EP51 Part III – Grace Under Pressure w Amy Callahan

The final episode in our 3 part series with my Amazing wife Amy

EPISODE 51

[0:00:13.8] KC: All right, here is the final episode of our three part episode. Kind of suiting to have Amy be the first speaker that we’ve broken into three parts but here is the final part of Grace Under Pressure with Amy.

[INTERVIEW PART 3]

[0:00:30] KC: Paleo, no carb diets, fasting, what else? There’s millions of them right?

[0:00:40.1] AC: Yeah.

[0:00:41.8] KC: What are your thoughts on diets and people who are constantly on diets and the yo-yoing and all that?

[0:00:53.8] AC: I’ll just speak for myself. I am like an anti-diet person. Just because for me, it just doesn’t work for me. I don’t like the feeling of being restricted, having to think about I shouldn’t eat this or this isn’t on my plan or this is too many carb counts or whatever it is. I’m just not into it and I don’t want to — I’ve never wanted to sort of put my energy into calories or any of that stuff.

That being said, I’m also not at McDonalds or Subway or I think that for me, sort of what’s always worked the best is sort of, it’s really cliché but everything in moderation and real food. I do the majority of the grocery shopping for our family and I was actually just grocery shopping yesterday and just brought the baby and I knew I was kind of on a clock because she was going to wake up and get hungry.

So I had a list and I was like, stick with the list and get in and out of here. After we got out of there, it’s like thinking about the experience at the grocery store and literally if you just don’t go down any of those middle aisles, you come home with real food and it’s a really fast trip. So I was just thinking about that. If you don’t get stuck in the abyss of like all the packaged isles, you can eat — I just eat like real food. I’m not a great cook but I can sort of put together simple sort of single ingredient meals.

And I feel like with that, sort of if you’re kind of like eating clean most of the time, you don’t really have to do one of those crazy really strict diets to lose weight or to get to whatever point you’re trying to get to. Because it’s like a slow — it’s just slow and steady, just eat real food. We go for the organic, I just am not a fan of hormones or anything like that. So we pretty much buy all organic and yeah.

[0:03:44.4] KC: Our house, we pretty much eat like you said, organic meats, vegetables, we do some pasta’s, some rices.

[0:03:52.3] AC: Some grains.

[0:03:53.5] KC: Yeah, really just balanced out and I think the place that we’re at is healthy, vibrant bodies to be husbands, wives, parents.

[0:04:06.0] AC: Yup.

[0:04:06.5] KC: Not looking for the six pack or anything like that. I think the other piece that I’ve really learned from you that I guess I’m still working on, I’m like 90% of the way there, is the restrictive pieces even though you get results, it’s back to like the buying the nice house, buying the bigger house, buying the better clothes.

The results are there but they’re not lasting. If I really cut back on carbohydrates, two things happen. One, I’m like a jerk to be around and then two there is like that big yo-yo effect right? All of a sudden, I’ll go totally off the deep end and like…

[0:04:51.0] AC: Or you’re like dying for that cheat day and then that day you’re just eating a bunch of crap and then you feel terrible the following day so you’re back to super strict and yeah, I just feel like it’s difficult to maintain. And I know there’s plenty of people out there that maintained a specific diet or way of eating for years and that clearly works for them.

But I felt like if you’re sort of stuck in the yo-yo of back and forth and back and forth and let me try this one out, let me try this one out. Then maybe it’s not working for you and maybe you don’t need to put yourself in a category. I feel like there’s so many different diets and ways of eating now that like everyone needs to be identified by a certain category of how they eat. Maybe the reasons for doing that are, I don’t even know? Not for your highest self, it’s like just to put yourself into some kind of category and maybe just take away all the names and just eat sort of what — I don’t know?

I always think like something I read at one point was like eat foods that like your grandparents would recognize or eat ingredients like your grandparents would recognize and that’s sort of really simple. There wasn’t all the processed stuff, there wasn’t all the chemicals, there wasn’t all the stuff added to foods, there was just food was just food was one ingredient. And I sort of think about that as we do, as we prepare meals or go grocery shopping and keeps it simple.

[0:06:45.4] KC: You’re doing all right? I have a few more questions.

[0:06:48.4] AC: Yup.

[0:06:48.6] KC: Or you want to wrap it up?

[0:06:49.7] AC: No, I’m doing all right. She’s still sleeping so…

[0:06:53.3] KC: For everybody listening, it’s never this calm at our house.

[0:06:55.6] AC: I know. Yup, Wyatt’s still asleep so we’re good. I have to go in 20 minutes…

[0:07:05.9] KC: Okay.

[0:07:06.5] AC: …to get the girls.

[0:07:07.9] KC: When it gets crazy in the house, kids are crazy, whatever. When it gets crazy, what are you doing either self-talk or how are you keeping it together, keeping sane?

[0:07:27.9] AC: You mean if I’m keeping it together and staying sane? That’s a big if some days. When it’s crazy, I think the biggest thing that runs through my head is like, “Don’t react.” I really — yeah, it’s definitely self-talk and I sort of just remind myself to breathe and like the word patience comes into my head like 50,000 times. Just be patient which is again way easier to say it like now in this nice quiet nice than do it tonight at 6 o’clock. But that right there is like, well let’s just sort of go back a little bit. I had this amazing weekend at Kripalu this past weekend with Jackie Bonwell. All of you guys who live near Boston go check out her classes, she has a studio and…

[0:08:35.3] KC: Teaches Yoga.

[0:08:37.7] AC: Yeah, she’s an amazing human being and an awesome yoga teacher. So she was out at Kripalu this weekend, I went and a lot of what she talked about was like, “You know, being able to do yoga poses is awesome and she’s like, it’s great when you just can see somebody go in to head stand and what not. To be honest, the real yoga is what happens when you’re off of your mat like in your daily life.”

It was just the perfect topic for me to be there this weekend because the yoga, the actual going to the flow and the Asana’s and the poses, it’s great. I love it, my body feels good, it’s quiet in there, it’s peaceful. But what she was saying really spoke to me because it’s one thing to have like this great yoga practice and you go home and like snap at everybody because you’ve got 50,000 things being thrown at you at once and was sort of the idea of like, yoga is really what happens when you’re off of your mat in your daily life.

At 6 o’clock at night with the four kids and dinner needs to be done and everybody’s tired and it can be very chaotic around here, that’s like yoga, that’s like my yoga and I really — I have to be really solid with who I am and the space that I hold for the family at those times of day because if I’m not then everything is out of control. If I start to get snappy or if I start to raise my voice at them then they do it to each other and then you come down from working and you do it to the kids and it creates this crazy cycle.

And I’ve seen it happen and I know it’s from — I can look back and be like it all started when I snapped at Dakota belt this and she went and did it to Daphne and it just becomes this domino effect. I think that what I work to do, when the chaos ramps up in any part of life is just see it as like this is where the rubber meets the road, this is where it matters and what are you going to do in this moment?

[0:11:23.1] KC: I think another thing that we do together is we have that trust between each other where we don’t take offence if the other person points something out. If one of us is like the thermometer is heating up on one of us, the other one will say to that person, you’re getting nasty, you’re getting into a space of anger or whatever. I think that’s important because I think the first piece is having that trust with each other and — because I remember when we first started doing that, it would be like, “FU”, person that said it to you. Like if you said it’s me or I said it’s you but now it’s just like.

[0:12:13.8] AC: Like your defence is up.

[0:12:15.4] KC: Now it’s just like, well you’re obviously saying that because it’s 100% true, you’re not going to run around saying that…

[0:12:23.3] AC: Well when your defences go up, it’s because you know it’s true, you don’t want to hear it. Yeah, I think that it’s like a moment by moment decision. Like at each moment especially when you’re starting to get all your buttons pressed like just to check in and be like, “How are you going to handle this?” As opposed to just fly off the handle or just react and I’m definitely nowhere near perfect at it but I feel like it’s just one of those things that you just got to keep doing it. You got to keep reminding yourself, you know when you sort of know when the thermometer is heating up and you can feel it and it’s just like, “Okay, that’s happening but I’m not going to lose it, I’m going to hold this all together.”

[0:13:16.9] KC: Yeah, I think also doing nothing, that’s kind of what I’m working on, I haven’t ever really shared this with you as much but like for me saying nothing is progress right now. When the kids are screaming or something like that. I don’t’ know how to do anything else besides yell back. So now I’m in the process of like, “I’m just going to do nothing,” which is better than…

[0:13:45.2] AC: Than blank.

[0:13:45.4] KC: Yeah, like I’ll get to the next step but right now I’m in the set of just like sitting there.

[0:13:51.1] AC: I’ll just sit here.

[0:13:52.2] KC: Ear muffs.

[0:13:53.3] AC: And be quiet? Yeah, it’s also another thing that goes through my head that’s been helpful is like just saying to myself, “Pull it together, you’re the adult, you’re not going to let a four year old push all your buttons.” That’s sort of what they’re job is right now in life. The adult, me, I get to pull it together and go be the adult not turn into a four year old.

[0:14:29.1] KC: Isn’t it so funny how powerful emotions are?

[0:14:31.9] AC: Yes.

[0:14:32.0] KC: Your emotions come up, all your personal stuff comes up in the heat of the moment.

[0:14:38.3] AC: Yup, and it’s so easy to be like them, like to react to them and you know, I just say like, “Pull it together.”

[0:14:51.2] KC: I like that. What about if you were to sort of share — when we first moved out here, we had had what? We’ve been in this community for a little over three years now and Wyatt’s been born out here and Addie’s been born out here now.

Between the two of them, one of the things that I was a little bit later to the game but one of the things that we focused on really driven by you is building community and building relationships and I was wondering if you could just share, from your experience, the difference with having Wyatt out here versus having Addie out here once you had built up community.

[0:15:43.0] AC: I think that community is like one of the most important things to have around you especially at this time in our life when you’re raising kids and neither of us have family that live within three hours of where we are right now. Community sort of becomes everything, it’s your sanity, especially for me.

I stay at home with these guys and I would not be a happy person if I was sort of alone like at home with the kids all day. So it was like a huge driving force for me when we moved out here was like to get connected with other people and when we had Wyatt, I got pregnant with Wyatt right after we moved out here and we didn’t really know anybody yet and again didn’t have family out here, we had moved from where your whole family was.

So we had support out there when we had the girls and I remember, being pregnant with Wyatt and we were both like, “We’re going to have to move back to Boston because again, we can’t do it out here, we’re going to have three kids, we don’t know a single person and we’re in this new community and it’s just not going to work.”

We seriously considered going back to Boston but then decided to give it a little bit of time. Give it like a month or two and by the time, I don’t know, six months had passed, I really put work in to start to meet people around basically thought the school. The school that the girls are at has this amazing community of people that really sort of started to make us feel like grounded out here and by the time we had him, sort of neither of us had any thoughts of wanting to — needing to go back to Boston because we felt isolated by that time.

That was only — took like six months or whatever to really start to feel like you’re a part of something and that people like had your back if you needed them. Then sort of fast forward two years later having Addie out here. This time was like a whole different experience even compared to Wyatt. There’s literally the most amazing open hearted people out here that just were like, what do you need, what do you need us to do? We’ll take the girls, they’ve brought us food for a month.

The good friend that takes Wyatt to his little group every week and there’s just people are — the people in the community out here that we’ve sort of connected with, they want to be a part of your life and they want to help. It just makes it like the experience of being home and raising kids and doing all that. It makes it so much richer when you’re surrounded by people who are genuinely involved in your life and you sort of feel the same way about them and it becomes like family. They become like family, which is huge for us not having family out here.

So yeah, community is a huge one. You can’t do it alone or it’s just not meant to be that way. Yeah, if you’re sort of — for anybody who is sort of out there like feeling really isolated or stuck if you’re home with kids. Just put the work in and just — there is people everywhere looking for people. You just have to like, for me it was like the main focus once we got out here it was like, “I have to find a community.”

[0:20:13.5] KC: Yeah, I think I want to end on that. Really, I’m going to wrap up, because you’ve got to get going but I want to pull that one final piece together because I think it sort of was woven through everything we’ve talked about. That was the vision, that was the intension right? Then it just happened and there’s been so many — each progression in our lives, both individually and as a couple, it’s always been like, “Okay, what’s the next,” not even goal or like thing to accomplish? It’s more like, “We want to be the happiest whole human beings, what’s the next piece that we need here?” Really, that’s what you do with the community right?

I’ve been working on that with you and it’s just — it’s something that doesn’t come natural to me, I can sit here and talk on this podcast all day long but conversation with friends and stuff like that. It’s just not comfortable but we had set that driven by you but we had set that intention right? That’s all it was and it was like, okay, it wasn’t focused on what we don’t have, it was focused on, “Okay, this is what we want to bring in to our life,” and then it’s a continual focus on that but there was no plan right?

[0:21:37.9] AC: No.

[0:21:38.2] KC: Maybe first step and then next step but it’s not like we broke down this big master plan.

[0:21:43.8] AC: No, you can’t make a list. How are you going to find a community? It’s just sort of — I think what it comes down to is like really valuing people and like if you had on the front of your brain, you’re building relationships with people then sort of you’re giving others all of you, you’re really listening, you’re reaching out to them, you don’t let months go by before you touch base with that person again.

If the front of your brain is like, “I want to be a part of something, I want to build relationships with people and this new town that we don’t know anyone in,” then it just — that goes through every part of your life and when you see somebody like you remember their name. If that’s that sort of driving you as you’re out and about then naturally you’re going to build relationships and then here we are three years later and like I couldn’t ask to live in a better community.

I couldn’t feel more supported or I never feel like there’s at least 10 people I could text at any minute and be like, “Hey, do you want to just come over? I need to talk to,” — you know, we never had that in any community that we lived in before. I think it is a lot because we sort of set that intention up when we moved out here to be a part of something.

[0:23:16.9] KC: Then part of that. Setting the intentions, setting the vision and then there’s also the faith piece which I guess for us the faith piece is kind of automatic now. It’s really setting the vision and intention because we’ve done it so many times.

[0:23:34.4] AC: Yup.

[0:23:35.4] KC: For someone starting out it’s like trusting in the process.

[0:23:41.1] AC: Yes. It’s believing it before it even has come to be.

[0:23:46.6] KC: Then having the patience and the fortitude right? The fortitude to stick with it.

[0:23:50.9] AC: That’s not going to happen right away and you’re going to have doubts along the way but it’s like going back to that vision and not wavering from it.

[0:24:03.4] KC: Yeah, I think there’s also — or when you waver, getting back.

[0:24:07.2] AC: Yeah, exactly.

[0:24:07.9] KC: Learning how to get back quicker.

[0:24:08.9] AC: Exactly. Not hanging out in denial or believing it’s not going to happen for months. Like realizing like, “Hey, why shouldn’t it happen?” Like getting right back to it as soon as you realize you’re off track.

[0:24:27.3] KC: Well, you obviously you know, I love you and grateful for everything we have together and everyone listening is extremely grateful for all that you shared.

[0:24:40.2] AC: No, yeah, I love you and was super nervous about doing this little — these two podcasts and I actually I really enjoyed it and grateful to everybody who’s listened and reached out and messaged me and sort of cheered me on a little bit. So I really enjoyed it and yeah. Thank you.

[END OF INTERViEW]

[0:25:05.8] KC: All right, wrapping it up with the three part series with Amy and just such — I’m just so grateful to be able to be here with her, raising our kids, being husband and wife together. I really — a lot of people say this but I lucked out and worked hard for it and worked hard to be the man that was worthy of a woman like her but such an amazing, amazing woman and Grace Under Pressure is such a suiting title for this podcast.

See you guys on the next episode, thanks for tuning in, if you have questions for Amy, hit her up on Facebook or I guess that’s the best place under Amy Callahan. All right, peace.

[END]