Differently
Simple, yet powerful ideas for building a life, differently. Hosted by Carla Reeves, creator of The Differently Coaching Experience, this podcast offers thought-provoking conversations and practical insights for anyone looking to get out of survival mode and build a life that is truly your own. From the highs and lows of love and relationships, to the challenges and opportunities of work and career, Differently will challenge you to to rethink what’s possible.
Differently
Simple Rhythms with KyAnn Molina
Episode Summary:
In this transformative episode, Carla Reeves welcomes KyAnn Molina, a fellow podcaster and mompreneur, to share her inspiring journey from surviving the chaos of motherhood and workaholic tendencies to thriving with simple rhythms that nourish her life. KyAnn reveals how she redefined success, broke free from identity traps, and discovered the power of aligning life with deeper priorities.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, stretched thin, or tied to your to-do list, this episode is a must-listen!
What You'll Learn:
- The indicators that something needs to change and how KyAnn navigated her pivot.
- How rhythms can bring balance to home life and mental clarity.
- The importance of faith in KyAnn’s transformational journey.
- Practical tools and small shifts to help you prioritize what matters most.
- How to cultivate intentional "no-agenda" moments with family.
Notable Quotes:
- “We weren’t made just to survive—we were made to thrive.”
- “How you live your days is how you live your life.” – Annie Dillard
Sign Up for FREE CLASS: https://carlareeves.com/free-class
Resources & Links:
- KyAnn’s Podcast: Simple Rhythms for Busy Moms Listen here.
- KyAnn's Website: https://kyannmolina.com/
- Facebook Community: Join KyAnn’s supportive group here.
- Morning Routine Guide: Simplify your mornings with KyAnn's free guide!
If this episode inspired you, please share it with a friend or loved one! Don’t forget to subscribe for more conversations that challenge the status quo and empower you to live differently.
Learn more about Carla:
Website: https:/www.carlareeves.com/
Connect on LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reevescarla/
Connect on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@differentlythepodcast
Go to https://www.carlareeves.com/getunstuck.com to download Carla's on demand journaling workshop + exercise to help you stop spinning and start moving forward.
Explore Coaching with Carla: https://bookme.name/carlareeves/lite/explore-coaching
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Thank you for listening!
I'm Carla Reeves, and this is Differently. Whether you feel stuck in survival, navigating a change or seeking more for your life, may this podcast be your weekly nudge to take a risk to build a life that is uniquely bold, authentic and in alignment with your deepest values. What if you worried less about the bumps in the road and instead got equipped for the journey? Get ready to rethink what's possible. Welcome back to Differently. I'm your host, karla Reeves, and today's episode was a very special one for me and it's tailor-made for you. If you are a high achiever stuck in the busyness or chaos and feel that relentless pull to achieve more and more, yet yearn for something more and different, this one's for you. You're in a treat.
Carla Reeves:This is my new friend, KyAnn Molina. She's the host of the Simple Rhythms podcast for busy moms and she's going to share her journey from surviving as a new mom, with her identity wrapped up in her business, the indicators and pivot point that something needed to change, to surrendering and letting go of some of the things that she loved, understanding that she was doing it all for a bigger, more important reason, and she started implementing simple rhythms that I think have changed her life forever. This conversation reminded me that we can hope things are going to change for us, but it actually requires us to be willing and courageous to change the way we see ourselves and the way that we show up in the world. If you feel trapped in the cycle of finding your identity so deeply tied to your to-do list and your accomplishments that you forget who you are beyond the hustle, you're in the right place.
Carla Reeves:KyAnn's story of doing differently from the inside out is going to challenge you to rethink the metrics of success that you hold. It's going to help you consider new personal rhythms that will nourish your soul this year and inspire you to prioritize what truly matters. This conversation is bound to leave you inspired and ready to reimagine what's truly possible for your life this year. Enjoy hey Differently listeners, I'm so excited I have KyAnn Molina here with me today and she creates Simple Rhythms for Busy Moms and has a podcast called Simple Rhythms for Busy Moms, and you should definitely check out her podcast. Welcome, . I'm so excited to have this conversation.
KyAnn Molina:Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. Yeah, I've been waiting. I'm so excited for this conversation.
Carla Reeves:It'll be so good Likewise. So I want to dive right in. On your website. It literally says are you living in survival mode? And I was like this is a perfect place to start, because we talk about survival being in survival here. We talk about survival being in survival here, and I actually, in my coaching program, actually lay out your survival model on paper, because I feel like if you can get out of survival and really break free of that, you can really create lasting, true change. So I would love for you to take us back to your survival and like what that was and what caused you Cause. One of the reasons I wanted to have you on the podcast was you're doing differently. You're doing differently and you're helping other people do differently in their lives and um, so yeah, let's start back to your journey.
KyAnn Molina:Yeah, for sure. Um, I think the survival mode, the season that I really think about, is after I had my second baby. So I have three kids that are now. My oldest just turned five a couple of days ago, um, and we had three kids in three years after struggling with infertility for three years before we had our first Um, and so both of our our second and third were surprises and came very quickly. Our first two are 16 months apart, and then I also have yeah, it just is. It was such a blessing and also like something we didn't even know we could think about, and so I think it just kind of took us off guard, and in my pregnancies I have hyperemesis, which means that I'm very sick, like my whole pregnancy, and I am in the hospital for about four hours every other day, getting infusions for almost the whole length of my pregnancy. So having three back-to-back pregnancies like that obviously does a lot on your body physically, mentally, all of the things, and so the season that I really think about specifically, though, is after I had my second baby. So they were really close together.
KyAnn Molina:I had been really sick and I really struggled with postpartum depression, but there was a lot. I'll kind of give you a picture of what my life was at that point. I had really struggled with a lot of workaholic tendencies. So I say often when I talk about it now I feel like the postpartum depression was kind of maybe like the rock bottom point, but there was a lot of things that led up to that in the back end of my life over many, many years, and so I had been an entrepreneur at that point for over a decade. I've always been an entrepreneur. I started my first business when I was a teenager and it's all I've ever really known. And so in the season of our life my husband and I were working together full-time on our business. We had a successful business. Things seemed great on the outside, but then they were kind of a hot mess behind the scenes and we really struggled with balance and even simple routines behind the scenes.
KyAnn Molina:That's kind of how a lot of what I do now this is where that was born from, and, for example, there's a morning that I can remember very clearly and this is kind of mom related because that's the season of life that I was in at that point but I had two kids under two for the first time and I would wake up with the baby crying because the baby needed me at that point. So I would grab my toddler and trying to literally like nurse my baby while I'm walking to the kitchen to get my toddler food, because you know she's hungry, that's why she's crying while I'm walking to the kitchen to get my toddler food because she's hungry, that's why she's crying. So I go to the kitchen and the kitchen, like the table, is covered in dishes still from last night because they hadn't been put away, and so I'm trying to literally like wash one bowl so that I can feed my toddler breakfast while I'm trying to nurse the baby. I'm trying to do this with one hand available, all the things and my toddler goes over to the table and this is probably why it's ingrained in my memory she grabs a bowl of leftover spaghetti, which spaghetti is not something that, if it set out, you know, because it was from the night before, like this was survival mode for me. I hadn't cleaned it up, like just all transparency was out from the night before. It shouldn't go everywhere, but somehow it did. It went everywhere, like all over the counter, everywhere, and so that was kind of like a trigger moment for me of.
KyAnn Molina:Then I just kind of lost it. You know, the baby is crying, I'm crying, everyone is like, okay, what's happening? And that is a specific morning. But also it wasn't rare for me to have that happen and I think when I realized that I was struggling with postpartum depression and also the workaholic tendencies, we got to this point of like something has to change. And so I basically started reworking all of the habits and routines that had just accidentally been created, that were kind of feeding into the chaos. You know, they were just cycling through all of these different things and I was tired of my life, feeling like survival mode. So that gives you maybe a picture of like where I started from.
Carla Reeves:Wow, yes, oh my gosh, it takes me right back to motherhood and I wasn't navigating. My boys are 22 months apart. But, oh my gosh, those moments where you're just you're stretched to your full capacity and and it kind of breaks which is usually a good thing, right, like because that those are usually the pivot points where we're like enough is enough, like something has to shift here. So I want you to speak a little bit more about because you said this wasn't, this wasn't new to motherhood for you, I think, is what you said. And so what did it look like even before that? Like, what did survival look like before you were a mom? And it's like we, like you said it wasn't just this one breaking point, but there were probably a series of things and this was the final straw, right?
KyAnn Molina:Yes, yeah, I think a lot of it for me and my story came from like these workaholic tendencies. That's a big piece of it for me In my businesses. I had been an entrepreneur for so long and like I worked from home, you know, and I loved what I did. We've had a couple different businesses now and everyone I've loved what I did. I was very passionate about what helping other people and doing the business and that's just kind of how my brain works too. I am very like, creatively fired up in that way and but it became something that that was like my identity, like somehow that became my identity over the years of that's where I felt like success came. You know, my success was tied up in how the business was doing and I didn't have a lot of healthy routines and habits and so because I worked from home also, like there was not a lot of structure, it was easy to kind of fall into the survival mode because I could get things done whenever I wanted to get things done, so I could wake up at whatever time I wanted to wake up. You know work on things all day long If I wanted to get things done, so I could wake up at whatever time I wanted to wake up. You know work on things all day long If I wanted to get to the end of the day, stay up way too late, like there was not a lot of structure, and so it just kind of kept feeding into that. And so I think I think when I realized that I had like, honestly, that it was an idol in my life, my work had become an idol at that point. And so I came to a point with the Lord during the season that I just described, after becoming a mom. I do think that that was the thing that kind of up until then I could still get done, you know, the things that needed to get done decently, not great, but like they could happen. And then, when I became a mom, it's like we don't have the time that we had before and all of the extra stimulation and just taking care of other people. I think it just was the final straw of like hey, something really needs to change at this point, like there are some problems here. It just opened my eyes to kind of a level of chaos that I had accepted as normal, and so I really came to the spot with the Lord where he asked me to lay down my business, and that was one of the hardest things that I have ever done.
KyAnn Molina:I remember when I first felt the Lord pulling on my heart in this way, I was like I wanted to ignore it. I wanted to walk away and just be like you know, I can have a business, we'll just keep going, we'll see what happens. You know, maybe this wasn't from the Lord, maybe this is just me imagining it type thing, and it just was, sign after sign after sign of the Lord confirming like no, this isn't something that's going to go away and this is something that you need to obey. Like now, this isn't a wait till later or try and duct tape things together to make this work. It's truly like a lay it down thing.
KyAnn Molina:And so I remember talking to my husband. My husband is not to the level that I am with the. He enjoys business, he enjoys all of those things, but he's not necessarily like work all the time. He has a lot healthier boundaries around that than I did at the time. So he had been seeing all of this for a long time and saying you know, we had had lots of conversations, but it was just kind of the thing that I held onto so tightly of like I will do everything else that you ask of me, lord, but I'm not going to lay down my business. And so when I came to him and I told him he had talked about getting a regular job for a while because, like I said, we had worked together and so part of this was that he would have to go back to work and he had wanted to do that for quite a while and, honestly, I had been resistant to that because, again, I just was finding my identity in in my work and also, I think, being together. I had a lot tied up in that of I wanted us to have our days together as a family, but to an unhealthy level.
KyAnn Molina:And so it was, I think, let's see, three years ago yeah, three, a little over three years ago that the Lord asked me to walk away from a successful business. So we stopped fully, we didn't sell it, we didn't do anything else, we just stopped the business and I had to figure out, kind of, who I was outside of that, because, truly, all of before I even was an adult, I was an entrepreneur, and so there was a piece of me that my biggest thing was like Lord. Like who am I going to be? Like there's nothing that makes me special outside of this. Then Even I remember, like if I would meet people at church, I remember telling my husband, like who am I going to introduce myself as I will just be Kayan? Like I'm not, I don't have a business to talk about. Like what else do I talk about? And that's how tied up I think I was in that that is so powerful.
Carla Reeves:So a couple things like that you talk about. One is you know when we want to make changes in our life, sometimes we can't just make the outside changes and the external changes, but it's like those internal changes of like stepping away from or breaking an old pattern and cycle right, like where you got your identity, to be able to truly write a new story, like that's my.
Carla Reeves:My mission is to help people break, break old cycles so they can write their true stories, their new stories, right, but the other piece that you talk about and I want you to say a little bit more is the faith piece, because people who may be listening, who aren't believers, may not understand exactly like what that means to hear God in that way, and I'd love to for you to speak a little bit about that, like what that feels like for you. Like, I know God speaks to all of us differently, but what is that? How does that happen for you?
KyAnn Molina:Yeah, I think that happens in a lot of different ways in my life. I don't audibly hear the Lord just come down and say, okay, you need to let go of your business, in this exact moment. Like I don't audibly hear that. Like you would hear this podcast that we're listening to right now, I think it starts as kind of like a quiet whispering is how I would explain it for me personally of just kind of a nudging on my spirit of something is out of alignment here, like maybe some things need to shift. It starts really slowly, just as I'm reading my bible. Maybe I'll feel a little nudging or a pull, um, and then I read another verse, maybe a few days later, and it's like, oh, this is interesting. Okay, it's kind of pulling me in that same direction and it starts really quiet and then I feel like it gets louder over time for me, and so it will be different things, like hearing a song on the radio that perfectly aligns to exactly what the Lord has already put on my heart for this.
KyAnn Molina:Or I remember, in this specific decision with the business, there was a sermon series and I don't remember the exact verses that were used at this point, but I just remember that they were talking about this whole idea of you only have one life and like are you willing to lay everything down for the Lord when it really matters? And the way that it spoke to me in that moment it was like I don't want to wait five years, 10 years, 20 years down the road to be willing to obey on this pulling that he has on my heart, even if I lose everything. It's not worth ignoring that and not following what the Lord has for me. So in my personal life, yeah, it just starts out quiet, just kind of as these little nudgings, and then it starts coming up again and again in conversations other people confirming it, like very random things that could not just be happening on their own, of maybe a friend that hasn't texted me in years texting me out of the blue about this specific conversation, listening to a podcast episode.
KyAnn Molina:There have been a lot of things like that where there was a specific message in that of something I was already praying and thinking through. So I think it's just kind of a general process over time and, as I'm praying on that in the back end because I can feel that nudging the Lord is faithful to just continue to confirm that and let me know. And what like this decision? It got to a point where I just I truly felt so much unrest inside of me that I knew I could not deny that this was from the Lord. Like it would not stop coming up to the point where it's like it's almost screaming at you, and again, not audibly, but just in so many circumstances over and over that I didn't even feel comfortable like just sitting, you know, in my room. I could feel that tension and kind of that wrestling.
Carla Reeves:Wow, yeah, that's that's how it happens for me too. Um, it's kind of like that, that voice in the back of the room, it's like a quieter voice and you have to be able to get calm enough and still enough inside, I think, to like hear it, and but for me it's like it's a voice that like stands out and usually, like I feel like sometimes it's like an impression that lands on my heart. It's like it just sometimes just lands, and usually the language that it's in is unexpected or stands out in some way from the usual noise in my head. Usually it might be something that kind of grips you or like whoa, like kind of stuns you or stops you and like has you pay attention, right, Because you know, you know when you hear it, it's true. So, okay, I love this conversation. So let's talk about how things started to shift, and I'm imagining that I don't know how you got into this simple rhythms, but kind of take us there. How did that start to come about?
KyAnn Molina:Yeah, I think the rhythms came about because in the season of life that I was in, I was seeing the survival mode was like a deep seated issue, and so I was kind of working through the identity piece of that, but also the but also there were practical pieces of my life that just were not being handled very well, like dishes, laundry things, piling up my schedule, my calendar, just different practical needs that I could see.
KyAnn Molina:And so I think I kind of got to this point where I was like something has to change and I need to do something and I wanted to basically help my daily life function better. And so that's kind of when I came across the idea of rhythms and I just it was one of those things that I just knew. I was like this is what I need, and there was not a ton of information out there, so I kind of duct taped a whole bunch of stuff together, almost made it my life's mission. I didn't know at the time what I would be doing now. I had no idea. So I wish sometimes that I would have like penciled things out in the exact way that I did them, because it takes a lot of work to go back and think through the strategic way that I did it, because I wasn't doing it to teach other people how to do it at the time.
KyAnn Molina:And so kind of how I explain rhythms. Now. Rhythms basically give us a loose structure and framework to go through each day so to really make sure that those important things happen regularly without having to consciously decide to do all the same things day after day after day. There's a quote by Annie Dillard that says how you live your days is how you live your life, and so that quote I remember coming across that and just really thinking through the identity piece that I'm already thinking through, and I remember just thinking if I could get this zoomed out view, because again, the workaholic side of me can get so fixated on the urgent and like the fires that I need to put out right now and this needs to be done and this needs to be done, and so these bigger picture priorities, like my faith, my marriage, pouring into my kids intentionally, those could get scooted to the outskirt because they weren't urgent in the moment. And so when you think about the quote talking about how you live your days is how you live your life, it's almost this zoomed out view to see that all these little daily habits and routines, they add up to so much more over a lifetime, obviously, and so much more of a bigger impact and so the rhythms in the home management side.
KyAnn Molina:It helps me to do things like tidying up, you know, stay on top of the laundry, have a small basket so that I can do it when the basket gets full. So I have like a container that I know when I need to do the laundry, to stay on top of that regularly. Or things like planning on Sunday evenings to make sure that we're not going to run out of the ingredients that we need when we go to the pantry. We want to cook from scratch or whatever, make more homemade meals, and then we have, you know, none of the ingredients we need to make the meal. So we end up running to the store and by the time you get the ingredients you're so tired that you're like let's just get takeout, right.
Carla Reeves:Or the kids are crying, melting down.
KyAnn Molina:You're like I don't have the energy or the mental energy especially. And then along the lines like the other side, because I always talk about it's both being productive and getting done what needs to get done and also being present. And so along the lines of like being present, having a family Sabbath, getting outside first thing in the morning, which is great for vitamin D, scientifically, that's great for our bodies. It's also great for me with my kids to have a moment of connection where we're just sitting no-transcript best friend it could be with anyone um, and then also like a weekly meeting for my husband and I to communicate, get on the same page, have space to have some of those deeper questions that maybe in this co-parenting season we don't have all the time. So I think if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. That's a quote that's talked about all the time and I have found that to be so true that if I don't have these systems into place, they don't happen. And rhythms kind of are those systems to me.
KyAnn Molina:There's a verse in Proverbs I don't remember the reference right now, but it says ponder the path of your feet and your ways will be made sure. And so that's what I think rhythms do? Is it kind of? They're kind of like the guard rails to make sure that I'm carving out time for both the productivity, because things have to happen, and also being present and like those bigger picture things to make sure that they are in the right order? Because I don't know about you, but how many times have we said, you know, maybe I want to start reading more in a year, or I want to go on more walks, and I'll work on it once I get through, you know, christmas, or once I get through this season or this launch, or, and it just keeps pushing down the road. So I think it gives us kind of the intentionality to focus on that now instead of waiting.
Carla Reeves:Oh, my goodness, we call that the someday illusion. Yeah, you know, it's the illusion that someday you'll do it. And yeah, I saw that quote on your website, the Annie Dillard like how we live our days is how we. That is so beautiful and so true and so much wisdom in that. Um. So, friend, who's listening? Go back and rewind. She just laid out I don't know how many there were if you have a list, but the weekly meetings, the I call them no agenda moments with your kids, where there's just no agenda, there's no agenda. Those are the best moments I had with my kids and still have with my adult kids is when my mind is clear, I'm not thinking about what I need to do, I'm totally present and like magic seems to unfold when that happens. Or with my husband, um, getting out in the morning. What else did you say those were? There's so many gems in that.
KyAnn Molina:I think I talked about the practical side of like laundry and, um, yeah, the weekly planning meeting for groceries. So that's a little bit more household management related, but yeah, and the weekly meeting with your spouse.
Carla Reeves:Like that that is a game changer for my clients. Like just having a meeting where you can talk about, like what do you have going on this week and what do I have going on this week, what do the kids have going on, how can we come together and be team and so that, like everything can happen and we can be relatively peaceful and connected and like all the important things, so powerful, so many gems in that. That is so beautiful. And I think the other thing that I hear in your whole story is that there was like this marriage of like calming the inside of you and healing the inside of you and separating from like this identity tied to your work and all of that. And then also the calming on the outside, which is like creating structures that literally can just make our day flow better.
KyAnn Molina:Simple structures.
KyAnn Molina:Yeah, I think I had to get to that breaking point to calm the inside first. I think that's why for me it's not going to play out the same for everyone, but for me I think that that's why the Lord was like this is a clean break of. Like you, at that point I didn't know if I would have a business. I did think I probably eventually would have a business again, but I didn't know if that was like 20 years from now. It truly was like a walk away from something I already was building and just I don't know. You know, my husband got a regular job. It was a huge shift for our family and I think it took that and reworking everything inside of me at that point before I could see the simple shifts that needed to be made in my house.
KyAnn Molina:Because, honestly, I don't think that I I didn't have the clarity. There was so much noise before and all the hustling and all of the filling my calendar to overflowing and constant overcommitting and just a lot of different things. There was so much noise that I didn't even. It's not that these things are hard, I just didn't even know where to start because there was so much noise. So I think what you do with clients to help them start to figure out, like calming the inside part, like what is actually going on here, getting to that deeper root. I think that that's super key, because you don't necessarily have the clarity to know what is broken or how to fix it until you know what is broken.
Carla Reeves:That is so true, and we don't necessarily have to get to a breaking point to make these changes in our life. Like there's signs, right Like. What were the signs for you? I mean, I can definitely speak to the signs for me too that, like led me on a completely different path. But what were those initial signs that told you you were, you know, had these workaholic tendencies? And like the overstimulation right Like? Can you pinpoint any of those?
KyAnn Molina:I think I did a reel on this one time, so it probably won't be as cohesive on the spot, but I can think of a few of them. I know one was like very much not looking forward to plans almost every single time and I am an introvert so that is a piece of it but it seemed like no matter what, I would make plans and I would be maybe excited in the moment and every single time when it came time to go to whatever event it was, it could just be me and my best friend. I would want to cancel every single time and it was always mostly because I had work that I still had to get done or whatever, and I was in that mindset and just not being present in the moment. That was one thing that I can think of. Also.
KyAnn Molina:Just living in chronic overwhelm is another big one, and I, you know overwhelm is something that I think we're going to feel like as humans. Like you can't eliminate overwhelm, but the aspect of my life like I genuinely felt overwhelmed a lot more often than I didn't, like it was a chronic situation of like this is just how I live my days Stress. There were a lot of physical aspects that I now can see that I didn't know at the time that were just piling on top of each other. But those are a few that come to mind. What were? I'm curious to hear if you have any as well.
Carla Reeves:Yeah, just as you're talking, I think like pay level of patience dropped, so like my fuse was shorter, I got irritated faster. Um, and I think also like a little loss of like inspiration or like the happiness I used to feel, um, more drudgery and more like persistent complaints in my head. Um, yeah, frustration. Um, you said something just now that made me think of something else, but yeah, I think those were all um, like cues, right, and I, I think it's easy to look around, like when I was a new mom I was, I looked around and I'm like I could feel all this and I knew like there was something else possible, like in my heart could feel all this and I knew like there was something else possible, like in my heart I'm like this can't be it, like this can't be it.
Carla Reeves:But if I looked around, I would see the same, like I saw other moms like struggling and frustrated and losing their sanity, and like it would ripple to the way they parented. And so you can't always look around to gauge, like whether you're on track. You know it's like you have to listen, I think, to your heart and that those nudges in my heart, like my God was nudging my heart, like this, isn't it? And I had no clue how to make a change. But I just grabbed on to that calling in my heart that was like there's more, there's something better, and that's what helped me start to shift. I mean, my life sort of fell apart this before I had kids, and that was another big turning point in my life. But yeah, we can't always look around us to gauge whether this is right or normal for us.
KyAnn Molina:Yeah, that's something I talk about a lot actually, because I think in our culture today, especially with the topic of motherhood, this is a message that motherhood is chaotic, motherhood is overwhelming. You know, you lose yourself completely when you become a mom, like all of these messages are pushed a lot and we think that that is normal. So I very much was the same way of like. I kind of felt like I had waited, like even with infertility and waiting in our marriage, like we had waited and I had wanted to be a mom my whole life, and I finally got there and I was like this is not at all what I thought it would be, and yet I also didn't really know that there was anything different, because that's what you see from everyone around you, even on social media and things like that too.
Carla Reeves:I'm so glad you said that. I think that is so true. I have had clients over the years where, like they're getting ready to have children and it's like they just have this image, like that their life's going to be over, and like all this crazy stuff. And I'm like no, no, no, like this is the most incredible journey you're about to take. Like is it hard? Yes, is it challenging? Yes, is it going to push you to the edges of yourself? Yes, but it's the most amazing gift and we have more influence in how that goes than we realize. And if you're leaning on God, you have so much more support and comfort and courage available right.
KyAnn Molina:Yes, yeah. I don't think we were just made to survive Like we were made to thrive in this, and it is possible. It really is small shifts that you can do over time to add up to so much more.
Carla Reeves:Totally agree. Okay, so take us to. How did this then be like? What did you start to see change in your life as you started implementing these things? And then how did that start to morph into a business?
KyAnn Molina:Yeah, I think. Oh man, my life is like a 180. I used to say it was like a 360.
KyAnn Molina:And then I realized that 360 is back in the same spot that you were in, but yeah, it's drastically. However you want to say that it's drastically different, that's what it has been. I mean, even in my marriage. That's like one thing that I've seen a big difference in just being able to connect and in and day out, but it was something related to work Then. If it wasn't if I'm being honest, like it just and we work together, so there is an aspect of that that that does make it difficult, but it just felt like everything in my life was viewed through this lens of like work, like if I was going to have fun, okay, if I had my work done, and it just was very productivity driven, um, efficiency, like success, all of those kind of things. And so the level I can't even explain the level that we've grown in our marriage and honestly I would say it was me A lot of. It was me Like I had a lot of problems and not to say my husband is perfect either, but it just has been so much growth and being able to be best friends again in a way that I feel like we weren't. We were when we first got together when we first got married and I think we had morphed into like this co-worker almost situation which I know is kind of unique to our marriage. But, um, being able to have fun, like just play games, just to play games, to go do things just for fun, to interact with my kids, to know that I am able to do that every single day, even if I am still working now, but I have rhythms set up to where I'm like focusing on them. They're not an interruption where I can focus and pour everything into them. In that moment my faith has grown so much.
KyAnn Molina:I mean, obviously, the practical side of my life, like anyone in my life would tell you it's drastically different. Just, I'm not a, I don't think I'm type A, but I, my brain, does work in like systems, but I just hadn't applied that to my life and so now I did it in my business but not my life. And so now things are not perfect. I am not perfect at this.
KyAnn Molina:So hear me when I say that there are still times when things aren't messy, but it's like things are very manageable, like even if my house is a complete wreck one weekend cause we're gone all week. I noticed such a difference because I can come in Monday morning and get it all cleaned up within, you know, an hour and that would not have happened before. Maybe less than an hour, honestly, it depends. Depends what level of mess we're talking about. But just having those systems to, you know, meal plan regularly, that I'm not having some of those stressors that used to send me into a spiral, I have them set up and they just kind of run with my life. I'm able to invest in my family and quality time and all of that.
Carla Reeves:Well, and I hear you saying too that even when you fall off track because we do fall off track, right Life happens and like the unexpected happens. But what I hear is it's easier to pick back up and get back on the track because of some of these simple structures. Yeah, yes, for sure, and that's the most important part is not that we fall off, but that we just get back on right.
KyAnn Molina:Yes, yeah, I usually say that I have kind of the tools and the right questions to ask now that even in really hard seasons we've gone through some really tough seasons of loss and even like moving out of our house for a period for a couple months, since I've done all this work and, man, seeing how I would have handled that a few like before all this work happened, it would have been drastically different to how it went. And it doesn't make the situation easier, but you still have to manage your life. In midst of loss or hardship or just unexpected challenges like that, your life still has to keep moving on some level and so to be able to manage that to where I could pour into my family in the way I needed to, it was very encouraging, I guess, to notice, like the changes that came there. And what did you? Briefly asked about the business, like were you asked?
KyAnn Molina:how that pivoted Okay.
Carla Reeves:Before you go there, though, I want to go back to something you said that is so important and it's not something I've ever talked about on the podcast and something I would like to talk about more, but you said your marriage changed so much and that it was like because you changed, and that that a lot of the you know not to say that your husband didn't have his own things to work on or heal, but that a lot of it lied with you. I have had that same experience and, um, like my productivity, my productivity mind, my attachment and idol of like work and the to-do list, and was a real barrier in our marriage, and the more and more and more I set that down, the closer we have gotten, the more connected we are, the more passion we have, the more friendship we have, the more love that we have, like it is. I just want the women listening to really hear what you said about that, because I it's a game changer.
KyAnn Molina:Yeah, yeah, I don't think I knew it was possible to feel as connected as we are now. I didn't either.
Carla Reeves:I didn't either. Yeah, okay, so, yes. So take us to how this came up, became a business.
KyAnn Molina:That is something that I honestly never saw coming and I love that. It's just been a gradual journey over the years. I mean to take it all the way back. I wanted to create a course and I was in. I have had an online business in different capacities, a few different areas, and I felt really called to create a course, but I had two different topics that I was going to do like that I've had weighing on my heart. One of them was Instagram and how to have a successful business with a small following, and the other one was this rhythms course and everything that I do today. And it's very ironic now looking back, because another big thing that the Lord has led me through this year specifically is getting away from Instagram. As a small business owner, I'm off of Instagram entirely. It's been a gradual journey for the last couple of years.
KyAnn Molina:Yay, I love finding friends that also value that. It was scary. It was been a gradual journey for the last couple of years. Yay, I love finding friends that also value that.
Carla Reeves:It was scary, it was hard to get off because, yeah, I built my last business. It's been like two years, I think that I've. I mean, my profile is still there, but I haven't posted in two years and I haven't really been on so yeah.
KyAnn Molina:Yeah, it, yeah. So it's funny looking back now that that was the main thing I was doing Obviously that's the Lord's grace, and not building a business based on that and then him asking me to leave it. But, um, so I felt, I felt this rhythms thing on my heart and so I built out a whole course on it and now I have a podcast. I mean, it really just was taking one step in front of the other. That's the only thing I can say.
KyAnn Molina:With my other businesses, I feel like I had this master plan of this is how we get you know from A to Z, and this one it really was just like, after a while of doing this, the Lord laid it on my heart hey, I think it's time to have a business again. Started praying through that because I was really scared, honestly, to do it again. I knew that I wanted to contribute, like to our family and, and I just feel so creatively filled up by that, but I was just scared that I would be able to do it in a healthy way. And he did. He really was calling me to that and it just was one step after the other. And now you know I have the podcast and the business, and it's not anything I ever like. Looking at where my life was, I never imagined that I would be teaching moms how to set up these systems and how to truly like prioritize, rest and like balance in their life. That that's actually possible.
Carla Reeves:Oh, there's so much even right there that we could go into, but prioritizing rest is that's just a huge topic we could probably do a whole conversation on. So what I hear and what you just shared is that and I've experienced this in my own life is, you know, god asked you to surrender a lot of things and heal a lot of things, and you may have thought you were giving up some things too right, like this entrepreneurial drive and businesses that you had had before, and and then there's like this blessing on the other side of surrender and I just I've experienced that so many times in my life and like I just see that with you like then he blessed you with, like doing what you love and being able to actually pay all this forward to other people. It's so beautiful.
KyAnn Molina:It's cool to see how the Lord works in that, because it's a business I don't think I would have dreamed of, like it was past my dreams of. I truly love what I do and even limits that I had for myself. I coach a lot of moms and I was terrified of live video which that's very funny to say now and everything that I do and there's a lot of public facing lives and stuff like that that I do at this point for my job and I was so scared of that before, and so it's just been yeah, the Lord saying hey, trust me, follow me, you know, one step at a time.
Carla Reeves:That's amazing. Okay, so, as we kind of bring things to a close, um, I would love for you to just speak to the person listening. Um one, I think that you probably you know like we, we heal these parts of ourselves like workaholic because that was my story too Um, but then we have to manage that right, Like it's not, like it just goes away, it's like something you have to keep your eye on and manage At least I do, yeah, All the time. And so how can someone listening kind of take all these things we've talked about and maybe start to put some simple rhythms into action today?
KyAnn Molina:Yeah, into action today. Yeah, I have said recently that doing what I do is like the ultimate, like guardrails for me, because it keeps me in check to make sure that I'm having this.
Carla Reeves:Yes, yes exactly.
KyAnn Molina:Yeah.
KyAnn Molina:So I think the first thing is really starting with, like addressing the chronic overwhelm. That's kind of what I start with first, and so I have five steps that I kind of walk people through in regards to that, and the first one is putting your phone in a drawer for an hour at the beginning and the end of the day. These are going to be very practical benchmarks for you, because sometimes we need those placeholders to help us to get the clarity, to know what the next thing is. And I think, with the phone, when you're not starting the day being bombarded with notifications and social media scrolling or getting this email that you need to respond to, and letting that like set the tone for your day, this alone, like this practice alone, really helps to free up that mental space, to allow you to be more present in your life, no matter what season of life you're in. So that one is really key for me. The second one is cutting out the noise. So, especially in times when I'm feeling like extra overwhelmed or overstimulated, this could be in general, like a season of there's a lot happening here, or this could be like on a daily basis of for me in my life. You know, maybe my kids all yelling at me at the same time or you know whatever, having meltdowns in the background and just a lot of noise. When I get to that moment like my natural reaction, even now, is to honestly like numb out, essentially by putting on a podcast or a TV show in the background, basically to distract myself from what's happening. Now I can see now through different things that I've gone through, and consistently forcing myself in those moments to not put anything extra on to add to the overwhelm and noise levels helps so much. So again, this is on a daily level with the podcast and the TV show. This is also like when I am in a focus mode in my business, when I'm like taking a course or I'm going through a coaching program of some sort. I now limit, like, the outside noise in some level, whether that's social media I'm not on social media anymore, so that has changed. Some other things that I'm listening to, even podcasts, like I will minimize the other noise aside from that thing I'm focusing on. And this could play out in lots of different areas. Maybe you're going through a season of grief or just a unexpected financially hard season. Minimizing the noise in that and the outside input helps so much to create that margin for you to actually hear what's happening in your life and to know, kind of like, again that next right step, the third one.
KyAnn Molina:This one is mom-focused, but I think you could still apply it to your life even if you're not a mom. So that is making it a priority to spend 15 minutes of focused, fully present time with my kids each day, and I think you could still apply it to your life even if you're not a mom. So that is making it a priority to spend 15 minutes of focused, fully present time with my kids each day. And I think you just said, and you mentioned in the podcast episode on mine, no agenda moments is what you called them, right, yeah, which I love that, and so how we do that is it kind of varies how we do it every day, but I let the kids I have three kids and so we rotate through who gets to choose what we're doing that day, and they choose something that they love. So it could be as casual as like reading books or doing a little craft that we have at home.
KyAnn Molina:I'm not a fancy craft mom, but you know letting my kids do whatever they want with the craft supplies that we have going on a walk.
KyAnn Molina:Having morning coffee time together is another one that we really love. So they get to choose, and 15 minutes sounds like it's not a lot, but it is really easy to get caught up in spending the entire day together and again, this could apply to a spouse partner even I don't. You know a lot of different people but when you're spending the whole day together but you're not actually looking in their eyes and fully connecting with them, and so for me that has been really, really huge and being present as a mom and helping me to have kind of that placeholder in my schedule that every single day I'm having at least 15 minutes to truly connect and like be in the moment with them, then the next one I have is oh yeah, go ahead, no, no no, no, we'll come back, okay, okay, waking up at least 15 minutes before my kids, or again if you don't have kids, and then just before you start the day.
KyAnn Molina:This was huge for me, um game changer for me too.
Carla Reeves:That was what I did when my kids were little and I still I still do it to this day. Yeah, um, that was a complete like having being able to center myself and be able to collect my thoughts and, you know, kind of think about the day before they were awake was completely rippled to the entire day.
KyAnn Molina:Yes, Cause if I was waking up with them, you know little people kind of tugging on me and everyone needing me at once, it almost felt like going into a firing zone, to be honest, of just like jumping from fire to fire, to fire and just like game plan oriented of like I need to do this, this and this and that did not help in the checklist minded efficiency aspect of my life, because it was very hard to jump straight into that.
KyAnn Molina:And so prioritizing at least a little bit of time to like fully wake up and open my eyes and know what day it is and just get my heart in the right place, have my quiet time with the Lord, drink a cup of coffee, whatever that looks like for you, it can look a lot of different ways.
KyAnn Molina:It does so much to help like set my day up the right way. I actually have a morning routine guide that your listeners can download if they come join, like my free Facebook community that walks you through how to set up a morning routine that actually serves you in the season that you're in and how to prioritize that time for yourself, even if you are in a season of not sleeping through the night with littles because that was me for a long time of how do we practically make this happen? I know it's important, but I don't know, like, how to practically do that. So then, the last thing that I talk about I can go into really quickly if you want me to, but it's, it goes into planning your day, do you want?
Carla Reeves:me to mention that.
KyAnn Molina:Yeah, I mean if you want to take a couple minutes.
Carla Reeves:Okay.
KyAnn Molina:Yeah, it does not take very long to go through. But basically, the overview of this is the first note is starting the day with praying for wisdom to know what is top priority for the day, and discernment to set the rest aside. And that is a key element of it because, again, with the efficiency, productivity, all of it, you can get so caught up in that that you're living your life by your to-do list and we have to get things done. But also I think that you fall into survival mode a lot easier when you're living your life by your to-do list.
Carla Reeves:Well, it's like your to-do list starts to run your life and it's really just a tool for your life. But you're to lead your life.
KyAnn Molina:Yes, I love that, yeah, and so I think that kind of is like a I keep saying guardrail.
KyAnn Molina:That's the only word that's coming to mind at the moment but kind of like a guardrail to keep my mind straight as well about what my bigger priorities are. To help the Lord really, truly just making it a daily rhythm to like give it to him and say, hey, this is how much time I have today. Lord, you know what's going to happen. You know if my kid is going to get sick or I'm going to have to go pick someone up from something or take a friend a meal, whatever it is, you know how this is going to go differently. And just holding it with loose hands to have a clear enough mind to be able to pivot in the moment. Well, because I think that's a skill that you learn, that's something we talk about in my course all the time is it's truly a skill you learn over time. But with the to-do list, I think the first thing is getting everything out of your brain. Just brain dump it through there, and then you're going to go back through and you're going to this is a skill you're going to learn over time, so you're going to get better at this. But kind of give yourself clear expectations. How much can I really accomplish in a day? Move everything else to like a brain dump list Again. We have a whole system but I'm trying to keep it brief so that I don't go too complicated in this right now. But move those to a brain dump list so you can find them later, because your brain kind of freaks out if you know that it's not taken care of somewhere. It helps your brain to relax if you have a spot for it so you can move it. You can come back and address it. It's not lost. It's out of your brain and into a piece of paper or your phone, like notes app on your phone, but it's put somewhere and then you have your list for the day. You're gonna section that out and choose the top three items to focus on. That's the first thing that I really want you to do and literally have like a space so you can have daily to-do list, top three space and then the rest of the items, and that visually helps your brain to see if I can't get anything else done for the day. These are the top three things and being able to prioritize that.
KyAnn Molina:I think with time management, prioritization is one of the biggest struggles of figuring out. It feels like everything is on fire. I can't do it all, so I'm just going to do nothing and I feel paralyzed, which is where I was all the time, and so this is not like a shame thing. It's very easy to get to that spot where it's so overwhelming, and this is a very practical way to help you to start to prioritize in your life and to visually give yourself your brain kind of.
KyAnn Molina:That parameter of this needs to be my focus right now. So then when you do have a few minutes of time, you're not wasting the entire time thinking like reloading constantly what do I need to do, what do I you know, and trying not to forget anything, and then you wasted all the time you had trying to figure out what is to be done. So that's a really practical thing that can really start to give you momentum in your days, because that's the biggest thing that people struggle with in this area, I think, is not even physical energy, necessarily, but the mental energy to get started, and giving yourself some of these practical wins gives you momentum to keep going and know the next thing to do.
Carla Reeves:So good. So rewind if you need to, to capture all of that. Oh my gosh, you've shared so many, just so much good wisdom. I want to go back to what I was going to say at one point when you were talking, but I really just want to acknowledge you because I happen to be like my kids are 20 and 22 and you, my friend, are breaking patterns. Like you have broken a really big cycle and pattern in your life that will ripple to your children, like we did the same thing in our home, in our marriage, and our boys are now 20 and 22.
Carla Reeves:And learning to modeling for your children, to know how to calm yourself, quiet noise in your life, create simple rhythms in your life all of these things, even what stirred my thought about this was when you're talking about, like these, no agenda moments with your kids, but like you're building foundation, like my son just yesterday. He still lives at home, our youngest son, and he will sometimes hop in my office and he'll just sit down and like he wants to talk and, if I can make all possible, I set everything down because but we built that when they were little like you're doing with your kids, and those are the most incredible moments of our relationship is when he comes in and we just there's no agenda. And yesterday we were laughing hysterically. And, like you said, it's not about I think.
Carla Reeves:As moms, we sometimes think that or even with any relationships in our life that it's we have to have more time and that we get caught up in the someday illusion We'll get to spend more time. It's not about more, it's about quality and it can happen in five minutes. But you, my friend, are building that foundation. Keep going, because you will start to see it Like we look at our boys and like they're. They're modeling it in their own lives today and they're not caught up in patterns that we were dealing with, but they're not caught up in those patterns that were debilitating to me, because we did the work to break those and you're doing that and that is a gift to give your kids, your husband, everybody.
KyAnn Molina:Well, thank you for that. That blesses my heart a lot, thank you. I think those moments are what's easy when I was in that season, to miss, and so I think that's why it's so important to me now to carve out that time for them, because otherwise I can fall back into those habits still and that helps me to see clearly in the moment of like it's not about how much I can get done in a day, and that's a deeply rooted. That's something I work on with my clients all the time. It's very deep in there and it's still something.
Carla Reeves:I'm working on Me too, yeah.
KyAnn Molina:But thank you for that encouragement and even just hearing how it has played out for your kids too, because that's what I am hoping for and praying for. Obviously one day, yeah.
Carla Reeves:So okay, you have a course, you have your podcast, you have all the things. Make sure everyone you have your podcast, you have all the things. Make sure everyone knows where to find you and all the work you're doing yeah, absolutely the best place to find me is my podcast.
KyAnn Molina:that's kind of my main thing at this point and it's called simple rhythms for busy moms. You can find it anywhere wherever you're listening to the podcast right now, and we really talk about everything that we talked about here just how to simplify your daily routines, for more time with your family you know the systems, boundaries, to simplify and organize your life, to just take everything out of your head and get it into actual systems to help you to slow down and prioritize, rest and find your identity in Christ and not your to-do list. Just a lot of these topics that, honestly, we touched on, I feel like most of them in this episode. So we go into more depth on all of that.
KyAnn Molina:And then the second place that I hang out the most is my free Facebook community. So I'm in there every day and it's just a bunch of like-minded moms that are trying to balance motherhood, business, home, faith, all of those kinds of things. And we do regular challenges in there, which is really fun, like screen time challenges or quiet time challenges, different waking up before your kids, all of that to help us actually put this into action. And then like fun recipes and things like that too. So I mentioned my morning routine guide earlier. If you join the Facebook group, you can get access to that for free as well. So you can join that at bitly slash Simple Rhythms community and I would love for any of your listeners to come join and say hi and get to connect.
Carla Reeves:Amazing, oh my goodness. You are a breath of fresh air, my friend, and thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of your story and your truth and your honesty and your faith. You've blessed me today too. So everybody else, have an amazing day. I hope this blessed you too, and, um, we'll see you next week. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of differently. It's been an honor to share this conversation with you. You know, one of the keys to living fully is to take action when you're inspired to do so. I hope you found that spark of inspiration today and would you help us spread the word? Did someone you know come to mind while you were listening? If this episode could impact someone you know, please share it and pass it along. New episodes drop weekly, so tap that subscribe button and join us next time as we continue to challenge the status quo and get equipped to live life differently.