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Mindful Tips to Improve Wellness as a Parent with Dr. Valerie Hertzog · The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids

• 0:00
  Dr. Valerie: Is there a way to focus on what I call like energy givers as opposed to energy takers what brings you energy in your life?
• 0:06
  Dr. Valerie: Adding in more of those and then removing whatever you can that takes away your energy, and everyone's a little bit different that way as to what energizes them and what depletes them.
• 0:15
  Dr. Valerie: So those are some areas to start around time and energy, and then after that, looking at those four key pillars and then just picking one to start and then looking at some small key changes in that pillar would be, where I'd recommend starting.
• 0:27
  Carrie: And as far as when we're looking at children and modeling these pieces for our kids so they don't grow up and think the busy society is what we live in?
• 0:36
  Carrie: Do you have anything that you share with your kids as they're growing up?
• 0:40
  Dr. Valerie: I think it's making family prioritizing.
• 0:43
  Dr. Valerie: Family time, for sure, is important in our house.
• 0:45
  Carrie: Welcome to Heart to Heart Parents.
• 0:47
  Carrie: Let's connect with our kids and learn together.
• 0:49
  Carrie: I'm Carrie.
• 0:50
  Carrie: I was a former teacher and speech therapist.
• 0:52
  Carrie: I'm also a parent of two spirited, gifted, highly sensitive kids.
• 0:57
  Carrie: I was quickly brought to my knees as a parent when I thought that I would see a rosy lens version of parenting, just as they present on Instagram, but I quickly learned that's not real life.
• 1:09
  Carrie: I will provide real life experiences and transform them into moments for connections and change for you to use in your house.
• 1:17
  Carrie: Hi there, conscious parents, before we start today's episode, it's Keri here and I wanted to reach out to ask you guys for a quick favor.
• 1:24
  Carrie: As a follower of our show, we would love for you to give us a five-star rating and leave us a review.
• 1:31
  Carrie: It can be just a few words, that's it, and it really goes a long way with us with the podcasting community on Apple or Spotify.
• 1:39
  Carrie: So thanks so much for tuning in and I'm so excited for you to hear today's message.
• 1:44
  Carrie: Happy listening.
• 1:45
  Carrie: Hi there, and welcome back.
• 1:48
  Carrie: It's Carrie here and I have Dr Valerie Herzog here.
• 1:51
  Carrie: I'm so excited to have Valerie here today.
• 1:54
  Carrie: She has that amazing medical background that she's also bridging with some of her lifestyle pieces that have come into play for her on the personal side, pieces that have come into play for her on the personal side, and we're really excited to kind of dive into some of the holistic health pieces that I found in my life too, and I'd love to bridge that with you as well.
• 2:12
  Carrie: So my husband and I were talking as parents in this generation.
• 2:15
  Carrie: We've had a lot of different health things and climate pieces that we had to deal with in 2020.
• 2:23
  Carrie: And climate pieces that we had to deal with in 2020.
• 2:28
  Carrie: And we felt like it was such a hard time.
• 2:29
  Carrie: As parents, do you have any pieces to stay grounded and mindful so we don't go overboard as we're trying to make parenting decisions or decisions for ourselves?
• 2:38
  Dr. Valerie: Yeah, I can totally relate to that.
• 2:40
  Dr. Valerie: I think it's been a challenging couple of years for parents out there and just with everything going on in the world and it can be hard sometimes to focus on ourselves and our health because there's so much going on and we want to be very present for our children.
• 2:51
  Dr. Valerie: But I think it's all about the small things that we can do on a day-to-day basis finding a few moments to ourselves to maybe go for a walk or take a few deep breaths and just like integrating these small moments of self-care throughout the day to help ground ourselves and to remind us that we are here, we are safe, and to be more present in our lives as they happen, because they happen so fast.
• 3:10
  Dr. Valerie: There's so much going on, so just finding moments to reconnect with ourselves, I think, is really important in the day to day.
• 3:16
  Carrie: Yes, I love that.
• 3:17
  Carrie: Along with that, you mentioned the four pillars of health.
• 3:21
  Carrie: Does that go along with this mindset piece and keeping in a good mindset?
• 3:25
  Dr. Valerie: Definitely, and I think it's all about taking care of ourselves so that we can take care of others, because as parents, we're always giving, like all day long.
• 3:31
  Dr. Valerie: We're giving to our children and to those that we love.
• 3:33
  Dr. Valerie: So finding ways to take good care of ourselves will actually benefit everybody in our lives.
• 3:37
  Dr. Valerie: So those four key pillars are the ones that I always come back to, and they come from the field of lifestyle medicine, which is what my background is in, and so the four pillars are nutrition, exercise, stress management and sleep, and those are really the foundation.
• 3:50
  Dr. Valerie: If we can focus on those four things, it will really help us in all areas of our lives to just feel healthier and more energized and help us thrive so that we could be like the best versions of ourselves and be there for those that we love.
• 4:01
  Carrie: When we look at the four pillars of health, it brings up stress in me as I'm trying to think about having the right nutrition, getting in my movement in a busy day, getting in enough sleep because podcasting at night from this mama.
• 4:14
  Carrie: What are the pieces we need to keep in mind?
• 4:17
  Dr. Valerie: Yeah, so I say for, so I'll remove the pressure, because we there's already so much pressure to do all the things and to do all the things Right, so we don't have to be perfect at those four things.
• 4:25
  Dr. Valerie: That's not really.
• 4:26
  Dr. Valerie: Yeah, the point is really just to start where you're at and see is there somewhere that I can make a small change?
• 4:30
  Dr. Valerie: Is there a place for me to incorporate, let's say, in the nutrition, like more plants, like how can I incorporate more plants?
• 4:36
  Dr. Valerie: And just focus on that for a little bit and then, once you've that's solid, that feels like it's part of your life.
• 4:40
  Dr. Valerie: Then then you add on more.
• 4:41
  Dr. Valerie: So it's really looking at those four pillars and looking at which is what area do I need to prioritize more.
• 4:46
  Dr. Valerie: So maybe it is sleep and starting with a small goal and adding on to it as you go and making it manageable.
• 4:53
  Dr. Valerie: Like we're not talking about like changing our entire lifestyle all at once, because that's not doable for most of us and it's overwhelming.
• 4:58
  Dr. Valerie: So really starting small, looking at where you're at, looking at what you can do in this season of your life.
• 5:06
  Carrie: You mentioned lifestyle changes.
• 5:07
  Carrie: Can you give us an example?
• 5:08
  Carrie: What would that look like for a busy mom?
• 5:11
  Carrie: I have two kids.
• 5:12
  Carrie: I have a six-year-old and a nine-year-old, and my kids don't want to eat plant-based, so my husband and I often struggle to figure out what to cook.
• 5:21
  Carrie: Sometimes we're making two meals.
• 5:22
  Carrie: So we made cauliflower tacos for my husband and I and he had in the slow cooker he made a pork roast and so pulled pork for the kids to add to their tacos.
• 5:33
  Carrie: But it's hard to cook two meals.
• 5:35
  Carrie: Do you have any ideas on these areas?
• 5:37
  Dr. Valerie: yeah, I think trying to cook family style meals is a great place to start, so making sure that you have components that you know like the kids will enjoy and eat, and then adding on other things that you know like you and your husband will enjoy.
• 5:48
  Dr. Valerie: So I try to look at it as trying to cook like a protein that I know everybody will like, and then having vegetables and options and like tacos or, yeah, tacos are a really good example because you can make the protein and then you can have like toppings and everybody can pick and choose what they want.
• 6:01
  Dr. Valerie: So you're still only making one meal, it's just different components to the meal and then even like batch cooking, like making a whole bunch let's say of like chicken on the weekend and then you can add it to your meals throughout the week, or like chopping up your vegetables in advance and roasting them so that you have vegetables throughout the week as well, and then just with the kids.
• 6:17
  Dr. Valerie: It's about just reintroducing, reintroducing, reintroducing.
• 6:20
  Dr. Valerie: You take dozens of times before the kid will like a specific vegetable or specific food.
• 6:24
  Dr. Valerie: So just not getting discouraged.
• 6:25
  Dr. Valerie: And modeling if you're including on your plate, they're likely to be curious and to eventually want to try it as well.
• 6:31
  Dr. Valerie: Yeah, so, finding ways to try.
• 6:32
  Dr. Valerie: I know it's hard, but to try to simplify meals, keep it really simple.
• 6:35
  Dr. Valerie: It doesn't have to be like complicated meals with a dozen different components and then, yeah, including one or two things that the kids will like and then things that you and your husband will like and, yeah, come up with some sort of a happy medium in there.
• 6:52
  Dr. Valerie: But it does take time, it does take patience and it does take some trial and error to see what sticks.
• 6:54
  Carrie: That's been exploration of what the kids like, what we like, what we don't get tired of.
• 6:58
  Carrie: I like that idea of batch cooking a protein or a vegetable In our house.
• 7:03
  Carrie: Our kids get tired If we heat up the same thing we made on Sunday.
• 7:07
  Carrie: I usually try to give a couple of days, but they're still like I don't want to eat this again.
• 7:11
  Carrie: So I like that idea of cooking the pieces by themselves and then maybe trying to do different versions of recipes with it.
• 7:19
  Carrie: That's a great idea.
• 7:20
  Carrie: I was curious so you had mentioned the holistic health piece.
• 7:23
  Carrie: So you've been on a journey with that as well.
• 7:26
  Carrie: Can you tell us about that?
• 7:28
  Dr. Valerie: Sure, yeah, I've always been interested in health and in wellness from a young age and when I went to university I really loved health and psychology so I studied that and ended up thinking that medical school would be a really good fit for me, and so I ended up in medical school.
• 7:41
  Dr. Valerie: But once I got there, it was a little bit of a shock to see the health system firsthand, to walk into the hospital to see the focus on sick care and then, just from a personal level, the amount of hours and work and the fact that as a medical student you were just under so much pressure.
• 7:56
  Dr. Valerie: I was working sort of 24 hours or 30 hours in the hospital without much sleep at all and then had exams every six weeks I had to study for like in between my shifts.
• 8:06
  Dr. Valerie: It was just a lot, and by trying to go into healthcare to help others I was actually neglecting my own health and it led me to the point where my I think my body just rebelled and said you know what?
• 8:17
  Dr. Valerie: That's enough?
• 8:18
  Dr. Valerie: And I started losing my hair pretty suddenly in like big chunks and within the span of a few months I had lost all of my hair, like all of my scalp hair and then eyelashes, eyebrows, everything, and that was a bit of a wake up call for me and I.
• 8:32
  Dr. Valerie: I don't like to say that the stress caused it, because I think it's more complex than that.
• 8:35
  Dr. Valerie: There's a lot going on.
• 8:36
  Dr. Valerie: There's genetics, there's predispositions, but I think it was definitely a trigger in my case and which caused this, this autoimmune condition, to come about and it really it took some time, but I, the next couple of years, as I kept going, like a lot of us do, because I just felt like I wanted to graduate from medical school.
• 8:53
  Dr. Valerie: I wanted to keep going, get my degree, all of that, but I had to take a pause at the end of all my training and really figure out okay, this is not sustainable for me, I can't keep going at this pace and what is it that I can do to stay well and healthy?
• 9:05
  Dr. Valerie: Because I'm not going to be helpful to my patients or to my family or to anybody else if I'm not well.
• 9:10
  Dr. Valerie: So I really started refocusing on myself and my health and just the basics again, like those things that we were talking about, like just making sure that I nourish myself properly, that I incorporated movement.
• 9:20
  Dr. Valerie: I love yoga, so I started reincorporating more yoga into my life, spend more time with family and friends once I had more control over my schedule and yeah and then just made sure that I built a life, that the stress was manageable as much as it could be like obviously there are things that are unpredictable and then focusing on sleep.
• 9:36
  Dr. Valerie: So those were the things really that made me feel better and helped me heal and led me down this path of wanting to also share that with others and exploring that within my medical practice.
• 9:46
  Dr. Valerie: And then eventually coaching, because I really felt that well, I could do a lot of good in medicine, that sort of motivational sort of piece or that helping people make these changes.
• 9:57
  Dr. Valerie: It was hard to do that within medicine, so I decided I wanted to try to do that within the coaching realm and did some extra training in there and started working one-on-one with people in coaching, just sharing what I've learned and, yeah, helping them also implement these sustainable practices in their lives.
• 10:11
  Carrie: I love that because I feel like so often we look at the bandaid, of putting the bandaid on the wound, but not necessarily looking at the root cause of what's going on with us, and that's so powerful that you're helping others in that way, yeah.
• 10:25
  Carrie: I feel, like, yeah, there's so many pieces that are coming up.
• 10:29
  Carrie: I hear of the auto so often.
• 10:30
  Carrie: My husband has celiac in our house or we haven't done the biopsy so we're pretty sure it's celiac.
• 10:36
  Carrie: But it could just be like extreme and streams and sensitivity and we've noticed behavioral changes with our kids with gluten in our house.
• 10:45
  Carrie: We're gluten-free, dairy-free and food dye-free in our house.
• 10:48
  Carrie: Yeah, it's been a lot.
• 10:52
  Carrie: But right now I've heard I've been I always research about gut health.
• 10:56
  Carrie: Do you have any pieces that you?
• 10:58
  Carrie: Is that a big piece of what you do with families or how does what?
• 11:02
  Carrie: Are your thoughts on it?
• 11:04
  Dr. Valerie: Yeah, there's a lot of research in gut health, as we know, and it's sort of a developing field.
• 11:08
  Dr. Valerie: So I feel like things will continue to evolve, but definitely a big part of it.
• 11:11
  Dr. Valerie: And I think a lot of us in our society we focus a lot on quick and easy and just processed foods and all those things that are really convenient and we do include in our diet, but sometimes we stray too far and we don't include as much as those sort of whole foods in our diet.
• 11:24
  Dr. Valerie: So that's a big part of building gut health is just include whole foods and what we call prebiotics, which is in the fiber and like the fruits and vegetables and the things that we can include, and just focusing again, I think, on the whole food diet, like I don't specifically go into the details of gut health, but really looking at what are those foods that we can incorporate on a daily basis seeds and nuts and whole grains and beans and legumes and lots of vegetables like all those things will really contribute to a solid, healthy gut and a little bit like what you were saying, to figuring out what works for you and your family and if there are triggers, if there are conditions.
• 11:58
  Dr. Valerie: A lot of people are sensitive to gluten and dairy.
• 12:00
  Dr. Valerie: So figuring out again trial and error what works for you and, yeah, just going step-by-step to figure that out and getting back to the basics around whole foods, I think it's really key.
• 12:12
  Carrie: And we'll be right back after this message.
• 12:13
  Carrie: Hi there, changemaker moms and dads.
• 12:16
  Carrie: It's Keri here.
• 12:17
  Carrie: I hope you're enjoying today's episode.
• 12:19
  Carrie: If there's any pieces of this episode that resonate with you, we would love for you to share it with a friend.
• 12:25
  Carrie: A little helping hand goes a long way.
• 12:27
  Carrie: We appreciate you tuning in.
• 12:29
  Carrie: And here's more.
• 12:30
  Carrie: I love when you keep saying whole foods, because I think that's a big piece.
• 12:34
  Carrie: Whole foods is such a big piece for us and there's not a whole lot of recipes out there yet for whole foods.
• 12:41
  Carrie: So whole foods is one of the diet areas that you say, which I don't like to say diet, because I feel like diet is not.
• 12:47
  Carrie: It sounds like a fad.
• 12:48
  Dr. Valerie: I think there's a lot of negative connotation.
• 12:49
  Dr. Valerie: We think of like diet, deprivation, punishment, all of that, but it's looking at, yeah, like just your overall nutrition, right, and what foods are like nourishing, and I stay away from the different like specific diets.
• 13:01
  Dr. Valerie: So if we were talking about like the keto and all of that, and it's really looking at working with the person where they're at and what is it, what are their goals and what is it that they're looking for.
• 13:10
  Dr. Valerie: So for a lot of us, it is just focusing more on real food.
• 13:12
  Dr. Valerie: So another way to say whole food would be like real foods or things that, like your grandparents would recognize, things that come from the ground or from an animal or that aren't processed or just minimally processed.
• 13:23
  Dr. Valerie: So, yeah, it's just the basics really.
• 13:25
  Dr. Valerie: And when we're looking at a grocery store, like sticking more around the parameter of the grocery store and of course there's some pantry items that are really good to have but focusing a lot on those foods that come from the ground, come from animals, that are you know that we use to then cook from, and, yeah, create our meals that way and just prioritizing those things.
• 13:43
  Dr. Valerie: And I think everybody pretty much in North America can benefit from more plant in general.
• 13:48
  Dr. Valerie: So I always talk about plants and plant predominant, but it doesn't mean vegan, but just more plants.
• 13:56
  Carrie: Incorporating more plants in our diet can be really beneficial.
• 13:57
  Carrie: You had mentioned that health was often the back burner for parents.
• 13:59
  Carrie: Have you found why that is?
• 14:01
  Dr. Valerie: I think it's just something else on our to-do list, right, we're so busy dealing with everything else and there were so many.
• 14:05
  Dr. Valerie: We're juggling all the things right, as parents, and we're really focused on our kids and wanting to help them.
• 14:11
  Dr. Valerie: So it can be hard to incorporate that movement into our lives and to prioritize, like stress management and sleep, obviously, especially with young kids.
• 14:19
  Dr. Valerie: But even when kids get older, we know that sleep is still disruptive for parents.
• 14:23
  Dr. Valerie: There's just a lot going on and illnesses and things like that.
• 14:26
  Dr. Valerie: Yeah, so I think it's worthwhile attention.
• 14:28
  Dr. Valerie: We know it's important to take care of ourselves.
• 14:31
  Dr. Valerie: It's just really hard with time and yeah, that makes sense.
• 14:35
  Carrie: As far as small shifts that we can make, are there any?
• 14:38
  Carrie: Are they mainly in line with the key pillars, or what does that look like for parents?
• 14:44
  Dr. Valerie: Yeah, I think the first place to start which is where I would start with clients is looking at time and energy management.
• 14:50
  Dr. Valerie: So looking at, like, where are we spending our time?
• 14:52
  Dr. Valerie: And because often we think we don't have time, but if we actually take a close look, we have more time than we think Like we do spend.
• 14:57
  Dr. Valerie: Most of us do spend time like scrolling on social media and spending time watching TV and all of that, and which is great to do.
• 15:03
  Dr. Valerie: I'm not saying we shouldn't do those things, but sometimes we spend maybe too much time in those areas and we could maybe reclaim like 20 minutes to do something that will be more replenishing for us or will bring us a little bit more self-care and more of the things that keep us well.
• 15:18
  Dr. Valerie: So, looking at your time and I recommend doing like a time audit even, where you could even keep track of what you're doing for the three-day period, just to see exactly, like, where your time is going and then looking at energy and what's going on in your life and how much energy do you have right now?
• 15:34
  Dr. Valerie: And is there a way to focus on what I call like energy givers as opposed to energy takers what brings you energy in your life, adding in more of those and then removing whatever you can.
• 15:43
  Dr. Valerie: That takes away your energy, and everyone's a little bit different that way as to what energizes them and what depletes them.
• 15:49
  Dr. Valerie: So those are some areas to start around time and energy and then after that, looking at those four key pillars and then just picking one to start and then looking at some small key changes in that pillar would be, where I'd recommend starting.
• 16:02
  Carrie: And as far as when we're looking at children and modeling these pieces for our kids so they don't grow up and think the busy society is what we live in?
• 16:10
  Carrie: Do you have anything that you share with your kids as they're growing?
• 16:15
  Dr. Valerie: up.
• 16:15
  Dr. Valerie: I think it's making family prioritizing.
• 16:17
  Dr. Valerie: Family time for sure is important in our house and the weekends are that for us.
• 16:20
  Dr. Valerie: Both my husband and I work full time and we've got relatively busy week schedules on a weekly basis, with the kids being in school and our works and everything else.
• 16:29
  Dr. Valerie: But prioritizing still like our meal time.
• 16:32
  Dr. Valerie: So every evening we sit down as family, we eat together, so that's like our family time and then we about our day and really nice time to to connect and then prioritizing weekends, so doing things as a family and we try to incorporate like movement into the weekends as well, so going for a family walk or a bike ride or going to the local pool and doing things so that the kids can see us being active as a family as well.
• 16:52
  Dr. Valerie: That's really important and I think, just talking to our kids about it too.
• 16:57
  Dr. Valerie: You know we try not to overschedule, because it's easy to overschedule with all the activities.
• 17:01
  Dr. Valerie: But, yeah, trying to talk to our kids about what is it that they actually want to do and like picking one or two things maybe and not like having something like every single night of the week in terms of kids' activities and letting them also have time to just chill and not be like on a schedule, having to do something structured, some of the ways that we look at in our family.
• 17:20
  Carrie: I love that.
• 17:21
  Carrie: I love spending the time together and honoring that time and being connected during that time not on our phones, not watching TV together, but actually playing games together or connecting.
• 17:33
  Carrie: It really shows them how we're being mindful ourselves.
• 17:36
  Carrie: I've noticed with my sensitive ones as we have had to decrease gluten in our house, decrease dairy in our house and my son he's so drawn to sugars and I've really had to try to find this balance for his mindset of learning that we can have some but we can't have a lot.
• 17:55
  Carrie: I see him in the bin eating potato chips.
• 17:58
  Carrie: Have you ever found anything with your kids in wording of how to keep it in a positive mindset versus you can't eat that you're going to get your body's not going to like that or have you found anything that keeps it in a positive mindset for these guys growing up?
• 18:13
  Dr. Valerie: We try not to label like foods as good or bad.
• 18:16
  Dr. Valerie: So like food is food, but we talk about like nutrition.
• 18:18
  Dr. Valerie: So like my eldest, who's seven, like he knows about protein and vitamins and like he knows that like vegetables and fruit are high in vitamins and they're good for him and they help make him strong.
• 18:28
  Dr. Valerie: So we talk about food in that way and then we talk about things as more I don't even know if we really use the word treat, but more as like, occasional things that like are fine to include in our diet.
• 18:37
  Dr. Valerie: But we need to focus on the like things that are really nutritious to help keep us strong and help us grow.
• 18:42
  Dr. Valerie: So we focus more on the positives and then we don't really restrict things in our house as well either, because we don't want it to be a mindset of, oh, these foods are bad and you can't have them.
• 18:51
  Dr. Valerie: So we do, we do bake together, we have dessert, but we try to just talk about in the context of like within a balanced lifestyle, and these things are things that we can include, just not all the time, every meal, that sort of a thing.
• 19:02
  Dr. Valerie: But it's hard, it's not easy and you want to have this positive experience with food, but often it can become a bit of a battle, sometimes with kids.
• 19:09
  Dr. Valerie: I totally get that it's not easy.
• 19:11
  Carrie: It's definitely been a little bit of a challenge, especially going to birthday parties, when there's always pizza and cake at every single American birthday party.
• 19:19
  Carrie: So it's definitely been a hard one.
• 19:22
  Carrie: Here's your pizza without any cheese.
• 19:24
  Carrie: So we always end up bringing our own pizza and cake or cupcake to every party.
• 19:29
  Carrie: But my son is nine.
• 19:31
  Carrie: I know there's going to be pushback as he enters into his middle school age.
• 19:35
  Carrie: I know that I'm in control right now, but I know that's going to switch gears.
• 19:40
  Dr. Valerie: So, thinking of that mindful piece, and teaching him right about having agency and picking like, having him become like responsible for his choices and explaining to him around what the?
• 19:49
  Dr. Valerie: I guess the reasoning is behind why you're restricting or like why you're avoiding certain things in terms of his health and looking at the positives right, what that gives him.
• 19:58
  Dr. Valerie: Yeah, for sure.
• 19:59
  Dr. Valerie: But it's always it always shifts as kids change and grow, especially to get closer to those teenage years.
• 20:03
  Dr. Valerie: I know it can be challenging.
• 20:04
  Carrie: Yes, and we're starting to think about going back to school here.
• 20:07
  Carrie: We actually go to school next week, which is really early in Colorado.
• 20:11
  Carrie: This is just.
• 20:12
  Carrie: It's still hot.
• 20:13
  Carrie: I don't know why we're going to school, but I'm thinking in my mind.
• 20:16
  Carrie: Okay, school lunches are coming and that part is always hard to try to balance all of that.
• 20:21
  Carrie: But there I had been chatting with a mom about sitting down and eating lunch once and she said you sit down and eat lunch, you have time to sit down and eat lunch, and I think just that mindset for moms it's like we're busy but sitting down and having lunch and just breathing maybe not even listening to a podcast, but just like sitting down and not doing anything but eating and focusing on what we're doing.
• 20:47
  Carrie: That's a huge mindset.
• 20:50
  Dr. Valerie: So important and we actually digest our food better just by being present and taking more of a time to chew and, yeah, to be there with our foods.
• 20:57
  Dr. Valerie: It doesn't take that much time really to mindfully eat, but I know it feels like we don't have the time sometimes.
• 21:02
  Dr. Valerie: Yeah, it is so important.
• 21:04
  Carrie: I'm always the last one to finish eating, my daughter and I, because we do mindfully chew everything about it.
• 21:10
  Carrie: Yeah, it's so funny, do I wanted to ask you what is your passion, valerie?
• 21:14
  Carrie: What's your passion as far as in your career and life in general?
• 21:19
  Dr. Valerie: Definitely health, like I think from a young age, I've always loved health and so that's why I do what I do.
• 21:24
  Dr. Valerie: And looking again at health from, like a holistic way and looking at the whole person, that's really, yeah, key to me and, through my own challenges, like just coming back to those foundational pieces has been really key to keeping me healthy and thriving.
• 21:36
  Dr. Valerie: So that's what I really love to do and I think, being in the phase of my life now I'm in my late thirties Like I love helping other women in a similar life stage because, yeah, I feel as women, we're always giving so much to others, so I like to help women get back to themselves and that's what I'm really passionate about right now, yeah, and then I think, just, and I have, my kids are seven, four and four, I have twins, so the it's really important for me to be there during this stage of their lives, this, this, yeah, the stage where they're just young and they want to be with me and just enjoy that as much as I can.
• 22:07
  Dr. Valerie: So finding that sort of delicate I don't love the word balance but yeah, integration of like work and life and family and just focusing on the key things that are really important to me at this life stage.
• 22:18
  Carrie: I think that's really honorable, how you took your background and created something for yourself where you feel like you're making a difference in people's lives.
• 22:26
  Carrie: And you're looking at the preventative health piece too.
• 22:29
  Carrie: For so many people where we always often focus on the end piece, it's really lovely.
• 22:36
  Dr. Valerie: I love hearing people's stories and connecting.
• 22:38
  Carrie: That's wonderful.
• 22:39
  Carrie: Thank you so much for being a guest for us today.
• 22:41
  Carrie: We appreciate it.
• 22:42
  Carrie: My pleasure, I was so happy to be here.
• 22:44
  Carrie: Well, that's a wrap.
• 22:45
  Carrie: Thanks so much for tuning in.
• 22:47
  Carrie: Changemakers.
• 22:48
  Carrie: This is Keri, and I just wanted to send one more reminder.
• 22:51
  Carrie: If you haven't done a review for us, five stars and a little few words about what you've enjoyed in our podcast episodes we would really appreciate it.
• 23:00
  Carrie: One other thing if you guys would like to ever message me, I would love any questions you have or any feedback.
• 23:06
  Carrie: At info at hearttoheartlifecom, we also have a brand new website which we're super excited to share.
• 23:13
  Carrie: It's hearttoheartlifecom.
• 23:16
  Carrie: Thanks so much for tuning in and happy life, happy times.
• 23:20
  Carrie: Changemaker families.