Still Becoming One
Still Becoming One
In Anxiety and In Calm: When Anxiety Invades Your Marriage with Abby Foster, LCSW
Anxiety sometimes feels like a blaring smoke alarm in your life; it may be your own anxiety or your spouse's. You're not alone. On this episode of Still Becoming One, we are thrilled to sit down with Abby Foster, an LCSW from Lancaster Therapy Center, to unpack the nuances of anxiety and its profound impact on daily living and relationships. Abby illuminates the line between normal anxiety and the type that disrupts your sleep, relationships, and overall functioning, shedding light on when it might be time to seek professional help.
Ever wonder how to truly support a spouse dealing with anxiety without making things worse? We explore how to move beyond well-meaning but ineffective strategies to discover how couples can work together to battle anxiety.
Welcome to the Still Becoming One podcast. We are Brad and Kate.
Speaker 2:In our more than 20 years of marriage, we've survived both dark times and experienced restoration.
Speaker 1:Now as a licensed marriage counselor and relationship coaches. We help couples to regain hope and joy.
Speaker 2:We invite you to journey with us, as we are still becoming one.
Speaker 1:Let's start the conversation. Hello everyone, Welcome to Still Becoming One.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We are so glad to be back today and we have another friend to introduce you to. I think we're gonna have a great conversation today. We're excited.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's gonna be really good. We're going to talk about anxiety, which is something I think everybody can somewhat relate to, especially if you live through 2020 and the pandemic.
Speaker 1:I don't know 2024 is going right up there.
Speaker 2:Well, it keeps right on going, so I think this is going to be something that everybody can get something from, which is really cool. Today we have our friend Abby Foster joining us. She is an LCSW and works here locally where we live. Her practice is called Lancaster Therapy Center and we've gotten to know her a little bit through a church we used to attend together, bit through a church we used to attend together. So we are really excited to have Abby. She's been married to her husband for 12 years and they have two kids together. So welcome Abby.
Speaker 3:Thank you guys so much. I'm really happy to be on with you yeah we're happy to have you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, abby and I had spent some time talking a couple years ago just about counseling and practice, some time talking a couple years ago just about counseling.
Speaker 3:And yes, because abby and I met at vbs, right helping at church and I was telling somebody that yesterday how I got just I was supposed to just be like a greeter very quickly got promoted because someone couldn't make it. I was so grateful that kate was there because I was like I'll help you, you just tell me what to do it was. It was like I'll help you, you just tell me what to do.
Speaker 2:It was like the wild wild west that morning but we made it.
Speaker 1:We made it, it was a good time yeah. Vbs causes anxiety, I think oh definitely, absolutely. So one of the things that I have appreciated about you, abby and honestly I've referred people to you for is one of your specialties is really helping people figure out this whole idea of anxiety and dealing with high levels of anxiety in their life and how to process that. I would love just to start because, look, we're all talking about anxiety. We were joking about 2024. There's so much stuff going on in the world right now, right.
Speaker 1:Like you can't turn on the news without getting some anxiety. Sure, how does somebody know like, okay, this is normal, what everybody has, and this is maybe something where I need to get some help?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, sometimes I'll say something to people where they think like that shouldn't bother me, or I shouldn't be feeling like that, or, you know, I just that I should just be able to let that go, and I want to say like, well, would you have a pulse if you did that?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, it's just a very normal reaction and there's parts to anxiety that are really really good and really really important and we need them. And that's where that fight or flight response comes in, where it's there to keep us safe. Do we need to flee from somewhere, fight for something? Do we need to kind of just freeze and ground ourselves for a little bit? And so it can be a very good resource for us. That, you know, god gave us and programmed us very, very wisely to have that response that we could just not really think but act. And in other ways, I think it helps us. You know, stay on point with things. If you're a little worried or anxious about something, you're probably going to prepare for it, or you maybe won't forget it, or you'll pay a little bit more attention to it, and so there can be these really good components of being anxious or having stress.
Speaker 3:What we want to be looking for is when is it spilling over into other things and when is it becoming more consuming? So if you have something coming up that you're worried about and you're wanting to prepare for it and you're paying a little bit more attention, and you know, maybe you've decided I'm not going to go out with friends this week, or I'm going to, you know, skip my kids soccer game because I want to pay attention to that. That's, that's great, you know, but when it's, I'm not eating and I can't sleep and that's all I can think about. And so what we really want to look for is where it's more consuming. It's spilling over into different categories of life.
Speaker 3:So is it impacting my relationship with my spouse, with my kids? Is it impacting my performance at work or at school? Is it causing me to kind of withdraw from aspects of life or things that I enjoyed? Is it impacting my sleep? And then also, what we want to look for is when we have this like impending sense of doom or catastrophe. And so, you know, there's, there's these components of like oh, I'm worried, that might not go well, or I might mess up, or I might get that wrong. Well, yeah, we're humans, we're going to not nail everything all the time, but when it's like this catastrophic type thinking, that's another, I think, signal to people that it might be something that's worth looking into a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's good, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:That's really helpful.
Speaker 3:So, seeing the fact that it's impacting your life in a negative way, it's holding you back, it's it's stopping some things for sure, yeah, Cause again, it can be used for good and really help us and, you know, challenge us and and get us focused. But it can be used for unhelpful times as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and we've certainly seen how. You know we do a lot of work with couples and still becoming one is all about, you know, growing your marriage together. We've seen a lot of times where one spouse is going. I don't understand why you're so nervous about that or why you're so focused on this or the news or what you know, whatever it is and just doesn't get what's going on. How do you, how do you explain to somebody without anxiety what it's like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's. That's a big frustration. I have a lot of people that I work with and a very common complaint is someone says like can you just like knock that off? Can you just?
Speaker 1:pull it together, can you?
Speaker 3:just stop that and everything in them wants to be able to do that, but it's difficult and it's challenging. And so something that I try to do and encourage people I work with, because sometimes they'll have I don't, I don't do couples therapy per se, but I'll invite them, if they want to have their spouse come on to ask questions or learn things or try to help come up with plans of how they can be helpful, because, you know, like anything, there's independent battles, but it's nice to have somebody to lean on or to support you with or to kind of redirect you in a helpful way, to support you with or to kind of redirect you in a helpful way. And so what I think can be really helpful is just if you're not somebody that struggles with anxiety is getting a little bit more information of what is good, because I think a lot of times people feel like it's just this like meh, like emotional thing, and I'm just choosing to be it. But that's why I like to explain to people the concepts of fight or flight and what happens in our body. And then it's this, you know, boost of adrenaline, and it's almost like the fire alarm that you can't just say false alarm, it was just a pumpkin spice candle, like you don't have to go off. It's like the alarm is going and you really have to wait for the smoke to clear, to be a little bit more clear minded about things and to be able to come out of it. It's not a snap your fingers, just knock that off, right.
Speaker 3:So I really like educating people on what's happening inside our bodies, like invisible, and I think that that helps others who don't experience a more clinical level of anxiety understand a little bit more, experience a more clinical level of anxiety, understand a little bit more, and then again going over some tools that are helpful for them, because the good news is that both people want the same thing. This one wants to knock it off and this one wants the other one to knock it off, sure. And so how do we help the partner you know the spouse to say what can I do that's productive to help and support them and encourage them and have that anxiety go down, where a lot of times it kind of does the opposite of it just angers people more in an already difficult state.
Speaker 1:It riles people up, right, it hits those buttons.
Speaker 2:Well, it can start to bring out anxiety in the other spouse, and I think that it just. It becomes then this vicious cycle, not that anyone's intending it to be, but it just becomes, yeah, so I think that's really helpful, because we can be helpful, try to be helpful. We can try to be.
Speaker 1:I think probably the first thing like you're talking about is almost recognizing the places where we're not, where we're hitting each other's buttons and where we're aggravated because of their. Oh my gosh, can't you just stop thinking about that? Well, and what?
Speaker 2:from your own story is making this so uncomfortable, and I think it's got to be hard to see your spouse struggle in any way. So there's that piece, but that piece of I want you to knock it off. I'm always curious like where does that come from, right? Instead of just you know, just kind of trying to understand what was what. What was it like if you were anxious in your family? Were you told to just knock it off?
Speaker 2:Was there space for you to talk about it. I think there's something in a spouse's response that is important for them to understand, for them to be able to understand, interact with it differently.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think too, part of it is just that lack of understanding where that's kind of like I don't know what else to do for you, so I'm just going to say stop, stop, right, right, yeah, yeah and I'll say that to people about anxiety, because the way that you treat it or come about it seems kind of backwards, where people it's like, well, let me do this for you then, or let me take care of this or take this off your plate and those things are really appropriate and really wonderful and helpful in some circumstances, but they're not in anxiety, and so it can be a very difficult thing because sometimes you're doing maybe the opposite of what you know, an instinct, and the right thing to do in a different situation is so you're saying that even going to your spouse and going, oh, here, let me help you with that, or oh, let me take that off your plate so you don't have to worry about it, could aggravate the anxiety not help.
Speaker 3:Yes. So if you're, if you're fearful of something and there's this impending doom and I don't know, let's use something maybe like um, I have to, I have to meet with the kid's teacher and I'm really nervous that she's going to think I, you know, I'm a disorganized. I'll use a mom, like I'm a disorganized mom and I can't keep up with their homework and I don't know what's going on and I have this parent teacher conference and I'm so nervous about it. Or maybe you had a bad experience with a previous kid, with that teacher.
Speaker 3:I don't know whatever, but you're worried about it and your husband says I'll just do the meeting for you, then that's super helpful because it's just avoidance at that point. And then what happens when you have to email the teacher, or what happens when there's the school field trip or there's something else right, or not the teacher but the soccer coach, or it's just it's going to keep spilling over. And so, yes, there's some circumstances where taking things off somebody's plate is counterproductive and enabling and like fueling that anxiety more.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:That's really good.
Speaker 1:So it that you know I think you just hit the two probably most common responses from a spouse is either tell them to stop it or try to help by taking it off your plate. So if both of those are wrong, what's the right answer?
Speaker 2:I don't think they're wrong, they're just not helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And not always right. It's difficult. Yes.
Speaker 3:Because sometimes, if you know, like the example I gave earlier, if I have this big thing that I'm trying to do for work, it might be really helpful for me to say to my husband hey, I'll take the kids to soccer tonight. You can spend time doing that right. So there's certain things. Spend time doing that, right, so there's, there's certain things. What we're looking for again is these patterns and habits, things that are filling over more than they should, or growing, where it's not just the teacher Now, it's the soccer coach, now it's like um, there are kids, parents I don't know like they might judge me so you drop them off right when it's spilling into more things. Those are times that avoiding that is not helpful and so, in some circumstances, encouraging or maybe doing something with them well, I'll attend the meeting with you and I'll sit there, and if you get flustered, I can jump in where there's support there or in some circumstances, it's well, let's go over the questions beforehand and then then you're all prepared.
Speaker 3:And if it doesn't go well, we can talk about rescheduling and trying again. Where there's some sort of supporting you or I'm helping you, I think some encouragement to can be helpful of just you know well, you know you're capable of this, or if you mess up like it's no big deal you know where you're kind of not minimizing their feelings but minimizing how big they think the reaction could be.
Speaker 3:And and sometimes too I've said to people, because you know again where we we tend to do things and we're feeling feelings of you know, anger or frustration, or we're short on time and I don't have time to navigate who's going to meet with the teacher on the zoom, because we didn't plan for this and I have my own meeting.
Speaker 3:So, you know, what we want to kind of think about too is just these advanced plans. And I'll say to people like, ask your husband or ask your wife or what, what can they say to you that will land softly and like warmly and not tick you off, where you know if they're doing something and it's like you're doing it again, or this is one of those things. You know that's that's going to be jarring for somebody. Where what can we say in that moment? And and I'll say, have a conversation, where is it? I think this is one of those times or here's this really good moment for you to kind of push through this.
Speaker 3:Or this seems like a time that we've talked about in the past where I want to be supportive to you and I want you to do it, where you're kind of saying, hey, here's your chance and let's do this, but it's it's a prescriptive like this will land nicely sort of way. So I think that just practicing communication around it and advanced planning where it holds both parties accountable, I think that that can be a really helpful strategy for couples too. But really we want to just keep helping them expose themselves to that and get that practice and maybe then even going back and I'm really proud of you that you did that or that was really awesome or letting them know that was so helpful for me that you were able to manage that meeting on your own. Thank you for doing that.
Speaker 3:I think, that some like gratitude on the back end is always a good thing too, sure yeah.
Speaker 1:Fantastic.
Speaker 2:That's really good.
Speaker 1:What all of the like? I want to add one piece, because you said a minute ago that all like, when there's that fog of fight or flight, a lot of things don't work yeah, right so the, the, I'm gonna, I'll help you through it let's, let's uh, you know, role play it. Let's like probably isn't gonna happen in in that, in that space, yes, and yet that's probably also the most noticeable time that somebody is anxious.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:What do you do then? Like when somebody is in that like like when someone's in that.
Speaker 3:I think the best thing to do is help them get out of that.
Speaker 3:And so that it doesn't have to be immediate problem solving and that's again we think of well, okay, this is the problem, boom, here's how we solve it. But you can't get to boom when the smoke alarm is going off. And and I'll say that to people, I use the. I use a lot of analogies when I talk to people and they've told me they find it helpful. I think they're silly and I joke with some people that I should start a merchandise line with these crazy things. That's awesome Silly things.
Speaker 3:But I think people do well with like word pictures and remembering these, because mental concepts are tricky and there's a lot of different strategies to use and try. And so I'll use the analogy of did you ever go to like? And we just had this on a family vacation, actually. I'll use the analogy of did you ever go to like a? We just had this on a family vacation. Actually, we were on the 17th floor of a building in Florida and the fire alarm false alarm went off at like 1am and it's like jarring and you know, you have a woman's voice and the and like flashing lights and it was really discombobulating. And I say to people if you think about like that smoke alarm which is your fight or flight. It's like your body's inner smoke alarm that says danger or like keep going, you can't really reach somebody. They're so distracted and consumed by that, and so we have to just do things until the smoke alarm says like okay, like I can calm down now.
Speaker 3:And so I think that that tends to be the helpful approach is what's going to get the dust to settle or the smoke to settle and not like the flames more. And that can be very much. Let's just pause this. Let's go for a walk. Why don't you go read a book? Let's go do this together. Let's talk about something else. A lot of people do well with deep breathing. A lot of people do well with deep breathing A lot of people do well with meditation.
Speaker 3:I think that deep breathing and exercise or some sort of movement are the best ways for people to come out of that. And I think a lot of times people's next reaction is to curl up in bed and for some people that works and that's okay, but I think more so what helps people get out of that is to keep moving and kind of remind yourself I'm in. That's okay, but I think more so what helps people get out of that is to keep moving and kind of remind yourself I'm in charge of my body, I can go move it, I can go outside, I can do something fun.
Speaker 3:I can cook a meal, and I also think that these are great opportunities again for couples to do together, where I'll go for a walk with you and we can talk about not this and something else. And, and I say to people to, you know, use reminiscing, um, plan your dream vacation where you're just getting out of that space and helping to pull your husband or wife out of that by distracting, by moving your body, cause again you have all these chemicals going through your body, all this adrenaline and so kind of like you would think of a reverse gas tank you want to burn the gas out. And so, moving, talking, distracting, engaging. That's why I love cooking too, because you're thinking about things. You have to measure stuff and use the oven or the stove. And where's this pot now? Where's this knife? What's the the dishwasher is? Or the stove? And where's this pot? Now, where's this knife? Is it in the dishwasher? Is it in the drawer? It's distracting, okay, and it gives you something else to focus on, but it's also nice because you can do it together.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:That's really cool. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense and yeah, I can see how that would work really well.
Speaker 1:And I think that's super helpful to even recognize there are probably a couple of different strategies as a spouse. If you recognize anxiety in your spouse, you have to be good at right. There is this place of how do I help you through it, how do we role play, how do I bring some positive reinforcement, all those kinds of things. But there's also that time of I just got to get the smoke out of the room.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah so that's super helpful. Yeah, good.
Speaker 1:What if and this could be either side. You talked a little bit of like how do you know if you need to deal with anxiety? Maybe need to go talk to somebody about it, right, like so. But again on the spouse side like there are some people listening to this, I am sure who are going this is my husband or this is my wife, like they're the ones with anxiety and I see it in them and I see how it is hurting their life.
Speaker 1:But maybe they're not able to able to or ready to say, yep, I need some help. What do they do? How do you help somebody get to that place of? Hey, maybe we need to do something here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do think that just communication is really key and I think, a lot of times, people, you know you love your husband or wife, you want to protect them, you don't want to make them feel bad, that this is impacting, but, um, you know, conflict delayed is conflict multiplied, and so, um, if you're delaying and you're avoiding something you know, maybe there's a little bit of anxiety about that there too Um, I think the best approach is just to approach it warmly, where, um, you know, most of the time it is with the most of positive intention.
Speaker 3:I don't want you to keep struggling like this and it's impacting you and you know, I don't want your days to be like this and I don't want your life to be, you know, or this to be dictating life, as much as it is Right, and again, that's one of those warning signs where it's just spilling over into all these different things and also sometimes even, you know, I, I want to learn and I feel a little unsure about what to do and I think it would be great, and I think even sometimes, if the anxious person isn't willing to, sometimes the spouse can be the one to.
Speaker 3:Just I just want to kind of go and I want to learn more about this and just what I can do and sometimes that could be a good lead into somebody else's mom, um, and just get some ideas and strategies, because I, I, I do want to say too, I'm mentioning a lot of things, but what's tricky and what can be most helpful is because everybody's different, you know, and everybody has different anxiety about different things in different circumstances, and you know there's different variables. The dog wants to make her appearance on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Oh perfect.
Speaker 1:That's perfect.
Speaker 2:We've had dogs, other dogs, including ours.
Speaker 3:I love it. But yeah, I think that you know, kind of going and showing the lead sometimes of I'm going to just go get myself some information because I want to handle this can be nice, and then they can kind of teach or they at least feel in a position of more knowledge or more. Everybody wants control, like feeling more in control in a situation that feels very out of control.
Speaker 1:Of course, of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's that happens. A lot is that, that feeling of out of control, and then it's really easy just to kind of go to putting our head under the covers because, we don't know what to do next. So and that's somewhat where I feel like this kind of stuff is just so helpful of like, hey, there, there is help out there. Right and um, I think a lot of people don't get help because they fear. The only answer is now I'm going to have to be on some medication forever.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, and it's frustrating, you know. You hear, I hear from a lot of people that I work with who maybe worked with somebody different or maybe tried something, or they heard like a friend had done something, and it's not a great experience, and I want people to know that therapy is more than just oh gosh, I'm so sorry to hear about that and like I'm here to support you and try to breathe it, you know, and it's important, if you have anxiety or if you struggle with and I work with a lot of people who have obsessive compulsive disorder, which is under the anxiety umbrella too, and that's something a lot of times that can be very impactful on a household, and so you know it's like, oh, that must be really hard.
Speaker 3:Or you know, I had someone the one time too, like she would get so anxious and she said she was encouraged to drink ginger ale when that happened and I just thought no.
Speaker 3:I would encourage people to seek out you know what you're looking for or what would be helpful, but also to know that there is therapy out there that will provide education on what is happening. You know in your body how your brain works. I work to really teach people a lot about how we think so distortedly and how our emotions really kind of mix up, how we see things and then our behaviors fall in place. And that's the crux of cognitive behavioral therapy is your thoughts, your behaviors and your emotions. But I think I want people to really know that therapy can be very instructional of here's your plan to go home or here's what I want you to do this week and apply this Now. You have to do that right for it to be successful. You don't just, you know, go and kind of unpack it all verbally and you know 45 to 60 minutes.
Speaker 3:And I think you can feel better after you unpack it. But you know there has to be some follow through. But I just I think it's really important for people to know that there is like actual treatment plans available If you have anxiety or if you have obsessive compulsive disorder or a phobia of some sort or you're just like struggling with stress and coping, and and it can be very impactful and helpful. And I think to some people it's like well, so-and-so told me this and I will say I feel funny and it makes me laugh for situations like this, cause I'll have people say like well, my husband said he told me that, but I'm listening to you and it's kind of like they heard it but you're you're hearing it in a different way because it's presented in a different fashion, or it's you're seeing it now through behaviors and kind of like therapy, homework that's allowing you to not just like think about it but experience it and get that buy in a little bit more. And so I just think that that's really important, that people know that that kind of therapy is out there. And if you haven't found that and you tried, I would encourage you to try again.
Speaker 3:And same thing with medication. You know you'll have people who will say, well, you should just go see a psychiatrist or go talk to your family family physician about you know anti-anxiety medication or an antidepressant, and you know there's certainly a time for medication and that's certainly a personal choice. But there's also very great opportunities. That's just behaviorally or practice, and even things like sleep, and when you're anxious you're probably not sleeping the best either. Sleep, and when you're anxious you're probably not sleeping the best either, and it's a real amazing thing, how much sleep impacts.
Speaker 3:Or are you eating correctly? And sometimes, when people are stressed, they overeat or they undereat. You have it on both ends there. But if you're not fueling your body properly whether it's not getting enough or it's getting too much or too much of the wrong things that's going to impact you too, and so there's a lot of things to look at. You know before, or either? In addition, to the desire for medication, and that's something that I think it's great to work with a professional on.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic, that's really good. Well, I you know this has been just a ton of really great information. And I wanted to just say. You know, some people may be listening to this and going oh my gosh, maybe I do need to talk to somebody, maybe there's some hope here and we're going to have your links in our show notes.
Speaker 3:You said your, your website is it's wwwlancastertherapycentercom, and then on that you can find my social medias. But on social media, on facebook and instagram, I'm just at lancaster therapy center and I I joke with people I don't know how. Um, I think you guys do your own stuff too, but I'm a woman show we do our own stuff so like the marketing is not really nailing it on the. Instagram, but so it's not the most like thriving page, but I do try to put some things up there that are helpful or, um, you know, other resources.
Speaker 3:I'm really trying lately to read a lot of books and post some screenshots from that. So if there is a book or some good resource that might be available, I try to get that on there on the Instagram highlights and a few blogs. But yeah it, I that would be great. And there's just there's so many wonderful therapists out there. You know, if somebody's struggling and they think after listening to this, it might be something worth trying, and some people, just in a few sessions, you know, they pick up a few things that they can change and really a great experience. So I would really encourage everybody to just give it a try and even if maybe the first one doesn't work.
Speaker 1:You know, try again and I'm going to plug. You know, kate, and I do coaching, you know, around the world, but it's very different and that's part of why we wanted to bring you on, because there are times that therapy is needed right, that it is. This is a diagnosis, this is something going on that you need some help with, and you also offer online, so you don't have to be here in Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, but if you're in Pennsylvania, california or Florida, right, you can offer them some help. So that's huge, right, like you can, can reach out to to people from really a lot of people, and yeah, it's nice.
Speaker 3:I recently just added Florida, which was exciting, so I'm happy to be able to reach a few more people. But yeah, and that's a great thing to to consider where if you're looking for somebody telehealth is a great option because you know you might live 45 minutes away or two hours away from someone and you can still see them. So you know, if you haven't found somebody locally, it opens up more options for people, which I think is fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. So, before we wrap up, we have some questions for you, Just life questions for you.
Speaker 2:These are just spur of the moment Meant to see what you come up with. What are you and these are surrounding marriage since still becoming one. That's our passion. What are you doing right now to keep your marriage alive?
Speaker 3:We just took a family vacation. We did this last year. Um, we took a month-long vacation and I will say we went somewhere where it's off season in the summer, so what you'd pay for like a week at the jersey shore, which, listen, I love the jersey shore but man, that's like, yeah, it's expensive now, but yeah, we just did that and that was really really nice. And you know, you, just, you kind of we escaped the household stuff of okay, we'll divide and conquer, you go out and do the weeds and I'll do the laundry and this and that, and you know, just some real nice alone time and family time and outdoors. And another thing that we've been trying to do a little bit more lately was we've tried to exercise together as a family, nice. And then I'll say my, uh, my in-laws are doing us a favor, they're taking our kids next week, so we have some date night.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. That's great. I love that. Yeah, all right. What is something that makes you laugh right now?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, probably my kids I've been, so we've been really VBSing it up this week and um, to hear, like their stories about things. Or uh, I had my daughter and her friend. They were in the car and my daughter says to her let's pinky promise that we'll be best friends forever and she has an older sister who I think is you know, experienced the shifts of friendship over time. So she's seen that and this little girl goes. We'll try. I just thought it was so honest.
Speaker 3:Honest answers yeah these kids, they come up with it, so yeah, I don't know. They're always doing something or into something that just I don't know. It makes us laugh.
Speaker 1:That's great.
Speaker 3:I something that just it makes us laugh, that's great. Yep, I agree. What ages?
Speaker 2:are your kids. My son just turned eight.
Speaker 3:He's my youngest, I don't know how we're there and my daughter's gonna be 10 in september. Okay, wow that's awesome yeah yeah, it's very cool I've always, like, grieved the the young stage, and you see, yeah, there's walking around and I'm oh my gosh, but it's so cool to see who they're growing into and their personalities, so it's just bittersweet, but yeah, it's cool to see each stage of who they're becoming and what they're getting.
Speaker 2:It is fun. I think it's fun. I mean yeah, yeah, no, for sure, all right. Last question what is something that you're doing that brings you rest, brings me?
Speaker 3:rest. I'm trying to read more and I like gardening. Um, okay, yeah, we did that a couple years ago and I like that. I like to just go out at night and water my garden and water my flowers, and I'm listening to audiobooks more lately. It's taken me a lot to not call them books on tape.
Speaker 1:Yes, I understand.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but listening to audiobooks, I love. Going for a walk, that's just, that's restful. And being outside, that's restful for me, fantastic.
Speaker 2:That's very cool. I love that. Those are great ideas. Thank you, yeah.
Speaker 1:Good. Well, we so enjoyed, you know, just having you here and giving some great wisdom.
Speaker 3:This was a treat. Thank you so much for having me. I was really looking forward to this Great, Great Well.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much and we're really excited to just continue to see everyone growing on their path of still becoming one. That's our passion and our vision, and we just love to offer a lot of great wisdom from a lot of places of saying what does it take to really keep working together?
Speaker 2:So, yeah.
Speaker 1:So thank you so much, Abby.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you guys.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. Well, until next time. I'm Brad Aldrich.
Speaker 2:And I'm Kate Aldrich. Be kind and take care of each other.
Speaker 1:Still Becoming One is a production of Aldrich Ministries. For more information about Brad and Kate's coaching ministry courses and speaking opportunities, you can find us at aldrichministriescom For podcasts, show notes and links to resources in all of our social media. Be sure to visit us at stillbecomingonecom and don't forget to like this episode wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to follow us to continue your journey on Still Becoming One.