Jessica Alba: Why Hollywood Didn’t Return The Love I Gave It

Growing up in entertainment and always feeling like I needed to prove my worth, as much as I gave to my career, it never really returned the same amount of love or commitment. The word sex or sexy or being a sexual person was attached to me in a lot of ways when I was growing up in entertainment, but there was such a disconnect for me in owning what that meant for me. It always was sort of like this gross, icky, shameful, weird thing that I put in a little box and compartmentalized, and I really started to understand or own myself as a woman. All that divine feminine energy really started to come forward when I became a mom. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited to have this chat with you. Oh my, I have no idea what I'm in for. I just trust you. I didn't want to give you too much, you know, because this is a very raw conversation between two mothers. So yes, I'm Jessica Alba. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an actress. It's my side hustle. It used to be my main hustle. I have three kids. I like to cook. I'm a very creative person. I like to travel a lot. I come from a pretty middle-class kind of background, and I sort of manifested a life for myself at a very early age. I started working at 12 and helped contribute to the household income with my family. I feel like I kind of grew up a little fast. I don't know. I think I wouldn't change anything because I feel like my kids, at the end of the day, once it's all said and done, my kids are my mirror or like the litmus test that is it all worth it and did it all sort of turn out okay. And they're excellent. They're awesome. And I wouldn't change anything. That's beautiful. And that's exactly why I wanted to chat specifically with you, because this episode is all about modern motherhood. And the reason why I'm saying modern is because for me personally, on my motherhood journey, I feel like the definition of it and how I approached it changed so, so much. And that's kind of what I wanted to talk more with you about. But before we start talking about motherhood, I feel like I want to go back a little bit and start talking about upbringing, because that was kind of our first introduction with motherhood. So I'm curious, what was your upbringing like? My upbringing was very different to who I am as far as like what the things that I enforce. My parents were young when they got pregnant with me. They were both teenagers and they had me, they were 19 and 20. And so I feel like I kind of grew up with my parents. They are very young in spirit and they still are. They're a good time. They love to party. They love being around a lot of people. They love going on cruises and make best friends with everyone they meet. They, you know, become like ride or die loyal to strangers that they meet at a bar. And this could happen every day, you know. And that's just kind of how they operate. I don't know. I grew up in a very like, they have a fight and make up relationship. It's very spirited. It's very loud. I didn't grow up with my mom's family. She's American and Danish. And I did not grow up with her family at all. They all kind of passed away. She didn't really have close connections with her. She didn't know her dad really. And then didn't have any really close connections with the rest of her family. So I really grew up with my Mexican family. My dad's third generation. I guess I'm third generation. I think he's second generation. I'm third generation. Typical Mexican Catholic, really hardcore family, patriarchy. Men are kings, even though women are the bosses. Ultimately, they like to make the men feel like they're the king of the house. And it's very much like, you know, a subservient female role, but at the same time, these super dominant women kind of taking on that subservient role. So it always kind of like mess with my brain. And I would say that there was a lot of racism and segregation. The way my grandparents raised my dad with a lot of that pain and trauma. And it's sort of this unspoken pain and trauma of feeling like you can't stand out because you could essentially be wiped out, which is what happens for so many generations of Mexicans, whether it was the conquistadors that actually went to Mexico and wiped people out and wiped out their history and their family lineage, you know, with the indigenous people or and gave them like all these illnesses and literally wiped out many different people and forced them a language of speaking Spanish, which wasn't their native tongue, all the way through to, you know, coming to this country, which was all built on immigrants coming to America so they can, you know, really escape a lot of the issues in their own countries of feeling confined or oppressed or suppressed. They came to America for that freedom, but that freedom really only applied to the chosen Puritans. It really wasn't for the rest of the country or anyone else. There was just these chosen few or what, you know, this country was sort of built for in their mind. And so my grandparents definitely felt a lot of that. So there was a lot of assimilation that they had to do as Mexicans, I think, really to survive. So it was a lot of like, don't stand out too much, do as much as possible, but there's a, there's sort of a limitation to what is even possible and kind of accepting your sort of lot in life. And I observed all of this and had a very sort of like fish out of water, rebellious, wild mom, who was white, you know, and didn't fit in, in a lot of ways. And with... Didn't fit in, in, in your family unit in terms of like your... It was different. You know, my mom was like the gringa or the huera, you know, like, and, and was even, you know, often called that. You can't probably shake a lot of the pain that my grandparents felt or had to deal with, with just like generations again of hatred, segregation, racism that they experienced. You know, they were child laborers. They all worked in the field until they didn't need to anymore and they can get a job doing something else. So they met doing dinner theater actually, and they loved performing and, and all of that. And then my, my dad, you know, I think there was just sort of him and his siblings had this kind of same thing where they were like the, one of the few kind of brown kids going to school in this very white, dominant, middle-class city that they grew up in and always kind of feeling othered. You know, my dad doesn't pass for being anything other than Mexican. And I think, you know, there is some, some trauma that he is now just starting to kind of deal with. So how did I grow up? I grew up with all that history on top of parents who were just hot mess teenagers that were just trying to have fun and accidentally got pregnant with me. I love it. It sounds like a great adventure. It was wild. And so I think at 12, when I like really wanted to figure out a path in life for myself and wanting to find independence, and I never really felt that comfortable in my family or with my family. Nothing against them, but I just, they always felt like, I don't know. I felt like I didn't really fit in with them. I had very different ideas and I didn't really subscribe to just settling for the lot in life I was handed. And I always felt like, why not try to be something else? And I didn't mind being different. That's so interesting, because that's kind of a great segue to where I want to go with motherhood. When you, I mean, coming out of that with all these emotions, all the trauma, you know, from both sides and having young parents. I mean, I relate to that because my mother had me when she was 19, got married at 18. So I mean, we very much also grew up together and I had to leave, you know, home early and kind of started my own adult journey very early on. But the experience that you've had growing up with your parents and within that family unit, how did that shape your expectation for motherhood? You know, I think it's interesting because I feel like, I knew I always wanted to be a mom since I was a child. I was always very nurturing in a way and always sort of like taking care of people, even my parents. I've always been taking care of everyone. And maybe I always was sort of like, in a way, I'm learning that I was maybe like the mother I always wanted, you know, and I'm kind of like learning or trying to unpack what that is. And I'm learning how to apply that not just to my kids, but to myself. And that's my newest sort of piece of the journey. But I definitely wanted my kids to feel a connection to family because I did grow up with that. We had a really strong family unit. I grew up with that and I loved it, even though it felt oppressive sometimes because they're very intense. But I do really think those family values of that ride-or-die mentality with your core and with your family. And then I got to take the best parts of that and then expand it into my chosen family as well. You know, I really bring in and have surrounded my kids with the chosen family and we have that same loyalty ride-or-die mentality. And then there's respect. You know, I think I wanted my kids to always respect their elders. I don't care who somebody is or what they do. If they are older than you, they've gone through it. And as long as they're not mad disrespectful, you better be respectful. Like, I don't care. And so reinforcing that has always been really important to me. Were there any ideas or things you left behind, you know, when you entered into motherhood? Yeah, I was like really big on routines with my kids and boundaries. And I didn't have a lot of that growing up. There weren't a lot of boundaries or routines. If there was like a cookout or a barbecue or like a family gathering, it was like family and friends and adults and kids. And, you know, when even when the adults got messy, the kids were always kind of there and witnessing it where I'm like, all right, this is probably like if people are gonna be walling out, I don't want my kids to see that. It's not appropriate for them to see that. And so like creating a safe space for my kids to just be able to be kids in a space that is separate from. If I want to wall out with my friends, allow myself to do that, but not necessarily always around my kids. And like what's appropriate and inappropriate. I'm really big on like trying to enforce those age appropriate boundaries. And that was something I didn't experience. And definitely the routines, I didn't, I don't recall a ton of same routine and ritual in my life. It's true. I always wonder, I mean, my kids, same as you, you know, I do try very hard to create some kind of a, you know, a routine for them, a game plan. So they know, they know that it's like safe to be who they are and what they are and know the guidelines. Cause I feel like it can get, I remember as a child, I was very thrown off of like the, the situations I was in. Cause I felt like I don't have the tools to digest it or understand it properly. Cause I was, I was still a child, but yet I was, it was in front of me. So it was very disorienting. So I, I don't think I've ever thought about it, but now that you mentioned it a hundred percent, it's definitely something that I, I try to have for the kids to help them navigate through their own life. With your first child, how was the experience? Did you, do you feel like you were able to bring to life all these ideas and, you know, expectations that you had? You know, it's interesting. I think I had so many kind of hangups growing up in entertainment and always kind of like feeling like I needed to prove my worth and prove myself, especially cause like nobody looked like me in Hollywood. Nobody opened any doors for me. If anything, it was nothing but resistance. And even when I had my foot in the door, I still had to, I feel like constantly validate myself and my existence. And I always felt a little like I had that imposter syndrome. As much as I sort of like gave to my career, it never really returned the same amount of love or commitment. I felt like I was kind of always like chasing something or scrambling and I couldn't get my feet underneath me. And I felt like when I became a mom, I finally felt grounded. I felt like I finally felt like I stood in my power and I understood what it meant to be a woman and what that energy was. The word sex or sexy or being a sexual person was attached to me in a lot of ways when I was growing up in entertainment, but there was such a disconnect for me in that, in owning what that meant for me. It always was sort of like this gross, icky, shameful, weird, bizarre thing that I put in a little box and compartmentalized. It's like, okay, this is just how they sell stuff and I'm part of selling something, but it's not who I really am. And I really started to understand or own myself as a woman and everything, all that divine feminine energy, really started to come forward when I became a mom. So I think I was just experiencing that along with wanting to protect my daughter from as much as possible. And in that journey, I really thought about my legacy and I thought about what can I do with this thing that I've dedicated so much of my life to, entertainment, and this relationship I have with media and all of that. But then being this sort of like living in a fishbowl at the time, I was being chased by paparazzi every day, all day long, nothing was private, everything was tabloid fodder. At any moment, they were trying to find a moment for me to follow my face so I can be a headline and always feeling kind of preyed on. And it sounds like, oh, boo-hoo, you, your life, blah, blah, blah. I can see how cynical people can be about it, but that's not why I didn't get into this business to be famous. I don't care about that piece of it. I genuinely don't. Some people do. That's fine. That's their bag. I wanted to be, I love being somebody else. And for me, that was what drew me to this business. So dealing with all the other stuff was really difficult for my mental health, for all the things. And when I became a mom and I really started to think about, hey, the health and well-being of my kid, but then the health and well-being of all kids, but then the health and well-being of all people, how can I possibly try and put something, what's my purpose? And that's when I created my business. And my business is called The Honest Company and my daughter's name is Honor. And Honor inspired me to create a company that has the ethics and the values and the heart that I feel like is missing in companies. In corporate America, you have these ideas of like, you know, wood paneled offices and these white dudes who are, you know, power hungry and will basically wipe out as many people as humans as possible and destroy the planet and do whatever it takes to get more power and more money. And it is a stereotype, but a lot of it does ring true because it's hard for people who don't look or feel like you to have the type of empathy to consider you. And so much of us are just not represented from 50% of the population being women all the way through to very people come from various backgrounds and people of color, certainly. So I feel like because we're not represented in business, we're not represented in government, we're not represented in power and leadership in the same way that you see the white cis man. So much gets kind of lost and so many of our needs aren't met. And so I think like, hey, why don't I try and create a little glimmer of like hope that it can be a little better. And so that's why I created Honest. It's so amazing because I wanted to talk a little bit about my own personal experience when I became a mother for the first time. It's beautiful to hear your journey. I felt I had the complete opposite kind of journey because it sounds like you found your identity while I struggled a bit with losing my identity when I became a mother for the first time. I had my first when I was 22. So I don't even know what identity I'm speaking of exactly that I lost because 22, I don't even know what that is. But it was a bit, it was interesting. Like I didn't realize that I was mourning a little bit. It was a bit of a grief period for me to understand that I'm at this other stage in my life. Did you experience any of that? I did. Yeah. Because I had this other persona or person who's naturally, I don't think we want to be narcissists, but you kind of are the natural state of not having to really think about keeping anyone else alive is what you feel before you have kids. I would say it took me a full year to transition from the sort of the old may had to die and for there to be like the seed that was sort of like put into the ground and then the flower starting to bloom. I didn't see the bud of the flower maybe until a year after I had Honor. So yeah, I was upside down. I was crying. I was sweating. I was leaking. All the things that happened to your body. And I also felt, you know, and doesn't it feel like there's a hostile takeover? Like I felt like my body was like taken over by this alien that was just like feeding off of me and sucking the life out of me. And it literally kind of is. It was very, and that's something that I, when I was trying to look for answers or support or understanding of what's going on with me, it was actually difficult for me to find these conversations about like grieving your old self. Even speaking to my mom, you know, she didn't really knew how to articulate it. And I mean, she dealt it in her own way, which I didn't want to in that way. And I just really couldn't figure out what's going on with me. So whenever I had friends that were talking to me, they were like planning on having kids who were just, you know, pregnant, and I already had my first. They're like, so you right away felt like a mother, you right away felt like, and I was like, no, I did not. It took me a while. Yeah, I remember when Jake was born and I was like holding him, this newborn, this thing just came out of me. And I, I was so scared. I was like, I do not feel this crazy, like a motherly instinct kicking in. I have no idea what I'm doing. Please don't send me home because I can't, I just, I know, leave me here. So that was just, you know, the first couple of days of giving birth. But then also the following year, it also took me about a year to just kind of realize, okay, things are different now. I'm someone else. I have this new identity inside of me, and I have to surrender to it rather than fight it. Because again, you know, culturally, I feel like maybe in society, the same way we have this like bounce back mentality physically, we very much have that bounce back mentality mentally. Yeah, you're right. And I was not okay for the first year. But it was, it was interesting, because you're right, no one really talks about the death of your, of your old self and the birth of a new self. And, and that's a real, that's a real metamorphosis. Like, it's real. I felt like I had family, like with her with honor. And with cash, I was like, Oh my god, I finally feel like I have this thing that I've been searching for, like home, in a way. And I and I don't want to say that to hurt my parents feelings. But I just always felt I didn't belong or something. I didn't feel like I was part of their thing. And, and I was always sort of like, it didn't feel like my tribe. But with honor, I finally felt like, Oh, this is in cash was like, this is my, these are my people. And, and I, I did feel a tremendous sense of responsibility. And that was scary. Because she really relied on me to be alive. And it was going to be really clear if I wasn't doing a good job. It was, and it was going to be like, I couldn't even think about it. And so that was terrifying. How am I going to keep this person alive? It's funny, because I don't think I mean, we planned our second one. But I didn't think too much about it. I feel like my first was 10 months old. And I was like, Okay, let's just do it. Without thinking what it, you know, entails. Having another human. It's very close. What the hell I was thinking, I do not know. I mean, I'm extremely grateful now, because now they're like two peas in a pod. And you know, it's easier for us now. But it was kind of crazy. And I feel like I was also in this, still trying to figure out my identity, because something that happened to me, and I don't know if you've experienced that. But something that happened to me was, once I realized, okay, I'm a mother, I also didn't necessarily want to throw myself completely into it. Because I saw some people around me that moved from their own self definition to completely identifying with motherhood. And I just felt like, whoa, I feel like they lost themselves in that a little bit, you know? So here's me, like barely trying to get my brain to work to understand that, okay, I have all these responsibilities, and I'm a mother. And now here's the second one coming on the way. But yet, I don't want to fully identify with just that one thing. And it made me feel like a really bad mom. It made me feel like something's wrong with me. Like, why is this not the reason I exist? Why is it not my whole being? Did you have any of those kind of thoughts? Or maybe not, maybe it was just me. I'm okay at this point to be the crazy one. I think it's actually unhealthy to completely lose yourself in one thing. I think we're meant to be dimensional and multifaceted. And I think we're meant to have more than one person in our life, more than one relationship in our life to create some kind of balance. Because one thing isn't going to fill every piece of you up. Your relationship with your husband gives you something that your relationship with, frankly, each kid gives you something else. Your relationships with your homie, homegirls, whoever it is, that they each give you something. And so I think if you try to put your work gives you something else, I actually think it's wild if the narrative that one relationship is going to be enough for you in every way. And whether that is a relationship with a partner or a kid or all of your kids or work or a friendship. So I think it's the most sacred relationship really should be with yourself. Yeah, I think we're definitely doing ourselves a disservice trying to, I mean, I myself experienced that trying to make that one relationship be so perfect because you are it now, this is your identity, if it's motherhood. And I think this is how you kind of get into this like helicopter parenting or being this overburden of a partner, you know, because you just try to be... Or too much of a mom. It's like too much, you don't let them breathe. So it's like we're sabotaging ourselves, we're sabotaging ourselves either way. And them, obviously, as a result. Yeah, but there is a lot of like judgy stuff out there that makes you feel like you need to be completely immersed in motherhood. And I think that motherhood to me is one piece, but it's not all of it. If my heart was walking around outside of my body, it is all three of my kids. That's the truth. And that will always be that I still have like other organs. Right. I love that. When did that realization come to you? I mean, it sounds like you are very aware of the right place for you in terms of identity to be dimensional and to have all these different things going for you. Did you just know it? No. I think it's learning along the way and experiencing pain and unpacking a lot of my hangups and my lessons and what I identify as trauma. Now I look at it as blessings. Things that were the resistance and the contrast that I experienced through my life in order for me to come out the other side and be who I am. And so little of it. It feels like you're always trying to move towards a goal, but so little of life is about the goal and it's actually all about the journey. And it's like, how are you going to operate inside of the hardest, most difficult, most challenging times is really who you are as a person. It's like, you know how good your marriage is when shit hits the fan and the world is falling apart around you. And that's when you really know how good your marriage is. It's not when you guys are shitting rainbows before you have kids and going out and living your very best life. Sorry, that's not it. It's when you haven't slept and you're leaking and you don't feel like yourself and you haven't put on real clothes in four days. That's where the magic is. That's the magic. That's when you really know what your relationship's made of. You know, when I was, I think I read that book, I read Eckhart Tolle's New Earth when I had already Jake and Ben. And I remember I read this one chapter that was talking about roles. And he was talking about all these things that we do, like motherhood and being a wife or, you know, in a workplace, all these things. And he showcased them as roles. These are roles that you're playing. This is not your identity. This is not who you are. It's part of who you are, but it is going to be times where it's going to be the end of that role, right? Like even with parenting. I mean, you'll always be a parent, but at some point it's going to evolve into something different. The roles and responsibilities change over time. Exactly. Right. And I mean, we hear, we hear, I mean, I hear I have friends that are now empty nesters and it's very difficult for them because you can see how that was such a huge part of their identity. And it's very difficult for them to go past it. Right. So when I read that chapter and I started looking at my life and all the things that I do and all these blessings and opportunities that I have and started looking at them as roles, it just became so much better and more rewarding. And I feel like I'm more present in them. You know, because you had almost like a context, like you can see it from this like bird's eye view versus just being inside of it every time. Exactly. Yeah. Drowning it, you know? Yeah. So even in the hardest times with the kids, it was just like, this is, I'm in my role now. Like this is the bulk of it. Right. This is like the defining moments. And at some point I'm going to be out of it and my role is going to be different towards them. And it was such a like awakening for me as a human, as a whole, but like also as a mother, it just, I started approaching my children in a different way. I love that. I wish that I had the ability to like, cause I read things like that and I hear it and it lasts for like maybe 25 minutes, 30 minutes max. And then I quickly forget about it and I have to learn that damn lesson again. My grandfather would always say like, you're going to look up five years from now and you're just not going to care. He was like, think about five years ago. What was your favorite song? What was your favorite this? What, what did you love? Like, what did you, if you look around at your life, like what mattered to you the most five years ago? And he told me this when I was going through, like I had a crush on a boy and he decided he wanted to be with someone else. And he was like, five years ago, what was the most important thing? And then think about that five years from now. And he's like, time always heals. Time is the best healer. And I was like, Oh yeah. I had to learn that one a few times, but it sounds a lot like the Eckhart Tolle. Yeah. Um, so do you go back to that in times of like, when you sink too deep? Yeah. Just like five years from now. It's like five years from now, this is all gonna just be really different in this. You're not, there's no way you're going to be in the same place and this same thing is going to affect you in the same way. And so it just kind of allows you to kind of move past stuff that feels endless, like sleepless nights when you have a baby. Oh man. Oh yeah. I definitely envision five years. Diapers. Yeah. To me, I was like, I need to project it to the future because I won't survive that way. Um, it's true. I mean, it's, uh, your, the Honest Company has been an amazing company to watch as it evolve and really like stood for something, you know, and someone as, as an observer, um, I can only imagine the amount of work and sweat and heart and tears that went into building something like that. Um, because your mission is very clear and I'm sure that it consumed a lot of you. How did that play a role building something like that? Simultaneously raising kids, having, you know, a relationship with the husband you would like to stay with forever, maintaining a household, all the things, how did all these work? And my husband actually started, my husband started his business at the same time. So we were both building our businesses from scratch at the same time while having little kids. And it was interesting. I mean, it's my kid, it's my child. It's, I put as much love and sweat and all the things into it. And so every decision matters to me a little bit more. And I, it allows me to have some grace with myself when people are like, why do you care so much about every little detail? Or, you know, you're really scary and intense, you know, every time because everything matters. And I'm like, it's literally, I care about this. Like I care about my child, like a birth, this idea. I brought on the people and asked them to join me to be my co-founders, you know, like this idea started with a lot of, um, mood boards and then evolved into scrapbooks and then evolved to business decks and then evolved from like really fat business decks to really lean ones. And then, you know, iterated and iterated and iterated along the way. So, um, yeah, I care about it all. It, it is not easy. It's also like, if you think of a 10 or 11 year old kid, how much do they really know about the world? Where are they in their life? And this is only, the business is only, only 11 years old. So we're learning and evolving and growing as we should. And the, uh, I appreciate businesses that have been around for a hundred plus years, which are pretty much every other business that's in our category, that's meaningful at the scale that we're at. And so it helps me again, give myself grace when I'm like, why are we not like this? Or why isn't this happening? And they had to figure out all that stuff to get to where they're at. And, and this is just part of the growing pains when you're going through the challenges and it's, you know, are, is the world better off with us here or not? And I do think it's better off with us here. And that's what always keeps me focused and, um, helps me push through when it feels so hard, but every part of running and creating something from nothing is really, no one can prepare you. Yeah. And it's in, in the only thing I can say is it's as close to, to motherhood for me as it gets. So I don't want to, I don't want to use the word balance because I honestly kind of hate the concept and the word, um, just with what we made out of it, you know? So I won't say balance, but there were obviously times where you prioritize your career over the kids or the kids over the career or other things. How did you get through kind of the guilt of it? Yeah. It's an interesting one because I think for so much of my life, I would say there's no such thing as balance. It's for the birds. What are, anyone who asks that question obviously is living in la la land. Like, you know, what are we even talking about? And I always was really irritated that at every business conference I was asked about balance and I never heard a man ever asked about balance in business conference. So I was like, why is that not something you ask every guy that comes up on the stage? Um, and you know, I think that I'm not sure what gene or what, what genetically is attached to guilt, but I think guilt is something that keeps us connected to our kids to even want to show up and make sure that they are okay. And I'm not sure if guys are born with the same thing. I don't know if it's just a female thing. And that's why we get asked that balance is attached to, and the, and the idea of balance is attached to how we deal with guilt and the guilt of doing anything other than our entire world revolving around our kids. I think for a long time, like I said, in order for humanity to continue, we needed to really care about those kids and make sure that they weren't like being eaten by said animal in the wild or taking some poison, berry, and, you know, offing themselves by accident or falling into a creek or off a cliff or so on and so forth. I feel like these are all metaphors, metaphors for the things that exist right now. So I'm just thinking of, you know, hunter gatherers, nomadic times, right? So much of humanity was pre-civilization, pre-civilization, pre-agriculture humanity. And so I think a lot of we are genetically coded with that survival thing, and we live in a very different time. And for me, I transferred. And so, yes, do I feel guilt every day? A hundred percent. Did I feel guilt or feel like I can never do it all? A hundred percent. Did that keep me from being ambitious? Absolutely not. I was, I couldn't have been more ambitious. I wanted to be super mom, super wife, super friend, super daughter, super this, super that, super entrepreneur, super goal, you know. And I just, I felt like so drained in the end. And I feel like until maybe like four years ago, a friend of mine got really sick and has kids, has a daughter that's a similar age as Hayes. And what she got sick from was not genetic or anything. And I was like, shit, man, in one second, it all can just go away, you know. And like, I started to think about my life and life choices and time and all of this stuff differently and all of the super badges that I put on myself, frankly, and all the stories I told myself about who I needed to be and what it meant to like strive for something and what I was avoiding, which was being quiet. I was avoiding being centered. I was avoiding being emotional and feeling soft and feeling feelings. And when I started to get comfortable with listening to my soul and what my soul needed and feeding and filling that cup and becoming my own best friend and becoming the protector of my soul and that being my focus, then allowed me to kind of understand what balance really was, what balance really means. Then I really understood, oh, balance means that like, there's only so much time in a day. And if you're not okay, nothing else will be okay. And I feel like I've been so much more present, I guess. So when guilt shows up for you now, how do you look at it? How did it reframe itself from what it used to be? It used to swallow me up. And it felt like this endless pool, this like a black hole that would swallow me up. And it felt like just this bottomless pit. And I think now it, when I feel like I'm feeding my soul, and I feel like I'm being true to what that is, it then gives me room to have the context or the perspective on the relationships that I have. Similar to what Eckhart Tolle was saying, you naturally get yourself in a state of having context and perspective. And then you can see your kids and their souls and their highest self and what they really need. And are you meeting them in a sincere and genuine and pure way? That's really meaningful to them in this moment. And then that's where you can kind of figure out your equilibrium with what did it take the feeling of guilt to get you there? Sometimes it does. Sometimes you just need it. For me, when I feel an overwhelming amount of negative feelings, it just means I haven't been listening to my or connecting to myself. It's more of a cue. I love that. Jessica, that was, I love that. I feel like I'm gonna, I'm gonna, after this interview, I'm gonna sit and like, be with that answer for a little bit, because I really like how you reframed guilt. I think it would help a lot of women to look at it in a different way and to get it to be a tool rather than a negative emotion that emotion that consumes you. I really appreciate that. That's beautiful. Let's talk about parenting, because I feel like with parenting, it's a tough one. I feel like very humbling, isn't it? Yes. Motherhood is one thing. Parenting is a whole other thing. I think that it's important to touch on that point. I wonder how your view of motherhood is reflected in the way you parent. I sometimes intertwine the two a little too much. I feel like cash has a great way of pulling me out of my own sort of martyrdom around it. I shoulder the poor me stuff and look what I do and look what I did and all the sacrifice and yada, yada, yada. The kids don't care. They just don't. I don't know if they'll ever love me as much as I love them. The answer is no. It's so sad to even think that it's such a one-sided relationship in a lot of ways. Then parenting. You're like, then what's parenting? If you can detach from all of your hang-ups or martyrdom or stuff of what it means for you to be a mother and you can just think about what structure, infrastructure do these kids need and feedback and sounding board boundaries and guardrails, whatever these things are, all of it's just so they could thrive. What does thriving mean or what does thriving look like? For me, when I see my kids not being self-aware with a joy that feels almost like a reckless abandon, just a completely true, intuitive self. When they feel like it's time to cry because this thing upsets them and they cry, when they feel like just giggling and laughing, they just laugh. When they feel like just taking a nap or resting or sitting in the sun, they do that. When they feel like skipping, they do that. When they feel like they are in the zone or in the flow, I don't know how else to describe it. That's when I know they're okay. My parenting is just meant to try and help give them as much space so that that can exist for as long as possible and for them to stay tapped into that. Being almost like at one with themselves and with nature and life so they can just be. And that's, I think, is where that separation or that evolution of roles happen, right? When we move from motherhood to parenthood in a way because I saw this TikTok and I felt like in a very silly way, it really encapsulated what this topic is about. There was three kids or four kids and the mom was touching the head of each of them and it says how motherhood goes. It goes from mommy to mama to mom to bra. It's obviously very simplistic, but that's kind of the evolution from motherhood to parenting, right? Because when they're so little, it's all about mommy and that it's really like that nurturing, that completely taking care of the mom of their energy. But as they get older, if we continue with that, we're kind of giving them a disservice in a way and we need to start giving them tools. And my biggest teacher with that is honestly my husband because he has, I don't know if it's all men, but my man has a very great way of just looking at things in such a simple way. And I remember we had a little bit of a... Same with mine. Yeah, right? Thank God that he's there because we had a little disagreement about an incident that we had with the kids and how we kind of went about it. Felt like I was talking with my mother mind and my mother heart. And I was like, you were too harsh. You were doing this and you were doing that. And I don't agree with that. And Gary said, Valeria, I don't need them to love me. What I need them is to have the tools to grow up in this world and to be able to survive and thrive. So the need for them to confess this unwavering love for me, it's not a requirement. And when they get older, they'll understand that what I did now served them more than if I would have cuddled them. And I kind of resented him for a bit. And then when I went away and sat with it and had a minute, I was like, oh my God, we graduated to the next stage of parenting. This is it. This is the next level, right? So that was also a little bit of a little ending that I've experienced recently as a mother, although I still have my four-year-old, but I feel like he's now also getting into that point where I'm like, okay, buddy, mama has to be a parent. Yeah, I think it's interesting because I feel like there's still moments of softness and cuddling. And my kids, you know, my 14-year-old who's, you know, she's five, nine and a half, like she's tall and she's big and she's like a person in the world and all the things. And even my 11-year-old is like, she's big. She's like five, five, one. And she's, you know, they're not little tiny people. Like hazes can still kind of like get into a ball and get into my lap, you know? But that's the last thing that fool wants to do. He just wants to monster trucks and dive off anything, any, anything he can dive off of. So another, that's another thing. But, you know, my girls will still cuddle on, you know, and at night we'll put on a movie and they want me to like rub their head and they want me to still like cuddle them and be cozy with them. But, you know, 99% of the time it's the parenting. Like you said, it's the, you know, there's a, here are consequences to your actions. How are you going to deal with this dynamic? If you're not getting what you need from your teacher, if you're not operating at this level with your friend group, if this person is a little bit shifty or a little bit tough, how are you going to deal with it? You can't run away from your problems. You can't run away from this friend group. You can't not go to school. How can you show up differently to make it different? You know, there's a lot of that. By not asking questions in class, you're guaranteed to not get a good grade. So, you know, whatever attachment you have to being the kid that asks all the questions, just sit up in the front so you don't have to look at other kids. Just get up in the front and it's just you and the teacher because you're only in there for what, 45 minutes, maybe an hour? And you got to get the most out of it because this is not lasting very long. But, and this, these are these like teaching parenting moments and like drugs will kill you. Right. That's the, that's, you know, try it once, you'll die. My mother was always like, you know, I have a friend that has a friend that has a son that has an uncle that, you know, smoked a cigarette and had a heart attack and died. So don't smoke. I was like, okay. That, my, my mom was like, you'll be the one kid that does the line of coke and you'll die. You'll die right there. You'll be dead. And when I tell the kids, it's like, my mom told me that stuff and it may have not have been true in when I was growing up, but today with fentanyl, it's a true story. Right. Try anything. You will die. Just think I'm going to die. And is it worth it? Is it worth taking that risk? Probably not. Probably not. Cause like your life is pretty awesome. So when you're dealt with that, cause it's going to happen. I always love to like give them the, it's going to happen when you're out with your friends and they're like, try this drink, try this gummy. I'm like, don't take your own drinks, your own gummies, pour your own drinks, pop it open, make sure it was a sealed can. Don't take anything from anyone. And, and kind of, I mean, some, some people think it's a little extreme, but I also say like, you know, brush your teeth. You never know if you're going to smooch someone tonight, you know, take care of that breath sis. You know, I'm not like keeping them totally out. I try to like give them some tips along the way as well. They're like, I'm ill. Like why? I have to say, I'm always like now understanding the amount of impact we have on children. I'm kind of surprised that we don't have to like go through some kind of a test before we're allowed to have children. Like I'm, I'm actually, shouldn't there be one? I, I really believe like when you have to take a driver's test. Exactly. You have to take a test to be admitted into the military. You have to take a test to get into a said college or university or what have you, trade school. No test to have kids. It's really wild. And also mind you, we are, we are, we do have the luxury of being able to, to have and think about what does good parenting look like and mean. Cause not a lot of people have that luxury. Right. And that is something that, you know, we are afforded. Some people are just surprised and they are in survival mode and they're like, oh shit. Okay, here we go. Which is kind of how my parents did it. I mean, same. And we're here to tell the story. And we're here. I know that was the thing. Whenever I started to get really like freaked out about like what's going to happen and is it all going to go to hell in a handbasket? And one of my mother's sayings, sorry, sometimes I come out with these corny things. But whenever I think about that, I'm like, I'm still here. Like somehow Mark and Kathy kept me and my brother alive so they can do it. Think I might be okay. Not that they are terrible, not saying anything bad, but they just, they were T they were young kids. They didn't have the same tools I have. And so I feel like maybe it will be okay. So let me finish off with this one question because I mentioned to you how New Earth impacted kind of my way of thinking about motherhood and all the things, all the roles that I play. Has there been any books that maybe had a huge part in shaping your relationship with motherhood or parenting or even growing into yourself? One of my first really impactful books like that was The Four Agreements. That's a great book. Well, 1984 was one. That one I read when I was like 13. Bob Dylan's Book of Poems, another one. And The Four Agreements. That would like sum up my teenage self. And then this book called Metamorphosis, Frank Kafka's Metamorphosis. A lot of these about like existentialism. But a lot, this is where my brain was like as a young person. And those books in one form or fashion helped me, I think, pull my head out of my ass, so to say. Have a context around systems and structures and dynamics and then really understand, certainly The Four Agreements helped me understand the soul, the stories that were told that we don't need to always subscribe to or the roles that we play and the expectations that we create for ourselves. Again, that we don't always, that don't always serve us and how ultimately we are the masters of our own reality and we can choose to do with it as we will. I would say The Four Agreements was, and still is, it's a nice one because it's just short and sweet and just gets right to it. Right. Just gets right to it. It's one of those books you go back to all the time and you're like, oh yeah, that one. There's always something new, you know. There's something like, I knew that, but hey, there's this one something there, a new information. That was so wonderful. Thank you. I feel like that's a beautiful closure to this conversation. Yeah, follow me on Instagram under my name, TikTok. I actually did an unscripted show with my BFF Lizzie Mathis called Honest Renovations and it's for Roku and we really transform some amazing families' lives with, you know, updating and renovating spaces in their homes and they're all going through a parenting conundrum that we get to help solve through these renovations and I'm really proud of the show. I have a Netflix movie where I get to kick ass, take down some white supremacy, just do a little bit of that, sort of like a modern western and that was really fun to do. The director, she's an Indonesian filmmaker. Her name's Muli and I had a great time on that. Check out honest.com. We have always have amazing products that we're launching and yeah, that's it. Thank you so much for having me. That's it. I love this. Next time I'm in Miami, I'm gonna hit you up. Yes, I know where you are, sis. Exactly. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. Thank you so much for joining me today, Jessica. Thank you for having me. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for watching this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Don't miss my newest episode right here and if you're listening to the podcast on Apple or Spotify, please go and leave a review with your biggest takeaway. I love reading your thoughts and if you have any suggestions for guests or topics, you can leave them in the comment section and always, always remember you are not alone.