Ep 38 | The Missing Piece to Real Joy & Presence as a High-Achieving Mom

Your brain can be in the same room as your kids while your nervous system is still stuck in survival mode. That’s the quiet reason “being present” can feel impossible, even when you love your family and you’re doing everything right. 

In this week's episode of The ROCKSTAR Mom podcast, we get honest about what’s really happening underneath the constant to-do list loop and why so many high-achieving moms look fine on the outside but feel exhausted, overwhelmed, or emotionally checked out on the inside. 

Megan shares a story about what started as a random purchase turned into an hour of phones-down, full-attention family play and the kind of joy you can’t fake. 

We break down why that moment worked, what “activation” looks like in daily mom life, and how stress patterns like fight, flight, freeze, (or fawn) block authentic connection. 

If you’re craving more presence, more ease, and more real joy at home, this conversation is for you. 

✨ Check out the ROCKSTAR Mom Morning Reset ✨

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Transcript

Welcome To Rockstar Mom

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You are listening to the Rockstar Mom, a podcast for high achievers who are ready to get off of autopilot and live a life with more intention, peace of mind, and happiness. This is a space to expand, dig deep, get clear, and take action towards living your most authentic, aligned life. I'm Megan Caldwell. As a mom of three, two-time burnout survivor, and empowerment coach and speaker, I've cracked the code on what it actually takes to thrive at work and home, dig perfectionism and people pleasing, get your schedule under control, and live with more ease. So you've got more time and energy to do the things you love without the mom guilt. It's time to get out of your head and into action. Now is the time to live your most rockstar life. Let's go. Hey hey, my friends, and welcome back to the Rockstar Mom Podcast. Before I actually dive in today, I actually just wanted to caveat. I am recording this in a different space than I typically would, as I am out at the Oregon Coast with two of my kiddos. It is the first week of summer break, and despite best intentions and even unplugging it and getting it ready, I forgot my podcast mic back at my house just outside Portland, Oregon. So the sound quality might sound a little bit different, but I felt really called to kind of get this message to you as you have made the time and are taking the time to really listen, to step up in your life, to amplify your life, to get curious about what it actually takes to live your most rock star life. So

The Presence High Achievers Crave

SPEAKER_00 1:31

today we're going to be really talking about this whole thing that I hear women say time and time again that they seek and they want so, so much, which is really true presence in the work that you're doing, presence in when you are with your children and with your family, that you are actually there, your brain is not on the to-do list somewhere. And that's what we're gonna be tapping into. And by the end of this short episode, I'm gonna be sharing with you the one thing that is missing, the one thing that you must have in order to really allow yourself to tap into that true authentic joy and presence as a high-achieving mom. So let's get ready to just dive

The Eight Dollar Hacky Sack Story

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right in here. So as I shared, I am currently out at the Oregon Coast. And I want to actually start by telling you a story. And it's gonna be about the last time I was out here at the Oregon Coast, which is one of my very, very favorite places. It is absolutely beautiful. If you have ever had the opportunity to come visit, please do and also hit me up so I can meet you in real life. But, anyways, um, last time we were out here was three or four weeks ago, and I want to tell you about the best eight dollars that I've spent in a really long time. Okay. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So I, many that know me know that I am like, will just drop $8 on a whim anytime to try out a new matcha latte. I absolutely love matcha lattes or a great new bubble tea place. It is actually like one of my favorite things is to just like really explore and get curious. And like, that's like part of my life's journey right now is seeking out the best matcha latte that exists in the world. As I'm recording this, I am currently drinking one that I made here at the house. But, anyways, the best $8 that I spent was not actually on a matcha latte. When we were out at the Oregon coast last, I was here with my entire family. So all three of my children, ages 15, 12, and 10, my husband, our two dogs. And one of my absolute favorite things to do while we're we're out here at the coast, aside from just like getting out onto the beach and putting my feet in the sand, is I love going in to the local little nearbout nearby town called Cannon Beach. And I love just like taking solo time to just explore the shops there. There's like cute art galleries, little gift shops, there's great food places. And that was one thing that I really seeked. And, you know, as my kids are getting older and coming to the coast has been a tradition of ours. It is not something that they are always excited and eager to do. And so, you know, I try to involve them and be present to them as much as I can just because I know a lot of times they'd rather be back home, like hanging out with their friends. So, anyways, as I am like sharing with my family, like I'm gonna go into town. I'm really excited for this. I decided to actually invite my children to go with me, thinking like maybe one would come. I don't know. They probably want to stay at the cabin and like play video games or play cards or go out on the beach. But not one, but all three said, Yeah, mom, like I'll go into town with you. And at first glimpse, I was like, oh my gosh, wait a second. I thought I was like doing this solo journey. Again, I really enjoyed the solo time and just being able to like take my own time and go into the gift shops and like touch all of the things. I actually very often don't buy anything, but I just love to like explore all the little trinkets and things. And so when all three came, I said, you know what, this is fine. But I also set my expectations. I said, I'm so excited you guys are coming into town. Like, where do you want to go? Their top two choices were the toy store and the candy store, of course. And I said, Cool, there's a couple shops I want to go to. So when we get there, if you guys want to branch off, you can. And we started just me and my 10-year-old daughter, and the boys went off on their own. And then a couple minutes later, I think, as I was taking way too long, touching all of the rocks and crystals and little trickets and trinkets in this one store, my daughter's like, I'm gonna go meet up with Cam and Connor. And I was like, Okay. So then it was just me. So I'm like literally just like hanging out, window shopping, enjoying the beautiful day. And then my phone rings, probably like within 10 minutes, I would say, of me being actually solo. And it was my oldest son. And he said, Mom, mom, you're not gonna believe what I found. And meanwhile, that was a great way to pick up the phone because I really thought that he was calling me to be like, mom, can we go now? Like, let's go. We've been here long enough. No, but he's like, You're not gonna believe what I found. And I said, Okay, what'd you find? He's like, I found a hacky sack. Will you buy it for me? Now my immediate answer was yes, which is different than what my often my answer is when my kids ask if I will buy something for them. But here's why. Just within that past week or so, um, my son had asked, he's like, Mom, can you look up online and potentially get me one of these hacky sacks? It was some brand. If you have a teenage kid in this era, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. The brand is escaping me. But, anyways, meanwhile, as he's asking me a couple weeks back about getting him a hacky sack, I am having like major flashbacks to my high school years. Anyone that grew up in like the late 90s, early 2000s, like hacky sacks were the jam. I never quite got it, even as a soccer player. Like, never really got into it. So, anyways, when he when he called me up and said, Mom, there's a hacky sack, and I said, sure, absolutely. Like, where are you? And so I went and I met him and he showed me the bin of hacky sacks, and lo and behold, they're only $8. And this $8 purchase, I'll share with you in just a minute, became one of the best $8 purchases, even better than some of the best matcha lattes that I've had recently. And I'll share why in just a second. But, anyways, as we're buying this hacky sack, I said, here's the deal, bud. I'm gonna buy this for you, and it's gonna be for the family. So it's not just yours. It's gonna be something like anybody has access to. Of course, my other son was then, well, like, can we each get one? And I was like, no, because my grand scheme of like, nope, we can learn to share this. We don't really need multiple $8 hacky sacks. That seems like a waste of money. So, anyways, we get this hacky sack, we get back to the house, they play with it a little bit, life moves on. I think we got up and we we went back home the next day to our house just outside Portland, Oregon. And it was a Sunday. And we were getting ready for kind of the week ahead. We had meal planned, we had grocery shopped. I had taken a look at my calendar, some of these systems I have in place and routines I have in place to help ensure the week ahead is smooth. And we have burgers and tots for dinner, and it was delicious. And then one of my kids was like, Let's buy hacky sack after dinner. And we all were in the right space. We all were ready to engage in this. And so we went out to our garage, which is like an additional living space for us. And for the next more than an hour, we hacked the sack. Now, if you don't know what hacking the sack actually means, we're getting what are called hacks. Okay. I actually learned that day what a hack actually was, why it's called a hacky

Why Joy Requires Nervous System Safety

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sack. Well, the sack is actually like, again, this little woven ball with all the beads inside of it. But the a hack is when all of the people within your circle, so again, it was all five of us, my husband and our three kids, when somebody starts it, and before the hacky sack, the sack hits the ground, all five people touch it to keep it in the air. That's called a hack. And over the course of the next hour, can you guess how many hacks we got as a family? Just take a guess. Okay, not sure. We got four. We got four hacks. And every single time we got a hack where all five of us hit it, we just are rupted with joy. I probably screamed. I'm sure one of my kids said, Mom, you're being too loud, you're too excited. Nope, that's just part of who I am, is what I always say. And it was so much joy and so much presence. My husband and my phones were down. We were truly engaged. I mean, you kind of have to be engaged if you're trying to keep the small ball in the air. It was a great reminder as to how tight my hips are, and that even despite playing soccer for dozens of years, like keeping that little ball in the air with your feet and with your arms and with your legs and all the things is really hard. But in that moment, there was such deep, authentic presence and joy from all five of us. And as I was there and just engaging with my family, I was really thinking to the women that I support, these all of all of you high achievers who have a lot of your life figured out. And on the on the outside, it looks good, but on the inside, it's like exhaustion or just complete overwhelm. And the more women that I women that I've spoken to over the last more than a dozen years, some of the top things that they say they want are more presence with their loved ones and more joy. And in that moment of hacking the sack, it became very, very clear to me the piece of the Rockstar Mom framework that allows you to actually access that true presence. And that is, it's within one of our pillars again of the Rockstar Mom framework, part of what I call the power trio. And it is having true nervous system regulation and resiliency. Because here's the thing: if you are operating at a state of heightened stress, you're always in that space of fight, flight, or flea mode. Sorry, I couldn't think of the last F there for a second, or freeze. All right, or fawn's another one too. Anyways, fight or flight, you know what I'm talking about. If you are constantly in those states of overwhelm, it is really, really, really hard to access true presence because our body's on high alert. Literally, that's why, like when your kids, like, hey, play Legos with me, and you're like playing with them, but really your mind's on the to-do list or that your mind is on the dishes in the sink. It's because we're activated. And so I know for a fact, until I was able to learn to regulate my own nervous system, shift some of my mindsets, do the things that really truly fuel me. That is when I, on my own journey, have been able to tap into this true presence more often than not. In fact, as I shared, we're out at the coast right now and we recently discovered one of those like aerobi, I think that's what it's called, like those Frisbees, you know, the ones that are like circular but like hollow in the middle. And me and Charlie and Cam were out on the beach yesterday and we were playing it and it was windy. And if you have ever tried to throw one of these things like into the wind, it like goes all over the place. And so we we like we're each kind of figuring out based on where we stand and how hard we throw. And after we were doing it for a little while, we then started counting, kind of like we did when we were hacking the sack. And we at one point, we got so all three of us like we got three consecutive throws. That was like a big deal yesterday because it looked really, really windy. Okay. And Charlie said, She's like, Mom, we didn't just get hacks, we also now get frizzes. Frizzes like frisbees, you get it? Anyways, it was just such a reminder that this moment that occurred three or four weeks ago of our family making the space, taking the time, really me being able to show up fully present in that space, it now translates. Or now that is something that we look back to, we reflect on, and it truly brought us joy because we were able to be present.

Check Your Activation And Reset

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I also just wanted to state too, if you're like, okay, this sounds good, Megan, and my friend, it's never too late to start. Okay, I invite you to really think about in this moment, just first, awareness is the first step of change. In this moment, as you're listening to this podcast, can you just take a pulse on how activated you are? Where are you on a scale of one to 10 when it comes to your current stress, anxiety, or overwhelm? Once we become aware of it, then we get to be intentional and make choices about how we can start to bring it on down. Again, this can be hard to do on our own oftentimes because we get caught in patterns. But the good thing is the patterns are just patterns, the conditioning is just conditioning. It is possible to get back to your most natural state of being with that sense of control, that sense of calm, that sense of ease. And when you regulate your nervous system, and over time your resiliency goes up when it comes to nervous system, that is when you can truly tap into that sense of presence. So you can experience more joy and more connection with loved ones. And that, my friend, is what I know is possible

Free Morning Reset And Closing

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for you. Now, I actually just recently created this simple, just kind of three-step process. It's a tool, it's a freebie that you can download. And we'll we'll provide that link in the show notes here. It's called your Rockstar Mom morning reset. And even though it's called a morning reset, because I think it's very powerful to use in the morning time to start your day, it is a simple tool that you can use to help regulate your nervous system at any time, anywhere. So if you answered anywhere above like a seven or even a six when I asked you to just kind of self-assess, I invite you to go download this free free tool. Again, you can grab the link in the show notes. You can also access it directly from MegancaldwellPDX.com backslash morning reset. And that might be just kind of the first step for you to really tap into this space of truly learning how to and practicing bringing down your nervous system. That's my invitation for you, my friend. It is possible for you to learn how to hack the sack as well, or really truly tune in, tap into those things that truly, truly bring you joy so that you can show up as your best self. So you can show up as your most present version, your most authentic, your aligned version of self. And that's what I'm here for. That's what I'm here to support you on as part of being part of this Rockstar Mom podcast community. Of course, if you want to explore this even deeper, please just send me a DM on Instagram, Megan Caldwell PDX, or drop me an email. I am always open to chatting and just know no matter where you are at in your personal journey right now, I am here and I am cheering you on, sending you so much love. And whether we connect on Instagram or via email or via the Rockstar Mom morning reset, or maybe it's next time when we're back here on the Rockstar Mom podcast. Know that you're in my thoughts. I'm sending you so much love and light, and I cannot wait to connect again. All right, make it an awesome rest of your day. Thank you so much for tuning into the Rockstar Mom podcast. If today's episode resonated with you, here's how we can keep this momentum going. First, be sure to subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. Next, I'd be so grateful if you took a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Your feedback helps us reach even more women who are ready to live a more intentional, fun-filled lives. Lastly, please share your insights on social media and be sure to tag me at Megan Callball PDX so we can connect and inspire other rock stars to live their best lives too. Again, I am so glad that you are here, and I'll see you next time.