Leah Renee | Slowing Down, Intuition, Birth, and Breaking Free from Modern Overwhelm

Maggie (00:02.016)
Are the old ways a location reserved for women with land, gardens, or perfect little homesteads? So many women are waiting for the perfect house, the perfect land, the perfect season before they begin. But maybe the return starts exactly where your feet are, even in the city. Welcome to Women Folk Revival, where we are deeply rooted and wildly intentional. I'm Maggie.

Meara (00:29.647)
I'm Mira. And today we're joined by Leah. Leah is a stand-up comedian, storyteller, and mother whose journey of leaving the Mormon faith became a real-life unfolding of what it means to rebuild your life from the ground up. Through comedy, she shares the challenges, healing, and unexpected joy that can come from starting over and learning who you are outside of the world you were raised in. Leah, thank you so much for being here. We're really grateful to have you with us today.

Leah Renee (00:55.388)
Thank you, my pleasure.

Meara (00:58.221)
So could you paint a picture of what growing up looked like for you? Like what made your childhood unique and what are some of the values or traditions from that that have stayed with you the most?

Leah Renee (01:11.452)
Well, I was raised by a single dad. My parents divorced when I was three and then shortly thereafter my mother moved to Ireland. So my dad was actually in the military, but because he grew up in a rural farm community in Idaho, he wanted us to have that experience. So even though I didn't know he was driving probably an hour each way

To go work on the military base. We lived on four acres in the deserts of Southern California. We had horses, we had a strawberry farm. And I think my dad tried to give us that kind of unstructured free time that he had as a kid, but it was a bit different because he was in a two-parent home with parents that worked the land. So, you know, there was a lot more checking in. So he did his very best, but we did have satellite TV and

a lot of screen time as a kid, but a lot of trust as well. Like my dad loved when we would just go out to the horses by ourselves and, you know, throw on a saddle pad and sit on them and walk. He he just wanted us to have that kind of freedom. and I think because he was single, they didn't move him around as much in the military. So a lot of military families will move every one to three years. But we actually stayed there for quite a while. So I think from my upbringing

just being able to be outside and having a lot of space to roam was just always how things were for me. And I I looked at it over my life. I've actually almost always had a well wherever I lived. We almost all like even when we we moved to the Washington D C area, the on base housing that we had was right on the Potomac River. And it was it was this weird cluster of just three houses. So it wasn't with the regular base housing.

And so we could just walk down to the Potomac River. We had, you know, this huge field behind us. And I think just being able to wander around and not have neighbors, like sometimes I envy kind of the sand lot, you know, kids on a cul-de-sac playing together. but yeah, we lived on a military base, but we had a well. When I was a newlywed in college, we rented a house that was out in the middle of nowhere and we had a well when we

Leah Renee (03:35.213)
when we had our first baby, we were also living rurally and there's just something about having your own water that feels really nice. that if something happened, you know, you you could you could always have that. So I I like the freedom of living independently, which is weird because now I live in a city and Philadelphia recently had a a problem with their water and they had to like shut everything down. Like and it was crazy because within an hour or so,

everything all the water was shut off in the city. Like you w you weren't supposed to drink the tap water 'cause was contaminated and in an instant all of the all of the stores were out of bottled water. So I think there's kind of a free like Amish people don't care if something it's like we know how to grow our own food. We know how like we don't need any of this. And I I really appreciate that and miss that as a city dweller.

Meara (04:20.941)
Mm.

Maggie (04:23.672)
Yes.

Maggie (04:31.36)
Absolutely. I you know, you take for granted too, just even simple things is just washing your hands. and brushing your teeth, you know, having to then use bottled water for those things and having to use such a little amount that's like not even like how do you wash your hands with a drop of water, you know? But it's Yeah, it's it's a scary thing not to have water. We don't have a well.

Leah Renee (04:51.02)
Mm.

Maggie (05:00.136)
And I don't think that we could on our property because there's so many farms around us and I just think of, you know, just the groundwater not really being being safe to drink. And we've got septic with leech lines, so, you know, there's that history deal. But I would love to have a will.

Leah Renee (05:06.548)
Mm.

Meara (05:08.28)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (05:15.264)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Meara (05:18.658)
Were there any parts of your upbringing that you chose not to carry over into your adulthood?

Leah Renee (05:26.262)
I mean, obviously living in a city is a big one. we talked about being Mormon, that I was a very devout member of the church. That's probably the biggest shift. But even when I was Mormon, I was I was more of kind of the hippie Mormons. I was much more granola about the way that I practiced it. So I don't I don't really relate to a lot of the Mormon reality TV show stuff with the real housewives, but you know, the

Meara (05:40.44)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (05:55.168)
the Botox and the tanning beds and all of that, that always seemed it wasn't a good fit for me. I'll I'll just say it that way. So I would say that I I still feel like fundamentally the same person, but I think in especially in the ways of trusting your gut, Mormonism talks a lot about listening to the still small voice, which they would call like the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit. but I

tend to think of that now as intuition. And I think that's something that that I was raised with, or at least that I clung to in Mormonism, that even though I'm I don't practice that, I think that kind of gut feeling that, this just isn't mm, you know, and trying to trust that instead of like drowning it out. So I I would say that I've I've kept that. I've let go of the kind of shame parts of it. the

the worthiness side of it because there was the the dark side of listening to your intuition was that you could only trust your intuition if you were living righteously. So if you aren't keeping the commandments and doing the right thing, like they used to say when you're a teenager, the Holy Ghost goes to bed at midnight. So like if you went out on a date with somebody and it's like, well, it's 1230. So the whole I'm like, God doesn't go to sleep. I'm like, it's the middle of the day in Australia. Like he's awake. but

Meara (07:08.718)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (07:18.313)
that idea that like you couldn't ask God for help or or maybe God would be slow to respond if you weren't ticking all the boxes. So I had kind of I I tend to extremes. And so I was very extreme compared to some people in the way that I practiced Mormonism. And I still, and I think this will probably come up, I still kind of have that tug with like

Being a mother, you know, that you'll read something about like dyes in food or something. That's it. We're never like the the pesticides that they put on strawberries and they're like, they're neurotoxins, they're d and it's like, that's our we're never doing that, or you'll read something about gluten. And so kind of this like purity complex sort of thing that I still struggle with, but I but I've chilled out a little bit and tried to find the middle way that it's like, yes, these aren't organic strawberries, but you know what, like with our income and you know, everything.

It's a a trade off. Yeah, we can spend a lot more to get everything organic, or we can kind of pick and choose and try to find the ones that tend to be the worst. And then, you know, just just trying to find that balance because I felt like it was such a mental load to go to people's houses where they would give my kids snacks that I'm like, those have tons of preservatives. It's like, don't be that lady. Just it's fine. Like I was raised on a diet of fast food, like by a single dad. We were we ate out all the time. And it's like,

I don't wanna say and I turned out okay, 'cause who knows? Like who knows what is going on inside my body, but but it's like it's okay. Like, you know, choose choose the lesser I don't wanna call it an evil, but you know what I mean? Like like make the choice, the trade off choice.

Maggie (08:42.411)
Ha ha

Maggie (08:53.473)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Meara (08:56.45)
We just had a discussion like that with our one of our last couple of episodes where Maggie was like, but it has like, you know, it has this on it and then you don't know where this is coming from. And I'm like, you just gotta trust your gut and intuition and pray to God. You can't be obsessed. It is.

Maggie (09:09.921)
Yeah. Yeah.

Leah Renee (09:09.971)
Yeah. Yeah, it it can it can be really overwhelming to just I and and even like there's things that you eat that you're worried about. Well this has these kinds of things in it. But then there's also lifestyle stuff where it's like you shouldn't have screens after this and you've got to be up by this time because that and write down your dreams as soon as there's like all these things like I can't do all of this. So mm-hmm.

Meara (09:22.691)
Yeah.

Maggie (09:34.003)
It's overwhelming. I mean, it's it's starting to get to the point where, you know, we're feeling like we just don't know how to live. You know. How silly is that?

Meara (09:36.846)
That is.

Leah Renee (09:43.603)
Yeah. It's like access to too much information almost, you know.

Meara (09:46.849)
It is. It is. So you gotta pick what's right for your family and what's right for you guys and no one's gonna be the same as anybody else. And that's what I love about this is I love hearing everybody's stories because someone else is gonna be different and what works for them doesn't work for us. But it's nice to know that there's other people who are struggling with the same thing, but the way they do it that works for them, that doesn't work for us, you know, it's just like we're all living different lifestyles, but we're all still choosing to slow down and be one with God and

Maggie (09:47.797)
Yeah. Yeah.

Leah Renee (09:51.102)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Renee (10:04.821)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (10:11.223)
Yeah.

Meara (10:14.552)
You know, do what's right with our fa for our families. So

Maggie (10:16.999)
Mm-hmm. And Leah, having now lived, you know, both in rural areas and now in the city,

Leah Renee (10:18.368)
Yeah.

Maggie (10:28.277)
With so many people that are trying to return to some of the old ways, what are some traditional practice practices that you yourself have done and you can share with people that are living in a city to start, you know, to start on that road, on that path to living more naturally and more traditionally?

Leah Renee (10:51.715)
well, and I I know not everybody has access to this per se, but one of the reasons that we chose Philadelphia was it was it is the most walkable city in the United States. So walking safely is quite easy here. I mean, if you wanted to find safely, like, you know, people be crazy, like it's I do have pepper spray, but but in terms of getting outside and walking, it's not like there's a

seven lane freeway next to my house and it's like not safe to you know it's it's fairly safe. We also chose a spot that's right next to a park. So I'm able to just sit in the grass, take off my shoes, you know, earth, put put my feet to the earth. We also chose a spot that had a tiny little backyard, but it's a backyard. It's a place to send the kids outside to get some green time more easily. But I think the thing that has been

the easiest to implement in terms of resources. Like it doesn't matter how much or how little money you have. really reducing screen time. I do something called landlining with my phone. It's just where you plug in your cell phone and it stays in a spot just like a landline would have been. So if I need to make a call, I have to go there to do it. And so you just don't unplug it. You keep it in the same spot. You don't just always have it in your pocket. I read a lot more paper books.

Meara (12:07.874)
I like that.

Leah Renee (12:16.492)
rather than Kindles. And just taking deliberate time to be quiet and to not have screens going to bed earlier. And it it can be harder in a city with the lights and the sounds and and stuff keeping you up at night. But I think planning retreats out into nature doesn't have to be a big thing. Just pile the kids in the car and go to a state park and, you know, trying to schedule in that green time because I do find

I really miss being able to see the horizon 'cause there's just so many buildings and since we're not like on a you know, twenty story apartment building, like I I can't it there's just something about like I I need to be able to see. I don't know if that's like ancestral, like we had to see if like a stampede was coming or a warring tribe. Like I don't know why I need to see the horizon to the level that I do, but I find that going out into the woods regularly helps. So we have a trip scheduled and a couple of weeks to be just

Meara (12:48.243)
wow.

Meara (12:55.788)
Yeah.

Maggie (13:02.336)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (13:14.303)
Totally off the grid. I shouldn't say totally. There's a refrigerator and l it's like a little basic cabin, but but no internet, you know, no internet, no screens. Trying to let my kids be bored when they say I'm bored and they say, that's good. That like that makes you a more creative person. Like and and I don't have like social media on my phone. you know, I disabled my Facebook. There's all kinds of I kind of have to have it for comedy because that's how different

Meara (13:16.322)
Nice.

Meara (13:29.954)
Wow.

Leah Renee (13:43.695)
bookers for shows contact you through Instagram. So if I don't have Instagram, I I don't really get very much comedy work. But but I have it blocked on my desktop. I can only use the like business management part of it. So I can't do scroll. I can't click on stuff and you know get get caught in that. So I think just pushing against the need to con the the feeling, the addiction of constantly being stimulated. And

Meara (13:57.155)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (14:12.12)
Mm.

Leah Renee (14:12.49)
I think that's one of the things that naturally happens when you live in a rural place and you don't have screens. It's like you you are bored. You do just walk around. You do walk in a field and pick up weird stuff, but when there's so many options, it's it's weird though, because I feel like i in a way we're kind of all equal in that people who who live in rural communities can be just as addicted to their screens as in the in the cities. And I remember that shift as a kid.

When we would go to Ida because we lived in Southern California, we would go to Idaho to visit my grandparents and spend the summers there. And I remember like everything seemed like twenty years behind. Like the clothes that people would like, the kids there weren't as fashionable. It was just like a slower way of living. And Idaho felt weird. But now, because we have Amazon, it home delivery, all this kind of stuff, i in my day you had to like order a catalog.

Maggie (14:56.332)
Hm.

Meara (15:02.35)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Renee (15:08.157)
And send them a check in the mail to get like these cool new shoes or whatever. Yeah. And now you can just go on Shane and find some knockoff Nikes. So even when you visit really rural communities, they're dressing like everybody in a city is. There's not really that. And so in the same way with screens, it's not like you can be just as connected to the pulse of what's going on in the world, living in a town of 300 people. And so making the deliberate choice to

Meara (15:08.184)
Yeah.

I remember that.

Maggie (15:13.196)
Mm.

Leah Renee (15:37.545)
be less s city ish or to take advantage of the good things of living in a city like walking and meeting up, like that's been one of the greatest things if you are in a city. my kids can meet up with their friends really easily. Our school district is so small that all of their friends live within walking distance. And so we try to give them that autonomy when they say we want to go to the playground. Like we trust them to walk there and what time are you going to be they don't have cell phones, but everybody else around them does. So something happened, they could call

Maggie (16:04.864)
Right.

Leah Renee (16:06.655)
But we kind of wanted to give them that nineteen fifties childhood of they walk themselves to school. They have little capture the flag or volleyball that they just do little quick pickup games with their friends. So I'm trying to get that kind of sandblot vibe while we're in without being in the in a cul-de-sac.

Meara (16:22.594)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (16:23.732)
That's great.

You know, I hadn't really thought about it that way when you were talking about how, you know, back in the day when you would go to the country, you know, life would seem so much slower and and like in the past. And that and that isn't the I mean you can find some areas that are that are kind of like that, but really they're far and few between and that's really sad. I just I hadn't thought of it like that. But it's so true.

Meara (16:43.042)
Remote. Yeah.

Leah Renee (16:47.595)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (16:48.099)
Yeah.

She also hit the nail on the head when she was talking about that need for that stimulation that w like it's amazing. Every person that we have spoken to on a podcast episode, it's like the same thing over again. You know, that need to go outside and and just put your feet on the ground and be grounding and just the need to slow down. And I love that idea that you have with, you know, putting your phone on charge and making it like a landline. That's a that's amazing. And so all of these things that you're

That you're bringing up

is what we're trying to incorporate in, you know, with women folk revival, just slow down and and for some people it might they might be overstimulated and overwhelmed by the thought of slowing down because they are constantly so fast paced. But you know, once you get into the rhythm, it really doesn't take much. And I did want to add when you were talking about the the catalogs that you had, how you had to order them, that was a so much fun because you would have to wait for weeks for these things to come in the mail. Amazon, it's there in two hours.

Leah Renee (17:34.997)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (17:42.23)
Mm.

Leah Renee (17:43.039)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (17:46.102)
Faz Yes.

Leah Renee (17:48.585)
Mm-hmm. Delayed gratification. Yep. Yeah. Well, and I honestly, because I tend to like doing the extreme of something, like I'd love to do a silent meditation or to like go away from my kids for a week and like be in the jungle. But honestly, they they call it the location cure. I used to go to Overeaters Anonymous and they talked about this where like somebody would move like from California to Virginia and they put on weight.

Meara (17:51.164)
Amazing. It was awesome.

Leah Renee (18:14.7)
And they would I want to live well, I just need to move back to California because the produce there is so much cheaper and the weather's better. So it's like if if I go there, that will change me. But you take yourself with you. So I think for maybe women who are living in an urban area or maybe the suburbs and they're like, We just need to be out in the country. I would say rather than thinking the country will cure you, try taking all the addictive apps off your phone. And and we know if you don't pay for the app.

then you're the product. So any app that you have that makes money off of you is geared to keep you on it. So Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, all of those. Take those off and see if you don't get that P like, don't think that living rurally is going to fix it because the fact is the people out in the country are probably on their phones just as much as you are. And I do think the access is nice to like to have it in your in your backyard, but it it's still going to be you that goes there.

So they have this in California. They call it beach guilt. People who move to California and they're near the beach and like, this will be so great. We'll go all the time. And then they don't. And they're like, I'm p I'm paying these super high prices for rent, but I never go to the beach. And it's like, you know, you you think the place will change you. And sometimes it does. There are some people who say, I'm so glad that we moved to Montana. Our life is so much different now. But I think breaking those habits sooner than later.

Maggie (19:24.404)
Yeah.

Meara (19:28.055)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Renee (19:41.139)
means you can enjoy the benefits if your financial situation or like for me, I would rather be living nomadically, but my family shot that down. So I'm they they want like stable friends and this they want to live in the same place and I wanna like live in a van. So I make the compromise by like chilling out in the best ways that I can.

Maggie (19:49.596)
Mm.

Maggie (20:05.033)
That's great. And what you said too, you know, it it speaks back to how we open this, that, you know, starting to live that, you know, that natural and slowed down life, you know, you always think you have to and I do it myself because we're limited on what we can do in our land because it's very hilly and, you know, we we have some issues with being around farmland.

Leah Renee (20:24.147)
Mm.

Maggie (20:27.923)
And I'm like, well, let's just wait to do this when we move. And let's just wait to do this when we move. Why should we do this if we're planning on moving? But we're spinning and you know, who knows if we ever actually do move or not. You know, so even that affects everybody. I don't care who you are, in some way you're always thinking, well, if this happens then I can do this. That is so true.

Leah Renee (20:36.811)
Mm

Leah Renee (20:42.452)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (20:51.925)
That's a really good point. And I I think it kind of in in my experience will some kind of sometimes build up a kind of resentment. Well it's like, well, we ca well w once we move, once we move, you know, that that then I start to feel grumpy that we haven't moved yet. You know, that that that's just my experience. I d you're probably more mature than than I am and I've

Maggie (21:07.797)
Yes. Yep.

Maggie (21:13.361)
No, I'm I do and I and I get in little funks and I'm like, okay, I gotta you know, like this is crazy. Yeah.

Leah Renee (21:20.743)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, the the kind of radical acceptance. And I know because we we chatted before this meetup listeners, this is not the first time that I've talked to them. But I've really enjoyed reading Byron Cady stuff and do it's called the work. And it's a way for you to question stressful thoughts. And some people might call it kind of radical acceptance, but that's kind of the thing like with your well, once we move. So you might take a stressful thought of like

I can't grow blueberries or whatever because we have too many hills or I I hate that the city doesn't let us blah blah blah blah blah. So then you go through that statement and you question it. Like there's four questions that you ask. So one of them is, is it true? Like, I don't like living here because I can't grow the stuff that I want. Is that true? Yes, it's true. Can you absolutely know it's true? Well, I I mean, I guess I could try growing it in a pot in my

Well, I guess there there is that guy who lives at the end of the road and he said that you're like, Okay, maybe there is an outlet, and then you question how do I feel when I believe the thought? I can't grow anything out here. Well, I feel stressed out, I feel resentful, I'm angry 'cause, you know, we've only lived here this many years. And if we sell it, we're gonna lose all this and it gets really tight. And then you ask yourself, Who would I be without the thought? Everything would be better if I moved. And it's like, I'd

I'd be happy. That's like always the answer. It's like all the stressful thoughts that you have. If you couldn't think the thought, if you had a brain injury and the part of your brain that has that thought was damaged and it could never be revived, well, yeah, I'd I'd I'd be happy. I'd you know, ignorance is bliss. So I don't know if that helps at all, but I definitely have my list of things of like, you know, counting down the days till my youngest is old enough. I'm like,

Maggie (22:46.325)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Renee (23:05.375)
Y'all are out at eighteen. I don't care what you could join the Peace Corps, you could live with it relatives, but like I'm I love you, but like I am putting off the things that I really enjoy doing. So then I just try to find little ways to do it.

Maggie (23:07.827)
Yeah.

Meara (23:18.732)
Yeah. what would you say is one thing that almost anyone could start doing this week? you know, to start small, to start simple and for them to be able to slow down?

Leah Renee (23:29.711)
I definitely think taking off any addictive apps from your phone. Cause you can have them on a computer, like and Instagram specifically on the desktop, is worse than the one on your phone. It doesn't have all the same functionality. It's like deliberately kind of frustrating because they want you on the phone. So I would say take off Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, all of those. They they do not have your best interests at heart. They are making you are

You are working for free for a for-profit organization that is deliberately causing harm to all of humanity. So that's that's like the easiest one. the landlining thing, I think very helpful. I started doing some breath work stuff. I was a bit skeptical, but I I was offered a free class by somebody who wanted to come on my podcast. And that was part of the deal was that I would take the class so we could talk about it. and that felt

Incredibly ancestral. That felt really like I feel like I'm a pretty like healthy, healed person. But then you're just like, what is this? Like I'm a little baby. Like, what? Like, mommy, like I was this but I'm like, all I'm doing is like hyperventilating. How does this work? So I really liked breath work, obviously meditation and reading. Reading is a great way to heal your brain. Read, just go to a thrift store.

Maggie (24:37.451)
Ha ha

Leah Renee (24:55.711)
get a bunch of cheap paperback books. And I've actually I wanna like design a holster. Like, you know, people have like their cell phone in their back pocket or like kind of in the early 2000s, dudes would have those like special holsters for their cell phone. I wanna create like a holster for a book that I just keep on me because what happens is you wait at a bus stop or you're in line and what do you do? You go to your phone, da da da. Just have your book like that.

Meara (25:19.902)
Yeah. You should.

Leah Renee (25:21.705)
Don't have your phone with you or like shut off ever, you know, turn off the data while you're out, whatever. And then like, we're gonna be my book. You know, like I've I've been reading like a book a week. It's I'm just like, this is it's so good. Books are so they're so good. I totally forgot.

Meara (25:33.231)
wow.

Maggie (25:38.055)
I do Yeah, we do read books in the home. I I couldn't get one book in a week. That's amazing. That's I would love to. And maybe I could, you know, and I'm just not

Leah Renee (25:49.321)
I mean, my kitchen is a disaster. My c like there's a lot of laundry left undone. But I thought reading was I I knew that it was good, but I thought it was like recreational kind of downtime. But there's all these studies about it connecting left and right parts of your brain. There's all these different things that you get from reading that you don't get from audiobooks, you don't get from watching a documentary. And so

Meara (25:54.839)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (26:15.024)
Cal Newport talks about cognitive fitness. So he has like five suggestions, basically in the same way that when they used to think exercise was bad for you, like, you could have a heart attack, you shouldn't go running. And then this doctor debunked it and was like, no, it's really healthy. And then it sparked this exercise revolution. So basically, our brains are quite like atrophied and slow and lazy and obese. And so reading, walking,

landline it you know, there's there's different things you can do, but now I don't feel like I'm putting off things for reading in the same way that I wouldn't feel like I'm putting off things for going for a walk or exercising or drinking more water. Like it's no, this this is what's gonna heal your brain from all of this action is getting into a really good book that you I just I c it sounds dumb to me like reading is amazing, but there's so many good books out there and

And you know that you're helping yourself. Just imagine your brain doing sit-ups instead of, I should be doing this. And then your kids see you reading. I love that when my kids come up the stairs and I'm reading a book. That's what's important. And sometimes I'll be reading and I'll look to see what time it is and I'll pick up my phone. I can hear my kid coming. I'm like, no, no, I actually am reading. Like, I don't want them to see me on my phone. I don't want that to be their memory of me hunched over like this.

Meara (27:25.442)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (27:25.598)
Mm.

Maggie (27:31.57)
Yeah.

Meara (27:33.89)
Hmm.

Maggie (27:35.678)
Yeah.

Meara (27:37.487)
Right. Yeah, I I love the thought of reading and I will buy a good book. And then I'm two pages in, and I don't know if it's because of my learning disability. I'm not gonna use that as an excuse, but I just can't get stay focused after one page and I'm like, okay, I'm really gonna get into this book, and then I start getting into it, and then all of a sudden I think, you know, dinner needs to be made, or squirrel, I see a squirrel outside, or something else happens, even if I didn't have the kids around me, but I do make it a point for reading in our home.

Leah Renee (28:02.655)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (28:07.674)
And w our one of our elders, she is so obsessed with books. She's reading chapter books. Like I'm talking like thirty chapters and the words are like this big where I have to take my glasses off to see what she's doing. And she'll just bring her book out when the kids are playing in the middle of the living room and she'll plop on the couch and she'll read her book. I'm like, thank God. Like you said, you want your kids to see you read books. I want my other kids to see her reading that book so that they wanna be encouraged to read books because

Leah Renee (28:18.527)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (28:33.44)
I can't I like I really cannot stay focused, but like you said, I don't wanna do it on Kindle either because that's just more screen time for my eyes. I wanna really like, you know, get immersed in this book, but I just I just don't know how. So that's a challenge for me.

Leah Renee (28:44.491)
Mm.

Leah Renee (28:49.303)
I if you want a suggestion, and I don't know if you do, I I completely relate because when I started reading, I would fall asleep. The time that I would carve out was like before bed to wind down. So I had like Joe Dispends a Breaking the Habit Being Yourself, great book. That book and You Are the Placebo, I would read those and like two pages in. I mean, it was great because I could just fall asleep. Like it was almost like my Ambient, you know. So I

Meara (28:51.618)
Yes, I do. I do, please.

Meara (28:59.103)
well.

Meara (29:13.358)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (29:19.027)
I apologize if you are against AI and I struggle with it as well. Okay. So I was curious about the opium wars in China because I think that our digital addiction is quite similar to any other kind of addictive substance. And I wanted to see what what was the lead up to the opium wars in China. How did they try to stop it like, you know, and then to compare it to what we're experiencing right now?

Meara (29:34.85)
Mm-hmm. Sure.

Leah Renee (29:45.257)
So I went on Claude and I said, I I want a really good book about the Opium Wars. I want it to have facts in it, but I want it to be an easy read. I want it to be dynamic. And it's like, here, Stephen Platt, Imperial Twilight. That one, it has all these awards. It reads real, you know, I didn't because that's what I was afraid of. I want to learn about the Opium Wars. And then I find some things from some PhD that's like boring. And again, that like discouragement of I got two pages into it. And then I stopped. That totally happened with me. So if you know things that you're already interested in.

You could plug that into Claude and you can even say, I just want short essays on them. Like I don't want to commit to doing like a bit just something where I can read two pages of an essay of some like David Sederis. He he's an essayist. So that way you can just like start to get these little victories. Yeah. O of something that's really easy. Cause I mean, that's actually it's what my midwife told me when I was pregnant, with my second. So my first came at like

Meara (30:26.315)
Okay.

Meara (30:30.19)
Start small. Duh.

Maggie (30:32.116)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Renee (30:42.175)
thirty seven, thirty-eight weeks. And then when I was pregnant with my second, at thirty-eight weeks, I'm like, Okay. And then thirty-nine weeks I'm like, All right. And then forty weeks I'm like, okay, any day now. And I was losing my frickin' mind. And so I talked to the midwife about it. I was like, it she said, just get into a really good book. And because I was like s so such a butt munch, I was like, I'm not gonna read unless it's like

Classic literature. Like, I'm not she's like, just read like Twilight or some kind of garbagey book. And I'm like, no, I will not read Twilight. I'm not gonna read the Babysitters Club. Like, I want something good. And I tr but I try to find something short. The book that I landed on was Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which is about the genocide in the Congo perpetuated by the Belgians. So I got two paragraphs into that and went, no. And then I just read the never ending story. Cause I

Meara (31:11.062)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (31:34.407)
It felt appropriate for h the never ending pregnancy. and because I already knew the story, I felt like I knew I knew the language wouldn't be too heavy for me that I could keep going. And so whatever those if you can find what the things that set you off, like I I want I want a page turner, but I want it to be about something that I like, you know, and may maybe you may I don't know, I don't like true qu true crime. A lot of people do. Maybe it's something like that. Maybe it's about someone who homesteaded.

Maggie (31:38.418)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Renee (32:02.295)
memoirs I tend to really like because I know it it's it really happened. It's not just somebody making it up. So so yeah, I the thing is you just haven't found your book. It's like when I meet people who are like, I don't like comedy, and it's like that's because you've seen a certain type of comedy. It's like, yeah, if young dudes talking about what young dudes talk about, there's so many different types of comedians. Everybody loves comedy. They just haven't found the comedian that they like.

Meara (32:08.546)
Yeah.

Meara (32:17.346)
Other comedy.

Meara (32:23.234)
Yeah.

Maggie (32:23.805)
Ha ha ha.

Leah Renee (32:26.9)
So it's out there, Mira. There's a book. And you could just do a short one and then you get that victory. It's like a budget. It's like it's like, how do I pay off my bills? It's like I have this, other you know, just pay off this one. Just just chip away at this credit card and then you get that done and you get this momentum. So even if it's a short little skinny book, like yeah, you you definitely are a reader. It's just your brain has been sucked by these children that constantly use up your bandwidth and it takes a while to to build it back. But you I

Meara (32:32.162)
Yeah.

Meara (32:45.581)
Yeah.

I am. I know am.

Maggie (32:54.033)
Ha ha ha.

Leah Renee (32:56.467)
I'm excited for you because I'm I'm like just a couple I'm like a month into this and I'm like reading is amazing, everyone should do it. But I was a hundred percent a month ago, I was like, Yeah, I should read more, but it just makes me fall asleep. And now I'm like up till three in the morning, like page turning, like it's so good.

Meara (32:58.616)
Thank you.

Meara (33:11.67)
I love it. I love it. Yeah, I think I just need shorter. Maybe like one page a day or something just to get I need something, like very short, like you had suggested. And thank you. I really appreciate that. Yep, I'm gonna look into it. Well, you know, Leah, we saw you gave birth to a ten pound baby in your kitchen. And no. Well

Maggie (33:14.656)
Ha ha ha.

Leah Renee (33:21.771)
Yeah. Yeah, there's essays, short stories, stuff like that.

Maggie (33:26.408)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (33:30.899)
You saw me? How? No, I'm just kidding. No, no, no. I'm just Nah. They're in the bushes. I know yes. It's so singular. I mean, it does not happen every day. I mean it does happen every day, but it's not every day that you get invited to a birth. So yes. If I were invited, I'd go.

Maggie (33:32.774)
Yeah.

Meara (33:34.838)
Not to be cringe, but I do like enjoy watching women give birth. I think that's amazing. Yeah, yeah. Peeking in the window. Creep, creep.

Meara (33:46.805)
Yeah. And so for many women that's, you know, very unimaginable. So looking back, what gave you that confidence to let you be able to trust yourself through having that experience and how has it shaped you as a woman as a and as a mother?

Leah Renee (34:04.831)
thank you for that question. it definitely was broke confidence. I didn't have money or insurance and home birth is way cheaper. So that's what gave me the confidence is that I'm that cheap. No. that is how I started though. I I got pregnant shortly after my husband and I got married. he was still in college. I had just barely graduated, and I yeah, we didn't have the money. And so

Meara (34:15.298)
Wow.

Maggie (34:17.757)
Ha ha ha!

Leah Renee (34:33.32)
I looked into home birth or like a a freestanding birth center and we watched the documentary The Business of Giving Birth. And that really changed things for me when I saw how labor and delivery has changed over the years and how it's largely in the states been monetized. That's why it's much more common, like in the UK, to have a midwife and to have a natural birth because the government pays for it. So they're like, we're gonna do this on the cheap. Sometimes

in not a good way for women. There are women who, it's because I mean, same thing with the military. Like my my parents were military, my husband's parents were military, and that's a cheaper system. So they're not gonna give you like the nice drugs, the nice hosp like they're not making money off of it. They're losing money. And so after seeing that documentary and then meeting other women that did home birth

I really liked it. I really liked the idea of me being in control of the experience to the extent that you can, right? Like that's the thing with birth. You don't know how long you're gonna be pregnant, how big the baby's gonna be. There's so many things that you can't control. But I did not like the idea of going to and and this is not a judgment on anyone that's had hospital birth. Be before I say anything else, I support women in whatever feels safest and good to them, to trust that intuition.

This is only my experience. I didn't like the idea of being in a big building where sick people go for treatments for all different things, and that just one little part of the hospital was this, you know, linoleum floors, fluorescent lighting, people coming in and coming out, the beeping machines, the scratchy sheets, like it

Especially because in Mormonism, women don't hold the priesthood and they are constantly told that the greatest calling and responsibility that women have is to be mothers and that it's next to the angels and that you're not just giving birth, like you're creating a human life, a human soul that will exist for eternities. And so it felt like this grand spiritual, like this this incredible ancestral thing that I had. And then to be

Leah Renee (36:50.217)
wearing a tablecloth that opens up in the back and having 19 year olds with a clipboard coming in and looking at my hoo. It was just like that doesn't feel spiritual to me in the same way that like, I don't know, getting baptized or getting married, you know, like get like when you choose the kind of wedding that you want, it's about that like that bond, that experience and to be told that

Meara (36:52.344)
Yeah.

Meara (36:58.07)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (36:58.76)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (37:12.681)
the best place to get married is in the courthouse because it's just easier and it's there and they do it all the time. Like it felt very sterile, very industrial to me. So because I knew a lot of other women that did home birth, I was very calm about it. And because I chose midwives that had a lot of experience, I I just I knew if there was an emergency, they would know it. And then they would send me d you know, that we would go together to the hospital and they would advocate for me. I knew that that was true. I d of course they didn't know

how everything would unfold, but I knew that there were women who backed me and who trust the process. And a lot of midwives will say, like giving birth is something your body knows how to do, like going poop. You know, your body knows how to poop. You don't have to read books about it. You don't need to go to the hospital for it. Like, but because you've never done it before, it's like, ha ha, like I mean, think if the first time you pooped you were 12 years old. You'd be like, my gosh, what's going on? Like it's I I knew that

Meara (37:54.902)
Edits.

Maggie (37:57.897)
Ha ha ha.

Meara (38:05.091)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (38:11.968)
Being fearful about birth, no matter where it is, will make it worse. It all fear always makes things worse. Clinching, like whatever it is, whether it's being in traffic or giving birth or reading books, whatever it is, if we have a fear about it, it's gonna make it harder. And so to have women who embraced birth, who didn't fear it and who would support me was just such a beautiful experience. To be fair, like the easily the hardest thing I've ever done in my whole life and super hard.

Maggie (38:15.932)
Yeah. It does.

Leah Renee (38:41.299)
And I've had my tubes removed. So it's not like I love it. Like I'm not one of those ladies who has like 12 kids because like I love I know someone who loves being pregnant. It's my friend's friend. But then they have these babies, you know, she's like, I love being pregnant. And it's like, but now there's a person that we have to take care of forever. Like, she could probably be a good surrogate for somebody because she just it's pregnancy is like very easy for her. She loves the process. For me, it was more like understanding my body and kind of accepting that.

Okay, I can't bend down. Okay, my ankles are swollen. I can't roll over. Like it was sort of like, but this so far we haven't come up with an incubator that can make humans. So this is the only way to have a family. So I will like roll with this experience. And the midwives that I had were just it was so like one of the midwives that I had with my second, she made me sorry, my third, she made me a sits bath from herbs from her garden.

Like she had picked chamomile and all this different stuff and like had it in a little cloth bat. Yeah. So like after I had the baby, she's like, Yeah, some of the swelling. And it's like, I d I just didn't want like a doctor that's like, Okay, all right, well, we gotta check you. It was like it was like a sisterhood there. There was just such like a tender connection that I really I I really thought that that was worth it over

Meara (39:52.707)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (40:02.175)
having like a quick and easy birth. And it's not it's I don't want to scare people about birth, but epidurals aren't perfect e I know someone who got they had an epidural and it numbed them from the waist up rather than the Yeah, or another person half their body. Like the right yeah. And so and then I and then I know women who get an epidural, they sleep for a few hours, they like wake up and then and they don't feel any like it it's it's a crapshoot. And I I think as a confident person I was like, I've got this you know, that it was like

Meara (40:13.6)
I had that happen. I couldn't move. Yeah.

Meara (40:26.38)
Yeah. It is.

Leah Renee (40:31.688)
I I will trust these women who were like mountain midwives. These were ladies who helped like Amish women who lived on a mountainside who were three hours from a hospital. Like they knew birth. They knew when something was off. But to you it feels off because you're like, wow, wow, wow, wah, And it's like, nope, that's totally normal. Like they knew right before I was about to give birth because I like went up on my toes and I was like, I was like pulling on my hair and and she was and they were just sitting at the table like,

Meara (40:54.764)
Yeah. Yeah.

Leah Renee (40:59.401)
All right, here come you they're just like clockwork. They're like, All right, we're we're it's time to go. And they said, Yeah, my golden retriever that did that before she gave but th there's just these like signals that we're we've industrialized out, you know, that we're we're playing with these chemicals in our body, these, you know, different okay, I'll give you more potosin. but it's too much pot well, if we give you too much of an epidural, then you're not gonna progress. And these women have specialized in

Meara (41:00.908)
Yeah.

Maggie (41:08.114)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (41:25.769)
Reading bodies and reading people and connecting with them and yeah.

Meara (41:27.714)
Yes, and cues. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Maggie (41:31.28)
And it's you know, it's not it's not just that ether. We're not taught anything or about our bodies and we don't go looking to learn it either. I mean it just blows my mind that that I didn't grow up. I grew up wanting to be my mom. I wanted to be a wife and a mother and then and then wanted to be an artist on top of that.

Leah Renee (41:41.236)
Yeah.

Maggie (41:51.165)
But my whole life I've wanted to be a mother, but I I didn't think that I needed to learn anything about my body or how pregnancy would be or how to give birth naturally. It was never a thought. I was just gonna go to a hospital like everybody else does and and it happens there. But we should be learning this from from the very beginning, I think.

Meara (42:11.896)
Since you're six.

Leah Renee (42:12.009)
Yeah, learn learn your options. Yeah, no, I mean, I my parents did not support my decision for home birth. My dad's a doctor. He thought I was being very dangerous. And yeah, my my stepmom used to say there's only one reason women do natural birth. It's for the same reason people run marathons. It's just to say they did it.

Meara (42:32.952)
wow.

Leah Renee (42:34.112)
So I I was very like I grew up in a very industrialized western medicine kind of fear honestly fear based. I mean, that's usually why people have it in a hospital, 'cause they're afraid. They're afraid something's gonna go wrong. Which is which is totally valid, you know?

Meara (42:39.49)
Yeah.

Maggie (42:40.314)
Yeah.

Meara (42:45.944)
Pretty much. But something could go wrong at the hospital too. A lot worse than what could happen if you were just doing natural. ever since I was six I wanted to be a midwife. I did research on that all my life. So I've always had that

Maggie (42:53.692)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (42:56.459)
Meara (43:01.022)
passion and I've always been very in tune to my body. Like I could tell you the exact daytime down to the second I was gonna start my period just because of a little cramp or a big cramp or you know so I've always had that but where most I from what I'm understanding a lot of women don't have that. I always wanted to do natural home birth but I had a huge issue with my first son and then the second I try to do VBAC so and so forth and so as you know I have six kids as you may or may not know and I've had to have I had two

Leah Renee (43:12.671)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (43:30.896)
And then I ended up getting shots with the last ones. And I hate it. I hate everything about it. My back is messed up because of it. I get these electrocuted shocks going up my spine every now and then. You know, it's just like it's a mess. However, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I don't I don't understand why these women are wanting to go in and have

Leah Renee (43:34.739)
Mm.

Leah Renee (43:45.973)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (43:50.293)
Caesarean by choice, especially as first time. That is not the easiest thing to do at all. The first time I had a cesarean, I thought I was going to die. Now, I don't want them to be scared of having a cesarean either because sometimes it may be necessary. And I've had amazing experiences. I've just had three back to back, three C sections back to back. my child my three are

Leah Renee (44:07.531)
wow.

Meara (44:11.51)
Two, three, and four years old. So back to back C sections. And Maggie, Maggie came to visit me the It is major surgery. And it is. And Maggie Maggie came to visit me after the second one and she goes, Wait, didn't you just have surgery like six hours ago? I'm like, Yeah, she's like, So what are you doing up and walking already? You look like it doesn't even look like you had a surgery. And I'm like, you know, you just you you have to like you have to you get used to it, but

Leah Renee (44:15.519)
Wow. I mean it's surgery. Yeah, it's surgery. It's like it's like three surgeries in a row. Yeah, yeah.

Maggie (44:20.623)
Mm-hmm. It is

Leah Renee (44:32.614)
Ha ha ha.

You get get used to the used to the pain and yeah.

Meara (44:40.972)
But what I also want to say real quickly is make the hospital your home. I had my incense, not my incense, I had my what was it, my essential oils going. people would come in and say, It smells so good in here. And I'm like, Yeah, you gotta make it your home. I had my own blankets, I had my own pillows. Bring your sheets, bring your pillows, do do what you.

Leah Renee (44:48.243)
Mm.

Maggie (44:49.937)
Diffuser.

Leah Renee (44:52.244)
Mm.

Leah Renee (44:56.809)
Yeah, don't be embarrassed 'cause a lot of women are like, it's it's like, no, this is your day. This is your your your bride day. Be a bridezilla, a momzilla.

Maggie (45:04.687)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (45:07.062)
So bring your home to the hospital so that it feels like your own environment. Lights, pretend candles for ambiance, your own, you know, essential oils, but do your research 'cause there's certain things you can't have around newborns. You know, bring your own oils to rub, message yes, playlist, your own sheets, your own blankets, your own pillows. I had like three suitcases. I'm I'm not kidding you.

Leah Renee (45:09.406)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (45:14.741)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Renee (45:19.945)
Yeah, playlists. Yeah.

Leah Renee (45:26.291)
A nice robe. Yeah. It's like don't be apologetic about your birth. Like it doesn't happen that often. It's an incredible moment for you. And yeah, don't be embarrassed to bring suitcases to the hospital or you can have a birth doula or a birth coach, somebody who will go over your birth plan and come with you. And so if they say, We're gonna go ahead and give you more Pitocin, you're

Meara (45:33.58)
No.

Meara (45:44.172)
Mm. There's a lot of

Leah Renee (45:50.663)
out of it. So the birth doula can say, How far is she? Okay, we're gonna wait. Like a lot of women don't know that they have a choice and they just nod and go forward with it. And the doula will know what things like know that like by law they have to do XYZ, but you can request this.

Meara (45:51.096)
I'd be careful.

Meara (45:55.234)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Meara (46:08.152)
Yeah.

So you need to advocate for yourself. I'm huge on that. I say that in like every episode. Advocate for yourself. Speak up. And like you said, don't be embarrassed or don't feel dumb or stupid. No question is a stupid question. And does anybody know a doctor's diagnosis is their best guessed? And that guess, and that's why they have three of them, you know, for one visit, because they they don't even know all the answers, and they're doctors. No, I love doctors. I'm not gonna say nothing's wrong with doctors, unless they're not nice. but you know, you gotta advocate for yourself. Do your research before you go and ask the questions. Who cares what they and if

Leah Renee (46:15.091)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (46:25.279)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Renee (46:38.826)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (46:39.216)
If they say that's a dumb question, you need a new doctor. So it's time to we stand up for ourselves and we advocate.

Leah Renee (46:42.761)
Yeah. That's the first the first gynecology appointment I had after I got married, I thought I might be pregnant. So I went in and found out that I had I think a UTI or something. And this lady was like she I thought I might be pregnant. So she's like, Well, I can give you the pills or the this was in this house, by the way. I can give you the pills or the cream, you know, to treat this yeast infection or whatever. And I and I just looked at her and I like, I prefer to do

things nutritionally to try to treat it that way. She's like, honey, no amount of yogurt is gonna cure this yeast infection. And I was like, I'm never gonna see you again. I was like, you do not like, there are so many ways to treat something as simple as a yeast infection through natural remedies, as you as people would call. But I just remember being like, that's so crazy to me that you think literally the only way that this will end is if I'm taking pills or I have cream. Like

Maggie (47:19.847)
Yeah.

Meara (47:22.412)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (47:40.893)
Yeah. So try to find if you are doing like a hospital birth or whatever, like find out their views, like i they they might not like essential oils or or whatever your thing might be, but like are they going to push against you and and add an extra layer of stress and extra like I don't know if you feel this, but there's very much a feeling of like everyone needing to be okay. That's part of being a comedian. A lot of comedians grew up in kind of crazy households where they were

Meara (47:58.222)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Renee (48:08.49)
Reading the room all the time. And I think especially women, we we we've been trained to be hostesses. Or maybe it's just our DNA and the way that we're wired. We want everyone to feel okay. And so if a doctor comes in and says, You need to this, okay, because we don't we don't want to ruffle any feathers. We don't well, I don't want to hurt her feelings when she said it's like, no, this is this is an okay time to like say the thing. Don't don't bury because you don't you don't get another chance at it, you know? That that kid has one birthday.

Meara (48:10.21)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (48:25.996)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (48:37.846)
That's true. That is true. If you could leave your our listeners with one piece of wisdom today, what would that be?

Leah Renee (48:47.317)
one piece of wisdom.

I I think I'll probably go back to the Byron Katie stuff because that had such a profound effect on me that our thoughts cause suffering. Any suffering that you ha I mean, people will be like, Okay, what if your foot gets run over? That's suffering, right? But outside of physical pain of, you know, having s being impaled on something, right? If we just want to talk about normal stress that we experience.

It's because of a thought that we're having and it's creating this chain reaction within our body. It's what a panic attack is. A panic attack is creating this scenario in your head, believing that it's real, getting the rush of hormones that come with it, and all of a sudden you feel like you're going to die. But anyone who's not you can see, you're fine, everything's okay, but you've created up here. So I've taken to like visualizations, like rather than have a panic attack.

I I think the word fantasy is kind of a weird word because it usually means like books with unicorns in it or like a sexy thing. But just visualizing it's w it's what athletes do, professional athletes visualize themselves kicking a field goal, visualize themselves swimming across the pool and and they see their hand hitting the buzzer with a certain time that they're like they go through that. And we usually use our minds to like

Predict disaster. We use it for horror stories, the worst that could happen. But do whatever you w it's your brain. You know, go to Portugal. Do do whatever like up here, like it's free. And then you do that and your body feels so much better. Your body doesn't know the difference between the real experience and the imagined experience. That's why panic attacks are so powerful. It doesn't matter that you're actually safe. You've told your body that you're not. So it's physiologically reacting. So

Maggie (50:17.265)
Yeah.

Leah Renee (50:44.305)
If you're struggling with something with your kid, like, I don't want to have to confront them about you know maybe you have a teenager and you're afraid to visualize it going well. Sit down with them, say say it in the best way that you could, and then what's the best response they could have from it? And then you hug at the end and you feel visualize that instead of, and then this is gonna like you're that's the energy that you're putting out there, and we can feel that. We can feel the you I'm sure all of us have walked into a room where.

There maybe there's just been an argument or something. And even though you weren't there for it, you're like, whoa, like the vibe is off in here. Yeah. So vibrate at a frequency of love and gratitude, of questioning the stressful thoughts and going, that's not true. I mean, it feels true, but it's if it's not true in every single situation, it's not. Whether it's that guy's a jerk, is that true? Is it can you No, they're not always a jerk. That means that person's never done anything good in that. Okay, yeah, that's not true. And just like

Maggie (51:16.335)
You can feel the tension.

Meara (51:19.053)
Yeah.

Meara (51:23.149)
I love it.

Leah Renee (51:40.361)
Talking yourself off a ledge and just into the arms of love. I don't know. That sounds hokey, but I don't know. I t I tell my kids all the time, like, yeah, I'm abundance. Your thoughts cause suffering. When they're like, and she I'm like, Yeah, your thoughts are causing your suffering right now. Like you actually are okay right now. I can see that. But this this is making you suffer right now.

Meara (51:58.51)
Promise.

Maggie (52:01.905)
Mm.

Meara (52:03.522)
Yeah, that's a great reminder too for us all to take that step back and just be in that moment and you know take that deep breath. so Leah, we thank you so much for sharing your story with us today and we loved hearing your journey and we're so grateful for your honesty, humor, and the reminder that it's never too late to choose a different path and build that life that feels true to who you are. If you'd like to connect with Leah, be sure to check out her YouTube channel where she shares her comedy and storytelling.

Maggie (52:17.543)
Yes, thank you.

Meara (52:32.312)
We'll have all of her links waiting for you in the show notes below. Thank you so much for joining us today, Leah. And thank you, everyone, listening. If today's conversation encouraged you, make made you smile, or remind you that it's never too late to start again, we'd love for you to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who could use the encouragement. Until next time.

Leah Renee (52:37.813)
Thank you.

Maggie (52:53.415)
Stay rooted, stay wild.

Meara (52:56.011)
Stay wild.