Podcast Episode 378: The Perfection Trap: How ‘Having It All’ Can Leave You Empty Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

Cameo Elyse Braun (00:01)

On the outside, performing as a mom looked like having a clean house and being ready to go pick up everyone else’s kids. And on the inside, I was like rotting. One day, my husband came to me with some news that I had been having an affair. So in addition to all of the overwhelm, I was also carrying a ton of guilt and dishonesty and feeling trapped.

JoAnn Crohn (00:25)

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I’m your host JoAnn Crohn joined here by the brilliant Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker (00:33)

Hello, hello, everybody. How are you doing on this beautiful day?

JoAnn Crohn (00:36)

We get to talk today about perfection and how it’s not all as it seems because I’ve noticed a lot in our balance community, Brie, a lot of moms give themselves a hard time for not doing everything correctly, for not doing everything right. And that’s not always the whole story.

Brie Tucker (00:54)

Exactly. We were actually just talking with someone that had just joined our recent Summer of Zen challenge. And she was asking about helping her son do better with transitions. And when she posted, she’s doing all the things. Maybe this isn’t about you doing more things. Maybe this is just the best it’s going to get for right now. And I feel like society has made us believe that we can always do better. We can always hustle more. We can always get.

JoAnn Crohn (01:08)

She’s doing other things, yeah.

Brie Tucker (01:24)

that top tier reward and no, it’s not always possible.

JoAnn Crohn (01:30)

If you’re not growing, you’re dying. That’s the phrase that haunts me in my brain all the time. I’ve never heard that one before. just made it up. You just got it.

Brie Tucker (01:36)

Yeah! petushed that!

New non curse word.

JoAnn Crohn (01:54)

So today we have with us Cameo Elyse Braun. She’s the author of the reset button and host of the Cameo show podcast. helps overwhelmed women and moms who feel stuck under the weight of expectations and shoulds reclaim their identity, reimagine what’s possible and reset their lives on their own terms without the shame, guilt or apology. And she’s the mom to two teens, which Bray and I can sympathize with very, well. Yep.

Now let’s get on with the show.

You want mom life to be easier. That’s our goal too. Our mission is to raise more self-sufficient and independent kids, and we’re going to have fun doing it. We’re going to help you delegate and step back. Each episode, we’ll tackle strategies for positive discipline, making our kids more responsible and making our lives better in the process. Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast.

Welcome to the podcast, Cameo. We’re so happy to you here. Have we ever had you on the podcast before? Because you’ve been in our summits. You’ve been a speaker in our summits, but I’m not sure if you’ve been on the podcast.

Cameo Elyse Braun (03:06)

Thank you so much for having me.

JoAnn Crohn (03:16)

and it’s your first time. Well, we’ll be nice. That will always be a fun time. It’ll be a fun time. It’s like, it’s a lot of laughing and a lot of introspection and vulnerability. And it’ll be really, really good. I’m excited to talk about your book because I know this has been in your big ideas and dreams for a while now. And you open up your book with this picture perfectly. Marriage, kids, success.

Cameo Elyse Braun (03:21)

I’m so grateful to be here. Thank you.

JoAnn Crohn (03:44)

And yet you say you were silently falling apart. When did you realize that things weren’t quite as what they seemed on the outside?

Cameo Elyse Braun (03:54)

That’s such a great question because I don’t know that there was a moment that I could pinpoint. I think it was happening so gradually that I was just trying to keep up with myself, keep up with who I was supposed to be, what I should be doing and portraying this image of perfection, as you mentioned, that was not real. And the deeper I got, the harder it was for me to recognize that I was in this never ending cycle of

performative perfectionism. And I think until we kind of hit a hard stop with some difficult things that we had to face, we being my husband and I, I would have continued kind of carrying on, keeping up with what was going because it was happening so gradually, I didn’t really realize it was chipping away.

Brie Tucker (04:43)

Also, isn’t there that piece where we tell ourselves, well, it’s supposed to be hard to be married. It’s supposed to be hard to be raising kids. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s not until later in your life where you may have had something big happen that gets you to look at it and go like, ⁓ wait, it wasn’t supposed to be that hard.

Cameo Elyse Braun (05:01)

Right. Yeah, I think we look around and we have social media and we have our neighbors and we have the school pickup line where we can compare ourselves to everyone else really easily. And whatever everyone else’s projection of perfection is and see where we fall short and try to keep up and then look back. Yes. As something big happens and go, wait, I was making it so much harder on myself by not.

facing things and not being honest with myself about what I really needed or what I really felt. And that was definitely the trap that I fell into.

JoAnn Crohn (05:35)

What did it look like for you when you were like performing as a mom? What did it look like on the outside versus like what you really needed on the inside?

Cameo Elyse Braun (05:43)

the outside performing as a mom looked like having a clean house and being ready to go pick up everyone else’s kids or be you know part of the mom group at pick up who would chit chat about what’s going on and what we’re gonna buy and what we’re gonna do and on the inside I was like rotting this is so not me it feels so fake and I love being available and being involved but also I feel like I’m doing it more to perpetuate this image that I’m always available than

actually being available and more so being present. And so, you know, it was just this complete facade for me that felt empty, but also felt like I couldn’t show up any other way. This was what I needed to do to be accepted, to be the mom, to be doing it right.

JoAnn Crohn (06:31)

It’s interesting that idea of this feeling of acceptance because I see my teen daughter going through it right now and I see my son as well, where they try to portray this image of themselves that isn’t the image I know. For instance, my daughter jokes about the pictures I like of her versus the pictures she likes of herself. And the pictures I like of her are usually her in the real state and the one she likes of herself are like, certain angle. And it has this expression that she

doesn’t wear ever unless it’s in a picture. And so I think this idea that you have to perform to be accepted is so interesting to me. have you had this before that you feel like you have to perform to be accepted?

Brie Tucker (07:18)

Yeah, 100%. Like I can completely relate to what you’re talking about, Cameo. Like in my earlier existence. So for most people and our listeners, I think know that I’ve been divorced for going on eight years now. And that in my first marriage, because things were so off between my husband and I of at least where I wanted us to be, I felt like I had to compensate in every other area of my life. So I mean,

I think JoAnn, you would say that when you met me, was pretty like happy-go-lucky. It was like, yeah, sure. I could do all of it. And yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (07:54)

And I was like, we don’t need to do that! ⁓

Brie Tucker (07:59)

Takes to make it look like I’ve got my stuff together because like you said, on the inside, it was a very hollow life, very hollow. It was just what was on the surface there. I had kind of just decided that I was going to let my own identity go to make it look like I had a good life outside because I was so sad on the inside.

JoAnn Crohn (08:23)

And you’re nodding at this Cameo. How do you relate to that?

Cameo Elyse Braun (08:26)

Yeah, I think that’s extremely relatable because for me, I was a young mom and I really hadn’t thought much about being a mom. So I’m kind of thrust into this role now and I’m completely overwhelmed. But I, by nature and by nurture, learned that I’m not going to show any weakness because there’s no time for that. So I can’t truly express what I feel in this overwhelm or this uncertainty. So I’m going to just let it

simmer underneath and then lose myself and lose what really makes me tick and lose, you know, my own character and lose the ability to say no to things and feel like I just constantly have to have it together. So I think that’s extremely relatable for all specifically women and moms. Yeah.

Brie Tucker (09:13)

So many of us.

JoAnn Crohn (09:16)

Yeah, I haven’t had the feeling that I’ve ever had to project an image that wasn’t me. know Brie, Brie knows authenticity is important to me. it gets really under my skin if I cannot be my authentic self, because it feels wrong. And so I struggle with this, this concept of like trying to portray this image of perfection to the outside world while you’re just hurting inside. And I want to understand it better.

And you, Cameo, in your book, you understand it better because you’ve been through like the breakdown of it all. So Cameo, I want to know what this piece was that really broke this perfection facade. And we’ll get into that right after this.

So Cameo, before we were talking about this idea that you had to appear like you were perfect to the outside world, what changed?

Cameo Elyse Braun (10:10)

One day, my husband came to me with some news that he had just been presented with about our marriage. And I open up the book with this because I think it’s important to be completely transparent right out of the gate. But I had been having an affair. So in addition to all of the overwhelm and this need to be perfect and to portray having it all together, I was also carrying a ton of guilt and dishonesty and feeling trapped.

So the moment he sat down and said, I know this now, I think he thought I was going to deny it. And I, in a weird way, and I know this is controversial, it’s emotional for people, but I was almost relieved. Yeah.

Cameo Elyse Braun (10:59)

And I immediately was like, I have been and thankfully, you know, and I know not everyone has this situation, but we decided to kind of go get on us together. It started as couples therapy and then evolved into my own so that I could really uncover what was it that drove me to be at this point anyway, where that was something that was even an option for me. How bad had it gotten and how had it gotten that bad? And we put in the work together to.

with regard to our marriage so that he could address the things that maybe weren’t working for him or that maybe he wasn’t being completely honest about. And so we were able to grow a bond from there. But I was in a position where I could have continued lying. I could have ran. I could have, you know, completely dodged everything that was happening. But I knew deep down inside of my soul and in my body that I can’t continue.

to do this. I can’t continue to live this facade and this life of not being truly who I am and being able to show up in the world as such.

JoAnn Crohn (12:01)

So do you feel like therapy really helped you figure out why you were showing up in the world like that?

Cameo Elyse Braun (12:09)

Therapy gave me the tools to help me understand why I was showing up in the world like that. A therapist or an unbiased professional can present you with questions that make you feel like you’re not being judged, like you don’t need to be defensive. And it forced me to face things that I might’ve just brushed past because she was asking the hard questions and not letting me dodge the answers.

And then that turned into something that I learned to be able to do with myself. And had I not done therapy or had someone guide me in that way, I wouldn’t have had the tools within myself to be able to continue that growth. So I’m a huge advocate of therapy for sure.

Brie Tucker (12:53)

How’d you percent support that statement? ⁓

JoAnn Crohn (12:54)

I mean, like, I started therapy as soon after my daughter was born because I went through some pretty bad postpartum depression where I didn’t want to be a mom. I was looking forward to when she turned 18. And now that she’s closer to 18 now, I’m actually very much looking forward to her turning 18 still, but in a different way. Like I was able to enjoy the journey a lot more. And I know through my own therapy journey, it was based on me and my expectations of what

I needed to do as a mom. I guess it’s very similar to the perfectionism thing. So maybe I do. I do see the correlation between like trying to live up to a certain image and do the right things. ⁓

Cameo Elyse Braun (13:36)

It’s sneaky, right? You don’t necessarily recognize that that’s what you’re doing. Expectations and perfectionism, they all kind of play well together, right? They go hand in hand in some ways. And expectations are seemingly always my demise when I place expectations on myself or on others to bring me disappointment. It’s unfair.

Brie Tucker (14:01)

It’s a slippery slope when we’re trying to meet expectations of others. And the reason I say that is sometimes showing up as your authentic self, your authentic self doesn’t always look the same, but you might be known for certain things. And I am kind of running this in towards like the influencer lifestyle, but I mean, what if you’re always known as the fun mom, right? Because you tend to have a fun and outgoing personality.

There’s going to be days when you don’t want to be the fun mom, where you’re just exhausted. You’re irritated, whatever. But now you’ve gotten yourself into this role that you’ve told yourself, this is who I’m supposed to be. I guess that’s just in my example. I’m trying to run into that. think all of us do run into this point where we try to be perfect. What our ideal of perfect is does vary based on what role we’re trying to play.

JoAnn Crohn (14:50)

It’s an interesting question too, because Cameo, you did portray kind of like this image of being a perfect mom, always available, always there. How did your relationships and friendships change after you decided not to show up that inauthentically anymore and really show up as your truer self?

Cameo Elyse Braun (15:09)

That’s a great question. I would say that some of the relationships and friendships became deeper because people could really feel like they knew me. And they didn’t expect that when we would get together, I would be the mom with all the plans and the mom that’s ready to have fun. And, you know, some of the relationships kind of fell to the side. The ones that were built on the facade or the labels that we had put on ourselves. mean, Bri, you speak about identifying with something.

feel like I had a lot of labels and I talked about that in the book a lot that each role, each hat had a different set of expectations that I was trying to live up to. until I was able to kind of dismiss all of those and not allow that to dictate how I showed up, then it became clear who I was and then people could make a different decision about me. Or on the same token, I could make a different decision about who I was around.

Brie Tucker (16:03)

Yeah, whether or not you still wanted those people to be an influence in your life.

Cameo Elyse Braun (16:06)

Great. Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (16:08)

talking about like all these different hats being worn, the mom and like the perfect wife and everything. So many women I’m sure listening right now can very much relate to all those different hats. And yet they have a lot of difficulty defining who they are themselves and what their identity is. And in your book, The Reset Button, all about like resetting yourself in life, how can moms start to figure out who they actually are in spite of all the hats they wear? Wait.

Brie Tucker (16:37)

Are you asking her to tell us where we can find our reset button? ⁓

JoAnn Crohn (16:41)

Sure.

JoAnn Crohn (16:44)

Patooshpree, you took my question up. I know. Thank you for taking up. Thank you.

JoAnn Crohn (16:55)

But like, how can we go and start finding our identity again?

Cameo Elyse Braun (17:01)

So the reset button is a three-step framework of the three Rs, and the first step I call reflection. To me, that’s being aware and also being really honest with yourself. So you don’t really recognize what’s happening until you allow yourself the time and space to become aware. Those moments when you feel like, that doesn’t feel right, or that person makes me feel off, or…

I’m doing something I really don’t want to do, but because I should be doing it and everyone expects that I will, actually giving yourself the space to question it and say, is this really how I want to show up in my life? And then being brutally honest with yourself about it. So to hit your own personal reset button, it starts there. And it’s scary because you have to face things that maybe you have been brushing under the rug for years.

all the way back to childhood. This is why I show up in this way. And now that I recognize it and I’m aware of it and I can be honest about it, I need to question how I want to show up moving forward.

JoAnn Crohn (18:09)

Yeah, I have a question kind of out of left field though, because you reminded me of like all these problems that you’re sweeping under the rug. There is this book called Mind Your Body. And it is all about how I don’t know if you’ve heard about it. It’s all about how we store our emotions in our body. And sometimes they come out as physical symptoms, because we’re hiding them. Headaches, body aches.

even autoimmune disorders, all those things. I’m wondering, like, since you were hiding all of these emotions kind of and sweeping them under the rug, in your experience, did you have any physical symptoms as well that came along with that?

Cameo Elyse Braun (18:48)

Great question. I wouldn’t say physical symptoms, but I would say that I would have visceral reactions that I would be like, why do I feel this way? And my go-to emotion was rage. So rather than face anything, be vulnerable, be sad, allow myself to feel like a normal human. I was like, I’m too tough for this. And if you push me too hard, now I’m also very mad and I will let you know. And it’s not funny.

but it sounds kind of funny to say, like I would hulk everything. I would yell and scream and smash things and punch holes in walls. I mean, it’s something that I had to really address with myself, within myself. So not necessarily these physical symptoms and illness or disease, but more so that just complete explosion and lack of control when I thought I was so in control, you know.

JoAnn Crohn (19:42)

Yeah, I’m taken back to my work when I was in the entertainment industry and working at an agency and how it says women are so emotional and men are not emotional. But like how your emotions were coming out was it? know. I know. Patouche. Patouche on that. How you were exhibiting your emotions was a typically masculine way that men are allowed to exhibit their emotions where it’s like anger and yelling. And I say back to my agency days because it was mostly male agents at that time.

20 years ago and there was so much cussing in that office. There was so many, oh, I can’t go, yeah, yeah, yeah, like so much yelling, so many emotions. So it’s interesting to say that. Well, I’m interested in hearing the rest of what the reset is, the reset method. We talked about, first of all, looking at you and your identity and we’re gonna get into the rest right after this.

So Cameo, we’ve already talked about reflection of the reset method. What’s the next step?

Cameo Elyse Braun (20:38)

The next step in the reset button framework is to reset. And this is where you give yourself permission to do things differently. I feel like I discovered that I was so caught up in doing things the way that I always had, the way that I was shown, the way that I was exposed to as a child, as a teen, even as a new mom, that I didn’t stop to question for one second, why am I doing it this way? And the next step, say,

You don’t have to. Guess what? You get to decide that you want to try something new. I think it’s fear-based sometimes. I think it’s also out of a lack of awareness that you just continue doing things the way that you always have. And the reset part of the reset button allows you to question things and be curious and be bold and brave enough to try something new.

JoAnn Crohn (21:29)

That bold and brave thing, that’s the hard part. It’s interesting because I tell a lot of the members in our Balance community, you should go for what scares you. If it makes you throw up a little bit, then that’s the right direction that you should go in.

JoAnn Crohn (21:47)

So that’s a different kind of scary right there. Let’s leave that one. That’s your body’s telling you. Yes. Yes. You should go through for what scares you. I personally, I do use that method myself in some things. In some other things though, for instance, when it involves, say I wanted to redo my office and create a studio that I could film in. I see these wonderful.

Brie Tucker (21:53)

Yes, but I’m up to those three.

JoAnn Crohn (22:15)

studios, like I had a friend who does like arts and crafts on YouTube. She had this gorgeous basement space created for her. I’m like, my gosh, I’m so envious. That’s so cool. But something stops me because you start thinking of, well, how much do I have to spend first of all? But it’s not even how much I have to spend. It’s will this be worth it in the long term? I don’t know the outcome.

of what will happen and I am afraid to put all of my time and energy into one thing that I have never ever done before where I don’t even know if I’ll like the outcome and I think that keeps me stuck sometimes in place.

Brie Tucker (22:56)

100 % me.

JoAnn Crohn (22:58)

Yeah. You feel the same way?

Cameo Elyse Braun (23:01)

the same way. ⁓

Brie Tucker (23:03)

I have clammy palms now.

Brie Tucker (23:07)

a little fear into my heart on like something that you have absolutely no idea if it’s gonna turn out and be worth all that investment. That is scary. I feel like you totally did that though, Cameo. You totally did that. But what you were talking about, like with putting the faith in to work on the issues that came up with you and your marriage, you didn’t know if it was gonna work.

Cameo Elyse Braun (23:26)

Yeah. And I had to be honest enough with myself that it may not, you know, it may not work. I think there’s a couple of things that I would say to that about leaning into fear, because I hold on to that every time I do something that’s outside of my comfort zone, is that I know what it looks like now. I know that, you know, this is the situation that I’m in. This is what it looks like if I stay here, if I stay stuck, even if I don’t recognize that I feel stuck.

If I stay where I am, I know what it looks like. If I do something different and it doesn’t yield the results that I’m hoping for, I can always go back. And I know, you know, money comes into play when you’re doing renovations or different projects or different things. So that’s always something, of course, to consider and weigh into your own personal situation. But you can always go back to what you know. If you don’t ever try the new thing, the scary thing, you’ll never know if it was actually going to be better. I feel like it’s scary because you’re like,

my boat is fine. Why would I want to rock it up? You know, why am I trying to shake it? You may not recognize that just outside of that boat, there’s some other opportunity that you may not have stumbled upon.

JoAnn Crohn (24:36)

I think it’s a worry that you’ll lose what you have. I think that’s it.

Cameo Elyse Braun (24:41)

I had trepidation leading up to releasing this book after I’d been working on it for five years, digging deep, putting it out there, discussing it with people because I’m like, well, what if everybody hates me because of the things that I’ve done, the mistakes that I’ve made? My life is great right now. Why would I want to do something that could potentially cause it harm or damage or put myself under a microscope? I had to hang on to the idea that the potential that it had to help other people was greater than that risk. So it’s…

you know, that personal differentiating between what’s the risk and is it worth it that comes down to what you know inside about yourself, but then also pushing yourself past the part of staying inside that comfort zone. The other thing that helps me, and I picked this up somewhere, I probably read it in a book that physiologically we experience fear and excitement the same. We get sweaty, clammy palms, our heart rate increases, our breath starts to become more rapid. We start to feel like we’re going to throw up.

Right? Those things happen whether you’re afraid of something or excited about something. So I’ve just chosen to use the word because words matter that I’m excited. So I’m excited rather than fearful. And sometimes that is all I need to push me into the next moment. And sometimes that doesn’t do it. And I have to, you know, go back to the drawing board.

JoAnn Crohn (26:01)

The book Quiet by Susan Cain referenced that if you’ve ever read Quiet for introverts, it’s about the power of introverts. But I use that too, especially like when I’m speaking, I’m like, okay, I’m not nervous, I’m excited, let’s use all that excitement and let’s go forward with that. Kimmy, in your book, you talk about this pressure to be the good girl and like the people pleaser. How did you start rewriting that?

Cameo Elyse Braun (26:25)

That’s such a great question. I’m not sure I can pinpoint exactly how, quite honestly. I think I just became more confident with each decision that felt more in alignment with who I was that didn’t blow up my life. I would recognize these little moments where I just did a little bit better than I had done in the past or did something different than I had in the past. And it ended up being a better move, more authentic, more genuine to who I was. And so I think I just became more comfortable.

each time I did it, that there was a little bit more confidence. And it doesn’t always have to be something big. It can be just something so small that makes all the difference in how you view your ability to show up in the way that you want to, that makes the difference.

JoAnn Crohn (27:08)

Yeah. And what would you tell yourself, the version of yourself before you went through all of this transition and all of the hard stuff? What would you tell that version of you who felt like she needed to do everything and be everything to feel worthy?

Cameo Elyse Braun (27:22)

Well, I’d give her a big hug and I would say it’s all going to be OK. And the more you lean into who you actually are, the more fulfilled you’ll feel, even though right now that feels like that is quippy comments that people make about living a great life. That all feels like it doesn’t exist in real life, but it actually does. And that doesn’t mean it’s ever going to be easy. It’s always hard. And you don’t always get it right and you won’t always get it right, but you’ll make decisions each time.

And when you don’t get it right, you’ll know what to do with that too. You’ll stay curious. So hang in there and do the hard things. The hard things now make it easier in the long run. Doing the easy things now make it harder in the long run.

JoAnn Crohn (28:06)

That’s true. That’s so true. I felt like I’ve gone through the same kind of transition when it comes to dealing with conflict in my life. Because before if I had disagreements with people or I was upset at something someone did or said, I would just sweep it under the rug. And now I find you’ll have a moment of uncomfortableness, but then that moment of uncomfortableness will disappear within the next few hours.

But if you never confront the issue, you will have that uncomfortableness stay with you for months and months and months and months until like everything’s out in the open. So like doing the hard thing helps in the long run. It’s like giving something to future you. I say always, I did something for future Joe now.

Cameo Elyse Braun (28:49)

That’s right.

Brie Tucker (28:50)

You mean stuffing the emotions and the hard things down doesn’t make them go away?

JoAnn Crohn (28:54)

What?

⁓

Brie Tucker (28:57)

news to me!

JoAnn Crohn (28:58)

doesn’t make him go away. Well, Cameo, what is something that you are looking forward to right now in your life?

Cameo Elyse Braun (29:05)

So personally, I’m really looking forward to an upcoming vacation with the kids because as they get older, our time together as a family unit, which is the major priority and focus for us and has been since this kind of reinvention of our life, which is the third R, that time has gone a little bit to the wayside because everyone’s busy. So I’m really looking forward to that opportunity to reconnect and, you know, spend the time with the kids that makes the meaningful moments.

When we get back, I’m really looking forward to continuing to connect with people, but specifically mostly women who I think see themselves or some version of themselves in what they’ve read. The feedback that I’m getting is really heartwarming because of that trepidation that I shared with you about releasing it at all. knowing that I’m not the only one who experiences these things, knowing that I’m not the only one who has had these quiet moments of shame or guilt that I carry around and don’t know what to do with.

Having other people explain that they see themselves in that in whatever way it relates to them, meeting them wherever they are has made it all about them. It’s no longer about me. It’s about the reader. It’s about the woman who feels seen. so connecting with these women so far, and I look forward to more of that, was really the intention and my hope behind the book at all. So I’m excited about that too.

JoAnn Crohn (30:24)

And we’re putting a link to the book in the show notes. So everybody go grab Cameo’s book and Cameo, it’s been wonderful having you on and we’ll talk to you soon.

Cameo Elyse Braun (30:34)

All right, thank you both so much.

Brie Tucker (30:37)

So I had a question I wanted to ask Cameo, but we ran out of time. So after we had stopped recording, we had a very interesting conversation off mic where I asked her, you get really vulnerable in the front of that book. In the beginning, you’re talking about everything that happened, about how you had an affair, how there was drug use, alcohol use involved. How did you deal with that with your kids? Not in the moment, but now that you’re putting this out

Pen to paper out there for the world to see how did they respond to it. And she was saying that her first child was old enough that she kind of knew what was happening when it was happening. It wasn’t new. When the book came out, there wasn’t going to be any big shockers in there necessarily. Some shockers, but not huge mic drops. But her youngest was way too young to know anything was happening. Anything did happen. And so they had a conversation and it went well.

from what it sounds like, but I can also see that would be such a scary moment, such a scary, vulnerable moment.

JoAnn Crohn (31:45)

Yeah, especially if your kid didn’t know what happened and I would think it would be such a scary and vulnerable moment yeah. 

I was worried about moments like that with my kids although there’s not much that I keep from them. I haven’t done that much.

I feel like I’ve been pretty much the good girl. Sheltered, all the things. The only thing that I was afraid of coming out was that I had an eating disorder. Then I told my daughter about that, because I didn’t want her to have one.

JoAnn Crohn (32:11)

I had this mistaken thing that if I told her, it’d be more likely that she’d have one.

But that was not the case.

Brie Tucker (32:18)

I wish I had a better past. I already told you my first night of college I spent hiding from the cops after our keger got busted.

JoAnn Crohn (32:26)

Yeah, but that just makes you kind of cool.

Brie Tucker (32:28)

I don’t know if I can say that makes me cool because now I’m freaking out about my newly graduated son going off to college and I asked my husband, do I share that with him? I tell him like I almost should have died on multiple occasions when I was in college. Stupid, stupid, patush stuff I did. I think I’m supposed to use that word interchangeably everywhere for curse words. It was crazy and I understand you’re going to do crazy crap but

Brie Tucker (32:56)

I almost want to tell him, don’t do it the way I did it, because I’m very lucky. survived and graduated. I’m well-adjusted person, but man, did I take a lot of questionable turns in my life.

JoAnn Crohn (33:11)

I think that makes me you human, because they’re all good stories, I thrive on a story.

Any bad thing that happens to me I’m like it’s a story.

Brie Tucker (33:24)

But we all have good stories. Like I wish I had a story about my not changing the oil in my car. Like that was a good story. That was a very, very good story. But yeah, like, yeah, but I love how Cameo did the work. She went through therapy and she’s taking what she learned and she’s sharing it with others. And when we had her in, I believe it was our mom ignited summit, we had her in there and she taught the three Rs of reflection reset and reinvention.

And it was a fantastic session. So her book is just, great guys. You got to go get it.

JoAnn Crohn (34:35)

Also just having a conversation actually with our friend Terra of connection codes, and she was talking about how it’s our mistakes, and our vulnerabilities, and our fear that actually connect us with each other and not our perfection. 

So I was thinking about that and like how Cameo says her relationships got a lot more real. And I’m like Yes because it’s like the coolest thing; I do not want to sit down with somebody and talk about the weather or talk about what everybody’s kids are doing as you saw me revolt at happy hour last night.

Brie Tucker (34:30)

You just dove right in. I was like, whoa, she is getting serious.

JoAnn Crohn (34:35)

No more Kids! Everyone was talking about their kids and I’m like “What’s going on with You!!”

No more Kids ! I got very very like emotional.

It feels almost inauthentic and fake and it’s like we’re covering up stuff that we’re not talking about, and we’re not talking about the hard stuff. It’s the hard stuff that connects us all.

Brie Tucker (34:57)

It is, it’s just a matter of like getting to that point with everybody.

JoAnn Crohn (35:03)

I will go there with people so fast.

Brie Tucker (35:04)

You do, you are the funniest introvert I have ever met. Because again, like we both know that you’re not like a 100 % introvert. But still to have somebody who is not as doesn’t fill their battery by being social, and by being around other people all the time, you will jump right into the deep stuff. And I am I’m perfectly happy chilling on surface level island where we just talk about our kids and then eventually we find our way into the deeper conversation. But I’m also happy to have the hour long conversation. And you’re like, give me the juicy stuff now.

JoAnn Crohn (35:43)

Yeah well I get bored! I get bored so I have to find something that’s interesting

Brie Tucker (35:49)

Well, you are gonna find Camille’s book very interesting. So please, we’ve got a link in the show notes. Go check it out. It is amazing. It is awesome. You’re going to love it. And yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (36:02)

Yes, and remember the best mom is a happy mom. Take care of you, and we’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker (36:05)

Thanks for stopping by.