Episode 19: Routines Bring Calmness

In this episode, my long time friend Valerie and I talk about the importance of having routines in our lives. We both are routine oriented and having that framework brings a calm to our lives.  In raising our children, we found the routines to be grounding, especially as moms who have careers too.  

To learn more about me and to purchase my book that outlines all the topics I share about parenting, organization, wellness, leadership, and life skills, visit www.kristynlee.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to the Show Me the Baby podcast. This is your host, Kristen Lee. I am here to share and expand on topics outlined in my book, Show Me the Baby. Short and sweet tips on parenting, wellness, organization, leadership, and life skills. Why show me the baby? My lifelong friend and mentor never had the patience for lengthy explanations. His mantra was don't tell me about the birth, show me the baby. What I am sharing are brief, to-the-point lessons that I have learned, advice that I was given, or information gathered from others. I want to share my experiences to assist you in navigating parenting and life. The episodes are based on some of the subjects covered in my book and are unscripted, sometimes going in a direction that wasn't planned, but I think makes them more interesting. My goal is to expand on each theme, keeping in the Show Me the Baby way in 15 minutes or less. For a complete list of all the topics I discussed, you can purchase my book ShowMeTheBaby at Amazon.com. For more information about me and a link to purchase, go to my website, Kristenlee.com. That's K-R-I-S-T-Y-N-L-E-E.com. Hello, this is Kristen Lee, and this is the Show Me the Baby podcast. Today, my friend Valerie joins me again to talk about something that we both are. What do I want to say? We both do or we're committed to, and that is our routines. We are both very routine-oriented. Sometimes I would say not in a good way, as we're both putting our eyes up. So welcome and thank you for joining me again for this episode.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

It's nice to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

So routines is the topic, and I was thinking as we were preparing, because we did text back and forth what the topics were going to be that we were going to talk about today. So I try not to overthink the topics because I don't I want to, when we do the episodes, I want them to kind of be organic, if that's the right word, fresh. Yes. But I was thinking as I was getting ready to come to meet you today, is that how like I'm just gonna start here. Do you think routines, our routines, can be a detriment?

SPEAKER_00 2:44

I think that sometimes they get in the way of me being a little more flexible in my life. And I think sometimes they bother my family, and at times they may bother the people I work with. I'm not sure. But I can't imagine living my life without my routines. So for me, they're a necessity.

unknown 3:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

And I think I I will say this my routines, I think, and I'm not speaking for you, but I we know each other well enough. They my routines provide grounding for me. And often because of the chaos of our of our lives, whether it's career, whether it's family, whatever it is, whatever chaos is, the routine for me brings me like this leveling, this grounding, as they say. And I like like that just brings peace to me. Now, probably for a lot of people who are listening, they might hear the word routine and think that sounds awful. Like, I don't want a routine. And and I'm sure plenty of people don't have one. But I guess I'm speaking from my own experience, and obviously you will from yours, that my routine does bring me some peace. And that if if something would happen that would interrupt my routine, it's not like the sky is falling, and but and I and I can renavigate, but I still don't I don't feel the same if my routine is uprooted.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

I definitely have a different feeling, I guess, if that do you I'm the same, and if I even know in advance that I didn't have my normal routine, then it can really just like my week or the days surrounding the day that I can't have my normal routine feel off kilter for me. I just don't feel right. And I'm not sure that's even healthy. But that is how I that is that that is how I react to it.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Well, and I think too, and I've said this to my my girls, like at their age in their 20s, I feel like they don't make this is a whole nother podcast, but I'm gonna kind of lead into it. They don't make I think routines in part are making plans. Like we have, you know, if if we might have plans on a Friday night to get together, Valerie and I and our husbands, if like I look forward to that. Like I look forward that I know Friday night, we're having dinner together. Yes, saying, and and I say to my girls, you have to make plans. Like if you don't make plans, you don't have anything to look forward to. And then the week, the days go by, the weeks go by, and it doesn't have to be some big plan. It doesn't have to be, oh, I'm going on a vacation or um whatever. I mean, I like we like going to concerts, but it doesn't have to be to that level. Yeah, it could just be, and I said in our traditions podcast when we talked, it could be pizza night, it could be um going to a you know, going to a movie or just watching it, having movie night at home, whatever that is. But I feel like for me, it's the routine and whether it whether it's the mundane routine of oh, I'm gonna do whites and towels on Saturday morning at about 8.30. It could be nine, it could be 9.30, but it could be 8:30. When you get really crazy, yeah, you might push it back an hour. But but you know, those kind of routines to get the daily, you know, the weekly tasks done, but then also having the routines that you look forward to, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Because there's two, there's there are different kinds of routines. Absolutely. You're right. But you know, you gave the example of our weekly Friday evening, and and yes, it's a routine, but it's not a chore, it's a joy. Yes. So that's one of the routines that uh like you said, we look forward to it's something it makes Friday seem you know special, fun and special. And then, you know, there's other routines that are out of necessity. Maybe washing the whites is fun for you. I don't know. But um, you know, for me, I uh every Saturday morning I know I have a routine of my grocery shopping, the things I'm buying as I've planned my menu for cooking for the week. Um on Sunday I know I'm going to cook some things that I can have for the week that I can maybe share with with some friends who sometimes need a meal. I know I prepare my lunches for work on that day for the week. If I don't do that on Sunday, I just feel like I'm off, completely off. Um, so those are definitely some routines that that bring me a calm as I go into the week, knowing that task is done, knowing I can reach in the fridge in the morning and grab my lunch and it's ready. And, you know, that routine also helps keep me more true to my health and to what things I need to eat that are better for me than if I end up at work without my own.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

And then you have and then you have to go grab fast food or something that's not as good as good of a choice, probably from a health standpoint. Exactly. Yeah, and I and and based on what you're saying too about your routines about getting prepared for the week, then it makes your week again, there's a flow. Like there's a flow to your week, and you're not frantic. And not that I I wouldn't use the word ever free, frantic, but you're not unsettled that that, oh, I don't have this and I don't have this. And I think that's that really is a good reason to have certain routines for people. And I think often when I talk to clients of mine and I can hear them say, like, uh uh if if I'm meeting with someone and I can just I know them well enough I can tell they're off, I'll say, is there something going on? or and usually it's because their routine has been uprooted in some way. And I have one person that she and her husband, and they're they're I won't, they're uh they're in their late 80s, but every morning they go somewhere to get coffee at like 10 in the morning. Oh and when they don't and she comes to see me, I often it's that sh it it will be that whatever the routine they normally have in the morning, and the last time this happened, that was it. She said, Well, normally we go and we get we have a coffee and then we take a drive and they'll just drive around the town, you know, our small town just just to get out and out of the house. And and they didn't get to do that because their garage door broke and the garage door repairman had to come, and she was so annoyed, not as much as that the garage door is broken, but that the garage door repair person was coming and it it it upended her routine, and that's what it was. And I thought, okay, well, that's routine too. I mean, it it's just the way that you you know you look forward to things, even the little things, even the little things, even the little things, even the little things, and getting and then having again it's not that I mean, certainly, and it's certainly if somebody came to me, I was thinking about this too. Like, if I entered a contest and I won concert tickets, and I thought about this because they were talking about Kenny Chesney being at the sphere in Las Vegas over the summer, and they I there were it doesn't matter, I think there was a contest to get tickets, which I did not enter. But I thought, okay, if I got, if I won that, how would I feel? Like, would I I first probably would be excited, and then I would next step would be how am I gonna figure that out? And for people who would just go, oh, I'm excited and not have a thought in the world world about going, I am envious. Are you envious of people who can just go?

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah, I'm not a necessarily uh by the seat of her pants type girl. So yeah, I I I fret over things that I'm doing that are not just my normal routine and can get myself worked into a bit of a a lather over them at times. So sometimes I'll think something sounds kind of what you said about if you'd won the concert tickets. I can be really excited about something, and then the closer the time comes, I start feeling the angst about not having my normal routine. So that's where maybe routines can sometimes from the perspective of my husband, maybe not be so great.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Yes, yes, and mine too. Mine too. I mean, when I'm not a spur-of-the-moment person, and I think part too, I I I it doesn't matter, everyone's situation is different, but when you each of us have something to care for, you know, care for, whether it's children and that's younger children or older adult children, they're still our children. Yes, and and we are still their parents, their moms. And I think for me that still falls, and I don't like that does not, I mean, it it it still I think about it in the sense that if I think, oh, if I want to go away somewhere, what if I mean, what if something would happen? What if I would be needed and I'm not here? And then I thought, okay, where does that come from? And not that we want to, I mean, we'll share as much as we want to share, but I think in part it could be from a trauma. I was thinking, like somewhere, and I know where, but back when I was younger, something pretty trauma traumatic happened to me. And I think maybe it's the trauma that causes, like when you go through, and I know you have too, when you go through something really traumatic and you feel that in you, like you really don't want it again. Like I don't you don't want to go through that again. And the routine again helps ground us because that is comfort.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Like the routine is comfort, and it's comfort, and you know, I think at times for me it's a it's a sense of being in control. So and and being in control can be a good thing, yes, but I know that it's true for you as as well. But with particularly with my work life, there's a lot of things that I can't control always what the inputs. So I'm always trying to control what I can, and whether that's things for me personally or some of the ways that I go about my work and the routine of you know, the day, you know, the the hours I work or the and the commitment, the level of commitment that you have.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

So you have a trade of a very high level. You are you are committed on a high level to your career, meaning for people to help people. I won't say specifically what, but you are you you you you're what you do is helping people get to a next place in their life, and that's a big thing. So I know you want to do the best you can, and sometimes you are given, you know, it's set up in a way that makes your job a lot harder.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

It yes, it can be, and and I'm always just trying to control for what I can, and so then I'm trying to find the routine of the things that are happy things too, to kind of balance everything out. And you know that every Friday night my husband and I have martini Friday. So, you know, during the day at work on Friday, one of the days I do stop work as close to five or five thirty as I can. I just know we'll sit down, listen to some music, and have a martini before we have dinner. Yes. Um, so it it's just little things like that that or knowing um my husband makes me a cup of coffee when I'm getting ready in the morning, every single morning. And if he's traveling or gone, it just the morning just doesn't the same.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

No, it isn't the same.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

So those are happy routines for sure.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

And I think most of our routines for you and I are happy routines. I mean, yeah, some of them are maybe you know mundane, but that again, I'm going back to the the towels and the washing the weights on Saturday morning. I look forward after I do, which I've talked on the podcast before. We have horses and I'm most of the time in charge of the horse care in the morning, which is messy and dirty and smelly. So when I get back and I have my shower, I love, I mean, you know, the clean towel that's the best. It's the best. Oh, it's the best, the first towel. And I'm thinking, this is so silly, but again, it's looking that that finding joy in little things of a little routine of doing the white, because my towels are white in my bathroom, doing the white towels and having a really clean, because it's the same towel. I don't know about you. If I use the same two towels, one for my hair and one for my body the whole week until Saturday. And and just having the fresh towel that smells good and the fibers are just different.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

It is, it's different, just like the night of clean sheets, it's the same thing, it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

So I think again, you and I are are deeply what do you, what's the word, embedded in our routines. But I think there are reasons that we are, and I think we find joy in them, and and and I'm sure plenty of people do. And again, I am envious, and I think when people can just it's different, I don't know, it's just how we're each we're made. I guess it's how we're made or how we're, you know, it is and the experiences that we have. I think the experiences that we have through life and how we figure out how to navigate life based on where we've come from and what is best fitted for us, suited for us. I guess.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

I definitely agree. And I also think that, you know, everybody's different for a reason. The parts all fit together. The routinized people help keep things steady when the people who are more able to do things more fluidly can go do those things.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

True.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

And then, you know, and then they can feed us back in other ways. So it's just, I think it's just a part of the puzzle that makes the world go round.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

True. And the, and you know, I do um, I follow this group. Um I'll just say it, I guess, because I think they're wonderful. It's Boho Beautiful, but they, the two founders of this, um, I don't know if it's an app. I don't even know. You know how I'm not digitally. It's it's they've got a website and you can do all this fitness, you can do Pilates and meditation and yoga and and everything in between. But the two of them, it's a husband and wife, they travel, they have traveled all over the world. And I feel I mean, they're in uh the Iceland, and then they go to Coast, they were living in Costa Rica, and now they're living in Barbados, and they've been to well, Canada, because they've got family in Canada. But anyway, through that, every morning, I do it every morning, I'm somewhere different. I am somewhere different, and sometimes it's a yoga studio if she's in studio, but I like I feel like through that I'm not only getting exercise and getting myself ready for the day mentally, because the exercise I think helps me mentally too, not just physically, but I get to go somewhere. So I can tune in, and if she's you know, they have hundreds of videos, but if I wanna, if I want to see the scenery from I she was in the Redwood Forest. Is it Redwood in California? They were there. I could go and do yoga with her in the Redwood Forest. So that I do feel like that has helped me see the world through their eyes.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

I don't know. I think and and and I'm so I am envious. I think, wow, I wish I could do that. And I do, I I think I wish I could do that. And I could do that, but I know I wouldn't be happy doing that. I would be very anxious even thinking about it, but I can find joy in somebody else doing it, just like you were saying. Yes, yeah, yeah. And although somebody that you know that I know well keeps saying we need to go to Italy, and I said, Hey, I did walkthroughs on YouTube, I'm all good. Which did not go over well. No, no, because you were part of that conversation on Friday night. And well, not that I'm never saying never, but anyway. Well, show me the baby time is up, and thank you for joining me for another episode. And as always, it's great to talk with you, and I'm glad you're able to come in person to my studio and have a conversation. Thank you for the invite. Thank you for listening to the Show Me the Baby podcast, and I hope you join me again for another episode. My book, Show Me The Baby, is available at Amazon.com. To learn more about me and a link to order, visit my website, kristenlee.com. That's K-R-I-S-T-Y-N-L-E-E.com