–HALEY TAYLOR [00:00]:

I didn’t know about airports — I was just a kid. I was trying to ask people for help, and I got to the gate for the flight to Hong Kong, and it was pulling away. The once-a-day flight to Hong Kong, and it’s pulling away from the gate. So I’m in San Francisco, by myself. And this is back when there were no cell phones. This was not me.

BECKY BROUWER [00:00]:

Hello and welcome to the Sendy Mom podcast. I am really excited to be here with my friend Haley Taylor. Haley and I know each other from mountain biking — our kids are both on the mountain biking team, so we talk a lot there. The things I know about Haley are that she’s super organized and she’s happy all the time — every time I talk to you, you’re in a good mood. But I don’t feel like I know you all that well, so this is going to be a fun conversation to unpack how you’re a Sendy mom. So let’s start out: why did you want to be on this podcast, and what do you think makes you a Sendy mom?

HALEY [01:57]:

Well, I think this podcast is really neat. First of all, when I told my kids I was going to be on the Sendy Mom podcast, my son was like, “You’re not that Sendy?”

BECKY:

What — they don’t think you are?

HALEY:

Right! And I was like, well, here’s the definition. It’s not that you’re always amazingly doing everything super hardcore — it’s being brave, trying new things, whatever that looks like. I haven’t listened to all of the episodes, but I think it’s so interesting, the variety of guests you’ve had on. It’s neat to get to know people — what drives them, what their passion is. It’s an honor to be on, honestly — I love sharing, and getting to know better how we can each keep going and do more exciting things.

It gives me inspiration about the kinds of things I could try, but it also normalizes the human experience for me. I’m like, okay, we all have some fears — maybe in different areas. I’m not super scared of flying down a mountain on a bike, most of the time, but there are other things that scare me — like talking to people.

BECKY:

Really?

HALEY:

That’s seriously part of the reason I do this — it forces me into situations where I’m afraid I’m going to say the wrong thing, or offend somebody. Doing it over and over is like exposure therapy.

BECKY:

Yes!

HALEY:

And for me it’s backwards — I’ll talk to people all day, that’s my favorite thing, but I’m super nervous about downhill biking. I’m so cautious, and wanting to not get hurt, that I’m always fighting against that. So for me, going out there every day is its own kind of exposure therapy — telling myself, no, you can do this, this is fine, this is within a safe range.

BECKY:

Isn’t that funny — that surprises me about you, because I always thought you were hardcore.

HALEY:

Yeah, well — I think I’ve worked at it for a long time. My whole life, really.

— CHAPTER: Growing Up Cautious in a High-Achieving Home [05:39] —

HALEY [05:39]:

I was raised very cautiously. My parents wanted — and we don’t have to get into all of this — but they were great at the “you can do anything” message. There was a high-achieving piece too: we can do anything, but we are amazing. And it was interesting, because we were also very safety-focused. My husband calls me “the safety kid.” We locked our doors when we came in the house — there was always this sense that we have to be careful. I think part of that was just the time I grew up in, and also that my parents are naturally more cautious people.

So growing up, there were certain things I did very well, and I wouldn’t try much else, because — I definitely had a fixed mindset: you’re smart, so you can do this, but if you try this other thing and do badly, then you’re not smart anymore. So we have to stay within this range. I think it was as much something I internalized myself as anything my parents intended — they were just trying to help us do our best. But for me, it became: the way to be the best you, and to get the most love, is to be the best at things. And that’s not a healthy mindset for trying new things, because most of the time you aren’t the best at things. So it felt safer to just stay in your lane.

I did a lot of school, then I did art, then I did running — I wasn’t super fast, but I told myself I’m going to be tough. So there were these little baby steps as I tried to expand. But it wasn’t until — I had several experiences in high school…

I don’t know how I decided I wanted to do diving.

BECKY:

You did diving? Okay, I need to hear this.

— CHAPTER: The High Dive: Learning to Trust Fear Instead of Hiding It [09:10] —

HALEY [09:10]:

I don’t know what came over me, but I thought, I want to do diving. So I remember going to the diving class, and one of the first days, you were supposed to stand on the high dive backwards, hands up, and just stay completely straight and fall backward. If you stay straight, you fall at just the right angle and go straight in — you don’t really have to jump. That’s why it was a beginner thing. You just have to trust.

BECKY:

I can only imagine the adrenaline.

HALEY:

It actually was — and then when it works and you don’t die and you go straight in, it was kind of a rush. I didn’t become a diver — I did some classes, learned some dives — but that was one of the first times I did something that was terrifying, and I recognized it was still safe. I had a teacher, I had parameters, I wasn’t doing anything crazy, but I was able to really push through that.

BECKY:

Was there peer pressure — teammates, coaches?

HALEY:

No, it wasn’t that. It was more, you can’t be the person who walks back down off the board. Once you decide to do something, you keep doing it. That was great, but also a little unhealthy — it got to the point where I was working on a dive and I’d keep doing it even after I broke blood vessels on my face, because I had to be perfect.

BECKY:

So it’s almost like you were hiding the fear by being tough?

HALEY:

By being tough — exactly. You hide the fear, and you’re like, yeah, I’m going to go do this. But inside, there are emotions fighting. I was tough to an extent, because I could have just not done it, but I didn’t feel like it was okay to be openly concerned about it.

BECKY:

I think that was the expectation when we were growing up — toughen up, just do it. Which is a good thing to have, but we also need the other side — we need to be able to feel those emotions. Saying “I’m afraid” doesn’t make you wimpy. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to do it.

HALEY:

Which I think I believed it did — that expressing any fear or hesitation was weakness.

— CHAPTER: How Childhood Shaped Her Parenting Philosophy [13:29] —

BECKY [13:29]:

So how has that translated into your own parenting — what have you taken from that and changed?

HALEY:

One of the main things I’ve tried to do — and I’m obviously not perfect at this — is when my kids are trying something, or succeeding at something, I try to bring it back to effort rather than a label. I don’t think I’ve ever told my kids “you’re smart” or “you’re athletic.” Instead it’s, “Wow, look what happened when you worked so hard.” There’s always a way to do more, through persistence, if you want to — and it’s okay if you don’t. It’s not that you have some magical trait that gets taken away if you don’t win.

BECKY:

I kind of felt that growing up too — you can do anything, you know? And sometimes that gets used like a weapon against yourself — then I have to do everything.

HALEY:

Absolutely. I grew up in Bountiful, which is a high-achieving community — we want our kids to do well. But I think, just because of how I personally internalized things, I didn’t have healthy coping skills for that heaviness — feeling like I needed to do all these things to be valuable.

— CHAPTER: A Teenage Eating Disorder, Depression, and Dropping Out of School [15:41] —

HALEY [15:41]:

I struggled with — I didn’t realize it was depression, because that wasn’t really talked about back then — but I had some mental health struggles, including an eating disorder, in high school.

It was actually a really important time for me, because in order to heal, and to go through therapy, I actually dropped out of high school. The year before, I’d been student body president — I was doing all the things, doing great at everything — and then I realized I couldn’t do it anymore.

BECKY:

That’s a big step — for your mom too.

HALEY:

It really was. I remember she came to me and said, “It’s okay if you don’t go to school right now.” That was huge for me, but it also meant losing all those roles I’d had — and for a while, I had to ask, what gives me value if I’m not the most at this, the best at that?

BECKY:

How did you rebuild that — it’s almost like a part of you died.

HALEY:

A hundred percent — but it was the part that wasn’t healthy. So the good thing was realizing, wow, I actually do have value. I started seeing a therapist, I was on medication — we pulled out all the stops. And then there was just time. But spiritually, I was able to connect with God in a deeper way, and feel like my value as a human being didn’t depend on what I did. It took time, but that was a big step — realizing it’s okay to come back as yourself, without stepping into the same roles of being the best at everything. You can just be someone who tries things.

BECKY:

It’s like redefining your definition of success.

HALEY:

That’s exactly what it was.

— CHAPTER: Sent Alone to Hong Kong: A Mother’s Leap of Faith [18:35] —

HALEY [18:35]:

And then, to add another terrifying experience — my aunt was living in Hong Kong at the time, and she called my mom and said, “I hear it’s been hard, Haley’s been having a hard time, she’s home from school — would she like to come stay with us for a few weeks?”

Growing up, my family did the same vacation every year — we went to Sun Valley, rode our bikes on a tiny little trail. The craziest thing that ever happened was getting caught in the rain once. We were very cautious. We had the same pizza every Saturday night. Very regular, very predictable — we always knew what to expect.

So for my parents to send me to a different country — to put me on a plane alone — that was not something our family did.

BECKY:

And you’re the oldest?

HALEY:

I’m the oldest, yes. I think they got to a point where they could see I wasn’t thriving, and they didn’t know what else to do — so they decided to try this.

BECKY:

That’s what love does, isn’t it. When things go wrong with our kids, we usually go to grief first — they didn’t turn out the way we planned, and we make it about ourselves. But for them to look at you and say, this is reality, this is where she’s at, and we’re going to do what we can to help her — that’s a lot. I think there was probably mourning in that for them too.

HALEY:

Absolutely — but I think there’s so much credit due to them for saying, even if something happens, even if we lose her in some way — whatever their fears were — it wasn’t as bad as watching me not thrive. I was sixteen, and I hadn’t really left the house in seven months. So they put me on the plane.

— CHAPTER: Stranded in San Francisco: The Trip That Changed Everything [23:20] —

HALEY [23:20]:

We were supposed to fly to San Francisco and then connect to Hong Kong. The flight was late, and there happened to be someone on the flight who helped me find my gate — I’d never had to go to a different terminal before. I didn’t know about airports. I was just a kid.

I got to the gate, and the once-a-day flight to Hong Kong was pulling away. So I was in San Francisco by myself — no cell phones, this was not me. I wasn’t in my normal mental state either — not “mid-season form,” as it were.

But this person from the plane said, “Let me help you, let’s go to the front desk, they’ll get you a hotel.” So I figured out the hotel, took the shuttle, spent the night at an airport hotel, set an alarm to make sure I got back in time. I don’t even know how I managed it all — but the fact that I did, when I felt like I was at my weakest…

And then I got to Hong Kong, and everything was new — new food, everything different — amazing and scary at the same time. I think I came back a very different person, because it was like, I can actually do this. I didn’t fall apart. I did the whole thing myself.

HALEY:

And if we can give our kids that kind of experience — where we trust it, even if it’s not perfect, even if they don’t do it exactly the way we would have — they figure it out, and that does so much more for them than if a parent had swooped in to rescue them, telling them, “you have this mental problem, you’re so broken.” Instead, your parents let you have the breakdown, take the time you needed, and they let you stay in control of it. I think that’s so powerful.

BECKY:

It really is. We so often take control away from our children — we say, we know better, so we’re going to do this for you. And it’s all out of love, wanting to protect them from discomfort. But there’s a choice, as a parent: of course you acknowledge their feelings, but if you step in to fix the problem, you’re actually validating the idea that this is a dangerous, concerning situation — instead of saying, no, you’ve got this, you’re capable of handling it. I’m not at all concerned that you can handle this. But the temptation is to jump in and tell them exactly what to do — and then you’re putting them right back into “yes, you actually do need me.”

— CHAPTER: Why Rescuing Your Kids Robs Them of Resilience [26:38] —

HALEY [26:38]:

Oh my gosh, let me tell you an embarrassing story along those same lines. We’ve tried to encourage our kids to explore their interests.

— CHAPTER: The Prom Dress Story: When “Helping” Isn’t Helpful [27:50] —

HALEY [27:50]:

My daughter had bought a prom dress, and she sews, so she wanted to alter it — cut some off here, add straps, change the back. She was really busy, in and out of the house, so I thought I’d be helpful — there was no way she could get it done in time, I figured, even though she never actually said that to me. So I started hemming it, and I started making some straps while she was out.

She came back, and I showed her the straps, and she said, “I don’t really like those.” And I — this was not my finest hour — I said something like, “I’ve been working on this all day, and I don’t even feel like you’re being grateful.” And she said, “Mom, I really appreciate you hemming it, but I don’t need your help on the straps. I’m fine — I’ll let you know if I need something.”

And that’s when I realized — as my kids get older, it’s important to give them space to make their own decisions. If the straps aren’t exactly how I’d want them, it doesn’t matter — it’s not my dress, it has nothing to do with me. But you get so tied into “I’m helping, I’m helping,” and that’s not actually helpful. If you want to be helpful, you have to ask how you can help — and maybe it doesn’t get hemmed at all, and she’s perfectly happy duct-taping it. There were a million options that didn’t require me swooping in to rescue the situation. But I was upset, because I didn’t see it as rescuing — I saw it as helping, and I felt like she wasn’t grateful.

BECKY:

I actually interviewed my daughter-in-law a while back for the podcast — her episode was really good, we dove into the daughter-in-law/mother-in-law relationship — and she told me it would be so much more helpful if, instead of coming over and just starting to clean or cook or whatever, I simply asked, “What can I do to help?” That blew my mind a little. Because then you’re actually doing what they want, and you can still feel helpful, without needing the relationship to revolve around getting credit for it — instead of sitting there waiting for someone to thank you for something they didn’t actually need.

HALEY:

It’s easy to see that in your own life — like, I was allowed to do these things, to try these things — but then to make sure that’s also what I’m putting forward as a parent.

BECKY:

And a lot of it comes down to thinking our job as parents is to keep everyone safe and cushioned — and that feels so loving — but we actually have very little control over that. We have some influence, but the best influence isn’t doing it for them, it’s setting the example.

— CHAPTER: Self-Care Isn’t Selfish: Diluting the Intensity of Motherhood [33:22] —

BECKY [33:22]:

So I’ve come around to thinking, I need to take care of myself. I love being a mother, but if I’m only a mother, I get so intense about it — I need other things to dilute the intensity. And when I do that, my kids look at it and they’re proud — they think, mom can do these things, maybe I can do some things too. Then we get to have these great conversations, like, “what’s your new business idea? Tell me!” instead of me sitting there second-guessing everything they’re doing.

— CHAPTER: Showing Up Mediocre: The Courage to Try Anyway [35:08] —

HALEY [35:08]:

That’s interesting, because I had a situation a couple of weeks ago — I was going to go to a camp where I knew I’d be by far the least skilled person there, and I was more nervous than I’ve been in a long time. I think it’s that old pattern coming up again — I do all sorts of things, and one of the strengths I’ve developed as an adult is being okay doing things at a mediocre level. But I was talking to my daughter about it, telling her I didn’t think I could go, and she said, “Are you kidding me? You tell me this all the time, and you say just go do it — you absolutely can do this, it doesn’t matter.” She basically handed all my own advice right back to me.

BECKY:

[laughs] Oh, that’s perfect.

HALEY:

And I was like, you’re right — I have to go. And it turned out to be lovely and amazing. I wasn’t the best person there — I was the least skilled person there — and it was still a great experience.

[END OF PART 1]

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PART 2
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— CHAPTER: From Art History to Business: Haley’s Education Path [00:00] —

BECKY [00:00]:

Tell me a little more about what you studied, and your career path.

HALEY:

So I went to BYU, and I was a little bit all over the place — unsurprisingly, since I like trying a lot of new things. My dad is really good at being the reality check of life — he said, “You may love art history, but it might make more sense to have a degree in business or something like that.” And I thought, that’s a good point. I’d taken a lot of different classes, so I wasn’t super far along in any one program — so I started taking business classes.

My husband, Brian, is an artist. At first I didn’t even know he was actually going to do that as his career — I just assumed no one actually makes a living as an artist, because I’d never seen that growing up. In my community there was a lot of music, theater, dance — but not really visual art as a career path.

BECKY:

And it sounds like the way you were raised, your parents were like, come on, be practical.

HALEY:

Right, and they weren’t thrilled — not because of him particularly, but I was pretty young, I didn’t have my degree yet, he didn’t have his master’s or a company started. There were a lot of expectations. My grandma, though — she’d had a hard life — she said, “This is fine, you’re getting married, but you have to promise me you’ll graduate.” And I said, of course, I was already planning on it. But hearing her story made that really important to me.

— CHAPTER: Marrying an Artist and Moving to San Francisco for Grad School [02:16] —

HALEY [02:16]:

So we got married, Brian graduated, and we decided to go to graduate school in San Francisco — he wanted his master’s, and a more traditional drawing background, so he went to a school there. I did my schooling through independent study — this was back when it was all paper files and textbooks you mailed in. I was working at a bank doing condo loans — a soul-sucking job, but it worked, because in the down times I could work on my classes.

We didn’t have kids for a while, but even then, I’d maybe finish a class a year — I wasn’t quick about it, because I was also working. By the time I graduated, I had three kids.

BECKY:

So it took a long time.

HALEY:

A long time — a few classes at a time, especially during a harder season, like having a baby, when I could only manage one class. But it actually turned out to be the very best path, because my husband is an artist, and to make a career out of that and actually make money, you need a business background. And taking the classes slowly let me apply what I was learning directly to our business as we grew it — he was doing his art and some school, and I was building the website, doing the taxes, going to shows, figuring out the marketing. It turned out to be a great foundation.

— CHAPTER: Building Brian’s Plein Air Painting Career [05:00] —

BECKY [05:00]:

What kind of art does he do?

HALEY:

Oil painting — landscapes and still lifes. There’s a term, “plein air,” which means painting outdoors on location — so he’d go to festivals, paint a scene right there, and sell it. Over the years, with the internet, people got more comfortable buying online, and now mostly people will see something he’s posted and say, “I love that, can I buy it?”

He did one whole series on forgotten or vanishing landscapes — he went to China, where people were living on these houseboats that were being torn down so people could be moved into apartments. Their entire lifestyle was being taken away, and he was able to capture it before they were removed. Right now he’s doing a series on the Great Salt Lake.

— CHAPTER: Inventing (and Running) a Global Art Easel Business [06:34] —

HALEY [06:34]:

My husband also invented an art easel — it’s a metal box, and the bottom attaches to a tripod, so you can open it up, paint, close it up, and throw it in a bag — it’s protected because it’s an aluminum box. We manufacture those and sell them all over the world, and I run that company.

There was a point where he said, “We should just sell this,” and I said, no — how about I just run it, and I’ll make the decisions about marketing and customer service. I think that’s been a lot healthier for our relationship — having that bit of autonomy — and it’s also let me involve the kids in the family business, which has been really positive.

— CHAPTER: Marriage + Business: Setting Boundaries Between the Two [07:54] —

BECKY [07:54]:

Working together with your husband can be challenging.

HALEY:

It can be — and honestly, one of the best things we did was decide that a real business needs real business meetings. We have to actually talk about the business in a business meeting, and not bring it up in the middle of, you know, normal life — because you don’t want frustration over a business decision bleeding into your relationship. Those are different things. So we set some boundaries — we have a planning meeting Monday mornings, and if something’s on your mind, we put it on the agenda so we talk about it at the right time. That’s been really helpful.

— CHAPTER: Why It Was Never “Impossible”: Family Support and Risk [09:09] —

BECKY [09:09]:

When did it become clear this was going to be his actual career?

HALEY:

It was always the plan — that was always going to be the path. The tricky part, like with a lot of businesses where you’re working for yourself, is there’s no set income — you might sell a whole bunch of paintings at once, and then there might not be much for a while. So you have to budget so things last through the year. It took some time to establish enough regularity that we felt comfortable — okay, this can sustain us, now we can have kids, I can stop working.

But it was never impossible, because my dad was always the type to say, “We can do this, let’s just start a business.” He’s very entrepreneurial — if you want to do something, let’s figure it out. So when Brian graduated from BYU, he did a whole show at a gallery, and my dad helped us build all the frames. He was so supportive, and that made it feel a lot less scary.

BECKY:

It sounds like that’s a theme for your parents — trusting their kids that it’s all going to work out.

— CHAPTER: Starting With $700: Building a Life From Scratch [11:23] —

HALEY [11:23]:

If you’re passionate about something and willing to work at it, you can make pretty much anything work — I really believe that. And for my own kids, if they came to me wanting to do art, or photography, or whatever, I wouldn’t be concerned, as long as they’re willing to put in the work. I think it actually unites you as a couple, too — when you’re building something together. We started with about seven hundred dollars. My parents didn’t have money to give us, so we just built it ourselves.

I remember — we were renting an eight-hundred-square-foot house with three kids. His studio was in one bedroom, so all three kids were in our bedroom. When we finally moved into our house, the older kids were like, “There’s stairs in this house?! This is amazing.” They were just thrilled.

— CHAPTER: Old Cars, Backyard Sheep, and Teaching Kids Contentment [12:56] —

HALEY [12:56]:

There are different challenges depending on how you raise your kids — like, maybe the stretching thing we have to do is be okay when our car makes a weird noise. I like to drive cars into the ground. My daughter’s driving one that’s older than she is — twenty-some years old. It’s the car we use to pick up hay for our sheep and ducks — we have sheep and ducks at our house — so there’s always a bale of hay in the back. You can’t run the air conditioning because hay blows everywhere.

BECKY:

[laughing] But how cool — they have a car!

HALEY:

Right — it’s a privilege just to have access to it, and to have a driver’s license, to be able to take themselves places. That’s so helpful. But it’s good to remember that even if you can do something, maybe you shouldn’t do it all the time. I remember thinking, you know, I could take my kids out for ice cream every single day if I wanted — money’s not really the obstacle. But at some point you have to get to the place of, “I could, but I’m choosing not to,” instead of always saying, “I’m sorry, we can’t afford that.” Because then your kids grow up thinking, my parents were so poor, they wanted to give us everything but they couldn’t — when really, it’s almost harder to say no once you’re in a place where you could say yes, because then people think you’re being stingy. But it actually is for their good, and they’ll be grateful for it eventually.

— CHAPTER: Why Saying No Is an Act of Love [15:19] —

HALEY [15:19]:

Even though I know that giving them everything they ask for isn’t going to make them happy long-term, in the moment — when they’re whining about it, when we’re out with friends, “I’m so hungry, let’s just do it” — it’s harder to say no, because I’m trying to think about what’s actually best for them, instead of just falling back on “we can’t.” You have to be more deliberate: this isn’t good for you, I love you, so I’m going to say no.

And then, you also have to trust your kids enough to let them figure things out on their own once they’re older. Most of us paid for our own college, really — I mean, my parents set aside some money, my first year of tuition was covered, and I’m really grateful for that, but I didn’t actually lock in until I started paying for it myself. That’s when it became real to me — I wasn’t valuing it the same way until I had to pay for it myself.

BECKY:

That’s the rub. As a parent, you want to make everything warm and cushy, but the things that actually strengthen us are never the cushy things. And if you get in the habit of constantly rescuing your kids, giving them money and whatever they want, eventually they’re going to resent you when it cuts off — or you’re going to resent them. And there’s a real chance they internalize that you don’t think they’re capable.

— CHAPTER: Redefining Worth Beyond Looks and Achievement [19:02] —

HALEY [19:02]:

I think believing that external things — what you look like, what you can do — can bring you joy, or friends, or fulfillment, is actually a complete lie. I herniated a disc at one point and wasn’t able to be as active, and when you can’t be physically active, you start to feel like… I remember getting ready for church and thinking, man, I don’t look great. And then I heard myself say, hey, your job isn’t to go out and be a fashion model, your job is to go connect with people. And I started thinking about the people I actually love being around — it’s almost never because they’re devastatingly beautiful or amazing at some skill. There are very few people I feel close to for those reasons.

What actually makes you feel connected to someone is the connection itself — which has nothing to do with how they look or what they can do. And how many times do you feel closer to someone after you’ve helped them, or they’ve helped you — when you’ve felt vulnerable, or they have? We don’t make connections by showing up in our perfect state. We make them by showing up as our real selves.

So if you think people aren’t going to like you because your car makes a weird noise, those probably aren’t your people anyway.

BECKY:

And doesn’t the car with the weird noise make a much better story than the person who just buys everything new?

HALEY:

Exactly. There are times you feel less good about yourself — maybe you’re not as fast on the bike, or you’re a slow runner, or you’re not great at gardening or beekeeping or art — but people aren’t going to disconnect from you because of that. The way I hold myself matters more — if I retreat because I feel like I’m not good enough and I have to hide, that’s what actually affects the relationship.

When I think about the podcast, I think — Marty is “the Sendy mom,” but I don’t know anyone who loves Marty because she’s an amazing biker. We love Marty because she’s Marty, and she’s willing to share what she knows. The biking is just extra frosting — you’d love her even if she didn’t bike at all. I think most people look at others that way, and we need to remember that most people are probably looking at us that way too. And if they’re not — they’re probably struggling somewhere else, holding onto that need in an unhealthy way. I’ve been there myself, when I was younger, and it never works out — it’s so inward-focused, but in the wrong way. It’s okay to focus on yourself, but if you’re doing it by putting yourself down and shaming yourself, that’s not helpful.

— CHAPTER: The Empty Nest Reset: Sugar, Perimenopause, and Finding Joy Again [24:52] —

HALEY [24:52]:

Last year my son left on his mission, and along with that came this life transition — I’m not the mom with young kids anymore, but I’m also not… I started feeling like, okay, I’m middle-aged now, and that was a little hard to sort through. And on top of it, it was winter, I’d been eating a lot of sugar — that post-holiday thing — and stuff started to feel hard. My go-to was, let’s have a bag of chocolate chips, which — not always a great idea, let me say that.

I was feeling achy and old, like I was twenty years older than I actually am. This was in March, and I was in charge of planning our youth high adventure trip to Moab — rappelling, hiking, river rafting, all of it. I’d planned the whole thing, and I remember getting ready to go thinking, I hope I can even do all this, because I feel like this old lady now.

But I got there, and we were setting up tents, doing stuff, and one of the other moms came up to me and said, “This seems like you’re totally in your element — it’s so cool to see you doing stuff you love.” And I thought — wait, do I love it? And the answer was yes, I did — I’d just kind of forgotten. My life isn’t over just because one of my kids isn’t home all the time anymore. I’m not about to be put in a care center. There’s still so much to give, so many fun things to do.

I think that was a reset for me — realizing it’s okay if you’re not amazing at something, it can still be a great time. You can rappel and not be the best at it, and it can still be amazing. So I think that turnaround was: just keep getting out there, keep trying new things.

And cutting back on sugar has honestly been a game-changer too — I don’t know if it’s the perimenopause time of life or what, but it hits differently now. It’s made a real difference in my energy and how I feel about myself.

So my big takeaway is — don’t let the fear of not being good enough hold you back from things that bring you joy. There’s no one prescribed path you’re supposed to be on. I know a lot of people think, “I have to follow the exact path God has for me,” but there’s actually a lot of leeway — if something’s calling to you, go do it.

— CHAPTER: What’s Next: Coaching, Beekeeping, and Connecting with Her Youngest [30:10] —

BECKY [30:10]:

So what crossroads are you at now — where do you want to go from here?

HALEY:

This summer has felt really good — there’s been so much I’ve gotten to try. I’m coaching the brand-new riders on the mountain bike team, and it’s been so fun watching people get on a bike for the first time. But I was thinking, even with that high — coming back from biking, that adrenaline — my youngest daughter is kind of the only one home now, because everyone else is out biking. She’s ten, so she’s not quite old enough for the junior team yet.

We have bees — I do beekeeping with my son, he’s designed these indoor beehives, it’s a whole thing — and that’s something we do together. But I’ve been thinking I need to find things I can do to connect with her specifically, because she’s not as drawn to “let’s go fast” the way the others are. She’s a little more cautious about getting out there. So I don’t know if it’s exactly a crossroads, but I’m trying to balance the things that are really fulfilling to me with making sure I’m also examining how I can strengthen that connection with her.

BECKY:

Connecting with people means being interested in what they’re interested in — so if you want to connect with your kids, the best way is to find out what they care about and go learn a little about it. And while you’re doing that, they learn they can trust you, and that you can trust them.

HALEY:

Right — I don’t want her to just be home alone every night reading, even though that’s not bad in itself. You want to make sure you’re present for each child, and for the people who matter to you — without micromanaging, without getting overly involved.

BECKY:

It’s a balancing act — twirling all the plates. But it’s different, because you’re not telling her what to do, you’re asking her what you can do, and how you can show up better. I think that’s really the key.

HALEY:

Right — we trust them, and we ask them. And it’s nice to be asked, too. My son-in-law is actually really good at having those kinds of conversations — he asks me about my coaching work, my podcast, all of it — and it’s nice to be able to just talk about what’s important to me, and know that he cares about it.

BECKY:

So when you want that kind of relationship, it’s important to remember it’s not all about you — a conversation is a two-way thing. It’s good to ask questions and really listen, but also not to just be the listener — insert yourself a little, ask a question, add something, ask another question. It’s like a fun back-and-forth game.

HALEY:

That’s amazing — yeah, that’s exactly what this has felt like. This has been a really great conversation.

— CHAPTER: Rapid Fire Questions [36:09] —

BECKY [36:09]:

Okay, I have a few rapid-fire questions for you. First: what’s brought you joy in the last 24 hours?

HALEY:

This is kind of a silly one — we just hatched ducklings in an incubator in our kitchen. We had about thirty-five eggs, and I let the humidity get too low at one point, which can shrink-wrap the ducklings inside their shells so they can’t hatch on their own. We’ve only had two hatch out of the whole batch.

One little duckling had been pecking at its shell for two days and just couldn’t get out. You’re not really supposed to help them, but if they’re shrink-wrapped, they truly can’t get out on their own — so I turned up the humidity, made it warm and cozy, and used tweezers to carefully open part of the shell so it could get its body out. I gave it a little sugar water, kept it moist with a wet cloth — we weren’t sure it would make it, but it did. Today I was just holding this tiny, fluffy little duckling, and it was so joyful.

BECKY:

That is so awesome.

HALEY:

We need to get them out of the kitchen soon, but it’s nice to have these little guys around for a moment.

BECKY:

What about a book you’ve read recently that you’d recommend?

HALEY:

I just finished Boys in the Boat — probably everyone’s already read it, but I hadn’t, and I loved it. And right now I’m in the middle of A Woman of No Importance, about Virginia Hall — she was an American who became one of the most feared operatives in the French Resistance during the war, partly because she blended in so well. She’d lost a leg in a hunting accident in Turkey in her thirties, and had to rebuild her whole life from there.

BECKY:

So that’s your Sendy Spotlight pick too?

HALEY:

Absolutely — she’s amazing.

BECKY:

What about a documentary or TV show you’ve been enjoying?

HALEY:

Just for pure summer enjoyment — The Other Bennet Sister. It’s so good, if you’re into Austen at all. In the books, Mary is the least likable Bennet sister, but this show gives her a real backstory — you see why she became that way, always getting pushed aside as not the amazing one in the family, and how she comes into her own. It’s a little like Wicked, in that way.

BECKY:

That’s the thing — we learn there are good things about everybody, and we make assumptions when we only see a small portion of someone’s story. By the end, you’ve seen where almost every character is coming from — even people whose behavior you can’t stand at first, like the mother. It’s actually pretty redemptive.

HALEY:

It is. I really recommend it.

BECKY:

What about a charity or nonprofit you support?

HALEY:

This one’s more of a nonprofit than a traditional charity — every month since my kids were little, I’ve given to Khan Academy, because it’s essentially free, excellent education for anyone with internet access, anywhere in the world. I have my kids do it every summer so they don’t forget what they learned in school. They don’t always love it in the moment, but every year they end up thanking me, because they weren’t behind.

BECKY:

We used to do a lot of Khan Academy in the summer too — I think it’s great. Okay, last one — my son-in-law actually suggested this one: do you believe in ghosts?

HALEY:

[laughs] Oh my gosh — okay, this has actually been the topic of conversation in my husband’s extended family for the past two weeks. I don’t believe in ghosts exactly — I believe there are spirits without bodies, but I don’t think they go around bugging people. However — I’ll tell you a story.

My niece was just in Fort Collins, which — we’ve since looked into it — is apparently considered a haunted area. The whole extended family rented an Airbnb because she was getting home from a mission. There were cousins down in the basement — one room, then a locked closet, then another room. My niece and her twenty-year-old cousin were sharing one of the rooms; the cousin had already been there a few days and said, “I’m so glad you’re here,” but didn’t really say anything to set a spooky mood.

So they go to bed, and around two in the morning my niece is woken up by the bed shaking — she thought it was an earthquake — and then the cousin’s water bottle flew off the nightstand onto the floor. They were both half-asleep, so they just went back to sleep. In the morning, no earthquake, nobody else had felt anything. That cousin’s family left the next day, and the cousin mentioned, almost in passing, that the room hadn’t felt great to her either — like someone had been watching her.

So my niece spent the next night alone in that room. She said she just couldn’t sleep, it felt off. She finally dozed off — and she admitted she’d been sleeping with her phone charging under her pillow, which she knows you’re not supposed to do. Around two a.m. again, the bed shook, and her phone was yanked out from under her pillow and landed across the room. She felt like whatever it was wanted her on the floor — same feeling as with the water bottle — so she jumped off the bed, didn’t even reach down for the phone, and went and slept on the floor next to her fiancé, who slept through the entire thing.

BECKY:

That is a strong story.

HALEY:

It is — and the Airbnb wasn’t even marketed as haunted, no reviews mentioned anything like that, so I’m not sure what the benefit of “scaring” people would even be. I do think there could be other explanations. I don’t believe ghosts can hold onto things, like a phone charger — but who knows.

BECKY:

Well, this has been so fun. I feel like I’ve gotten to know you so much better — and gotten a real sense of your wisdom about raising children, and about finding yourself and pushing through even in your darkest places.

HALEY:

That’s exactly what we’re all trying to do.

BECKY:

It’s been great thinking through all of this with you. Thank you for being here on the Sendy Mom podcast — I can’t wait to see you again.

HALEY:

Thank you.