• Common myths or lies we tell ourselves about balancing work and life that causes us more stress.
• The role Caribbean culture plays in the experiences and struggle.
• Things that we can start doing today to self correct or re-frame how we approach work life balance.

Transcript

Hello friends, welcome to another episode of the Carry on Friends podcast, this is episode 29. Thank you so much for listening. I’m excited because–I’m always excited, I’m excited that my guests are on. So my guest today on the podcast is Eva Greene-Wilson of SocaMom.com. Eva is a mother, wife, an author and award winning mommy blogger, law student. And the topic we’ll be discussing today is creating a healthy work, life, family balance so you don’t lose yourself. You know we have our little island flair to us and little things can just add to this whole concept of work, life balance. And you know this episode which is so great talking to Eva and it’s going to be funny and I can’t wait for you to hear it.

Before we get into the interview, this episode is brought to you by audible.com. For you the listeners of the Carry on Friends podcast, Audible is offering a free audiobook download with a free 30 day trial to give you the opportunity to check out their service. Now I’ve personally been using Audible for over two years and I’m in love. One of my many favorite books include a book called Not for Everyday Use: A Memoirby Trinidadian author, Elizabeth Nunez. And this book is narrated by Ms. Nunez and it is so beautiful. You hear her little Trini accent coming through and the story is so relatable, and I just absolutely love it. I listen to it just to get that little island feel of her voice. So I encourage you to check out that amazing, beautiful story. And to download your free audiobook today, go to carryonfriends.com/audible for your free audiobook. Please connect with us; we’re on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. On Twitter and Instagram, we’re @carryonfriends. On Facebook, we’re at Carry on Friends Official. Please tell a friend, let us know what you think about this show. I’m not sure which platform you’re listening to us on right now but we’re on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, TuneIn. If you haven’t done so, please subscribe to the podcast, rate and review the podcast. It is very helpful for the show’s rank in iTunes.

And so I won’t keep you waiting any longer, here is my interview with Eva:

Kerry-Ann:Hello Eva, welcome to the Carry on Friends podcast. I’m so excited to have you on the show. How are you today?

Eva Greene-Wilson:I am great and I am really excited to be here, been looking forward to it.

Kerry-Ann:Oh my goodness. I’m looking forward to it. I’m excited about the topic today, and the topic for today is “Creating a Healthy Work, Life, Family Balance so You Don’t Lose Yourself”, because you know that trying to juggle it all, it’s easy to feel like you’re falling apart. But before we get any further, let’s tell our community of friends who you are.

Eva Greene-Wilson:Okay, well like you said, my name is Eva Wilson. I’m a mom of three, wife, second year law student and I’ve been blogging at SocaMom.com for the last five years.

Kerry-Ann:Awesome, awesome. You’re a mom, wife, law student and blogger and–did we miss something else?

Eva Greene-Wilson:Homeschooling, yes I homeschool the three children.

Kerry-Ann:I just want to highlight that part there so.

Eva Greene-Wilson:I almost–sometimes I forget…

Kerry-Ann:But that is so amazing. Now you’re doing all of these things–personally, I’m being honest, when Ethan has to go to daycare I feel peace because I get some time for myself. So how do you–how are you able to do all of this and still be sane and chirpy, cheery and just always sprinkling your goodness? You have book clubs, you have the blog. How are you able to do all of this?

Eva Greene-Wilson:Well some of it is my “me time”. So getting out of the house and going to class is kind of like “me time”. I love to learn; I love to find out about new things. So going to class and getting out of the house and not having the kids up underneath me is like a break for me. So it’s not like all the time. So when I’m in class, they have co-op which means they go and hang out with other homeschoolers and stuff like that, and so they get a break from me. So nobody is always on top of the other person all the time.

Kerry-Ann:That is awesome. So blogging is your “me time” and law school is your “me time”. What happens when you’re homeschooling? How does it work? Because in my head, you know you have this subject, you have a little break time, and how are you able to all three of you or four of you because it’s the three kids and you, how are you able to create a schedule that you’re not being mommy and you’re being the teacher? Does that make sense?

Eva Greene-Wilson:Yeah. Well my youngest–they’ve all been to brick and mortar schools, so it’s not that they aren’t–I’m a very structured person for the most part. So when they come to me to ask questions, their questions have to be well formed and specific. So now that they can read and they can navigate a computer, it’s not all on me to teach them everything. So if they have a question, they know they just can’t come to me and say I don’t understand because that means that you have not read anything, there’s not a single word on that page that you understand, the whole thing was written in like Spanish and you don’t speak–I mean that’s the only reason you could come to me and say I don’t understand any of it. So they have to read then do their own research if they don’t get it, they can ask each other, they can talk about it, but by the time they get to me, it needs to be a well formed and specific question. So I don’t re-teach anything. So there’s that and that saves a lot of time for them and a lot of time for me because it’s frustrating when the way that I’m saying it isn’t working for them. So when they find it for themselves, you know they can come to me for understanding. They say, “Okay mommy, I read this. Does that mean X, Y and Z?” And then I can explain, but as far as just you know reading to them, I don’t do all that. I’m just going to be honest, I don’t do any of those things.

Kerry-Ann:Alright. I’m asking because you know what I love about you is just homeschooling isn’t something that is not unpopular, but you don’t hear too many Caribbean parents doing homeschooling. And so in my head, you think of the mommy mode where you say, “go siddung, tek up a book”, and you do all of these things.

Eva Greene-Wilson:Well that’s basically what it sounds like, I’m just going to be honest. On a lot of days, that’s what it is like because a lot of it is reading and a lot of it is them having discussions and things like that and I have to be able to do my own studying as well. So yes, you’re not going to be just running around the place and taking out toys and–I’m not doing that. This is the period of time that you are to study and I need you to be quiet and focus on what you have to focus on and if you have a question, you can ask, but that’s about it. We don’t–because I don’t spend the whole day doing it; there’s a school day, it’s normally til 3 o’ clock. We’re done at 11:30 or 12. I can’t–I wasn’t–you know how some people are set up to homeschool like they’re kind of…

Kerry-Ann:Oh okay.

Eva Greene-Wilson:…I’m not.

Kerry-Ann:You got it. You’re like listen, this is how we’re going to do it and it’s going to work and it’s working.

Eva Greene-Wilson:Yeah. I’m not the one that’s getting down on the floor. I’m not taking out blocks. I’m just not that mom. Sometimes I wish I was that mom because it seems like all the other mommy bloggers are that mom. And I just have to do what works for me and my sanity, and me and my sanity says you’re going to be quiet and your work until 11:30 or 12 o’clock and then we’re going to have lunch and move on with our lives. I can’t do this all day.

Kerry-Ann:Right. I’m so glad you said that because sometimes I feel like wow, I should be doing more with my kids and I’m like you know that’s not working. It works for other people but that is not going to work for me at all. I’m so glad that you say that because I think part of the pressure, going back to the topic of work, family, life balance, it’s that we take cues from other people as to what we think we’re supposed to be doing. So what do you think are like the top three common myths or lies we tell ourselves about balancing work, family and life that causes us more stress?

Eva Greene-Wilson:Oh, the number one is that we can do everything. And it’s just not possible to do everything. I mean you can do a lot and if you’re really focused, you can get a lot of things done but you can’t do everything. And you see other people and you’re like they must be doing everything, no they are not. I guarantee you if their website is perfect, their living room is disgusting, if their kids are all clean and everybody’s hair is done, you are hovering over their bathroom toilet because their bathroom is gross. I mean there is – nobody’s absolutely perfect. It’s just not even possible. The next thing is that fun stuff can wait. You know you always say okay, the kids want to play a board game and you’re like you know what, I really need to get this blog post done. I’ll get to it. And then the kids’ bedtime comes and you say okay I’ll do it tomorrow, but then the next day they have ballet or they have this, they have that. And that board game never happens and then eventually they stop asking. You know work can wait, that blog post can wait. You could have done it earlier or you could do it early in the morning or something like that, but the fun stuff, the spontaneous stuff can’t really wait, and that stress and that guilt that comes with not doing the things that you are really meant to do. So I say everybody needs a break, you just get that fun stuff out of the way, you do a board game. And at first, somebody like me, I have a lot of stuff that I want to do. Board game is not necessarily at the top of my list, but when I finally just say okay and I give in and I do it, I have a blast. It’s like you have so much fun and the guilt, you might feel bad because you didn’t get your work done. But the guilt that you feel for not getting your work done versus not spending time with your family, they are completely different feelings. So if you got to pick one…

Kerry-Ann:Have fun.

Eva Greene-Wilson:Have a good time.

Kerry-Ann:Yeah. You know I thought about that the other day because the kids have a Wii game and they have the Just Danceand I’m like yeah, I want to do my Just Danceand after I finish editing this podcast, but I want to do this Just Danceand I never did the Just Dance. The whole time we were snowed in, I had plans to do Just Danceand none of that happened. So yeah and I feel guilty, it’s just like oh man, I didn’t get to do it. So those are really great points. We look at others thinking they are doing everything but they are not, something is being sacrificed and we’re just…

Eva Greene-Wilson:Something has to be because they have the same 24 hours that we have.

Kerry-Ann:Right, right, right. So we should just really focus on what we can get done and not really look at what Eva is doing or what Kerry is doing, let me just focus on what I have to get done and what keeps me happy and my family sane.

Eva Greene-Wilson:Oh yes, just stay in…

Kerry-Ann:Your lane.

Eva Greene-Wilson:You can congratulate people for what they are getting right. You can ask them how do you get this thing done, but you are not them. They are always going to have something different. They have their own shortcomings. They have their own special talents, things that have happened to them, habits that they have that you don’t have that is going to make what they are able to do different from what you are able to do.

Kerry-Ann:Right, right. Absolutely true; everyone has their own gifts and so we just can’t look at what everyone else have, we just have to deal with what’s on our plate. That is really good advice. I think for moms especially, we take on this, like you said this superwoman thing that we need to do everything. 

Eva Greene-Wilson:That is such a lie. Nobody is superwoman. Nobody is superwoman. It’s just not a thing.

Kerry-Ann:It’s not. So like let’s talk about like some of the challenges that you’ve had with balancing work and family and life and how you’ve overcome them. Because we all have some challenge and sometimes you just get so consumed in the fact that we didn’t get to do it or we’re not doing this, that we don’t focus on other things. So what are some challenges that you’ve had and how you’ve overcome those challenges.

Eva Greene-Wilson:Well I am a perfectionist which can be crippling sometimes. It’s like if I can’t get everything done, then I’m not going to do anything. Like I will look at a project and be like that’s going to take four days, I only have two days so I’m just not going to do it at all. And then you feel bad because at the end of the day, you’re like I really could have tried or I could have gotten part of it done or I could–you know. So to overcome that, I started making manageable lists because I had these unrealistic lists that look like, you know when they open up a scroll and something just hits the floor and keeps going? So I had lists that look like that which means I was never going to finish it. So as a perfectionist, you look at that list and you’re like oh, well I just might as well go to sleep because I can’t.

Kerry-Ann:Yes. I want to clap because that’s just how I’ve been dealing with it. It’s like I see Mount Everest and I seh alright, mi affi go up that, but man I don’t think I want to go up that. Alright suh mi just ago siddung and figure out how I’m going to go up that. And that’s how I feel or I look at Mount Everest and I feel overwhelmed that it’s Mount Everest, and it’s my list. I feel so overwhelmed I’m like you know I’m going to lie down, I’m going to sleep.

Eva Greene-Wilson:Because you get tired looking at the list.

Kerry-Ann:Yes, yes, yes.

Eva Greene-Wilson:And you call yourself re-evaluating when you’re actually hiding and taking a nap. That’s what you’re doing.

Kerry-Ann:Seriously, that’s how I feel. I feel like man I have so much things to do and I feel like I have to do it all in one Saturday.

Eva Greene-Wilson:That means that you didn’t see anybody, you didn’t do anything, you didn’t socialize, all you did was do that one thing. And there’s always a next thing and a next thing. So what I do is I make smaller lists. I say okay, I’m going to do three things and if I actually get those three things done, I feel great. Now it might not be everything that I needed to do for that day, but I told myself three things and I did those three things. I feel good about it. The next thing is I set reasonable goals. So I used to say you know what, I’m going to do 10 videos today and I’m going to edit all 10 on Saturday and then I’m going to upload them all on Sunday. And then Saturday comes and I’m like I just want to sleep because just the idea of getting myself hyped up, getting myself ready, planning to do all of these things; make sure my hair is done, make sure my face is done. And then the day comes and I’m exhausted. If I had just said, you know what Eva, do one video.

Kerry-Ann:The thought of the task before you even get to it is overwhelming.

Eva Greene-Wilson:It’s exhausting. It’s like you just can’t take the pressure that you’re putting on yourself. It’s not even like somebody else–it’s not even outside pressure.

Kerry-Ann:I’m so glad you said that Eva, we’re soul sisters. I was freaking out because I had all of these things that I had to do, all of these things and then somebody said to me, “So the deadline that you can’t meet, who created that deadline?”  Me.”So why you can’t move it?” I could. “So then why are you stressing? Nobody else don’t know about the deadline other than you.” 

Eva Greene-Wilson:Exactly.

Kerry-Ann:But like you said, it’s the perfectionist thing; we’ve created this deadline and we’re going to stick to this deadline. We just hold ourselves hostage to it. Oh my goodness.

Eva Greene-Wilson:One of the other things that I did was make sure that other people know what my issue is. Because your friends can only help you if they know what your problem is. So I have people around me that they can see me starting to shrink or they see me starting to be like okay I need a nap. Do you really? Because I think it’s 11 o’clock and you woke up at 8, I don’t understand. Why do you need a nap? It’s a Saturday, you’re not tired. What is wrong? Do you have something that you’re avoiding? So I keep people informed about what my issues are so they can recognize them and they can help pull me out of those things and be encouraging and things like that. So when you say that you’re always upbeat and happy, it’s because there is somebody who is making sure that I can cope. A lot of people want to hide and say I can do everything and I’m not going to tell anybody about my problems or my shortcomings, but if you don’t say anything, nobody can help you. So that’s why I think it is so great that you do podcasts and stuff like this because there are so many people who just don’t want to say I can’t do it or I’m afraid or I’m tired or I’m a perfectionist.

Kerry-Ann:Yeah, I really like that telling off – having someone else hold you accountable and so they know. I think I have a few people around me but I also feel like being honest with yourself is the first thing, like even admitting that alright, I got this problem. Because you’ve recognized that some people will just not admit that they cannot balance and keep it all together, or what do you think? Maybe we’ve been told that balance is this really even scale when balance really – maybe that’s not it. It’s like a see-saw or they call it teeter totter, like when it’s work its work and everything else kind of fallback but when work is off, then you just – like you said, when it’s family time, it’s family time and when it’s work time, it’s work time. And balance doesn’t mean that it’s even all the time, you just have to know that when you do too much work, it’s time to play or when it’s too much work, it’s time for the kids – that type of thing. So I really like that, I’m going to try that. I know what my shortcomings are, trust me. You list half of them already.

Eva Greene-Wilson:See, see sometimes you just need to hear it said back to you, you’re like oh my gosh.

Kerry-Ann:Yes that’s me, you know that’s me. And when I start freaking out, like when I shoot you off these emails, like Eva oh my God, I’m having a problem with who I am, and you’re like think about this. I’m like I got the answer, I just need to calm down and stop overreacting.

Eva Greene-Wilson:The funny thing is I know how to answer those because I have shot off those same emails to a friend and they are like girl, I’m going to need you to just dial it back just a little bit.

Kerry-Ann:But that’s what being honest is about. Work, life balance or family balance is about being honest about what is and what isn’t, because if we’re not, then we can’t get the support that we need. So that’s so awesome. Now being that you are the Soca Mom and Carry on Friends is all about the Caribbean American perspective, what impact, if any, do you think being Caribbean American plays or the culture plays in the struggle for us and work, family, life balance?

Eva Greene-Wilson:I think it plays a huge role because as a woman in our culture, we have a lot pressure to be certain things. So if you are a professional woman, that doesn’t release you from having to clean your house or being able to cook and then actually making something. You know what I’m saying? Or people being able to come by your house whether or not you just got off work, you don’t tell people no. You don’t say I can’t do that right now or I need to take a nap or I need to rest. That doesn’t really exist for us. You know you always have to be kind of the life of the party, you can’t be tired or cranky or you can’t appear to be lazy which means you can’t really sit down when company is there.

Kerry-Ann:I just want to say, like you’re saying everything, so many things – I’m like gwaan.

Eva Greene-Wilson:So it’s like you can’t – you being a professional, the difference in American culture at least for some people that I know, people will give you that excuse to say oh she works all the time, she needs a break. That has nothing – it’s like you chose the work, that does not release you from being the wife and the mom who does everything, who sews up somebody’s uniform if something – who hems the pants, who does…

Kerry-Ann:Iron.

Eva Greene-Wilson:…all those things, iron the clothes, wash the clothes…

Kerry-Ann:Cook every day.

Eva Greene-Wilson:Cook, hello! No such thing as leftovers, can we talk about it? So one of the great things I’m going to be honest about being married to an American man, is that those expectations are not really there, not inside the house. He doesn’t – we share our household responsibilities. So nobody is immune from doing laundry, nobody is immune from making dinner.

Kerry-Ann:Oh, that’s my house too.

Eva Greene-Wilson:And everybody basically has to pitch in because you don’t want to see me passed out somewhere, laid out somewhere because I’m overwhelmed. But yeah I think a culture plays a lot into it for, not necessarily for me, inside my house, but you know if a relative comes over and something is out of place, I feel that pressure. And then there is also okay well you know, you are not skinny, well you’re not fat enough, well are you eating, eating too much. The kids say something that they don’t agree with, but where they get that…

Kerry-Ann:Manners from.

Eva Greene-Wilson:What kind of friends you have? It’s like you almost can’t win. So one of the things that Caribbean women need to be able to do is release themselves from having to be everything.

Kerry-Ann:That is so true.

Eva Greene-Wilson:That is the one – now a lot of us have the internal thing, but for us there is an external thing. There is that expectation of full on homemaker and if you choose to work outside the home, oh well, you still have to do everything.

Kerry-Ann:I feel – so similar to your household, my household is the same thing. Everything – my husband can cook, he can clean, he can do the laundry, blah, blah, blah – he could do that. I don’t feel the pressure from him to be this. My pressure comes from growing up in Jamaica knowing that every Saturday morning we got up early and that house clean from top to bottom before 12 o’clock. And it’s like there is this expectation that I have to do the same thing and I’m looking at my house like maybe I’ll get to the bathroom today, maybe.

Eva Greene-Wilson:That’s what I tell myself. If I can get the bathroom and the kitchen, I’m good. And the wonderful thing is now that my son is 16, he gets the bathroom and he gets the kitchen and I’m good. You know what I’m saying because I don’t care what does it, it just has to happen. But other than that, I have released myself from that external pressure. If somebody calls and says can I come by tomorrow? The answer might be no because I might not be able to do it. I might be taking a nap. So you know when people say oh I’m not doing anything, yes I am doing something, I’m sleeping at that point.

Kerry-Ann:Sleep is important, extremely important.

Eva Greene-Wilson:Sleep is important. The people who really know me and love me, they give me notice. They don’t say oh I’m up the street, they say I’m going to be in your town on February 17th.

Kerry-Ann:Yes, yes I need notice. Because then you know what we do is when people come over, “excuse the house”. You start making excuses and then it’s like all these pressure, the anxiety just to have people over because the cushion is out of place or the toys spread out. You know I have a three-year-old so now I just walked past him with the toys on the floor. I don’t even bother because it doesn’t make sense. Because I realized that I was yelling at him to pick up the toys for no other reason other than you grew up knowing that it’s not supposed to be spread apart, but he’s playing with them so that’s what he’s doing. And what if somebody comes over? Just like how you remember they say what if you get in an accident, you must have on clean underwear. At that point, I don’t think nobody cares if the underwear is clean.

Eva Greene-Wilson:Nobody is going to be like – it’s not going to be in your obituary that she was a good woman but her draws were nasty. I mean that’s not…

Kerry-Ann:Right, it’s not going to happen. But it’s like you are right, we have to release ourselves. My big thing is the cleaning, like I just backed away from it. I can’t do the everyday cleaning. I used to get up early on Saturdays, clean, clean, clean the house from top to bottom and at the end of Saturday I’m too tired to enjoy Sunday. I’m like you know what I could do the best I can, wherever get to, get to. So yeah, releasing ourselves from the cultural pressures of wife, daughter, houseguest…

Eva Greene-Wilson:Oh my gosh, let’s not, let’s not even go into the wife – let’s not. I didn’t even get that far. I stayed in the house. I didn’t even think about aunty and mom and…nope.

Kerry-Ann:Yes, yes. Oh my goodness.

Eva Greene-Wilson:And asking you well is your husband, did he eat – first of all, he’s grown and I think he can find the refrigerator if he needed to get something to eat.

Kerry-Ann:Yes my grandmother, I love her so much. And whenever she comes over and she visits, she’s like Niko* nuh hungry? Yeah, if he’s hungry, him go eat, don’t worry, he’ll eat.

Eva Greene-Wilson:I think – or the time starts to get late, it’s about 5:30 and there is nothing boiling and they’re looking at you like what’s going to happen?

Kerry-Ann:You know they do that, but again, it’s from their cultural perspective in their time. We are in a whole different time. It’s so interesting that we are from different islands, different backgrounds, but the experience is still the same. Oh my goodness. So what’s one thing that someone could start doing today to kind of correct and reframe how they see and approach work, family, life balance?

Eva Greene-Wilson:Well as far as the family side of the goes, I would say to ask your family what they need from you because you’d be surprised. The things that you think they need aren’t at all what they want from you. You might think oh, I need to make sure that every piece of clothes in the house, your kids might be like I have three favorite shirts and if those three shirts are clean, I’m good. You might find out that – like my kids like to cook. They know how to cook all three meals. So if I never get off the couch, they will eat. So if I’m beating myself up about oh I didn’t make dinner on time or I didn’t get started on time, they don’t care anything about that, because if they’re hungry, they’re going to make themselves something. They’ll make it for everybody and get plates and everybody’s going to eat. What they want is to have their dance party after dinner. They want us to turn on the old-school music and dance with them, that’s what they want. So while I’m beating myself up about one thing and I’m feeling terrible about not doing this thing, they are like well we just kind of want dinner over with so that we can dance before bedtime. 

And then as far as work goes, I would say to get rid of the time wasters. For some people, it might be Facebook, for other people it might be that extra 30 minutes you take for lunch. Because you get home and you bring that guilt of not getting your work done, home with you. So even if you don’t bring the work home, you bring that bogged down feeling home and then you are off for the rest of the time. And you have that worry just kind of hanging over your head when you’re supposed to be – have your mind clear and be having a good time with your family. You’re still thinking about the work that you didn’t finish any feel bad because you know what so-and-so’s newborn baby looks like, but you didn’t get to the things that you were supposed to get to. So as far as work goes, I would say get rid of the time wasters. And as far as home goes, I would say find out what they actually want.

Kerry-Ann:Right because we might be, like you said we might be doing things that it doesn’t really matter to them and then for work, let’s leave work where it is because we can deal with whatever is happening at work the next day. So I have another question really. So for those of us who are living in a whole new economy where you and I, we are content creators, everyone has a side hustle or a business and they are an entrepreneur in some kind of form. So what advice would you give to someone like me who has a full-time career, content creator, is a blogger, doing a podcast and having a side hustle, what do you – what tips or what advice would you give to someone like me in terms of balancing work and life? Because as women, I know that we – in addition to the roles at home, when he comes to business, we also take on these motherly type roles and try to do everything too. So what advice would you give for us?

Eva Greene-Wilson:I would say to make sure that you prioritize because you want to save yourself – you know people ask you what’s the most important thing and you say well everything. No, that’s not true because you feel different if you miss doing a blog post about something that was a really hot topic and you missed out on some views versus missing your kid’s recital. Those are two different things. Or missing date night with your husband because you had to work late. I mean those things are not all equal. So I would say to prioritize, find out what’s really important to you and to plan for that first. So if you find that on your list of priorities, your husband is way up at the top and you look at what your calendar looks like and you have no time carved out to spend with him, then something is off, you have to re-evaluate that, you have to fix your calendar. So re-work that schedule to really reflect what your priorities are. So I would say look at your calendar and match that up with what you’ve told yourself is most important in your life, and if those things are not parallel and they are not matching up, then you need to re-evaluate your calendar.

Kerry-Ann:Right. That’s awesome. I think having a priority is just going to – and doing them in small steps. Like you said before, where you had that scroll, maybe we should make it a post-it.

Eva Greene-Wilson:I mean – and that’s actually a great exercise now that you mentioned it. You could take post-its and put the top five things and then just stack those up on the wall and remind yourself every day. If God and your prayer life is first and that’s up at the top and you haven’t prayed in six weeks, then maybe you should think about that. Put that somewhere where it can remind you; you’ve got God, you’ve got your husband, you’ve got the different things that are important to you, you’ve got your family, and just put it somewhere where you can see it and remind yourself. So the post-it thing is an excellent idea.

Kerry-Ann:I tell you, post-its all over the place. I am going to be like – well not Mary Jane levels but…

Eva Greene-Wilson:No, don’t put the stuff that she – because she got problems, we don’t want to put that on the post-it.

Kerry-Ann:But it’s prioritizing and really great advice. I think I am going to try prioritizing on a weekly basis, so make them smaller as opposed to – there’s certain things that are always ongoing. If God, family; husband and kids are always going to be the top three, so then we just have to figure out the other two things to prioritize for the week. That’s a great idea, I love that. So Eva, any last words of encouragement to our audience who are still – who might be listening and saying yeah that might be all fine and good but they don’t know what mi have to deal with or they might say that dem husband, mi nuh have nuh husband – like what last words of encouragement because regardless whether you have a husband or not, we all have different challenges and it’s not to minimize those, but I find that perhaps there’s some common ground in the things that we experience, something to let people know that they are not alone.

Eva Greene-Wilson:I would say that you are enough. Even if you don’t think you are enough or the world is telling you that you have to be better and faster and smarter and more productive. And it’s the new year so they are telling you need to be thinner and you need to be healthier and everything. You have to be different from what you are, but the thing that gets me to not crawl into bed and stay there for days is to remind myself that I am enough. I have enough, you know what I’m saying. You have the skills to do what you want to do and if you don’t have those skills, you are smart enough to go get them. There is so much that is available to us that helps us get past needing to have everything and needing to be everything and needing to be all of those things. If there’s something that you want to do or you want to be, we live in a time where we can get that. We are so blessed that we don’t live in the 1800s. We are so blessed that we don’t live in the 1950s. We have access to so many things. And we can take advantage of those or not, but one way or the other, you are enough. You don’t have to keep up with anybody else, you just got to keep up with your own business. And a friend of mine, she said my plan for this year is to mind my own business. If you stop looking outside, a lot of that pressure goes away.

Kerry-Ann:It does, it really does. And that’s such an awesome way to kind of in the show because when we recognize that there’s just so much going on in our own lives and not to worry – like you said, leave people business alone. We get to focus on the things that we feel like we have been dropping the ball on and we might find ourselves getting more things done because now the focus isn’t trying to keep up with Eva and homeschooling, it’s more like let me just get to this homework and then we can watch Dora.

Eva Greene-Wilson:There it is, or you could sleep through Dora, whatever works.

Kerry-Ann:But it’s so true and I just want to thank you for that because the pressure is real sometimes and we can’t help it, but just to re-center, I love that, I’m enough. I’m doing, at all times, I’m doing the best that I can so I’m enough. Oh my goodness. Yes. So Eva, thank you so much for being on the show. And everybody, please check out SocaMom.com. She has amazing exercises and activities for kids, connecting with the culture. I’ll have all of that in the show notes. And you will also see different links to what her children are doing, they are becoming little content creators and they are doing really awesome jobs doing that. But don’t watch what Eva is doing, don’t watch it, just be entertained, but don’t feel the pressure. I don’t. I love it but I don’t feel no pressure at all to do what you are doing or the kids are doing. I can admire it and it’s an example, but I don’t feel any pressure to keep up and you know maybe that’s where we need to kind of adjust, say you know what, it’s good, but I don’t need to do it, I’m going over here until mi ready, I reach over. But thank you so much for being on the show Eva.

Eva Greene-Wilson:And thank you for having me. I had a blast.

Kerry-Ann:Me too. So until next time folks, walk good.