Work + Life Harmony | Time Management, Organization and Planning for Overwhelmed Women

Breaking the Busyness Cycle Before You Pass It to Your Kids

• Megan Sumrell: Time Management and Productivity Coach • Episode 359

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0:00 | 29:05

I know we've talked about boundaries on this show before. But this conversation? It went somewhere I really wasn't expecting.

My guest today is Alex Lianne Carter, a master certified neurocoach, educator, and children's author who burned out, rebuilt her life one small decision at a time, and eventually packed up her family and moved to Panama. When Alex reached out to me about coming on to talk about boundaries, I sat with it for a minute because the angle she brought was one I hadn't heard before, and I think you're going to feel it too.

Because this episode is really about three things that are all connected: the busyness we can't shake, the boundaries we can't hold, and what our kids are quietly picking up from watching us do both. Alex walks us through the brain science behind why slowing down genuinely feels wrong, where these patterns actually come from, and what we can do about it before we hand the whole cycle to our kids.

What You'll Learn:

  • Why you can't hold a boundary no matter how many times you set it 
  • What your kids are absorbing right now just by watching how you move through your day
  • The real reason slowing down feels dangerous to your nervous system even when you desperately want it
  • The very first step out of autopilot when you're so deep in it you don't even realize it's running

Connect With Alex:

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Megan 🩷🐝

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SPEAKER_00

Well, hey friends. Today you're going to be meeting a new guest, Alex, here today. It's a conversation that kind of started initially with boundaries, but then really was a deep dive into just kind of thinking about for those of you with young kids, not only the relationship that our own childhood had in terms of how we may struggle, as I do, with boundaries today, along with for those of us raising kids, what are we doing to help support them to make sure that maybe they're not going to be heading off into their lives, kind of subscribing to hustle culture, busyness, all of that. And Alex has a book coming out that I'm really excited for you all to hear about as well. So let's go ahead and jump into the conversation. Welcome to the Work Life Harmony Podcast. Guess what? You don't have to feel constantly overwhelmed, exhausted, and stressed out. There is another way. When you have the right systems and tools to plan and manage your time, you can live a life of harmony. If you're ready to stop feeling overwhelmed, this is the show for you. Hey everybody, welcome back to Work Life Harmony. I wished I'd had our microphone on when Alex and I were chatting here before we got started. I'm going to ask her to repeat some of what she said. But before we dive into that conversation, just to give you a little preview of what's to come. We have talked about boundaries a couple different times here on the podcast. But today we're going to be looking at them with a totally different lens. And when I met Alex, well, we met several years ago, but when you reached out to me about this particular talk on boundaries, it was, I kind of like had to sit with it for a minute. So for the listeners out there, if you find either setting of the boundaries or more importantly, holding of the boundaries to be something that you are still a work in progress on, I think you're going to find today's conversation really amazing. So, Alex, I would love for you to introduce yourself, tell everyone a little bit about you, and then we will dive in. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01

Well, thanks for having me, Megan. And yeah, so it's funny when I think about where I am and who I am today. So I am a mom, I'm a master certified neurocoach, I'm an educator, and I'm now a calling myself an author, a children's author. And we moved to Panama about nine months ago now, so that I could really apply many of the things that Megan taught me when I first met her almost six years ago. And I'm excited to dive into that today. You know, when Megan and I met, I had recently burned out. I was hosting my very first productivity secrets summit. And I learned through the whole process of healing myself from burnout, becoming a master certified neural coach, that I think I was going about it all wrong. Right. At that point, it was like, how do I get more done in my day? Versus how do I actually slow things down to be strategic and maximize my time so I can be the best version of myself for all the people that are in my life. At that time would have been my students and today my children and my clients and just everybody who's around me.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, so amazing. And we were talking before I started recording how different your life looks from when we first met all those years ago to today. I would love for you to just share that quickly with our listeners before we dive into boundaries because I know people that meet me that hear about how how little I work, kind of the boundaries I've put around my time with work and family and myself. They're like, sounds good on paper, but I couldn't do it. So I'd love if you could share a little bit of how your life looks now versus then.

SPEAKER_01

Well, when Megan and I first met, I had just given birth my my eldest. So she was two months old, and I literally gave birth to a business and a baby at the same time. There needs to be a moment in in this journey. One, I remember interviewing Megan and she talked about how little she worked, and I was thinking, I don't know how she, I don't know how she does it. I mean, obviously I had been newborn, life looked a little bit different, but I still had a really hard time imagining what that looked like. Then there was this moment when my eldest was 10 months old, I was at the zoo, and I realized I'm sitting there at the zoo with her and feeling this like people were looking at me and judging me for being at the zoo. Now, I technically would have been on maternity leave had I been still working at the schools. And so there was nothing wrong with me being at the zoo, but I noticed how I went automatic judgment of people, what they would think of me being in the middle of the workday at the zoo with my kid. Fast forward to her second birthday, I was going to her photos and I realized I did not remember the first two years of her life. I was so busy building my business that I just sat there and cried and was like, this is not gonna happen with my second. I then about a few months later, I was bringing it with my second kid, and that's where I started to make very different decisions and show up differently based on my priorities. I realized then my priorities were my kid, getting to spend time with them and getting to be fully present and connected with them. And I knew that something had to change in me to be able to do that, which led me back to when I first met Megan of how she talked about how she made the decisions. What did her identity look like? I, my identity at that point was this hostile, you know, work hard, I can sleep when I'm dead mentality. And it took me time to change that thought process. And now it's like, how do I create connected, present, playful time with my kiddos and be an example for people around me to be able to create that? And that came with boundaries because I realized in order to be present, I needed to disconnect from the technology. In order to be present, I got to intentionally be present with my kids and create this disconnection from work. And that really took a lot of intentionality, discipline, and getting around it every single day in what was important to me. And I realized in those moments, too, I was also setting the example for my kids because our kids are gonna grow up how they how things are modeled for them. So now, as an author of the children's book, and being so connected to our child's brains or program from zero to eight, it became important to me to really be intentional about okay, what am I demonstrating for my girls in how they spend their time and how they move through their day, and how they are in their being, right? It's about their ways of being, not about always in the doing.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, so important. So I know a lot of people, myself included, have a lot of thoughts, hypotheses, et cetera, around why first setting and then actually holding our boundaries is hard. It guys, the struggle is real. I'm not here to belittle that. But I would love to hear your take on what you believe to be the real root cause of issues when it comes to boundaries. It's in the subconscious.

SPEAKER_01

It's like what is internally going on and in our subconscious that ought to when we think of again back to our childhood, like what was our experience? What did we hear? What did we witness? Now, I moved to Panama nine months ago, and I have to tell you, it's a whole new reality here, which I realized part of my struggle has been going from that sort of hustle North American go, go, go mentality to a more laid back, more chill, man, yet. I'm not in a hurry. And I constantly experience that, like almost on the daily, even to today, because we're so programmed to rush against the clock, right? Trying to squeeze everything in. And I'm grateful that I get that daily reminder of like, okay, hold on a second, right? How can everybody else around us there's taking things slow and they're not in a hurry? It's me, it's my programming, it's what's going on in here. And I realize I need to reverse engineer how I show up, how I build my day, the dialogue I have in my head. Because if I feel constantly like I'm a hot mess, guess what? I'm gonna show up like a hot mess. I need needed to really pause and get clear. And it's just like not reality, like, hey, what is really happening and unpacking? Why is it I'm still showing up with this rush, rush, go, go, go being in me. And I will say I'm just grateful that I'm I'm up against that every day because of where I live. It's not that easy if you're in a society where that constantly is. And if you choose to go against that, right, you want to go against the green because if you look at what's outside your window or what's outside what you're listening to, you are in just constant go, go, go. And the mirror neurons of what you see is telling your brain, go, go, go, go, go. Slow down is counterintuitive to what you're experiencing. And so it really takes intentionality because most likely, if you slow down and you don't go with the flow of the hustle, now your brain is probably telling you that's not safe. People will judge you. You won't feel accepted, you won't feel enough because you're choosing to go against, right? Like sort of the being the rebel against what the rest of society is modeling for you and what's telling you you should be doing, even though that's really not how let's like, I mean, it's not the best for you, it's not the most healthiest for you. It's why so many women end burning out because of there's this cognitive dissonance going in our bodies of like, okay, this is what I want, but this is like the reality. And then this has becomes the battle of like, yes, I want to have a boundary, but I have a hard time holding the boundary because of the just that not natural wiring versus the true desire internally of what you really want in your reality.

SPEAKER_00

So, do you think that this wiring that so many of us have of, you know, I like to say a lot of us, myself included, are really struggling with this belief that our worth is tied to our productivity, right? Which is why we have a hard time honoring our boundaries. Like, I need to say yes, I need to do more. You really think for a lot of us, this isn't something that kind of developed in our 20s or 30s, that this really stems all the way back to our childhood. And I'm curious, what does that look like when we're thinking about, you know, because as a seven, eight-year-old, I wasn't thinking about any of that stuff. I wasn't doing any of that. What is it that's going on or had been going on for so many of us in our childhood that you believe is playing into this?

SPEAKER_01

And I'm guilty of this too, where you know, we we pack my kids' schedules, right? We pick them up. It's now we're gonna go to this activity, and then we're gonna go to that activity. I noticed in my my eldest, she's like, Mom, what are we doing today? Right? Like in her mind, right? It's like, okay, weekends here, we're gonna do something. So right off the bat, it's like, okay, what's the conversation we're having with our kids? Again, I'm gifted where I live because there's a lot of people that have chosen to move here to slow down. So I noticed a lot of my friends, what they do after school is they actually call it decompression time with their kids. So instead of picking them up and going to do something, they pick them up and have them be. They have a snack, they move slow, they allow their children to reset. Why are a lot of my friends doing this? Because they do a lot of work with the nervous system. And so they're aware that their children at this young age, they need that time to integrate. They need that time to allow the body to reset. We're not used to that in a more North American society where it's go, go, go, right? I mean, you're you're you're working all this time. But here, where there's like the siesta, you know, the I mean you might see the work, the work is walking around here. Like at 12 o'clock, you might be, you might be there chilling in a hammock and having a rest for about an hour. Again, it's it's it's that difference in mentality, it's the difference in what you're surrounded by, it's difference in culture, right? And so that has we look at our children's behavior, like if they're overstimulated, if we keep stimulating them, they're just gonna keep going. And we're not doing them a service. So we have to we have to model and support our children to be able to self-regulate. And that also comes down to what does their schedule look like? And how are we building something out that our kids need so that again we can build those habits in them and help them create those boundaries from a young age so they grow it naturally, defaulting to those new habits versus the default that many of us have because of our upbringing. And I think it's important to note it's not just our upbringing, it's our parents' upbringing, it's a grandparents' upbringing, right? We have to lots of look, like these are generational patterns that we get to look at at raking and the dialogue and the conversation, which again, our brain, our our brain, our bodies are gonna be resistant to that because that's only what it's known. And we're talking about totally changing the conversation, like what you said the other, you know, many years ago, I only work a couple hours a day. It's like, whoa, like that is right, like that is just not quote unquote typical, right? That's like that's just not what in the North American society talks about. And you challenged the status quo. And what's powerful for the listener today, because Megan challenged the status quo, she challenged me to challenge the status quo. And now we are evidence that it's possible. And the brain, sometimes we just get to borrow the authority, we get to borrow the evidence because if somebody else can do it, so can you. It just takes the conviction, it takes the intentionality, and it takes the process of showing up and doing it messy, showing it up and giving yourself permission, that it's not gonna look perfect. I always remember like sleep training with my girls. I always remember the program was like commit to 14 days because the first couple days might look easy and it's gonna work, and then guess what? Day five or seven's gonna hit and it's not miserable, easy, right? But I remember that. And we look at neuroprogramming, right? Of rewiring, changing habits, it takes roughly 67 days. So we're talking three months. After the three month marks, things become automatic. But when we talk about like being committed to 90 days, I mean, that's a big chunk of time. But if you're really truly committed and you want the change, it's just one thing at a time. And just it's about the commitment and being, yeah, being forgiving of yourself that it's not going to look perfect at the beginning, which is very hard for high achievers, right? But it's about what you're building in the process and modeling for your kids to show them the process as well for them to see too. This is what it takes commitment to create the boundaries, the implementation, and the life changes that you truly want to experience.

SPEAKER_00

What do we do when we have a child who is, which mine is not so much, but I have nieces and nephews that definitely fall in this bucket of they they want the activities. All their friends are doing it. It's the sport that they love, they're passionate about it, and it's their decision and their choosing, not something being imposed by parents. But then when you're looking at the schedule that it creates between school and a lot of sports and activities today that aren't the same as they were when we were growing up. You know, we did rec league through high school, and now that's kind of gone by the wayside. What how do we navigate that when everything and every activity kids may want to be doing is really, we see that it's creating that that there is no downtime boundaries are blurred and there really isn't that space for the reset.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think it's intentionality of like, I mean, it's always like a question, right? The quality of your questions determine the body of your life. So the question would be how do you integrate this for your child, right? Because ultimately you are the parent. And I do have a kid like that that wants to do all the things. And I also realized if my kid did everything, I too wouldn't have that time, that downtime to reset myself. Because she literally could do something every single day of the week. And I know right now she really wants to do soccer. So I'm in negotiation with her to help her understand that we get to try everything. And we also like our bodies just need time to rest. We can integrate that in the day very differently. It could also look at how are we starting the day, how are we winding down to the end of the day, right? Because you're right, sometimes it doesn't always allow for that. Even just looking at like what are, you know, teaching the habits of what are we feeling in our body, right? And you can take a pause with just a couple breaths, right? Even just sitting in the car, like even what is like if it'll the time allows, getting early. So this is something I do. I actually get early to where we're going. So that I have time for it to flow, like for it to flow, we can get some food, we can connect, we can have a cut with the connected conversation. Because when we're in that reactive phase, then we're gonna show up reactive, rush, rush, rush. But if we can slow things down, that also allows because also the energy in the space, right? If you're just like, oh my goodness, we're behind, we're behind, we're behind. We're like just constantly creating this adrenaline go versus being able to create that space to be able to, yeah. I mean, it's it's regulating the nervous system. And it can be done very simply with a couple deep breaths and just that pause for a couple minutes, right? Or it could just be like, oh, how are we starting our day and how are we finishing the day to allow our children, right? And modeling. Because you're right, it's not always possible to create that integration, that that downtime in between activities. And you as well, the parent, if you see your child and leads this, you know, I often question, do they have to go to every practice? You know, this is my I also know this for myself. I'm like, okay, my kid's five. Does she need to go every single day? If I'm noticing, right, that she's exhausted, right? Then rest trunks, you know, this. And I think being able to again model that, we often feel that pressure. Well, we signed up and we made this commitment. It's like, it's just like going back to the foundational needs of like, what do we need? Rest, right? Are we thirsty? Are we hungry? Are we tired? Like going back to those basic needs, and as a parent, like making those decisions and modeling that again for our kids, and then it's okay. It's okay to miss a practice, as much as it might suck to miss a game. Like, but notice what makes missing a practice feel uncomfortable, right? Is probably because what is everybody else going to go to think about it? And I'm grateful again of where I live because I noticed that here that there, you know, not every kid goes to pre practice because I talk to parents and say, you know what, my kid was really feeling tired today. And I'm grateful because I again I have there's a lot of parents around me that make a lot of these decisions based on that, right? And so it's having the conversation, it's not my kid is still committed, but my kid also is only five. And she understands that she's gonna take care of her body first before we get into all of these different activities, yeah. So I'm still growing, I'm still learning too, but what's the price for paying? Like we learn this in leadership. It's like we're always paying a price, right? So, what's the price? What's the greater price we're gonna pay? We're gonna pay to have a really cranky, really grumpy kid that's you know, just it's gonna be no fun to be around. We can have a rested, happy kid, and we're gonna model some, you know, though it's uncomfortable in the moment when we're saying we're not going to do this today. We can also empower them, right? Like I really empower my kid to make the decision. So I ask her, how are you feeling today? And she says, I'm really tired. It's like, okay, do you think it's best to go here today? Or is it this? Now I know for my kid, it's more social. So I can renegotiate and find a social outing where she still gets that social need versus the need to get to the specific activity in order to like do the activity because it's about the social. And I think that's the other question, too. It's like, what is the bucket that's being filled by doing the sport, by doing all the social activities? And is there a way we can still meet that need, but in a way that still allows our children to have the rest and those pauses that, you know, yes, in theory we know, and we get to keep being comfortable in the process of implementing that for our kids.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so important. So, for those listening that, you know, are struggling with the hustle of today for themselves, what would you say is a good like first step?

SPEAKER_01

I think it just goes back to what's important to you. You know, I know that that was my moment like before my burnout was like I knew that what I was living was not stable that was family. And so when we can just get really clear on what's important to us, then we can start from those that place, right? The decisions we make impact the actions we take, which impact the results we generate. So I knew in that moment I wanted family. And I was looking at my body and my health, and it I wasn't, I wasn't preparing myself to get pregnant. And so it's like having those real raw conversations with yourself, with your family, like what's really important to everybody, and from there reverse engineer it. If I want this result, that's gonna require what action, right? Yeah, and in to take that action is gonna require what decision. You know, one one of my mentors asked me one time, are you a heck yes?

SPEAKER_00

And if not, then it's a no.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. But I but I noticed when she said that to me, because I was a yep, but I wasn't a heck yes. There's a difference in our bodies of when we're like, yes, I'm a heck yes to that, I'm all in, versus I'm yes. Yeah, sure. I believe that, right? That alone is going to indicate. Whether or not somebody's online or not for you. So it's always the first thing because we have seasons of life. And in different seasons of life, different things are important to us. And same for your kids. And so to have connected conversations of like what is important to us in this moment. And ensuring, okay, now do we have a schedule that reflects what we truly want? Because otherwise we're just going to continue an autopilot. And if he lets you interrupt that autopilot, which is automated, then nothing's going to change. And so it's consciously making that decision. And then from there, it's writing it down every day. Because now we're saying focus on what's important to us. Because by default, right, we're going to go back to safety and familiarity. So we intentionally get to be connected to the vision we're creating, the habits we want to implement, and be just committed to the process. I would reiterate that process. Megan and I met about six years ago. Five and a half, six years ago. Right. It's that took me about six, well, let's say five years to get to this. But it was little decisions each day that I changed that led me to the bigger results.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's not an overnight transformation. It's a yeah, very gradual.

SPEAKER_01

Like I was saying, it's like the marathon, right? Right. Walk on and on a marathon. So it's like, but when we can give ourselves that, like, I know when I ran half marathons, I just committed, like, I was gonna run for like a couple hours. It removes me from like, oh my goodness, I got finished another time. It's like, I'm just gonna enjoy the run. I'm gonna put one foot in front of me, I'm gonna enjoy the process. And when we can really let ourselves go from that, I think that takes a lot of the pressure because now this is a process and such a journey, and you're just trusting the surrendering of what's gonna, how is all gonna unfold. And again, stay committed to the vision. Just stay committed to that vision.

SPEAKER_00

So important. Now I know you've got a book that's coming out soon. Can you tell our listeners about that?

SPEAKER_01

Yes. So, one thing when I was reading to my daughters when they were young, is I became very aware, right, of how much this busyness in the center of console culture is embedded in a lot of the literature and even shows that a lot of our young children watch and listen. And I was constantly changing the dialogue to the stories I was reading, or constantly changing the shows or the songs, because I noticed how suddenly little things, like even my daughter's newborn diaper said, I'm I'm busy living late for something like that, right? Right off the bat, the word busy was on my kids' diaper. And my mind was blown because as a neurocoach, I'm very aware of language and environment because of the influence it has on our children when they are you know developing that. So one day I was breastfeeding my youngest, and it came to me, I'm like, if I'm always constantly changing the dialogue in books, why don't I just write my own book that I don't need to change anymore? And that is where free to be me came from. Because when I talk with all my clients and I always ask them, what's the one, you know, the one thing you really want? They all say freedom. They want this freedom from not worrying about the judgment and the shame and the self-doubt that we've talked about today. They want to be able to influence boundaries without worrying about people judging them or criticizing them or questioning the decisions that they're making. We're truly free to be ourselves. We can show up who we are and don't worry about external expectation and outside validation because we can just show up as ourselves. And so that's where free to be me was born.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, where can where can folks pre-order the book?

SPEAKER_01

Free2beme kit.com.

SPEAKER_00

Wonderful. Oh, this sounds like such a gift to the world. Thank you for pouring your heart into that. I know writing a book is no no joke. And just thank you for being here to share your time with us today. I appreciate it so much. Getting on top of all things, time management, organization, and productivity doesn't have to stop just because this episode is over. If you are feeling overwhelmed, your calendar's out of control, or you're just running in a race that will never end in terms of your to-do list, I have great news for you. I have an app in both the app store and Google Play called Pink Bee. And it is chop full of small but incredibly powerful trainings to help you get out of overwhelm. It includes my signature Digity Overwhelm training and introduction to my time management framework built specifically for women. So open up either your app store or Google Play, do a search on the word the Pink Feed, all one word, and download the app to get started today.

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Megan Sumrell

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