who start with just getting into the habit of going to the gym or going for a walk When we are limited on the time and we feel like I don't even have time to, make a meal. what I hear you saying is that starting with the nutrition, starting with just making those simple swaps one meal at a time or one aspect of the meal at a time is where you suggest we start.

Yep. And I think the step before that would be knowing that It does not need to be perfect. Let's say you have, three kids, they're all in sports. You have a lot that you're doing. There isn't a lot of time So maybe a healthier option would be learning how to do some sort of bulk cooking or some of those more healthy meals that are like the frozen ones that are natural grocers.

They're healthier than that you're gonna get at a regular store. They're healthier than fast food, not the very best, but better. [00:21:00] And it's just all about making little better choices every day. And then I think the other part of that is looking at what does it need to be in your day?

What can you take out of your day that doesn't need to be there? Because a lot of times there is and a big thing that doesn't need to be there is social media. Social media takes so much time out of your day. 

Oh, my gosh. It's a time suck. 

So much time. And that 20 minutes that you spend on your phone, we could have been putting together a little bit better of a lunch that you could take for yourself to work or to have at home.

And I just, those little things make massive impact. And if we take away the idea of perfectionism, that if it's, it has to be all this way first or I can't do it, that relieves so much pressure. It does not need to be perfect. Just a little bit better. 

Yeah. One of the things that I had struggled with for a long time was like, I would start out the day.

I'm like, okay, I'm going to have a nutritious breakfast. I'm going to have two eggs mixed with vegetables and like all that. And then as the day went on, my day got [00:22:00] busier, it got, I had a lot of decision fatigue and a lot of just that exhaustion that came. And one of the things that helped me was just planning, like already knowing, because then I didn't have decide.

What it was, I was going to have for dinner. Like it was already defrosted. It was already like on the calendar in our kitchen. This is what we're having. And that allowed me to know that I didn't have to make that decision later on. It wasn't a scramble because usually when it's a scramble.

Grilled cheeses for dinner. Like it was just like, but I, if I already know, and I'm struggling with that even this week, cause my husband isn't here. And so I feel that meals get a little bit more relaxed. The first night we had leftovers and now it's and I don't know why that is I feel like I need to eat regardless of whether he's here or not.

My kids need to eat. There's this mental block that I have to continually fight against in order to get a healthy 

responsibility that you have when he's not here. Yeah, just planning ahead and what are some simpler, easier meals that are [00:23:00] still, On the healthier side, like they have the fruits and the vegetables and that aren't just those fast, convenient meals.

And it's one of the first things I talk about with clients is during our assessment, it's like, what do your meals look like? Because often that's one of the first things I know in my experience has gone and I started trying like HelloFresh and all of those other things, but my thing was like, I didn't have the time to I felt like there was just a lot of things, which goes back to your point of you need to see what you can eliminate.

Because I was trying to come up with a solution so that I could still have healthier meals. but then I get hello start and I'm like, or hello fresh. I'm like, I still have to make this food. So that didn't work for me. Tried a couple of different other things.

And so finally I'm just like, you know what, I just need to make the space because I have to practice what I preach is what it came down to. Cause I'm like, I need to make the space to prepare these foods that I know are going to help my future self and just [00:24:00] continually. Get into that habit of this is just who I am.

Did you read Atomic Habits?

Make it part of my identity. I am a healthier person. I'm a healthy person. And so therefore healthy people make healthy meals. And so this is what we've got 

to do. And take that make it I guess as a simple like pocket size, like way to make it simple is if you want more than two colors on your plate and then a protein. 

Yeah. Simple enough. before we wrap up, I just want to touch upon emotional eating right now. I am reading Alan Carr is the easy way to stop emotional eating. I don't know if you've heard of that, but. It's about like this. I don't know. This is my first one that I read.

Apparently, he has a big series of like how to stop smoking and how to stop drinking and all of these things. But emotional eating is one of his series and I'm just finding it super interesting. And so I wanted to hear your take on, you talked a bit about emotions. what kind of advice can you give on emotional [00:25:00] eating and how to stop that wave of like binge eating and all of that?

Yes, that's a great question. So as a naturopathic doctor, the first thing that I always ask myself when I hear questions or we're talking to someone is to go back to what the root cause is because there's always I guess that you could take, let's say once you notice that you are emotionally eating, 

Then we're going to do a different activity. Let's say we're going to go for a walk. We're going to take a bath or a shower. And those are behavioral changes that you could do about the emotional eating. But my take on it would be 1st, we have to go a little bit deeper into understanding what it is that emotional eating is and what role it plays in your life.

And so if you go back, and I'll try to explain this in a simple way. Because it's a lot in my head. But if you look at some, let's say an alcoholic, for example, and we want to be able to stop drinking, you go to something like AA and AA has 12 steps to work through to stop drinking. And as you start to work through those steps, 1 of the big [00:26:00] things in that is forgiveness, asking for forgiveness from others, asking for forgiveness of yourself really going and working these steps backwards, because there's a root of what the alcohol played.

For them in their life. And it's the same thing with food. if we're doing emotional eating, it fills a void for you. it's almost like a protector. It's giving you something that you need, that you're lacking. And oftentimes what I find is. When you hold things like shame and guilt you almost attract things into your life that's going to cause more shame and guilt into your life because you feel like that's what your worth is.

You're going to stay right there. If we look back again at an energetic level, if you have 2 pianos in a room and you hit 1 note on 1 keyboard, it will vibrate the same. Note on the other keys because the frequencies won't match. And so if you are withholding this emotion of guilt and shame, it matches that and it attracts it into your life.

you feel like. You're not worthy of experiencing anything else, but those things. So [00:27:00] what happens is we feel this emotion. We feel really overwhelmed. We have that mom guilt that we had. You're exhausted. You have no energy. The easiest thing to do to get that energy backup is to have something with carbs or sugar.

And you get that in and you have that little bit of a spike and it's okay. I can do this. I can do this for a second. And then you go and you finish whatever task or you have a moment and your brain relaxes. And then what's the next thing that comes back? I should not have done that. Oh, my stomach hurts.

why did I do that? It keeps you in a 

shame cycle. 

Yep. We get right back into it. And so before you can break a cycle with behavioral modifications, we have to understand that deeper lying route. And so really almost like working back through a 12 step program and asking yourself, what is it That the food right now is helping me cope with and I think for a lot of moms it is you're doing so many things You're exhausted.

And again, when we talked about the society tells you're not enough And I think when we think about motherhood you try to be [00:28:00] the best mother You try to be the best wife the best that you can be and you have to ask yourself by what scale What determines if you are a good mother or you are a good wife, or you're a good person who decides that who's looking at that scorecard, and oftentimes that scorecard is deflected to society, and that's where that checklist comes from.

But really, if you look at the fruit of it, and if you really want the scorecard that's going to determine how good of a job you're doing is you look at your children. If you look at where they're sitting and not, I want to take a step back because your child has their own life that they're going through and their own things they have to work through.

Absolutely. But you look at your interactions with your child, that's more so what I'm speaking about. What your interactions are like with your child should be the scorecard. If your interactions are more irritated, frustrated, I can't do this. And then guilt. The fruit of that is we're doing something wrong.

Where are we're failing on this scorecard and it's not because you're necessarily doing anything wrong But you feel like [00:29:00] society's put you in this box But that gives you permission to shut the door of society that gives you permission that they are not the scorecard you need to be doing this with anymore and really starting to change that and to shift those things and the more that you start to Invest in yourself the more that you start to invest in the things that create that health net balance in your life you'll notice that interaction changes with your children.

You'll notice that you start to feel more Energized even when the day has been really busy that when you go to bed, it's you know what? I'm really proud of myself that I did that today Like I can't believe my daughter did that was so cool to watch her do that and say that it's so different than I can't believe I said that.

Why did I do that? They're going to have to go through counseling because of what I said. What did I do? And you start to watch that. It gives you so much more permission to come back. And I think that's so important, especially when we talk about health, is to change where the scorecard is coming from.

Yeah. 

And [00:30:00] once we start to fix those things, the emotional eating doesn't have as much of a hold on you anymore. And let's say that we do have a moment where that happens. Really standing firm. And say, you know what? I did this. I know this protected me in some way today. It provided me something that I didn't have.

Tomorrow's going to be a little bit different. I love you and I love you enough to do this a little bit differently tomorrow. Because if you started back in that shame cycle with it, it got hold. It got more, it sucks you 

back in. Yeah. 

Don't, that would be the thing. The first thing that I would say is some sort of.

A mantra or something that you put on your refrigerator or your mirror or something that helps you to release whatever guilt you have about that, because it's going to happen. We're going to make mistakes. That's okay. It's not perfection. We're human. Yeah, exactly. And I think it goes back to, like you said, loving yourself.

And for those of us that don't love ourself enough right now, loving your children and your family and teach them [00:31:00] and showing that lens. And so I would say the biggest thing is ask yourself, the question is, what is the fruit? And like looking at what the fruit is of how you're living right now, and then who holds the scorecard.

Yeah. That kind of brings us right back. It reminded me of the very first question that we talked about in this interview, what's the target? Like looking at, because when you're defining, what is a good mom and like how you need to be and all the shoulds and all of that, what are you using as to help you define that?

And really exploring that and getting curious about your emotions and digging deeper to be able to say, this isn't how I want it to be and choosing bringing back your own power and saying, you get to decide, I get to decide how I'm going to define my life. And same thing as we're defining what does health look like for us and then having that target so that we have something that we're actually working towards rather than just floundering [00:32:00] and, going on autopilot and just making more chaos.

Yes, and that's why having a team, I think, especially in the beginning really helps. having a counselor, having a doctor, having someone that can walk this journey with you because there's some things you can't see and you don't know and having the space to be able to talk about it or to have simple steps to work through it with you is so so important.

You do not have to do it alone. 

Yeah, agreed. Before we wrap up the interview, do you have any final advice or any final wisdom you'd like to share with the listeners? 

I think I would say that, motherhood is, it's such a beautiful gift. But it is hard and it's okay that it's hard and you have such a unique gift as a mother to be able to change Generational patterns and it really does change your corner of the universe when you start to shift the focus [00:33:00] Back to you a little bit.

It's not Wrong to take care of you. It's not wrong to have a day to yourself And are you doing that your children will learn to do that and that changes everything 

Changes the world.

So Autumn, how do you have fun? 

I have fun. I love being outside. I love hiking. My husband did a high rocks competition, which was actually super fun. Is that like climbing? It's a half, you run like 0. 63 miles in between eight different workout types and then we did it as a team and it was actually a lot of fun.

It was fun to work out together and to learn how to do that together. So yeah, love moving. I also love reading in a quiet room with a cup of coffee. I love that. 

Me too. What's 

one 

what's a book that you can recommend or a book that you've read lately that you think other moms would enjoy?

One of my [00:34:00] favorite books, I will say, was the Four Agreements. I think it always, when I need grounding, it just brings me back. And then I am reading the ACOTAR series on Audible and that's a fun book. 

Yeah, that's sci fi, isn't it? I did not peg you for that.

It feels a little sci fi because they talk about fairies, but really it's when you listen to it, it's really about light darkness and learning to fight darkness within your own heart. just the deeper root of the story is so incredibly beautiful and powerful. Yeah, but there is fairies in it.

Yeah, I thought there 

is, but that's 

Finally, where can listeners find you? 

So I started or open our own practice here. It's called region Indy. We are on the West end in Billings. My Instagram Dr. Dugas and then same as my Facebook, Dr. Dugas. So those are the easiest places to find me.

All right. And all of information will [00:35:00] be in the show today's Thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing us your 

you for having me. It much fun. 

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Remember, you are 100 percent responsible for your own life and for creating the joy that you want to feel. Stop living on autopilot, slow down, check in with yourself, and please, above all, take care of yourself because you, my friend, are worth it.