You Matter: A Courageous Conversation About Mental Health, Motherhood, and Healing

0:00 Time. My dad used to tell me, you just take one breath at a time. If you can't live hour to hour like day to day, you live hour to hour. If you can't live our to hour, you live minute a minute. If you can't live me in it a minute, you'll live one breath at a time. Sharon Johnson, Hello, and welcome to Quick Before you forget.

0:40 Hello, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I am so grateful. So you, guys, you don't even know what you're in store for today, because Sharon is amazing. She is a content creator, a mother of six who uses honest storytelling to explore beauty and chaos of everyday life, motherhood, mental health, and personal growth with a massive and engaged audience across TikTok and other platforms. She's become a voice for parents everywhere by normalizing vulnerability, dismantling shame, and helping women feel good enough even in life's messiest moments. Today, we're here to learn from Sharon's story, and Sharon, what that looks like is walking a bit through your past, your present, and your future. Are you ready for that?

1:26 I'm I'm ready. How detailed do you want because this story can get along. We're here for all of it, girl, we are here for all of it. So as much as you're willing to share, we will take it because I know that your stories help people and provide just a level of relatability. So I'm here, I'm ready. Let's go. Well, and thank you for that amazing introduction. I need that to like put on my bio. That was beautiful. Yes, well, thank you. And I'm wondering, you know, we're talking past, present, future. So who is someone just start with from your childhood who had a lasting impact on who you are today?

2:07 You know, I obviously there's a million people. There's a lot of people, but I think right now the person that I would say that most about is my grandfather. He passed away at seventy one, about ten years ago, and I think at the time, I was so deep into motherhood and survival, and you know, my husband was in grad school and I didn't live close to my grandfather that I was just like, yeah, like this is sad, but Grandpa's die, Like that's that's what happens. And now you know, ten years later, I'm like, oh, he was seventy one. That is not that is not old, That is not the time that somebody should die. He was just a kind, straightforward, amazing man who I wish that I would have got to know better. And I grew up LDS and he was not And so I think in my brain that always kind of like put a wall in between us for me, because I was always in my head wanting to like recruit him, you know, save him that he needed when he died when I was still Mormon. So there was this idea, and it was always very confusing. How can he be such a wonderful, beautiful person and not have the Gospel the Church in his life. And so that's that's someone who has impacted me a lot. I talk about him a lot with my kids. We have pictures of him everywhere. He was a firefighter, he escaped, escaped, He created a beautiful life

3:40 from a really hard, dark childhood. And I admire him and look to him for that. And yeah, he was just his name was Leslie Pratt. He was a beautiful, beautiful man. We love you, Leslie Pratt. We are remembering you today. I do. I love that. Thank you for sharing I am. You mentioned your departure from LDS. You said still Mormon. That tells me you left and I'm aware of that story. But for those that aren't, can you walk us through a little bit of how that unfolded for you? Yeah? I would say for the last ten years twelve years, I had started having a complicated relationship with the church.

4:24 There were things that just came out that didn't that I didn't understand, social policies as well as deep doctrinal beliefs that were just confusing to me. And for about ten years I was able to carve out a space for myself to stay Mormon, to stay in the church, and say, Okay, I can believe what I want to believe. Nobody else gets to dictate how I practice my faith, and you know, this is my connection to God and kind of like falling more into like Christianity and Mormonism is just how my community, my heritage, this is how I practice it. And about four a little over four years ago, there was a speech made by one of the head become apostles, who I really loved. I always enjoyed the things that he had to say, and his talk was all about defending the traditional family, and he used the analogy of defending it with musket fire, and just a few weeks prior to that, a lesbian couple had been killed while camping. Is like a straightforward hate crime, just a few miles away from Salt Lake City. So that you know, we talk about Mormonism and a lot of high demand religion. There's this phrase people to use, They say what broke your shelf? And it's this idea that for years you've had to take these ideas that were confusing to you or didn't really work in your reality.

5:57 But you believe the faith, and you believe it strongly. You take that book and you just put it on a shelf over here and you say, don't worry about it, It'll figure itself out. And if you do that enough times, then the shelf's going to eventually break. And that was my shelf breaker. That was my realization of oh, I do not belong here, I do not believe this. This is what the church is. I can say, oh this is you know, for years it was like, well, this is the church, but this is what it really should be, and I'm helping it get to this place of like love and acceptance. And it was just this smack in the face of no, this is the church, this is the gospel, this is what they believe. And I cannot raise my children here. I have six kids, and at the time I didn't have a child that was out at the time, But at the time I thought, I have six kids, the chances of me having a queer child are very high. I cannot raise them here. And I'm a woman. How am I raising my children and my girls here? And I left an about a year later, my oldest came out and it was it would have I think it would have killed them to stay in that environment and to have that judgment and that pressure.

7:06 So so yeah, we left. My husband left with me about four years ago, and it's been a whirlwind. It kind of messes with your brain a lot, and it's been really difficult, and it still continues to be difficult, but we're moving through it. It's been beautiful and wonderful and I'm much much happier. Every aspect of my life is better now that I've left. Well, that story gave me chills, because you have done such good in all the time that you've spent on the internet talking through and kind of sharing parts of this story. And I want to know for somebody that's feeling kind of lost. It feels like they're conflicted, or feels like the faith that they've grown up in is not maybe the right fit for them. What would your advice be and how you kind of rebuilt your own faith around how you know what you believe?

8:00 Advice is hard on this. It's like you have to go through all of the stages. There's no way to skip ahead and just deconstruct and just be okay. I mean, it takes years, and even now when I think, I mean it's been four years, and even now when I'm like, oh okay, like I'm good, We're past that, we're healed, we've moved on. I mean just just last week there was I heard about some talk given and for some reason it triggered something in me and I went on a rage fest, being angry and mad and feeling all of the same feelings again. So I think the biggest advice that I have is just to feel your feelings, to allow it to like pass through you and that you're valid and that this is this is real. And I think my biggest thing is I was so scared for so long, not knowing like how am I going to raise my kids? How do you even function without believing in something bigger? And you know, the church teaches a lot of churches teach this that it's scary to not know what's gonna happen after you die. It's scary to not believe in you know, a God that's answering your prayers. And it has been quite the opposite for me, where everything has become bigger and better and more magical, and my imagination can just thrive in this land of I don't know, which means anything's a possibility and I get to believe what I want to believe. I don't have to find the truth anymore. I can just believe

9:30 what feels good and you're allowed to do that. So I think, just knowing that there is the other, there is another side, and it's big and it's beautiful, you just have to work through the scary in the hard together. What a cool mindset shift that you made there with anything as possible in the scary. Mm hm. That's like, you know, I fear and excitement are the same chemical in your brain and we decide and it's it's it's cool that you can flip that on its head and say, you know, there is there is uncertainty there, I mean, and we're not going to escape it, right, Like, we can't escape the uncertainty or the unknowing or the fear, but we can approach it differently. And I like how you kind of like flip that around. It's it's a great lesson for the viewers and listeners. It's also a great lesson for your kids. Like you are one of the most fun moms on the internet, I think because.

10:20 I've tricked everybody into something. So anyway, well, it works, and I think it's authentic because it feels very real to me, and because you talk about your kids and we love we love the kids around here. What's something that you hope that they remember about how it felt to grow up with you as their mom. Oh, you know, I used to, especially after my second and I had really bad postpartum depression. I remember even during pregnancy. I remember being in the bathtub with my little girl pregnant, just as pregnants can be really depressed, and thinking, is this all she's going to remember? Like it's just a sad mom who wouldn't get out of bed.

11:00 That was just like sad in the bathtub all of the time, And I've come to realize now that my oldest is almost sixteen, is that they don't remember the bad parts if you're trying, like if you're a good mom, you know. I talked to my sixteen year old and they're like, no, I just remember it being magical all of the time. I remember going on trips, and I remember painting, and I remember playing at the beach, and I remember going on trips and even laying on the couch watching cartoons after cartoons, like you're always there with me. And so I hope that I just I have a lot of I would say, guilt and regret growing, you know, raising a family, as a depressed mom in the middle of chaos. There is a lot of things that I wish I could go back and do differently. But I hope they remember just the fun, the magic, the love, and that I tried, that I was really trying, and I hope that they come to understand that. I don't think there's any way to escape that your kids are going to have some sort of resentment or be traumatized in some aspect as they're growing up. But I hope as they get older they can they can forgive me and they can see that I tried. I was just doing the best that I could.

12:21 I'm super self aware of you, and it makes me It reminds me of a song that kind of changed my mindset around this a little bit too, which is it's an Alex Warren song called Your First Time on Earth and it talks through some of his grief with his mom and how it's like you just got to remember that it's their first time on Earth too, right, Like it's our parents first time on Earth too, and they're just figuring out as best that they can, just like we are. And isn't that a gift and a struggle at the same time. So I know you talked about the crying in the bathtub, and I'm wondering what you would wish someone or what you would whisper to some one if you could, who was in their current hard season right now, like they're the one in the bathtub.

13:06 What would you What would you say to them? Oh? So many things? And I think what's hard is that I don't know if you believe them. I really don't know when you're in that space that you honestly believe it. It's so fascinating being to this point of being like a more veteran mom and being able to look back and be thinking about it in the lot a lot last few weeks of like, oh, the stuff that I worried about, like doesn't even cross my mind anymore. I was so hyper fixated on am I going to traumatize them? And are they going to remember that I yelled at them? And you know, just all of the bad things. I wasn't focused on the good things. And I think that every single mom it sounds cliche to say, needs to hear that you aren't doing so much better than you think you are. Every every single one, like we we just are so mean to ourselves, so mean to ourselves. And I think, yeah, that you're doing so much better than you think you are. And your kids, like, if you apologize, if you are doing your best, if you are trying, if you are listening to them, they're going to be fine. They're going to be fine.

14:17 Let's double click on that a little bit, because you I feel like there's beliefs that you are breaking in this where like, what is it what is a belief about quote good moms that you had to unlearn? Oh my gosh, I think I don't know if every I think every mom kind of deals or a lot of moms deal with this. I think that growing up on a high demand religion where I essentially was raised to be a mom, I was raised to be a wife, I kind of say like, I've always been a mom. I've always been a wife because that's what I was told I was, that was my purpose, that's what I needed to be. And so there is a lot of I mean, we're also coming to understand that scrupulosity and OCD, this pure OCD really has had a hold on me for a really long time. So mine goes pretty deep in that, like not just oh a good mom reads with her kids, but oh, a good mom has a five course meal and is feeding them this like sit down, beautiful dinner every single night. You know, a good mom goes to every single soccer game. A good mom makes presents that are pretty. And so I need to worry about like which Christmas tags are going on, you know, the presence and if their color coordinated and they can remember that, are they going to feel loved? Are they gonna remember a mom that listened to them? You know, be a mom that's never angry, that always apologizes that never sits down, that never naps. And I think that

15:49 is actually the biggest one for me right now, is that, especially in my community, you hear a lot about Oh, I had a mom that she was always working so hard. I never saw her take a nap, And that's put on a pedestal something that we should shoot for, right. My mom never missed a game. My mom never left us to go on vacation. And I hope, oh my goodness, I hope that my children are like sleeping was my mom's favorite activity. She napped all of the time my mom. I would come home and my mom would be reading a book, drinking a coffee and doing a puzzle at the coffee table. Like my mom would go out and lay on the grouse just to like ground herself. Like my mom was fulled whimsy and did whatever the hell she wanted all the time. I pray to God that my kids see that I was, like we want to call it lazy, took time for herself, did what she wanted, had friends, took vacations because it will give them permission to do the same, that they are a whole life person, even as a parent, and that they are deserving of fun and whimsy and free time and relaxation.

17:01 I have two questions. One is I don't know how to back into it, because there's there's a video that comes to mind when you're talking about this that you posted. I don't remember how long ago it was. Friends, Sharon and I have been buddies on TikTok for a while we were talking. I think it's been four years. So yeah, from the very beginning, I know, it's really cool. It's been really neat to see the journey and to see you know, Sharon is one of the most vulnerable people that shows up on the internet. In my opinions. She shares the goods, she shares the bad, she shares everything in between. And one in particular moment that actually sticks with me kind of rent free is when you ran into the beach like you ran into the ocean I think, or I think it was an ocean or the lake fully clothed. And what when you posted that, Like, what did you want people to gain from from a video like that? Because I, like, I say, it lives rent free for me and you are a whimsical human who I admire, So talk us through what that was, why you posted it? And your reasoning behind it.

18:00 Okay, I think when I post things, I don't often do so with the thought of what is someone else going to get out of this? It's very like therapeutic for me. It's very like sharing my story, sharing my thoughts. Sharing these like leaps of growth and what feels like big development for me is therapeutic and validating for me. So I don't think there's ever a moment that I'm like, I hope someone gets X, Y and Z out of this. I think it just feels like a big deal to me and I share it and whatever anybody wants to take out of that, like, go for it. In that moment, for me, what it was was just doing what you want without thinking about what other people think about it, and you just showing myself like oh you can just if you're walking on the beach and you're like, I want to be like this Jane Austin novel and into the ocean in this dress, and like I have that feeling and that want and you could call it that intrusive thought to be like want to do that and before I like shut it down to be like sharing your full grown adult that's something a child does or just like you just ignore it and don't even pay attention.

19:18 I was like, no, you're gonna lean into it. You're actually gonna do it, Like shut up, shut up, shut up, all of the things in your head being like someone's gonna see you, someone's gonna say you're just doing it for attention, any of the reasons. Just hurry and do it before you can convince yourself out of it. And I just think, as like adults, we trained ourselves to not do fun things. Like I look at my six year old and she's in a cartwiled phase. She just learned to and she's like really good at and she just cart wilts. All of the time, like just in the middle of the store, in the middle of the house, walking around and like you know, she just makes funny noises, does funny walks. And like, what if we all just danced when we wanted to, Like what if we started listening to our our bodies and just did what we wanted when we wanted to do it instead of like being silly and telling it to shut up. Boo, I'm not doing that anymore.

20:10 So that's what that moment was for me, was, Hey, you can just you can there are no rules. You can just do whatever you want. It reminds me a little bit of the moment that I shared on the internet about when my son said he wouldn't be that embarrassed if I wore the Princess Peach costume to Yes, I was wearing I was gonna wear a Princess Peach costume to a movie theater and he said it wouldn't be that embarrassed and it broke me. It broke me, and I, you know it was, I wore it anyway. And since then, he's now proudly wearing his ax a lot of onesie everywhere. He's twelve and he wears his ax a lot of Onesie wherever, you know, wherever we we let and wear it, he'll wear it.

20:56 So you know, it just it goes to show that we it starts with us as parents, and your daughter cart wheeling everywhere is proof that they they mirror what they see in us in terms of like they take their cues and they know that, oh, it's okay to be myself, it's okay to let that energy out because a lot of times, I mean, it's energy that's built in that we need to get out. Somehow right, she's kartwheeling through the grocery store. Good for her, you know. So what we've talked a little bit about therapy, and you mentioned therapy, but I'm wondering what your kids have taught you that therapy didn't. Oh, I haven't thought of this question. I think the no amount of therapy or talking to somebody besides my kids could convince me that I was a good mom.

21:50 And I think that my kids have taught me that that they're going to be okay. My kids have gone through so I have two kids that are adopted from a kinship adoption. They are my sister in law's children. They've gone and all of them collectively, like we've gone through a lot of hard things as a family, as individuals, a lot of them have a lot of like trauma. And I was so hyper fixated on trying to minimize that as much as possible and terrify that there is no way for me to do that, and that not doing that made me a bad mom, and that like love wasn't enough to fix these things. And I think they have taught me one love can do some really amazing, miraculous things. To effort, effort counts and kids do see it, right, they do see it, And I think how just through how the healing is possible. Some of my kids, the things that they have gone through, you would never guess in a million years that they've gone through that. They are happy, they are kind, they are just resilient. They are amazing, and they have had to work really really hard to get there, but it's possible. And I think they've given me a lot of hope that, oh, you can be happy in really crappy circumstances, you can get

23:22 past things and you can heal. Yeah, my kids are amazing. They're amazing. I'm grateful you have that, and I want you to know that you've done that for me. You have gone through some mental health things, some challenges, and you can talk as much or as little about that as you want, but I want to just acknowledge that you are a human that's gone through some hard things yourself and you give people hope on the daily, which is something I'm very grateful for at scale. And I want you to talk through that as much as you want to, what it was like to be in those dark times and how what you learned from them as you've now kind of.

24:06 I mean, I don't think any of us has ever done right. The goalpost keeps Yeah, we have work to do, we are works in progress, and you've made some massive strides and you've done some really cool things. So can you walk us through the darkness a little bit and how you have found your own inner light? Yeah? I have mental health issues since I was like twelve or fourteen years old. My dad has severe depression. It was always something I was very lucky to grow up in a household where my parents didn't necessarily know how to help me, but they were not adverse to getting me help. You know, they knew that something was wrong and it was something that we talked about. You know, I knew my dad was on medications. My parents had been in therapy before, so they got me as much help as they could and resources that they could at the time. And my mental health has always been up and down. It would get good and then bad. I dropped out of you know, college early and had to come home home. I've been suicidal a few times. It's been very hard decades of trying to figure out what is going on, why I am the way that I am, and how to manage it, and about two years ago is probably when I was at my worst. And I think that that's something that a lot of people don't talk about, is that you have you know, we were in crisis and survival mode for so long, and you have this like adrenaline in you and your body protects you from really understanding what's going on in your life.

25:40 And it wasn't intel things started to normalize and the crisis and the chaos started to settle that I fell apart because you now have space to feel those feelings. You can be more objective in what actually was happening, and you can accept those and you can see it for what it was. And so things got dark real fast from me. About two years ago, I was suicidal. My husband and my mom had a plan where they flew me down to Arizona and I stayed there for two weeks so I could stay with my parents, my husband could be here taking care of the kids. And that's where kind of you know, there's levels to progressing through mental health, you know, and this was just another step up of oh, like this is bad. You now have the time to take care of this. We need to figure this out, and all of our focus went into figuring out my mental health, started intense therapy. I did something called TMS with this transcranial magnetic stimulation, which I had never heard of before, and that was hugely helpful.

26:52 And I mean, it's hard when you're in those dark times because you truly don't think you'll ever get better, and you're also just tired from doing it for two decades. Like I was just tired. You had a right to be, and yeah, yeah. It just felt like it's never going to get better. I am a burden to everyone because of this, to my children, to my husband, to my parents. Like you really get to a point where you think that the most logical conclusion is to be done. It doesn't it doesn't make sense to keep going like this, and I'm I'm so so grateful. It's actually a tick talk that I saw by a nurse weeks before kind of I went into before I went into suicidal ideation, where it was just a really simple TikTok and it was a nurse talking about how he gets concerned when a mental health patient who is not doing well suddenly starts doing better and like instantly just you know, starts giving things away, starts being really happy, it's really concerning. And in that moment of me startting to just think like, oh, this just makes sense, like I've never felt better, I feel great, Like let's just be done with this is fantastic. That TikTok popped into my head and I thought, oh, you don't feel crazy. It doesn't feel illogical, it doesn't sound wild.

28:26 It sounds like, oh no, this makes the most sense. And that made me pop out of Oh, you probably need to tell somebody about what's going on right now. And so I think, what do you learn from that? I think you just how it's just one tiny little step at a time. My dad used to tell me, you just take one breath at a time. If you can't live hour to hour, like day to day, you live hour to hour. If you can't live out to hour, you live minute a minute. If you can't live me in at a minute, you'll live one breath at a time. I'm the negative signs. You learn when to ask for help, and that is that was one of the greatest lessons that really made me able to get better. And I say, go my depression to go into remission is that I'm managing it. I'm not making it go away.

29:19 And how does that management, Like how does you managing your mental health impact how you parent and connect. With your kids? I mean just being aware of things like how I talk to them, how I'm acting around them, how I'm showing up for them. It is hard because I do have to choose myself over them. Sometimes there are times that I do have to miss, you know, a player recitle because it's February and in February Mom has to leave for a few weeks to go to the beach and go to the sun. Otherwise, like mom is not going to be here to function well for anybody. And so it's a balance, but it's a balance just like any other illness or disease that you had, Like there would be things that your kids had to sacrifice because they have a mom who you know is sick.

30:14 And that's that's okay. It's just the reality. It's not bad, it's not good. You just have to learn to live with that. You know, you have to learn to manage it, and you have to learn that it doesn't have anything to do with how good of a parent you are. And I think that it teaches my kids to take care of themselves and that their mental health is real health, and that it needs attention and it needs taken care of. So how do you start to love yourself more? Because I feel like that's a huge part of what led you here is deciding that you are darn well worthy of taking that couple weeks in the sun that you need. So how do you? Because for people that are really in a hard time, I think that that is one of the hardest things things to get to and it's also like the most important because you need to talk to yourself like you would talk to your kids. You need to talk to yourself like you would talk to somebody you love. And a lot of us struggle with that.

31:12 So how And you you've done a lot of work with this on you know your your body image, on you know your your your shame around being a good mom. How, like, what's the first step to being better at self love? I would say, I think for me is starting with shame. Being able to recognize it, know what it is, know how harmful it is, and know where it's coming from. That is because you can, at least for me, I could only convince myself so much, and like have so many affirmations of like you're a good person, you love yourself, you love your body. And instead of convincing myself that I like loved myself or loved things about me, I started with eliminating those kind of scrupulosity ideas that there is a right way to live, that there is a way my body should look, that there's a better way that there's a better way to parent, there's a better way to have a clean home, there's a better way to be a friend. I funny enough, I'm actually doing a post about this today. I got I don't usually look at comments when I have post go viral, right because they go outside of your audience and we're not dealing with that nonsense. And I just so happened. I was on Facebook checking some like back end work things and this comment popped up, and it is the most brutal comment I have ever gotten in my whole four years.

32:47 And it was from a woman, and it was like dissecting, like, you know, I'm just like attention seeking and I pretend to be vulnerable and authentic when I'm not, and I'm not. I mean, it was just it was brutal. It was so brutal, and even six months ago that would have took me out like that would have hurt so deeply. And my first response to that was and like this idea, Like I didn't have to this is what's fascinating to me. I didn't have to think. One, that's none of that is true to me, right, that is not my reality in the world. So when I'm in a place which is fascinating to be confident enough to be able to be like, oh no, that's not true, but two to say, even if it is, that doesn't make me a bad person. Okay, Maybe I do love attention. Maybe I do like having a million followers, okay, right, Like maybe I do like like using this as therapy and like throwing all of my garbage out into the world for people to say, oh shit and like to be a victim. Okay like that And that broke my brain, right that I it's not about me like loving myself first, it's about accepting

34:17 that I can. I can be whoever I want to be, and that's not bad or good. So therefore I can love everything about me because what okay, it's all just like neutral, right we see that word like morally neutral? Does that make sense? I realized that my self loathing and why I didn't like myself is because I wasn't better. I wasn't good. But who's out there saying what's good? Right, what's better? Yeah? I'm here for it. Yes, I the trolls are real, right, like on the aryet that the people that that struggle is real. And it made me wonder kind of like if there was a video that you wished had gone viral that didn't, You know, like there's something that because these these viral videos you get, you do you attract, like you say, like outside of your normal audience, and when that happens, it opens up the gate to every kind of awful. But also I mean there's there's good stuff that happens with those two. But ma, there's a video that you you created that you thought was going to like pop off and it didn't.

35:26 Oh, there's plenty. I don't know if I could say anything off the top of my head, but I think if there's plenty where you're sharing resources or you're sharing what feels like a really deep message that you wish everybody could hear, and it just doesn't move ye for whatever reason, you know, for the algorithm, because it doesn't hit because people aren't commenting. It's just and I think that's one thing that makes content creation not to go into that side of it. But difficult is that you just you have real, really no control a lot of times what pops off and what doesn't. So it's about quality over quantity. Sometimes eventually you produce enough of it that the message will get out to people one way or another. So what's a moment from your healing journey that you didn't realize was important while it was happening, but you know it now? Hmm?

36:18 You might need to add it out some dead space right now because this is gonna give me a second. Take a second. I think you can take all the time you need. I know that I've had several, I mean just constant moments of like, wow, this is different. Even the brain switch you had with the comment, I mean that's impressive too. But I'm sure there's been a there's been a number of them. Yeah, I think that they happen, honestly, so frequently. Right now, it kind of feels like it was a snowball effect where it just started out so slow and it felt like it was just never going to change, and it now just is going so quickly. It's overwhelming. It's too much sometimes to have these big realizations about yourself just over and over and over again. It's a lot, I think a huge part for me. I recently got my own bedroom about six months ago. I asked my husband to move out of my bedroom to get his own and I just like, I love him, We have a decent marriage, likes it's good. But I, like I said, I was raised to be a wife and I was raised to be a mom and I just needed like autonomy.

37:47 I needed this like switch in my brain to say, like I get my own space. Yeah, I don't have to think about someone else his feelings and their body and what they're doing and where they are and how they're sleeping. You know, I just want to I just want to see what happens if it's just me. And that's that's been a big A lot of realizations have come have come with that. So that's a hard question for me because there's just so many. Now you you answered it well though, in spite of that, because it can be a lot, and it can be I mean that that speaks to how we are honestly a constant work in progress, right, So it makes sense to me. And if someone listening is waiting to love their life until they love their body, what would you tell.

38:34 Them, Oh, you don't have to love your body to live your life. I thank you. I know, I know right right, you know, I went on this like self love body love journey. Right in this there's this body positivity movement, and I realized once I started being able to recognize shame in what it is, I realized, Oh, I had shame because I don't like my body because I am fat. But then I also have shame that I don't love it. I like have all this shame that I'm not being body positive, that I don't love myself more. And like shame, it doesn't allow room for growth and education and love and learning and growing. It just it's just pain and it's just negative. So I just I developed this motto do it fat, and it just became this thing. I started telling myself that, oh, I can go on a hike, you know, I, Oh, come on a hike. I can't because I'm fat, because I embarrassed because I'm gonna breathe heavier. And it just became okay, so you're gonna be embarrassed. So you're gonna feel dumb, so you're gonna breathe heavier, so you're gonna have to stop more. And you know, oh, I can't wear a swimsuit. I need to cover all everything up and wear a big T shirt. And it just like, I'm gonna be fat whether I'm playing with my kids or sitting on the ca I'm going to be fat whether I am at this. You know, I'm gonna feel

40:04 bad about being fat if I am sitting on the couch or going swimming, So like, why not just do the thing? Well? Feeling like that, you don't you don't have to love your body. You don't have to even love yourself. You can do things, and doing those things is what is going to make you love yourself. It's going to make you love your body, or you'll just always be neutral about it, and that's that's okay. Okay too. I think this idea that we have to love everything about ourselves is overwhelming and not reasonable. There's so many things about myself that I don't like. And instead of like killing myself telling me that, like telling myself that they're bad and I need to fix them, I'm just like, yeah, I'm I just lose things. That's just what I do.

40:48 Like I just I don't have the time and space to like worry about that or fix that right now, like I interrupt people. I'm slightly working on it. And also I'm not gonna feel bad about it, like I how I am. Well, self awareness is powerful. I mean, you know, you know the things, and you know how to how to work, how to live with them instead of you know, trying to go against your your nature. And that's just that seems like, you know, one of the that can be It's it's it's one of those says easy does hard things. I think for a lot of women in particular who struggle with, you know, trying to present this certain way, and it's like you just need to live in alignment with yourself and listen to what what your needs are and what you what. It's it's a it's an amazing shift when it happens, but it's it's not easy to kind of coach yourself through being able to do the things when you're you're in your own head about it.

41:42 So how do how do you do that? Like how do you work through things that feel like hard in the moment but they end up being super worth it. In the end, it gets easier. It gets easier because it's practice and it's habit, and you start recognizing and be able to say, oh, I did that before and it didn't kill me, and so I can do it again. It's wait, what was the question? I'm so sorry? What do you learn from doing hard things? Essentially was the question? And I mean that's. You'll learn that you can just do things. Like like I said before, you do it once and then you realize you can do it again, and you can do it again, and you're going to mess up and you're going to learn. And I think that I've started to approach life more like an experiment instead of this thing that I have to figure out how to do.

42:36 Right. You do it, and you're gonna not do it. There's no right right like you're gonna do it, and you're going to see the consequences that come from it, and you're gonna say, oh, I liked this consequences or I didn't, And so I'm gonna shift it and I'm going to change it. I'm gonna do it different next time, or I'm going to add this and see what happens. And it's like this big experiment that you get to figure out what you like, what you don't like. You're not set in stone who you are, and you need to change it at any time. You need to change what you believe at any time. And it just it's a lot more fun when you're approaching it as you know, how how does this work? How do I shift? How do I change these things opposed to I need to figure it out. I need to figure out how to do it the right way. And if I don't, I'm a bad person. I'm a bad mom. And yeah, you just it's so easy to say you just do things, you just do them. But that's that's where I'm at now, is you just do it well.

43:32 One of those things is you know, you you've done a lot, and you've done a lot of hard work. And I'm wondering, you know, just in the roller coaster of all the different things that have happened and all the different opportunities you've had for growth, what part of yourself are you most grateful that you never let go of? I think my vulnerability I I have had to learn how to scale back that a little bit and that it's okay for me to not share everything, and that it's not a lie for me to keep things private. Something's private, it's not it's not deceptive, it's not my job.

44:13 It's not required of me to share every part of me with everyone. But I like that it doesn't bother me to share myself with people. I like that I don't have you know, I get this common A lot of you're so brave for sharing all of these things, And part of me is like, what's brave about it? Like, this is my life, this is what's happening, this is what's happening in Like, the reason why I am popular with my audience is because they relate to it, So obviously this is happening with a bunch of other people. Other people are thinking these feeling these things, experiencing these things, like why is it brave to just talk about facts and life? And I'm so I'm just so glad that that's always It's always been a part of me to want to share, and for most the most part, I'm I'm not embarrassed about it. I don't feel weird about it, and I'm glad that I've I've been able to hold on to that and also give it some more boundaries.

45:16 Boundaries are a good thing. Yeah, what's one message that you like? I handed you a microphone right now, like a megaphone. I mean we have microphones, but like a megaphone that everybody was forced to listen to this one thing that Sharon has to say, What would it be? You know, I've thought about this question because he emailed it to me and I was like, Oh, that's that's a hard question. For me. I think the biggest thing is just that that you matter, like all of you matters, your trauma matters, your joy matters, your love matters. Like it, it counts, it matters. That's it.

46:07 That's not it, That's that's the whole point. That's the whole thing, right, Yeah, it's literally the entire point. And I'm grateful because it is a hard question and it's so important that people know that. You know, there's there's a song that sings inside our soul. To quote a friend of mine, Jeff Griffin, there's a song that sings inside every every one of us, and it's almost our job to share that with the world. Within the boundaries. Like you said, it doesn't have to be everything, and it's it's whatever you're comfortable with. And however that presents for you, and it it matters that you do that, and it matters because you're you're somebody else in this world.

46:50 There's eight or eight or nine billion people in this world. Somebody needs your song, somebody needs your your energy, somebody needs your story. So that's why it's why I'm doing this. It's why you know, this platform is so special and so important to me, because I think it's so important that people remember that. That is the whole point. Yeah, I think there's a huge part of that for me too, that has been like my joy matters for me, you know, growing up in Mormonism, there's this huge push that like you owe the world your your voice, your knowledge, your truth, your talents, and for lack of a better word, like learning that I can be selfish, that I don't owe anyone like parts of me, and that my joy matters, even if it's only for me. That has been that has been very big, very.

47:43 Big for me. Well, let's build on that, because I want to know what you would tell your twenty two year old self if you couldn't. It may may or may not be related to that, but I think that there's lessons to learn from twenty two year old Sharing Oh twenty two year old Sharon. I got married at twenty two, and it's I love my husband, I love my life. I was enough at twenty two, just as myself, and I didn't believe it. I didn't think it. It wasn't my reality. I would have told her, like, go and do what you want to do, and that that matters. And that's a big, big thing that you don't. You don't owe your life, you don't owe your wife ness, you don't owe your motherhood.

48:35 Like you don't have to put yourself in this box of what you think that you should be. Like, go and explore and play and do the things that that you want. And it's okay to want it. It's not selfish, it's not self centered. I love that is, is it? What would you tell or what would the version of you who then be most surprised to see about you? Now? I mean she'd be shocked. I know, I figured for good though, right, I mean my goodness.

49:20 Yeah, I think that she would be in awe that I'm figuring it out finally, that like, what what do you mean? You you can just do what you want to do? What do you mean you're happy. What do you mean you left the church? What do you mean? I mean she would be she would be flabbergasted and in awe and just thrilled that weird, we're happy. Yeah, yeah, she'd be proud of you. Yeah, I'm proud of you. Thank you. What do you hope your kids learn about their bodies and their mental health from watching you and how you treat your body and your mental health?

50:08 You know, that's the shame is in a part of it, that there's no one way to be for your mental health and your body. That it is very objective. It's it'sn't fascinating with this do it fat mentality. And see how it's rewired my brain in the last few years, because it's become something that's so objective to me now that this idea of being like, oh I want to lose some weight, Like it's not this thing that feels bad anymore. I don't feel like it's like, oh yeah, my knees hurt and I want to be able to fit into my old clothes, and like it's just this objective.

50:49 I'm not bad for wanting to lose weight. I'm not good for losing weight. It's just this does that make sense. It's just this like objective of truth that it's not either here or there. And I hope that my kids, you know, I think that a huge part of why mental health is in the state that it is for a lot of people is because they are just these negative associations with it. And if we were just able to treat it objectively of this is what's going on actually in your brain, and then this is how you do it. If you break your arm, these are the steps that you take to fix your arm, and then you go, you know, to therapy and you do these exercises.

51:32 And so I hope that I'm helping my kids learn that it's not bad, it's not good. It's just something that you manage, right, that you take care of your body because it helps you feel better. How do you feel when you eat this? You feel good or you feel bad? Okay, you're allowed to feel bad. Do you want to feel bad? Feel bad? So just that it's all objective, that it's all it's not shame involved in it. What would you tell moms who feel lost between who they were before kids and who they are now. You come back? I think that I mean I was I had a toddler for fifteen years. I always did toddler life. That always like breaks my brain now that I'm like, oh, no, no wonder, I was a total disaster, like bck, no wonder to toddler for fifteen years straight.

52:29 That's crazy. That's gonna make anybody crazy. I don't think, like, we do not live in a society that you can keep yourself fully. We don't have a village, We don't A lot of us don't have our parents helping her hair, our sisters, our siblings, a community helping here. So I think that is an unreasonable expectation that we put on ourselves to keep ourselves steering motherhood and to stay the whole person that we were before. It's not possible, and it's not our fault, and there's nothing that you can do to keep her around all of the time. And that might sound pessimistic, but I think that there is a level of acceptance in that that's really really good because it's not our fault and we can't go around changing like all of society to suddenly be back to like a village where mothers and children are supported. It's not possible. So there's a level acceptance of that you hold onto as much of yourself as you can. I did that, by I mean finally, it took many, many years to get there. That every Tuesday night I left the house and it wasn't to run errands, it wasn't for chores. It was I left the house to either meet friends or to just go to the library by myself, or to take a class or go to the Hot springs.

53:48 Every Tuesday night was Mom's my night off. And I still do that. And you know, you paint when you can, or you you find, you hold on to these little snippets of yourself, and just I think just knowing that I was going to come back would have been really helpful. That, Yeah, the expectation I wear my jewelry. Now, I forgot that jewelry Sharon was a thing. But because of kids getting knocked on things and pulling on them and breaking them, I didn't wear jewelry for ten years. And the other day I started, you know, a few months ago, I started wearing again, and I was like, oh, yeah, jewelry Sharon is bad, like y uge, amazing moment, and yeah, don't fright over it too much, and don't blame yourself for losing parts of yourself, because you'll come back.

54:37 It's beautiful. And I feel the same way about jewelry. I it's funny because I started wearing these, like feather earrings more frequently, and I wear more bracelets than I used to. And the ring, the big chunky ring, And it's because it's exactly what you said, because like, you couldn't wear these because the kid, you know, the colon and you know, the break could yank come out of your ears. Yeah, you know. So it's really cool to see you come back to yourself and know that you, you know, didn't necessarily lose yourself entirely. She was she was always there. Yeah, she's just busy. She's just busy other priorities and that's okay. And I think the funnest, the most fun things, most of something for me is being able to share those things with my kids that I did put those things away. I was a photographer before, and I put my camera down for a very very long time. And my oldest is now getting into photography and she doesn't know photography, mom. She doesn't know that I just carried, you know, a film camera around my neck until she was four years old. She doesn't remember that, and it's so fun to be able to experience that with her again, and these things that I love and that I get to share with them, and I get to do that with so many different things now, and it's just it's like bigger and more beautiful now that I get to do it with them, just all the different things with them than when I was doing about myself.

56:03 Do you have any songs of survival any like when you were in like dark times? Because we've talked a little bit about you know, my whole thing with Quick Before You Forget is the tools of music, mindset, and movement, and we've focused a lot on mindset, which I'm amazed with and grateful for. And I love music. So I'm wondering if there's anything in particular that comes to mind as a song like a Sharon's playlist for surviving something hard. Two years ago, when I had my doubt of suicidal ideation, the only thing that I listened to was the album's stick season Well, I Guess Forever by Noah Cohn. His song call Your Mom is about suicidal ideation. It's about having a friend who he's saying, just stay and I will call your mom and my husband called my mom, and that whole album I listened to straight for six months.

56:59 I still listen to it continually. He's such a wonderful storyteller, and he hits the emotions deep and those thoughts and those feelings deep, and it's so relatable in so many different ways. And I think that that is a huge part of mental health. And what I hope that I convey in some part to people is not necessarily this is how you get better, but just I know, I know what you're going through to some extent, I have been there before. I think a lot of times we don't need someone to tell us that we're going to be okay. We just need someone to hold our hand and say it's not okay right now. I know, And that's all we need. Just knowing that somebody is there and that they've experienced it and felt it. That's that's what we need.

57:52 You made me emotional. That's a whole album that. I mean. Nakon's entire album is just that. It's just it's true. I mean, I've I know, and I love it. It's amazing music. It's soul music, and you know when it can help honestly that the songs that I've been asking this question to my guests and the songs. I'm so grateful for all these songs, because these songs are you know, a lot of times the reason, like for your sake, for example, like the reason that somebody's still here, or a reason, not the reason. But you know what I'm saying, I'm so grateful that that song and that album helped you in a time when words couldn't. Yeah, that's it's the power of music.

58:34 It is, and there's just this connectivity to it, of humanity of that. We just need to know that we are not alone, that we are not crazy, that we're not experiencing something that no one else has ever experienced before. And that's why I'm vulnerable. That's why I say all of the things, not just because I want other people to know that, but I need to know that. I need to know like there's someone else out there that feels this way right right, yes, right right? It found me. I mean you, the algorithm brought us together. And I'm very grateful because there have there have been times when I've felt less alone because I've stumbled across the right video and you're You're one of the creators that that had that impact on me when when I was sick and then the hospital and stuff, there was some times where I would be scrolling and there's there's a few creators in particular. You're the first one that I've wrangled into coming on my show so far, and I'm very very I'm so grateful.

59:33 So I have certain people that you like have followed me that I really consider friends, which is crazy because we've never talked. We never have like interacted beyond like commenting, right, but I do, like I know when your comments pop up, I reply, I see you on my feed like it. There's a lot of hang ups and bad things about social media, but meeting you and other just amazing people is absolutely not one of them. It's it's what makes it absolute wonderful. Is the community so true? So I have a couple more questions that I'm grateful for your time. I want to have these maybe a little bit more quick hitting, but go as deep as you want to. Okay, so quick before you forget. What is something about this season in life right now, at this moment that you don't want to forget.

1:00:21 I'm really hanging on to my kids right now and where they are at and realizing I am saying I think I was so overwhelmed with motherhood that I would find every way to escape it, right And I am so good right now and I have given myself a lot of self care and I take those Tuesday nights and I take those vocations. Is that I am just I am clinging on to every moment that I can get my old This is going to be a senior next year. That just it goes by so fast. And I know it's so cliche. Everybody says it. Everybody says it. But just realizing it ends. When you're in it, you think you're never going to get out of it. It just feels like everything your entire world forever and realizing oh, this is going to end, and I'm gonna have a quiet house and I'm going to have open days, soak it up.

1:01:12 Yeah, yeah, I'm feeling that. And I have my two that are younger than you, and I already feel it, and I already feel angry a little bit at the mom, at my version of the toddler mom who thought that it was everything was too hard, and I hate, like, you know, there were there were moments that I hated because I thought it would never end, you know, I was like, this is the longest heart in potty training. Good grief. That really broke me. And I'm very grateful for the time we did have and the time that we have now. I feel the same exact way, like we're really holding on for dear life and as we should, you know what, as we should, because that's that's every That's what our hard work has taught us, is figuring out that you know these moments matter and you know clinging on to them is not anything to be ashamed of.

1:01:59 No, And I do want to put a cavea on of that of like most of my motherhood, most of it is like one big giant, foggy forgetfulness mess. And I don't hold myself responsible for not knowing I was doing the best that I could. I just I don't want anyone to ever feel guilt or shamed that they're not enjoying it enough, that they're not soaking up every moment, because you'll have a time where you can, and there are plenty of times where you're just surviving and you're just getting through and that's okay too, And they get older, and this idea that like they're going to turn eighteen and then you're never going to see them together. It's total bull crap. Like you, there's gonna be so many more moments like you didn't miss it, You didn't miss it, You're okay.

1:02:48 If someone listening feels pressure to choose just one version of themselves, what would you want them to hear? Choose the fun one. I'm really embracing fun right now, and it's amazing. It's so good. I can't believe that I was like unfun for so long. Choose the fun one. I don't think you'll ever regret it. Darn right, darn right quick before you forget what matters most to Sharon right now. Right now, trusting myself. I'm working really really hard on that.

1:03:32 In therapy, when you grow up in high demand religion, you learn that all of the right answers are outside of yourself. So I found myself being a thirty six year old woman who had no idea how to be an adult and make decisions without thinking that somebody else was telling me what to do. So my biggest thing right now is to trust myself, trust my intuition, trust my thoughts. Trust my feelings. Trust, just trust, and that I don't need the validation from anybody else to tell me what to do and how to think. I love that what is one small, ordinary moment in your home that feels sacred to.

1:04:15 You, just when we're all together, when we're all together just living. I take a lot of pride in that my home is that I have living room kids that don't hunger down in their bedrooms most of the time. I have some teens that still do it every once in a while. But we have moments of all eight of us, you know, in the living room on the couch playing games. Maybe some people are you know, on their phones, other people are in the corner doing crafts. It's just these ordinary moments of oh, we're all here, like this is this is what I'm going to remember, this is what they're going to remember. And I do.

1:05:02 I take a lot of pride in the like I created a home that this is conducive to this like this created the safety and this comfort and this feeling it feels, it feels sacred. Life moves fast and people, like we've talked about, people are forgetful. So what one truth do you hope that people don't forget after hearing our conversation today. The thing I'm leaning into right now really is that your joy matters. That the theme that I'm really really like pushing and leaning into is that your joy is not a waste. It's not frivolous, it's not extra, it's not a break you get like spending money on that vacation.

1:05:57 It's not a waste, right Like find that dress that makes you feel like a million bucks is not ridiculous. Doing things for fun for fun's sake is meaningful and it matters, and it matters just as much as paying the bills and getting food on the table and making meals and being on time and all the schedules and all the millions of things that we have to do as parents and his mother's your joy, your joy as a mom, is just as important as all of those other things. Amen taking us to church, Yes, I'm here for that, Karen. What is anything else that you'd like to share before we wrap?

1:06:44 I don't know. Life is big, it's messy, it's overwhelming, and I am just really learning that it all matters, It all matters, it all. It's really funny when you go from being in an organized religion and bleeding in these very stringent ideas of God and life and what it all means to It could mean anything, right, and I don't know. I don't know anymore, and and all of that, I don't know. Life is about community, it's about connection, it's about joy. It is it's about hard things.

1:07:26 It's about trauma, it's about crisis. It's about feeling your feelings and experiencing what it is to be human. And I hope that everybody can give their self, give themselves space to feel all of those things, to experience all of those things, and to not shame themselves for any of it. Well, thank you Sharon for sharing your full experience of life with us. It means a lot to me that you're here today. It means a lot to me that you share as openly and vulnerably as you do on the internet. Vulnerabil to me is a superpower and you have it in spades. So I'm very very grateful for you. And that's all for this time, and we'll see you next time on Quick before you forget, Hi, thank you so much, thank you for being here with me today on Quick Before you Forget, Please like share and subscribe as that helps the show so much and I really appreciate it, and I'll see you next time on Quick before you forget