Are you feeling lost in the sea of motherhood? Are your worried that you are losing yourself and who you were? Listen in to some soul searching for moms with my special guest, Payton English!
Oh my goodness guys, do I have an episode for you today. I have a special guest and her name is Payton English. She is a mom, business owner, and a pure, spunky ball of energy. Her no nonsense attitude and strong will power can be felt far and wide. She has gone on her own soul searching for moms journey and has made it her mission to take soul searching for moms seriously. Take a listen to her journey and you can find all of Payton’s info in the show notes on the podcast.
Question: Tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do and your life as a momma?
Well, I became a mom at sixteen, so that was an interesting way to start out being a mom. I had her when I was sixteen and I actually left my school but I decided to do online school and so I stayed in school. I didn’t fall behind or anything like that because my mom had my brother when she was 17. So, we have generations of teen parents in our family. I was determined not to drop out of high school or do anything like that so I stayed in school but I just switched to online. Then, I eventually went back to my regular high school because I suffered from depression and anxiety and I’ve always had depression and anxiety but after I had her alone and I had her in the winter time. So, I was at home with her all day, every single day, trying to do school work as a teenager, and also trying to be a parent, and she had colic. So, she was a colic baby so she would just cry all day and all night and nothing ever made her happy. So, it was brutal but I finished school on time and I graduated with honors with my class and that was a goal of mine for high school. So, I did that and then I went to college, graduated college two years ago now, got a job in the field that I went to school for and ever since then I have just been doing that. But, it just wasn’t enough for me and I put aside everything in my life basically when I had her and I worked so hard to do everything just right so that’s kind of been the path that I have been on the whole time and now I’m finally figuring out my own life and the things that I love to do, the way that I want to live my life moving forward at that point on so that’s kind of where I’m at the moment. She’s 7 now and she is crazy, she also has ADHD and it is a lot. It’s a lot to hold on to. That’s just a little about me.
Question: What is the drive/purpose behind The Unveiled Life?
I started The Unveiled Life and kind of to give a backstory behind that is that when I was in high school for our senior year we had to do something called a senior project. We had to do some sort of volunteer project in the community and think of a problem that you want to solve in the community and then come up with a plan for solving it and then present that as your senior project. Obviously I ended up choosing teen pregnancy so I went with that. But, I didn’t go necessarily along the lines of don’t get pregnant and like practice safe sex and like do all these things, and birth control, and whatever normally a lot of those campaigns go by. Mine was more along the lines of my own story and encouraging teenagers to yes be safe and to not get pregnant as a teenager. Obviously that is the ideal situation but mine was more along the lines of if you do find yourself in that situation you don’t have to be a statistic, you don’t have to drop out of school, and work a job the rest of your life and that’s just going to be how it is going to be. Mine was more along the lines of empowering teenagers to take control of their lives and if they do find themselves in that situation, although it’s not ideal, what they can do to not become a statistic. So, I started a blog, I did some fundraisers, I donated to some other teen moms, just a couple different things that I did worked really well for the time being but I was in college, so I fell off the wayside of doing that because I was focused on bettering my life and my future. So, I’ve always been into blogging and been into helping people like moving them along on their own soul searching for moms journey and helping them become the best version of themselves and so after college and after finding my regular full time job, I just felt that I was super unfulfilled and I couldn’t understand why I was unhappy because I had done everything that everyone asked me to do or like said that I should do or what the world said I couldn’t do. They would say you can’t graduate high school because you’re a teen mom. I said well I’m going to graduate high school and I’m going to graduate with honors and you can just stick it. That’s basically been my attitude anytime someones tells me I can’t do something, I always say well watch me. Which has always been my attitude which is not always the best attitude in some respects, but whatever. I was always along that path, doing things that people said I couldn’t do. All of the things that people tell you you should do as you become an adult and so I did those things. I had a 40 hour a week job that I was working at and it was in the field that I went to school for and it was in the area that I wanted to work in, but I wasn’t happy. I thought that once I had that steady job I would be happy like that was the key. And once I got there and I realized I was even more unhappy than when I was working part time at McDonalds and going to school. Basically I went on the soul searching for moms journey of figuring myself out. I decided enough was enough and all the thing I was supposed to do but I was just sick out it. I basically blew up my whole life like I said screw everything and I’m going to start doing things I’ve always wanted to do that have been on my list of things I want to try or the things everybody says I’ll get to it someday. I want to do those things. I still obviously took care of my child, I still went to work, I was still with my boyfriend now fiancé, and I did those things that I had to show up for but other than that I decided I wasn’t doing anything else for anybody anymore because it was always for somebody else. Everything was always for somebody else and so I just blew everything up. I went and got my nose pierced because I wanted to get my nose pierced for the longest time. So, I literally ditched work on day and went to get my nose pierced. So, I texted Tyler and said I was on my way home. He said why whats wrong because I never NEVER leave work like I am that person and I said I’m gonna get my nose pierced. And he said okay sounds good I guess. We walked up to the tattoo shop up the road and I got my nose pierced and that was the beginning of everything. So, then we started doing all kinds of other stuff. We went camping for the first time, I had never gone camping as an adults before. We went and bought a Jeep Wrangler even though we absolutely probably couldn’t afford it and we just went and did it anyway. I wanted to vomit but it was mine and I’ve always wanted one. So, I just went on this soul searching for moms journey. Then, after I started doing these things, I realized that so many other women are in the same position especially moms. Because everything is for everyone else, we do everything for everybody else, and we sacrifice what we want to do because it is always how is your kid doing, how is your relationship, how is this, whatever. It is never about how are you like how are you doing and not like the I’m doing good everything’s fine. No, like how are you actually doing and so I saw so many women doing all the same things I was doing and I just wasn’t happy. So, I wanted to create this space to encourage women and to help them move along and encourage them to do the things that they really want to do and to live a happier more fulfilling life and more joy. I feel like we don’t have to sacrifice our happiness and I think we can do everything. That sounds overwhelming but I feel like we can do everything and we can have little bits of everything that we want. I just want to create this space for them to go to and help them through this process of soul searching because I went through it alone. I went through all this stuff without anybody else and it was lonely and I didn’t understand what was happening and I didn’t know if I was being selfish or doing the wrong thing. So, I wanted to be able to create this support for them and have space for them to go to for their own soul searching.
Question: You talked about ways to help ground yourself. How would you recognize whether you need that or not?
I come up with three different things on recognizing if you’re not connected with yourself and if you need to reground yourself. Those three different ways are feeling unsettled, feeling unfulfilled, and being fed up with your life. With the unsettlement in yourself, it is more physical. So you just have this tightness in your chest or a weight on your chest and you don’t know what it is. Being unfulfilled is a deeper aspect of that where you feel the tightness and you feel like you don’t have a purpose. Roaming around life aimlessly. You’re doing everything that people say your are supposed to do or what will make you happy, but you still feel empty and lost. Like something is missing in your life. You don’t know where to go. The being fed up with your life is like the final straw. It’s when the other two things happen and then you get to the point where you’re done. You’re at the end of your rope. Everything irritates you and you feel guilty about it. It’s stuff that you might not be mad about if your needs were being met. If you’re feeling any of those three things or all of them, you’re really far down the rabbit hole then that is the sign that you need to reground and recenter.
Question: What do you feel is the most important aspect of parenting?
Obviously, taking care of yourself is definitely the most important thing and it is counterintuitive to what most of society says. I feel that it is so important because everything starts with you. You take care of your kids, you take care of your household, you take care of your relationship/partner, you take care of the animals, you take care of your job, everything comes from you. I hate to be clique but you can’t pour from an empty cup. I know everyone says that but it is true and I just can’t reiterate it enough that you can’t take care of other people if you don’t take care of yourself and I think it’s really hard to grasp that especially as mothers because everything is about everybody else so then you feel guilty when you take care of yourself. It is so important for the fact that we are raising our children and we are teaching them how to live their lives. We wouldn’t want them to live like this so we need to show them the way.
Question: I kind of what to circle back to The Unveiled Life. Is there a process that they sign up for or is there steps that they work through or is just like you meeting them where they are?
It is a combination of those. I am running a masterclass right now that is me digging into the deep stuff and walking them through the same thing that I went through. It is for the moms and women who went through everything and peeling back the levels so they can live a life they love and are excited about. I want to give them the tools they need to uncover that and go through the process and then set them up so that they can live the life that they really want. That is the big thing that I have going on. My content is more about meeting them where they are and kind of giving them advice. But if they were to work one on one with me it would be all about meeting them where they are at. For my group programs I usually stick to a certain area and help them through that. It is really a combination of both to how I work with them along with what is coming up in the world.
If you or someone you know would love to hear more about soul searching for moms or just soul searching in general, I encourage you to look up Payton and see what she has to offer. I really enjoyed learning more about soul searching for moms as I feel that it is a topic I care strongly about. My mission is to help moms and all parents feel a sense of peace and confidence about their parenting skills and to let everyone know that we are all human, we all make mistakes, and we can choose to learn from them and continue to help our children grow.
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