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Motherhood asks us to do it all, but what if the real strength is in just being?
This is Leaning into Being. Erika Hanafin, mom, stepmom, founder, and co-parent hosts alongside Amri Kibbler, mother, founder, and cancer survivor.
We get it. Motherhood is beautiful chaos. And whether you're juggling babies in business, toddlers in to-do lists, or just trying to catch your breath. We're here for it. All of it, the real, the raw and the moments that make it all worth it. Each episode focuses on relatable situations, resources, and experiences to help you balance the beautiful chaos of motherhood and ambition. This show is designed for all mamas seeking community and connection in her definition of success.
This is Leaning Into Being.
Erika Hanafin (00:00):
What was stressing me out more was having this, you've got to work out at this time and you've got to get the kids out at this time, and you have to do all these things and you need to be able to meditate. And then you see, well, why don't you wake up at 5:00 AM and you're like, I don't even sleep to begin with. I'm not waking up earlier to do these things. And so what I started to really practice was, I'll just get to it. I'm Erika and I'm Amri. This is Leaning into Being, the podcast for mamas who know that real strength isn't just in doing, but in being be you, be present. Just be Amri. I'm so happy that you're here in Virginia Beach. Me too. I'm
Amri Kibbler (00:39):
So excited to be here.
Erika Hanafin (00:42):
I can't believe it. Tell me what it was like getting here.
Amri Kibbler (00:45):
Oh, well, actually this is one of my smoothest commutes ever to get here. I left the house at six 30 and when I was getting ready to leave, my purse was missing, so we had to rip up the whole house. My husband went running around looking for everything, finally found my purse and my wallet to hop in the car for my two hour commute to jump on my airplane to get here to Yo, you scooched me up at the airport. So as far as travel goes, it was pretty seamless. But I have to say from the moment that I've gotten here, I've gotten all of these little text messages from my husband saying, what's happening? Is there supposed to be a note in the bag? What should I give the kids for dinner? What do they need to do after school? It's been pretty funny nonstop.
Erika Hanafin (01:31):
Oh my goodness. The mental load is real, right?
Amri Kibbler (01:35):
It really is. And I feel like we have a plan in place. My husband and I, we've done fair play. My husband is also a super helper, I would say. He cleans up the house and he's there to do any activities, but when it comes to planning, man, he can't plan, won't plan, doesn't want to plan, and just plain old doesn't plan. But as long as I ask him to do something, I'm sorry. He's probably going to be so mad listening to this. Sorry, Jason. I love you babe. But we have a hearth, which is a digital calendar that I meticulously put everything into the schedule's there. The days that the kids needs notes sent the top of the calendar says send note, and the time that they have to be dropped off and picked up everything. But it's like instead of looking at the calendar, he sends me a text message. Does she need a note today? It's so funny, they can't even look at it. But it's exhausting, right? I'm sure you feel the same way. It's not all the doing of the things, it's the planning of the things that really
Erika Hanafin (02:38):
It wears you out. It is. I just wrote a blog post on this the other day because I was feeling very, I mean, the mental load is real, and we can talk a little bit more about even just after business, what we're going through for sure. But the multiple tabs, and also people don't realize unless you're going through it, that it's not just the doing, it's the, oh my gosh, did I forget to sign the permission slip for school? What are we going to do for dinner? Did I get the baseball bats in time? And then you get a call from school, oh, you forgot to give the right t-shirt or the lunch or whatever it, I love the books or call Love. It's worst, the dreaded school call. Yeah, you're always on a Zoom call and you see it come off and you're like,
Amri Kibbler (03:21):
Oh
Erika Hanafin (03:23):
No, I know. I got two calls from my son from Braden on Monday freaking out because he thought I packed the wrong jersey for his baseball game. But you did. But I did it, but I did have a very quick moment where I was going through all that. I had to go back to all the texts and make sure I got it right. And then I texted another mom, please tell me I didn't have a mom fail all the things.
Amri Kibbler (03:50):
It's so true. All of the planning, I know even to prepare for this, I'm only here for three days. It's like a three day trip and the roadmap, I'd be like, okay, babe, when you get up in the morning, you put the laundry in the wash, and then before you leave for work, you have to put it in the dryer. And then I'm checking in with him for every little thing. And he's great. He's actually very proactive and was running a business. And we use all the things. I use Asana to project manage all my stuff, but we were just joking. I'm just project managing myself though, because there's lots of different apps that you can use for this kind of thing like Maple, but if your partner doesn't get into them, then it's just I'm shouting out directions to myself, right,
Erika Hanafin (04:32):
Myself. It's so true. And there's so many different things, so you just have to find it. The Asana is just not going to work for me. I love ohai.ai, which is, I just voice note it and it sends me reminders. And if Ben wants to look at it, he can, but it's just there for, I don't need to go in and actually manually move things around.
Amri Kibbler (04:53):
And the notes, my favorite is the notes on the phone. I just make notes to myself and then I've gotten it out of my brain. And then I have a certain time during the day when I go through the notes and I figure out what needs to be done and where they go. Otherwise, it's the mental chatter. I keep hearing that task jing off in my head that's like, need to add a note, need to add this until it gets put down on paper or put down into my
Erika Hanafin (05:17):
Notes somewhere. Which is a good segue because I love putting things. I write my things out in the morning, my three things I need to accomplish for the day, but if I don't write them out, even if they are in my phone, it's like that mental shift. I don't really get to it.
Amri Kibbler (05:35):
I can't get it. I I need to clear some space out of my brain to be able to add in new things. Yeah. I also, I like to write them on real paper too. There's something about that I love getting the pen and crossing them off, even though I have digital ways to keep track of things, but the satisfaction of actually crossing something out on a piece of paper or a post-it note, it's good.
Erika Hanafin (05:58):
Oh yeah. Yes. I love that.
Amri Kibbler (06:00):
I feel like if I don't get my big things done in the morning, so when I'm thinking about setting up my day, I used to try to do little things. I like to cross 'em off the list, but I'm most creative and most, I feel like productive in the morning. So I try to dive into that. If I have a big creative task or a writing task, I try to do that in the morning very first thing, and then I'll head into more of my tasky kind of things.
Erika Hanafin (06:27):
What I've realized really works best for me is that I was actually just talking about this with Hillary Phelps on her podcast recently, which was that I always have my non-negotiables. And what was stressing me out more was having this, you've got to work out at this time and you've got to get the kids out at this time and you have to do all these things and you need to be able to meditate. And then you see, well, why don't you wake up at 5:00 AM and you're like, I don't even sleep to begin with. I'm not waking up earlier to do these things. And so what I started to really practice was, I'll just get to it. I know my non-negotiables, these are the three or five non-negotiables that I want to make sure I accomplish every day. And I don't put them at a specific time block because I was realizing that that was actually stressing me out even more. I know for me what works most mornings is I'll work out after I drop off the kids, but I'm not waking up earlier to do that. Right? But it gives you a little bit more of a calmer mentality you're crossing when you know those three or five that you're going to do that are not on your to-do list, those are your non-negotiables you do every day
(07:38):
And then you just slot in that time. And whether it's maybe one morning you have 30 minutes or 15 minutes or you have three little breaks, you and I love the little mini pocket breaks during the day to stand up and move around. But that seems to also, because I think we're just so overwhelmed with I've got to cross this off my list, I've got to do this, I've got to do that, and it's got to be at this time and this has to happen. And it's overwhelming. We're stressing ourselves out.
Amri Kibbler (08:07):
Yes. I kind of do the opposite though. I definitely, I know that I get up at six and so from six to seven, everyone in my family knows not to even talk to me. My husband actually comes into my room with a greening tea and puts it on the bedside table next to me and runs away. And I started, my alarm goes off and I put my headphones in my ears and I listen to a 17 minute meditation before I wake up and I take those out and I drink four sips of coffee and I do some little stretchy things in bed. And then I get up and I put on my workout clothes and my office is on a little granny cottage off on the hill. I leave the house, no one talks to me and I go up to my little thing and I do 30 minutes of something or other, and then I come back and I can talk to people. But I am so scary in the morning that everybody just completely avoids me and my husband leaves around seven. So I come back to the house, I'm awake and ready to manage the whirlwind that is getting my youngest off to school, and we get our 32nd hug and our kiss goodbye and pass the baton in the morning and then I can deal with all the other things.
(09:17):
I
Erika Hanafin (09:17):
Like the morning shift. I'm morning shift. I'm like, okay, I'm up. I'm going to their have my coffee. I'm moving things around, making everybody breakfast and bucks.
Amri Kibbler (09:28):
Yeah. So we're totally, I'm slow. I'm totally slow moving in the morning.
Erika Hanafin (09:32):
Yes,
Amri Kibbler (09:33):
Yes you are. I really am. I'm nice to you, but my poor family.
Erika Hanafin (09:39):
But I do know now to make sure you have coffee or tea first thing in the morning.
Amri Kibbler (09:42):
I do. You see me come out and I don't really talk and good eyes are kind of not open. Stumble around. Yeah, you have the tea, you're like over by the teapot this morning. And when you talked about the mini things, I actually have been doing this for a while. I started doing this this year and I love it. We were talking about snackable exercise. I've been fitting in two minutes, five minutes. Every time I go to the bathroom, I hop on my Peloton bike and I look out the window and I just cycle for a few minutes. I pretend like I'm going to another meeting and you were laughing at me when I was telling this, but I actually really do this and it's helped me a lot not to feel so stiff, but also to just keep moving during the day. We sit in front of our computers now all the time, and it's so hard to even get in the organic exercise that we were getting in when we were living in a city, right?
Erika Hanafin (10:33):
Oh my gosh.
Amri Kibbler (10:34):
I at least had to walk to work or walk out to get lunch. And in my lifetime, my life cycle, now I'm just walking across the yard to make my lunch and got to squeeze it all in. So I try to fit in three little snacks of exercise during the day, and it's even, I'll be in my dress and I cough on my bike. You pretend it's your city bike. I pretend it's my city bike and I make myself, I look out the window, I have some music on and I try to shut my brain down from whatever else it is that I'm doing. And so it's so funny. Now, I am a girl mom. I have two girls, Mari and River who are nine and 13, and Erika, when we met, you were a boy mom to one. And now I know you laugh.
Erika Hanafin (11:22):
It's wild. Wild. But yes, I was a boy mom to one and then went through a nasty divorce and came out of it in this beautiful light. Met my now husband who has two boys. So we have a blended family of three boys and a baby boy on the way. So it was like, what? In two and a half, three years we went from one to four to be in May, we'll have four boys, which is really funny because I am one of four girls, so it's the complete opposite. But I have to say I love being a boy mom, and I
Amri Kibbler (11:59):
Love being a girl mom, but it's so different. Even when I was chatting with my daughter last night and you were laughing, she was doing gymnastics and my husband was holding up a hula hoop, which is one of our new games we play, and she was diving through the hula hoop and then she was doing some little dances for us. And just the evening routine was so different and so funny. The energy is like, oh, the energy, it's like high energy all the time. Cheering and dancing and
Erika Hanafin (12:29):
All those things going on. And meanwhile, braden's up playing device time playing Fortnite, talking to his friends on his device. But
Amri Kibbler (12:39):
We picked him up from baseball and I learned about Drip.
Erika Hanafin (12:45):
Yes. Oh my gosh, that was my funniest. That was so great. So Erika, what is Drip? Okay, so Drip is this hype gear and your accessories that you add to your sports. So all of the boys play baseball and whenever they're practicing, my husband, Ben and I always joke, we're like, you've got to back up your drip. You've had to have this particular baseball lifestyle 1 0 1 gear or the bolt batting gloves that cost a hundred dollars. So you better use those gloves and swing and hit. I don't care if it's a home run, just hit the damn ball far. But we were laughing. I was teaching Amri that, oh, those are, because of course the new colors for this season are baby blue and pink. And so he was rocking these really cool gloves and I was like, you better back up that drip. She's like, what is Drip?
Amri Kibbler (13:43):
I know. And hilariously, my nephews are avid baseball players and fans. So I text my brother and I'm like, so what's Owen's drip right now? And he's like, what are you talking about? What is this? What did he not know? He didn't know what Drip was. No, but he's my
Erika Hanafin (13:58):
Brother.
Amri Kibbler (13:59):
Maybe the boys do. Maybe the boys. I
Erika Hanafin (14:01):
Should have texted Owen.
Amri Kibbler (14:02):
We had a really good laugh about it. He's like, what are you talking about? What is this drip that you speak of? Yeah, it's so different. Our sports, we've got swimming and volleyball and musical theater and tumbling, and our morning routine is so different too. We've got two hours. There's the hairstyle for the day. Sometimes it's bubble braids, sometimes there's 15 minutes to leave. And river's like, can you do box braids? I'm like, oh my God, right now, some days there's like silver eyeshadow, she's taking pompoms to do something and
Erika Hanafin (14:42):
Oh
Amri Kibbler (14:42):
Yeah.
Erika Hanafin (14:43):
And my struggle is getting them to do their hair or did you put on deodorant? Did you brush your teeth? Can you do your hair a little bit? But yes, it's definitely really funny. And I was also laughing because we were looking for tongs last night and I was like, what happened to the tongs? And then I remembered that the boys were cleaning the pool the other day and use the tongs to get the frog out. So I'm sure my tongs from the kitchen are outside somewhere. Well,
Amri Kibbler (15:14):
Different scenario. All of my kitchen stuff is always missing because river's using it for her art supply. So it's like in the paint or the glue or the slime or all of those things. So that all happens to me too. And we have an explosion of glitter. Glitter is my nemesis. I'm like, no more glitter in the house. You can't get the glitter out of anything. It's in the dog and in the carpet and it's everywhere. They love the glitter.
Erika Hanafin (15:42):
But I think that that's the difference between girls and boys is that when we'll see over the next few years, it'll be really interesting to see how your girls are compared to the boys because the boys are so active and the girls are pretty active now, but at least they're focused. Your girls can sit there and paint or do glitter and river can go back and forth, but she loves doing the same thing. Whereas the boys are like, I'm bored. I want to go back to, unless it's a device in front of them, like a PlayStation, then they'll sit all day long. But if you ask them to do anything else, forget it. Oh no. I
Amri Kibbler (16:21):
Mean, my youngest, she definitely gets bored, but my oldest is so diligent. She's most of the time if she's not swimming, she is studying and doing her homework or she does a little cooking things for herself. She does do a lot of hairdos in her room. I'll go, Hey babe, what are you doing? And she's in there doing her hair on Sunday in the middle of the day. And then I'll come back in and she has a different hairstyle. They like to FaceTime with her friends and they do their hair and then they do makeup and things like that, which is totally different. But it is interesting, as my oldest has gotten older, I've definitely felt like that the dynamic shift where there's definitely a lot more room time and we're going into the hormonal time. My husband's like, I am in jeopardy here with the three girls. There's certain times in the month where it's like, what did you say? No, what did you say? And he's like, I'm just going outside. I'm going out in the yard. I got to get out of
Erika Hanafin (17:20):
Here. Jason, I'll share with you a tip, A Ben Hannafin tip. My father used to with, he would always joke, he's got four, five women in the house, including my mom, obviously, and a dog named lady. And he always planned his business trips around the same week. So I mean for years. And we were like, why are you always leaving on the 13th to go somewhere? And he's like, well, honey, it's that time of the month. So that was his thing. He would just leave when he knew that everybody was going to be on the same cycle.
Amri Kibbler (17:55):
That's
Erika Hanafin (17:55):
A good tip. That one's for you, Jason. Hi, it's Erika and Amri from Leaning Into Being. And we know Growing a tiny human is no small feat, which
Amri Kibbler (18:07):
Is why we've partnered with our friends at Motherhood Maternity because every mama deserves to feel held seen, and yes,
Erika Hanafin (18:13):
Comfy from belly to baby and beyond. Their pieces move with you so you can focus on what matters most. Being present,
Amri Kibbler (18:21):
You can shop their latest looks at Kohl’s, kohls.com. Amazon, Babies “R” Us Canada and motherhood.com Be you, be present. Just be. Erika. How hard is it to create content while running a company?
Erika Hanafin (18:36):
Let's be real Amri. It's really hard. You've got the ideas, but turning them into consistent strategic content, that's a whole other
Amri Kibbler (18:43):
Job. Enter the content catalyst from Share Your Genius in just one 90 minute session. They help you turn your ideas into three months of high impact content, videos, articles, social posts, and
Erika Hanafin (18:54):
More. We use them, we love them. And this is your sign to finally get your content off the vision board, reach out and tell them we sent you.
Amri Kibbler (19:03):
I actually wanted to talk a little bit about some of the challenges that parents with cancer face. And I know it seems obvious that of course as you're a parent juggling so much that getting a serious illness would be very impactful. But right now there are 3 million children in the US who have parents that are actively in cancer treatment and 60% of parents that are in cancer treatment report having serious financial strain as opposed to 30% of patients who are not parents. So it's incredibly stressful, the impact on the relationships with your children, the impact on the relationships with your partner. I mean, just imagine all of a sudden going down to one income as one parent can't work and the other if they're even married. Imagine if you're a single parent dealing with all this. And if you are in a relationship, the other parents having to do all of the driving, the patient as the caregiver to all of their medical appointments.
(20:07):
So it's just incredibly stressful. And I've been doing a lot of research and talking to a lot of other parents that have been going through their cancer journey and learning a lot about what's been happening for them and what they're stressed out about and what they're worried about. So I am just very excited about bringing these conversations to the forefront. I'm going to be putting together a toolkit for parents based off of the research that I'm finding and some of these conversations that I'm having with other parents to help to navigate that journey. I love that. And where are they going to be able to find all this information? You can find all this information on amrikibbler.com.
Erika Hanafin (20:52):
I was one of those women that thought I was never going to get divorced, that it was a failure in my own belief system. But
Amri Kibbler (21:01):
Who thinks you're going to get divorced? Divorced?
Erika Hanafin (21:03):
You're never going into a marriage and you're going to get divorced in the first place. But as this type A person, that to me was like, no, everything's going to be perfect. I'm going to have this perfect marriage. I'm going to have all these things. And the reality is that 50% of marriages end in divorce and 60% of those marriages, of those divorces have children under the age of 18. Those are staggering stats. It's staggering. So you're more likely to get divorced, you are more likely to get divorced, and you are more likely to get divorced when you have kids. And then what's even more staggering, I get goosebumps all the time, is that 80% of women who go through divorce end up in poverty because they don't have access to the resources. They don't have access to balancing something as simple as balancing your budget or your financial information.
(22:00):
And so it's really staggering. And for me personally, in my journey, I kind of had a little bit of an opposite because I was the head of the household and primary caregiver. But still, even as a result of that, I have to pay spousal support. And there's all of these components that do impact my financial health so much, so much going forward. And it does add another layer. So now instead of taking care, being able to just focus on my son, I'm also still for the next, now how many years? Seven and a half years, I still have to pay.
Amri Kibbler (22:43):
Wow.
Erika Hanafin (22:44):
So I find that one of the things that really got me through my divorce was doing a lot of research into how can I get through this season and once I get through this season, what is going to benefit me the most? So that was creating little voice notes on my phone, which was little moments of affirmations and gratitude. You can do this. This is a season, you can get through this. And so now I have all of these little voice notes that kind of are motivational to me, looking at really streamlining a budget and creating a financial toolkit and planner that I can plug and play everything. And now that has helped in the conversations post-divorce because I'm tracking everything and I say, no, this is what's going on with my son and here's the expenses and all of those things. And then for me, what was game changing was putting together little templates. Thank you. My Julie, who was part of my little support, my team.
Amri Kibbler (23:52):
Yep.
Erika Hanafin (23:52):
We talk a lot about team is to have different teams, and this is your divorce team. My divorce team, which are little just statements. When I get so heated, it will get heated in conversation or that emails or the text messages can come across, can be perceived differently, is creating little responses that I can just plug and play and take the emotion out of it, which has definitely now almost two years later, helped alleviate a lot of those conversations. So it's mitigated a lot of the back and forth. It's like, Nope, I'm not engaging thing. Here's your response. It's kind of
Amri Kibbler (24:38):
Candid, but it works. Oh my gosh. I bet you wish you had this when you were embarking on this journey. I feel like I've been right there with you and I've seen how hard it's been and the struggle. You're right, it's so emotional and it's really hard to pull yourself out of it. But I bet having those canned responses and templates, sort of like we use 'em all the time for business, why not have those at your fingertips?
Erika Hanafin (25:07):
Yes. And really empowering more moms to feel like you're supported throughout that journey because it is a definitely a dark, dark journey. Like many things that we don't obviously aren't planned.
Amri Kibbler (25:20):
So will you be sharing these? Is there a way for another mom who is embarking on this difficult time to have access to some of these resources that you created for yourself?
Erika Hanafin (25:33):
Yes. So I am currently bundling them up and they can be found on themomentumhub.co under Momentum Transitions. Mama, you are doing enough. You are
Amri Kibbler (25:47):
Enough. So take a breath, lean in, and just be you. Be present. Just be.