The Hike Like A Woman Podcast

Balancing Wanderlust and Family Life

• Rebecca Walsh

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Join me today as we explore the balance between technology and presence, and find ways to stay grounded amidst the busyness of life.

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Speaker 1:

Hey, it's Rebecca. Welcome back to the podcast. This is the place where we chat every single Tuesday morning. In addition to our podcast here at Hike Like a Woman, we also have a really kick-ass newsletter that goes out every single Monday at noon Mountain Time, and we have a YouTube video that's published every Friday at noon. So we produce three things every week the newsletter, the pod and the YouTube channel. They're all different, so go check them out. You can learn about us by visiting our website, hikelikewomancom. Different, so go check them out. You can learn about us by visiting our website, hikelikewomancom.

Speaker 1:

Today I'm talking to you about how I'm juggling everything. It is September 24th and here's what's going on. So in August I was traveling for 10 days. That was a group trip. To where did we go? Alaska, our group trip to Alaska, which was fantastic, and if you want to catch the recap, head over to our YouTube channel. And then in September I was gone for 14 days. So this was our Yellowstone trip, and then it was our. We had a hike, like a woman reunion, with women who went to Yellowstone with us last year. So we had kind of a one-year Yellowstone reunion and then, as of the time of this recording.

Speaker 1:

I'm getting ready to head to Peru at the end of the month for our Hike Like a Woman trip to Peru along the Salcante Trail. We're going to do some trekking, we're going to see some historic sites and, of course, machu Picchu, and then in October I'm going to be traveling for 19 days. I'll actually be out of the country for 19 days in two different countries and then November, I'm going to be traveling for four days. That is a lot of time traveling at least for me it is, and I thought I would just pop in today to tell you how I'm doing and to tell you or just share with you how I'm juggling things and also let you know the things that I'm kind of failing at. And if you listen to our show a couple weeks ago, I talked about my husband and how I have a really kick-ass supportive husband who's just like please go, do all of the adventures, have a ton of fun.

Speaker 1:

But here's the problem. I don't know if you're a parent out there, but school has started and I missed the first week before school starts, which is all the busy weeks with, like buying school supplies and getting schedules and meeting teachers and doing school tours, blah, blah, blah, which was even more chaotic this year because my children moved to a different school and so that just felt really busy. But the problem was I was in Alaska during all of that parent stuff before school starts, so my husband had to take time out of his busy work schedule to take care of that for the children, which is something that I typically do, and he also had to do the whole first day of school thing, and he did great, he managed just fine, but it was once again just so thankful to have a partner, a husband, who is willing and able to take on those additional tasks. So that was kind of how we kicked off the end of August, the first part of September, and now I'm getting ready to go to Peru in just a few days and I'm going to be in Peru for I think, 12 to days, maybe 14 days, and then now I think it's, I think it's like 12 days, and then I come home and I'm home for a little while and then we're taking a family vacation to Ireland, and this is a trip that our families looked forward to for a long time. So maybe I'll talk about our trip to Ireland in a future episode, but that's what's going on in October and I'm looking at my schedule.

Speaker 1:

I'm already tired after two guided trips plus a reunion trip, and I'm feeling tired already and I still have to get through Peru and I'm feeling stressed out. And I'm feeling stressed out and I'm feeling a little bit unsettled and this feeling that I have right now is exactly how I would feel when I owned my outdoor retail store and my ski shop during the holiday season, when it was just like go, go, go right. That's when you made, that's when I made all of my money to pay for the shop to run. The next, the next nine months of the year, right Fourth quarter was like go time in the outdoor retail world. And so I'm feeling that same stress and I don't want to feel that stress because that's why I sold my outdoor retail store and that's why I sold my ski shop in the first place, because I didn't want to feel that stress. So today I just want to share one, two, three, four, five, five things that I am doing right now to just calm, calm the chaos that I feel with all of these group trips and uh and and start of the school year and kids in in sports, kind of things.

Speaker 1:

So the first thing that I'm doing is I'm maintaining my workout schedule. If you've been following us on YouTube, you know that after we got back from Kilimanjaro, I got really sick for about a month and then, after I felt started to feel better, I just did not want to work out. I just was really zapped of my energy and so I had a really hard time getting back into a regular workout schedule, a regular workout routine. But that is really an important part of my life because, first of all, I got Kilimanjaro coming up again in August and I want to be ready to go and I want to be more ready to go than I was this year and second of all, as a cancer survivor, I'm really obsessed with making sure that I'm putting good food into my body and that I'm doing things to help with my mental health. And the thing that helps me with my mental health the most is actually to get a hard workout in and break a sweat every single day. So, to help calm the chaos, I've been trying really hard to maintain my workout schedule, even while I've been traveling. So that means hotel gyms. That's fine. With me I can hop on a treadmill, put the incline on 15 and walk for an hour and feel amazing. So trying to keep that workout schedule when I can. So what? I've been driving, I've stopped at rest areas to run laps around the car and do push-ups and jumping jacks, and that's good right. Maintaining that workout schedule is so important, at least for me and maybe, if you're like me, probably for you too.

Speaker 1:

The second thing I've been doing is when I've been in town, I've been trying to meet up with a friend every single week. I started this after I finished cancer treatment, where I felt like I just needed community around me, because during treatment I just shut myself off from the world. I didn't want to see my friends, I didn't want to talk to my friends, I didn't want to respond to their text messages, I didn't want to answer my phone. I just was so exhausted and so sad and so depressed that I didn't want to talk to anyone. And part of overcoming that dark, dark period in my life was this thing that I pushed myself to do, even when I didn't want to do it, and that was to text a friend every week and say let's grab coffee. So I have been trying to maintain that once a week coffee schedule with a friend and I just pick someone who I haven't talked to in a while, who I like, and we just go get coffee once a week. And maintaining that weekly friend meetup. That time when I'm forced to leave my house and put on clothes and take a shower and go see a friend, sometimes I don't want to go anywhere and talk to anyone or do anything but but forcing myself to have that social component to my life is really important. So I've maintained these weekly friend meetups.

Speaker 1:

I also try to do a weekly activity with my husband and this could be something like going to the dog wash and washing our dog. It doesn't have to be a fancy dinner or going to a movie or going on an epic back country adventure, just this I like and my husband and I my husband and I like it when we can at least spend half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour, two hours, whatever we can fit into our schedule to do something together. Sometimes we go grocery shopping at Walmart and that's fine. I think this notion of like fancy date night, that doesn't really fit in with our schedule as a family. But running errands with my husband on a Sunday afternoon totally counts as spending time just the two of us, no kids. So trying to find a time in my schedule every week just for time with my husband is and so it's another thing that really helps keep me sane right now during this busy time of life.

Speaker 1:

I also did a lot of work ahead of time. So, knowing how busy September and October were going to be August, september and October I did a ton of work to get ahead of things before that very first Alaska trip in August. So I had YouTube videos scheduled way out. I had newsletters scheduled way out. Really, the only thing that I'm doing live time is this podcast, but the more work I could do ahead of time, the more hustle I could do ahead of time, the less stress it's put on me to maintain all the hike like a woman stuff while I've been trying to make sure that women on our trips have these amazing experiences. And finally, I've been so thankful because the only way for me to make money right now with hike like a woman is by leading trips, and so I've been so thankful to have work and to have a little bit of income coming in to pay the bills and to be able to connect with so many of you out there on these group trips. I'm so thankful that I have the opportunity to take these friendships that start online, that start on our Instagram or Facebook or with an email or whatever, to take these online friendships or whatever. To take these online friendships and then to actually get to meet some of you in person on a group trip. That is so incredibly special to me.

Speaker 1:

And I've been thinking a lot about this. How I'm juggling a lot of things, how things just feel really busy, really chaotic, really stressful, how I've had to miss mountain bike races and cross country races with my children, but it's okay. I also I always kind of I always struggle with this notion of work-life balance, and I used to say there's no such thing as work-life balance. There's work-life integration where you know it's just part of life, like I'm a mom and I work and I'm involved in my community and I do hike like a woman, but I don't think that's. I don't think that's the truth either. It's not balance, it's not integration.

Speaker 1:

What I've tried to be is just be present. So when I'm with my family, just be with my family. And when I'm with my friends, I'm with my friends and when I'm leading a trip, I'm leading a trip. It goes back to everything that we learned on Mount Kilimanjaro it's be where your boots are, and that's really one thing that is helping me to juggle.

Speaker 1:

One time I was looking at my phone and what I was doing was not very important. I was probably like on Facebook or Instagram or something and one of my children crawled into my lap and he took my phone out of my hands and he put it on the couch and and he said mom, you're always on your phone and it was. It was a really powerful experience for me, because I don't want to do that. I just I just want to. I just want to be present where I am in the moment, with the people that I'm with at that moment. Anyway, if you're feeling stressed out, if you're feeling like you're juggling a lot of things, if you feel like there's a lot going on as we, as we change seasons, I put together a Spotify playlist for you. So go check it out, head on over to our website, hecklikewomancom, so you can see the playlist that I put together, full of some of my favorite songs that I like to listen to when I'm feeling stressed out. So go to our website, hecklikewomancom and check it out.