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Gabi: You're listening to the Everyday Placemaker Podcast. This is the show where we talk about the cultivation of a life giving home for ourselves and those the Lord has called us to steward. Grab a cup of tea and join me at the kitchen table where we have real conversations about homeschooling, homemaking, motherhood and living seasonally. I hope you'll be encouraged to grow deep, deep roots into place so you can plant, tend and harvest right where the lord has you. Let's get started. Well, hello. Hello. Thanks so much for coming back for another episode of the Everyday Placemaker podcast. So I just got back from the Wild and Free Conference in Franklin, Tennessee. If you're not familiar with Wild and Free, I will put a link in the show notes. Ainsley has done just an amazing ainsley and all the people that have contributed to Wild and Free over the years has created this beautiful movement for homeschooling mothers that is so much more than a it's well it's a community, an experience. It's so many things I have to think about words to describe it. But I thought I would share a little bit about my experience this past weekend coming fresh off of the latest conference. So Wild and Free has several two conferences a year and of course they have these monthly bundles. Bundle is essentially kind of like a print. We'll call it a magazine. It's almost like a little portfolio of encouraging articles from homeschooling moms to encourage you as a homeschooling mom if you happen to homeschool. But I thought I would just hopefully I'll say it's a quick episode, but I wanted to share three reflections. I have so many others but I'll condense them to three because I kind of feel like these three little reflections just are really just the cusp of just the very edge of my experience. This know, there I went to two Wild and Free conferences this year. I went to the one in California back in April, I think it was April, May, March, I don't know, it was in the spring. And then the one here in Franklin I came across Wild and Free the movement, we'll call it a movement, I guess back in 2015 and actually started my own little Wild and Free group. So Wild and Free is kind of the umbrella if you will. And then there were moms that wanted to cultivate a comparable similar community in their own geographical location and so they became group leaders. And back in the day all you really had to do was just say, I'm going to create a group and you'd create a group and you'd kind of advertise it and families would come. And so that's what happened in 2016. I created a group and had about 20 ish families that would meet regularly. And the idea being that we homeschooled differently, we educated differently, our children, we believed in just deep connections in cambiviality and nature right being out wild and free, not constrained by the concepts or the parameters that really most of the world believes about education. We believed in educating our children differently and that's ultimately what kind of brought us together. So here we were in 2016 and started the group, but in 2018 my husband was diagnosed with brain cancer and so I had to ultimately let the group go. Caring for my husband was a full time job and it took the juicing, the protocols, the supplements, all of the experience took all of my time. And so I think I kind of left the group and let it go. And the beautiful thing about that is that someone else took it up and she built it and it was a beautiful community until life changes in her life also allowed her or required that she move on. And so here I've just recently started a new group, like baby group, and in my area because I've since moved and obviously my husband passed away. So I'm in a very different life season as well. And I have purchased tickets to, I don't know, something like five conferences over the years. But for various reasons, my husband and my son being primarily one of them, we really didn't have community help, family help. When my son was diagnosed, well, he has a vaccine injury and is on the spectrum and so didn't really have a whole lot of support, nor did we feel comfortable because of his needs, leaving him with anyone. And so I just couldn't go. At least I gave myself reasons as to why I couldn't go. And then when my husband was diagnosed, I for sure couldn't go. He needed care and it was just not time. So this year I made the commitment. Last year, I think, as I was coming out of just a deep season of grief to say, you know what, I'm going to give a conference a try. I've purchased all these tickets. I never resold them. Apparently there's a big market for reselling wild and free tickets. Now, I know I didn't know then, and so I just ultimately wouldn't go, but I went to California this year in the spring, which was kind of an interesting experience, only because time, it was an investment of time and resources. I was there for such a short time and I learned that, as with so many other things in life, that you will get out of something what you put in. But I wanted to share three reflections and a little bit of a comparison for me personally on both of these conferences as I attended both of them this year. The first one is I'd encourage you in whatever season you're in, to say yes, even when you feel like saying no. I think I've shared in other episodes. I am an introvert. Like sometimes even as I've gotten older, it has pained me less, but almost as a severe introvert, I would say I am very shy, intrinsically shy. Do not like to be the center of attention. And I am in counseling for several reasons but something I am coming to learn and even some business peer groups that I never felt as though my voice mattered when I was younger for different family dynamics and experiences. And so on top of my kind of innate shyness, already compounded with being told that I didn't really matter, my opinion wasn't worthy. It created some severity in my introvertness. Introvertedness. And so saying no when I have been invited to various things has always just kind of been the default. And in the past few years since I've been speaking at homeschool conferences and been able to speak to groups of women, saying no is already just it's just the ready made answer. I don't have to manufacture anything. It's just already no. It has really stretched me to say yes. And it's really, I believe, even been a pressing of the spirit to say yes because it has taken me out of myself and made me realize that it's really not even about me to begin with. I think that deep introvertedness, I've made it about myself. And when you say yes, even when you feel like saying no, you actually make it about other people and not about yourself. So I went to California by myself, didn't know anyone there, didn't have any connections there. Everyone has always talked about how beautiful the wild and free community is that you may go there a stranger, but you come back a friend. It was not exactly my experience in California. I went by myself, but I didn't put into it what I was hoping to get out of it. I went in, attended the conference talks, and they were beautiful, of course, but it wasn't until the second day when I started showing up both for myself and for the people around me, that I made a few connections. And I wish that I had spent more time with those connections. I met with some other moms that ultimately, and just to clarify, wild and for you, really, the conferences are just for moms. You can take a nursing child, but our children are not allowed to attend. Husbands are not allowed to attend. It is for you as a mom. And so I met a few moms back in the spring and sat with them on that second day and had lunch with one of them. Which is really hard for me because I over people very quickly. I need to de people at these events, kind of go back, usually have lunch quietly by myself to kind of recharge, and then I can go back into the conference talks. Conferences are just really hard for me, even though I speak at them every year at homeschool conferences, they're kind of hard to take from. So, you know, I did that. I de peopleed probably more than I needed to because I wasn't with anyone. I didn't really make any real lasting connections. So when the Franklin conference became available, I bought tickets. I don't know why I bought tickets because I was trying to say yes when I felt like saying no. But my mindset was a little bit different. I thought, well, how do I go to this conference and actually make the connections that I want to make? I'm going there by myself. Although I knew that a lot of my online friends women I've had on the podcast, women that I have spoken and shared a stage with, women that I have met in some small groups of other homeschool speakers I knew they were going to be there, and I knew that I was going to connect with them. But I also knew that they were going with their own groups. So I wasn't going to be an active part of that connection in the sense that I wasn't spending the weekend with them. We promised each other we would connect, we'd say hello, we'd hug each other's necks, maybe share a coffee if there was time, but I knew that it wasn't going to know a deep kind of permeating, lasting connection. We were just saying hello. And so I went there alone again to Franklin and at the last minute found an airbnb because I was on the fence about it. Yes, I had the ticket. Yes, I was seeing on social that there were moms that were in need of tickets. There was a waitlist of 1500 women. Oh my friend, there were 1500 tickets purchased for the event and 1500 on the waitlist. It's a very well attended event with a makers market and all kinds of lovely things. And of course, Franklin, Tennessee is just the most delightful, charming town if you've not ever been. Just fun shopping and cute things to do and adorable coffee shops and an amazing, probably one of the most amazing bookstores that has been there for a really long time. But yeah. So anyway, I knew I wasn't going with the group and all of these women were, and so I thought, what do I do? Who am I going to sit with? Doing something on your own is already kind of scary, right? But saying yes even when you feel like saying no, which is observation number one, reflection number one, to say yes even when you feel like saying no is scary in and of itself. So I get there and because I've recently started a new group, a new wild and free group in my area, I'm a group leader. And so they were having an official event for group leaders on the Thursday preceding the day before the official Wild and free conference was starting. And I had the choice of making that one, but I had last minute things here at the house and ultimately didn't make so because remember, I was still on the fence about just giving the ticket up. So I didn't even book an airbnb, didn't book a hotel. Everything was sold out. But ended up finding a last minute airbnb and said yes when I felt like saying no and decided to go. There was a girl and shout out to Ashley if you're listening, but she was also a group leader. Got onto the group leader forum and said, hey, listen, I'm not coming in for the official group leader event. I'm coming in later. Would anybody like any other group leaders that want to meet up? And I thought, okay. Yes, I do. I feel like saying no, but I'm going to say yes, and yes, I'll meet up. I even met a girl that was offering me an Uber from the airport, even though I had a rental car that ultimately didn't work out and had to Uber everywhere. That's a whole nother podcast episode, another conversation. But what I was able to do was cultivate relationships with women I had never met. And so that's kind of number two. Be open to building new relationships in whatever season that you're in. I didn't know any of these women and said yes. And so we met up, and ultimately I stayed with them all weekend, not in the same airbnb, but stayed with them throughout the conference, saving seats for each other, sharing meals together, talking about books, our love of books together. But I was delightfully surprised. I surprised myself by saying yes when I felt like saying no and by being open to building new relationships. Most of the women I connected with, a few were older. Most of them were younger than I was. They were with their own groups. But here's the thing about wild and Free moms that I feel like I'm one of those which will lead me into point number three, but they school differently than I do. But yet there's something about the inclusivity, the openness. I can call wild and free a container, but it's not a container because I think a container insinuates boundaries, walls, shape of a rectangle, a square. The women in this community are so open. And if you come to a wild and free conference, you will automatically be one of these you are in. We all want to belong. We all have this deep desire to belong in a marriage, in a relationship, in being a daughter or being a part of a running group. We all have this desire to belong to something, because I believe we want someone else to be witness to our life, right? We want to align with something, with someone, because we all deeply desire this connection that we were made for. And so I went into this thinking, I'm going to build some of these new relationships. But I was never the word blessed is tossed around, I think. So kind of flippantly these days. I was humbled by these women. I was grateful for these women and I was blessed by these women that I shared the weekend with. I only lament that I didn't have more time with them. They held space for me in sharing some of just the change and the tumult that I'm currently experiencing, honestly. And I'll talk about this a little bit in other podcast episodes as I process some of the changes that are going on. They're beautiful changes, kind of, but they're hard, which kind of makes them, I don't know right now, just sticky. They're just sticky and muddy and a little bit chaotic and uncomfortable. And this weekend was they held space. Yeah, this weekend was a place for them, for me. They held space for all of that chaos. And it really sadly wasn't only until the end, after all of the busyness at the conference and rushing, and we have to rush to get lunch and rush to get back and do all of this, that they were opening themselves up to me and I to them. And what I discovered was that they are just like me, and I am just like them. Even though some of them were younger, some of them were older, and I'm not talking like decades. They weren't in their early 20s. They were close in age by the time you get to my age. I guess it's all relative, right? But we were like each other, and isn't that what we all want to be seen? Each of them had stories. Each of them shared with me. You know what? I'm lonely because of this reason. And hey, I have felt isolated because of this reason. And sometimes that's just really hard to navigate. I was so grateful, I was so humbled that they shared that with me, and I was able to share that with them. It just was beautiful. It was beautiful. I was so humbled. And that leads me into point number three, which is to find your people, find your people. Do whatever it takes to find the connection that you need as a mother. Because I think that in the throes know, when my son was younger, I don't know if it's still a thing, but there used to be kind of like this little gym activity kind of venue called Jimboree, I think there was a clown named Jimbo. And before my son was even walking, we would take him to these little music events. And being a musician, I believe in that. Anyway, they had like little gymnastic kind of little events. They weren't gymnastic. It was music and play, creative play. And a lot of it was hard for my son. With the vaccine injury came a sensitivity to sound, so he often had to wear headphones. There's a whole story there. But I met a group of women, a group of moms, and we formed this small group, essentially, and anytime that we would all take the same classes and then we would meet outside of the group we would go to play dates and splash pads and museums and libraries. And we were always together until a season changed, right until it was time for them, for the kids to go to school, to make education decisions. We knew from the beginning we were going to home school, and so we had already taken kind of that trajectory, and they moved their children into public school. And so naturally, over time, those relationships and the commonality that we shared dissolved. It kind of faded away. I run into them from time to time, and that's beautiful. And we're able to kind of catch up and connect. But the season of that connection that we had, it was a chapter kind of that was over, and we were starting a new chapter, and they were starting a new chapter in their lives, and so we moved on. And then we found another group of families and another group of moms, and they were wonderful for a time. They were also homeschoolers, and we did things together, and they were great. But the passing of my husband marked almost a different closing of one chapter and a starting, a beginning of another. And so I know my son feels this because I've seen this with some we still get together with some of our old homeschooling friends, and he has felt a shift in his interests versus the interests of his friends. We're just interested in different things. My son is very much and I hopefully believe that I had a very small part to play in this, cultivated a love of books and story. And so some of his friends are book characters. Those are the ones that have stayed with him. And we don't really have TV. We have a TV that has a DVD player, so we watch reruns of DVDs whenever we want to watch a show. But he doesn't know a lot of the characters that are currently in mainstream television or movies. And so the friends of some of those friends are TV characters and miniseries characters, and my son has book friend characters. So there's already this kind of natural dissolution between some of those relationships. And I feel it too, after the loss of my husband, the things that I kind of had forefront in my mind just are not important anymore to me. There's been a season change, and so I've had to be open to building new relationships. But because I say no when I really probably should stretch myself and say yes, it's been kind of hard. I am looking for friends. Let me just be transparent and honest. I'm looking for deep connections comparable to what I started this weekend in franklin at wild and free, and have been encouraged to bring that back here to my own community and shift this brand new group that I've created in my community. Shift it a little bit to really focus more on building those relationships so that I can find my people, because it's hard. I'm in my mid 40s, unless you grew up. And I still have some childhood friends, but they're across the country and they have their own families. That's the thing about motherhood, right? It's hard to not make a relationship that is not about your kids or to be involved as couples or families or well, what is a homeschooling widow to do? I need friends too. And so this weekend for me was kind of a jumping point, a starting point, a brand new chapter, a new season, because they were open to me and I was open to them. And what happened for me was kind of a heart shift. I'm so grateful for the connections that I made, even though they were just two days. I felt like I got some of the deepest, most fulfilling bear hugs as we were each all going to our separate ways, getting on planes. I was so humbled. I was so humbled. And so girls, if you're listening to this, know that you resonated deeply with me this weekend. I was so grateful to know you, to connect with you, and I can't wait for next year's conference. We are already planning renting a house and coming in a day early and staying a day later and just really making just kind of extending those relationships. I was very, very grateful. So I'll wrap that up here because it apparently is not a short episode now, but I really want to encourage you, whatever season you're in. I'm in a season right now that I kind of alluded to earlier. There's a lot of change and it's getting really hard. In so many ways, I'm kind of ready to throw in the towel. And in so many ways I see that I just can't. I have to just keep pressing forward. But mercy, isn't that the journey of our soul too? Right? How many times have you not wanted to give up? I need to say yes, even when I feel like saying no. I need to be open to building new relationships, even in my own home, right? Even in the small sphere that I sometimes can encapsulate myself in. And I need to find my people. You need to find your know, here we are going into in September in Texas. It's not really fall. The calendar may market, but we don't actually get coats and well, let's not call them a coat jackets here, really until about mid December, and it lasts about a month and a half. But I think that we slowly feel it. We're moving into at least I'm seeing holiday decor out and about. It's mid September at the time of this recording, and already I'm seeing Halloween decorations out on people's lawns. People craved that seasonal change. If you're in a season of change, as I am, in a different way, I hope that you'll be mindful. I encourage you, I challenge you to say yes when you feel like saying no. Even in the sticky, even in the hard be open to building new relationships. I was so blessed, so encouraged, so fortified by just saying, okay, they're younger than I am. If you are older than I am, what can I learn? Can I just be your friend and will you be mine? And the answer was a resounding yes on both sides. And it was a gift to me. And do whatever it takes to find your people. I think so many times we struggle in life because we accept what we are told or think we have to accept, and it produces this kind of marginal mediocrity. And don't you want more? I want more. Don't you want better? I want better. That requires an effort on your part, requires one on mine, for sure. To go out and find my people. Yeah, be you and find your people. They'll come to you and you can go to them, too. It can work both ways. But anyway, I'll wrap that up here. Thanks so much for listening. I'll put some links in the show notes about Wild and Free, my Instagram handle. I created just a quick reel. I want to create ten more reels about it. But it meant so much to me. It really had an impact in a time right now where I needed a little bit of space for hope, needed a little bit of space for friendship, and those girls were there for me. So I encourage you to follow me on Social and Instagram. You can find me at Nunhurried living a n unhurried living And I'll put a link to Wild and Free in there. Ainsley has created just a beautiful movement. All the speakers were wonderful. Have a reel over on Instagram that'll hopefully show you just a small sliver of how lovely it was. And yeah, follow me on there. I hope to connect to them in my stories almost every day, and I hope to connect with you there. Bye for now.