3 in 30 Takeaways for Moms
by Cloud10
A podcast with 3 actionable takeaways in every 30-minute episode because you are a busy mom with a full schedule and an even fuller brain. Listen in to feel encouraged and inspired, as we learn together how to overcome overwhelm and find more peace and magic in motherhood. Hosted by Rachel Nielson, a mother, teacher, and writer.
Episodes
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508: When Doing Less Isn't the Answer to Your Overwhelm // Stacey Mork Collins
For years, the most common advice I’ve heard (and given) to overwhelmed moms is some version of “do less,” and I still believe in it for so many of us. But some women hear that advice and feel a pang of loss, because the full, busy, people-filled life they’ve built is exactly the life they love,...
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BONUS Replay: How to Travel for FREE with Your Family (Really!) // Amber Paul
With the holidays coming up, many moms wish they could visit family or plan a getaway—but the price of flights makes it feel impossible. That’s why I’m re-airing this popular episode with Amber Paul from Amber on Points, who teaches families how to travel for free (or almost free) using credit…
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507: A Fun Way to Get Involved in Your Family Finances // Amber Paul
For a long time, I was happy to let our family’s finances be something I vaguely thought about. Like, I knew we weren't spending more than we made, but I couldn't have told you exactly how much we spent on groceries each month. It wasn’t until I started traveling on points that I had a reason to...
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506: The Episodes We Almost Skipped (and Why They Stayed With Us) // A 3 in 30 Birthday Celebration 🎉
Nine years ago this month, I recorded the very first episode of 3 in 30 in my closet, took a deep breath, and pushed publish. That night I celebrated with my husband and our two little kids, never imagining the people I'd get to learn from or the women I'd get to work alongside in the years…
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505: Minimizing Power Struggles (from Toddlers to Teens) // Denaye Barahona
The power struggles in our home used to be about car seats and leaving the park. Now they're about phones, sleepovers, and YouTube. But whether you're dealing with little kids you can pick up or teenagers who tower over you, the key to handling power struggles is usually the same. When a power...
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504: How to Build Sturdier Self-Worth as an Adult // Dr. Marisa G. Franco
The first time my therapist asked me to picture "little Rachel" on the playground, glasses and all, and offer her the comfort she needed, I thought it sounded so woo-woo. I went along with it, but I was skeptical that imagining my younger self could change anything about how I feel today. What I...
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503: Stop Comparing Yourself to Other Moms (Do this Instead) // Shawnee Burt
When I interviewed Shawnee for this episode, I had to chuckle, because one of the things she listed as soul-care was volunteering for her kids' PTO. As an introvert, I think of the PTO as the classic example of something moms finally learn to say no to, so seeing it on her list of things that…
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502: 3 Principles that Carried Me Through a Really Difficult Summer
A few weeks ago, I wasn't sure I was going to open enrollment for my Self-Assured Motherhood Program this year. Of all the work I do, SAM is where I feel like I'm making the biggest difference, but I honestly didn't know if I had it in me. My brother-in-law Logan died unexpectedly this summer, at...
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501: How to Thrive, Not Just Survive, Your Kids' Extracurricular Activities // Meesha Slade
The sign-ups have started coming in. Fall sports, piano, dance, school plays – it's a lot. And while we know we want our kids to be involved in things so they can thrive, too often we're left burned out and... not thriving. It's easy to assume the problem is the number of activities, and that the...
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500: Habits for Moms Who Are Bad at Habits (Like Me!) // Monica Packer
Consistency has never come easily to me. I'm a scattered creative, I have ADHD, and I have struggled with routines and habits for pretty much my whole life. For years I assumed that meant something was wrong with me, and I felt like it was my fault that I couldn't stay consistent with anything.…
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499: Support Their Struggles // The Back-to-School Check-In for Moms #6
My instinct, when one of my kids is struggling, is to solve it, save them from it, or to worry about it so intensely that the worrying becomes consuming. These instincts are natural because I love my kids so much, and I hate to see them in pain. But they also don't work, at least not very...
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498: Gather the Good // The Back-to-School Check-In for Moms #5
What you look for, you will find. I have believed that about motherhood for a long time now, long enough that I built a whole journal around the idea, and I have heard from hundreds of mothers who have had the same experience. They weren't finding more good because their children had suddenly...
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497: Sanctify Your Soul-Care // The Back-to-School Check-In for Moms #4
I have a confession. Of the six principles I teach in Self-Assured Motherhood, soul-care is the one where I'm still not where I want to be. I've taken good care of my mind and my spirit over the years, but when work gets busy, the first things to go are exercise, sleep, and eating well, and I'm...
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496: Balance Your Boundaries // The Back-to-School Check-In for Moms #3
After years and years of therapy, I have gotten pretty good at setting boundaries with almost everyone in my life. My weakest area, by far, is my own children. I'm a softie, and it is very difficult for me to let my kids be unhappy and not immediately try to resolve it. That instinct comes from...
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495: Celebrate Your Strengths // The Back-to-School Check-In for Moms #2
I have spent so much time, energy, and money over the years trying to get good at the things I am simply not good at. Routines are my big one. I am not great at keeping our home organized and running on any kind of rhythm, and there have been whole seasons where I decided that fixing that about...
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494: Voice Your Values // The Back-to-School Check-In for Moms #1
It's back-to-school season, and our kids are about to be assessed on their reading, their math, and their writing. But what if we gave ourselves an assessment for how we're doing as moms? (And I don't mean a test involving balancing equations... I would rather not know my score for that. 😬)...
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493: How to Calm Your Nervous System in 60 Seconds (And Other Small, Practical Pauses) // Layne Burkette
I have never been much of a meditator. Sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor, waiting for my brain to go quiet, has never once worked for me. I'm too in my head, too cerebral, too prone to just thinking harder instead of actually feeling calmer. So when I recorded this episode, I wasn't...
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492: Why Abby Is Done Fighting Over Screen Time (and Other Back-to-School Shifts) // 3 in 30 Team
If the back-to-school season is already creeping up on you (the supply lists, the new routines, the mental math of who needs to be where and when), you are not the only mom feeling that low hum of stress. Every year it sneaks up faster than I expect it to, and every year I tell myself this is the...
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491: How to Change Someone's Life (Without Even Realizing It)
With back-to-school season right around the corner, I keep thinking about a moment from my own high school years – a moment so small I barely registered it at the time. I noticed a kid sitting alone, stuck out my hand, and said hi. That was it. What I didn't know was that it would change his…
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490: 3 Things to Remember When Parenting is Difficult
Lately, my kids have been watching a lot of TV. More than I'd like to admit. And for a while, I let myself spiral about it. What kind of mom lets her kids zone out on screens all day? What is that doing to them? But then I caught myself, because I've learned that there's a difference between...
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489: How My Mom Helped Me Know Myself
Grief has been close to my family lately, and in the weeks since losing my brother-in-law Logan, I've found myself returning again and again to the memories that hold the people we love, long after they're no longer here. This July 14th marks twenty-three years since my mother passed away from...
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488: A Letter to My Body (and Two Other Essays I Wrote in Recovery)
I have been a writer my whole life. Long before this podcast existed, writing was how I made sense of my hardest seasons, how I figured out what I actually thought and felt, and how I slowly found my way through pain I didn't know how to carry any other way. Some of that writing happened in...
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487: How to Raise Patriotic Kids When It Feels Complicated // Sharon McMahon
I'm a word person. (Occupational hazard of spending years as an English teacher, I suppose.) I notice when words shift — when something that used to feel simple and clear starts carrying extra weight, or gets claimed by one group of people until the rest of us feel uncertain about whether we're...
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486: Let Go of the "Shoulds" That Don't Fit Your Family // Amy Marie Hann
For years, I had a vision in my head of the kind of mom I was going to be. I would be present and patient. I would have snacks ready after school and summers full of creative activities. When I finally became a mom, I struggled to match the realities of the daily motherhood grind and the ideal...
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485: The Resentment that Moms Don't Talk About // JoAnn Crohn
I have a friend named Laney who genuinely does not experience mom guilt. Not because she's a perfect mom, but because she's decided her kids are lucky to have her — and she means it! I used to laugh when she said things like that. But, now, after working for years on myself (I've come so far!), I...
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484: In Memory of Logan McKenna: A Conversation with my Beloved Brother-in-Law
I am recording the intro to this episode during one of the saddest weeks of my life. My beloved brother-in-law, Logan McKenna, died unexpectedly last Sunday morning. He was only 44 years old, and we are simply shattered by this loss. As soon as I got the call, I got into my car and started…
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483: Types of Support that Every Mom Needs
I've spent a lot of time thinking about what the word "self-assured" actually means in the context of motherhood. And I think somewhere along the way, a lot of us accidentally absorbed this idea that being self-assured means being self-sufficient — that if we were really emotionally healthy or...
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482: It's Never Too Late for a Fresh Start // Wendy Snyder
If you've ever worried that you've messed up your relationship with your kids — whether it happened this morning or years ago — this episode is going to bring you a lot of comfort. This week's guest is Wendy Snyder, founder of Fresh Start Family and author of the brand new book Fresh Start Your...
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481: What to Do When Your Child Says "I'm Fat" // Steph Wood
Last week, Dr. Lexie Kite gave us tools for our own body image resilience. But there's a particular kind of helplessness that comes from watching your child struggle with theirs. It can be heartbreaking to hear them say something and not know what to do with it. This week's guest is my...
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480: How to Stop Letting Your Body Image Steal Your Summer // Lexie Kite
I have spent so many summers halfway out. Physically present at the lake, the pool, the family barbecue — but mentally somewhere else entirely, cataloguing how I looked instead of actually living. If that sounds familiar, this episode is for you. This week's guest is Lexie Kite, PhD, co-author of...
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479: Teaching Kids Life Skills This Summer // Katie Kimball
My kids are 11 and 14, and I will be the first to tell you that teaching them practical life skills is not my strongest suit. I am genuinely good at the emotional work, the hard conversations, the staying connected through difficult seasons. But the cooking, the chores, the keeping-a-home-running...
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478: What Every Mom of a Teenager Needs to Hear // Emily Ricks
There comes a point in parenting where you realize the approach that worked when your kids were little just doesn't work anymore. The rules, the structure, the ability to redirect and reset — it all starts to feel like it's slipping. And if you have a teenager, you might already know that feeling...
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477: How to Process Your Emotions (Even When You Don't Know Where to Start) // Kim Christensen
All of us have hard feelings that need somewhere to go — frustration, resentment, grief, the anxiety that just sits there and won't quite leave. And if you're anything like me, finding a reliable way to process any of it doesn't always come naturally. We push through, or we vent to someone who...
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476: How to Deal with Your Stuff So Your Kids Don't Have To // Eli Harwood
There is a specific kind of worry that lives in the back of most mothers' minds —the worry that we're not doing it right. That somewhere in the gap between who we are and who we wish we were, our kids are absorbing something we never meant to give them: our unresolved stuff. Our triggers, our...
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475: Release, Rest, Remain: Three Rs to Help You Feel Present // Yvette Henry
I have been a striver my entire life — the kind of person who color-coded her notes, lost sleep to get straight A's, and genuinely believed that doing more and finishing faster was just who she was. Until the season when it didn't work anymore, and I found myself wondering if what I actually…
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474: 3 in 30 Day: Your Voices, Your Favorite Episodes, and the Heart Behind the Show
Happy 3 in 30 Day, my friends! Today is March 30th — which, numerically, is 3/30 — and years ago I dubbed this our national holiday. When I started 3 in 30, I did not set out to build a community. I was a busy mom who desperately wanted a parenting resource that would just get to the point…
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473: Three Things That Help Me Stay Sane During Busy, Overwhelming Seasons
Spring is a season I genuinely love, but it also has a way of sneaking up on me. One minute I'm enjoying the slower pace of winter, and the next I'm looking at my calendar wondering when it got so full. If you're coming off of Spring Break trying to find your footing again, or you can already see...
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472: When the World Feels Heavy, Try This // Shannan Martin
Last week, I found out that one of my kids' teachers unexpectedly lost her husband in a car accident. She's in her early 30s with a toddler, and when I was telling Ryan, I just started to cry. I don't often cry, so it surprised both of us a little. The truth is, I was crying for her — and for all...
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471: How Understanding Your Cycle Deepens Your Relationships // Shara Jackson Harper
I didn't learn until I was 40 years old that my body moves through four distinct phases every single month — and that each one of those phases affects my mood, my energy, my patience, and my ability to connect with the people I love. Which means that the version of me who felt so present and...
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470: Take the Trip — Even When It Feels Too Hard, Too Expensive, or Too Much // Tiffany Rosenhan
A year ago this month, the travel and motherhood world lost Elise Caffee — blogger, adventurer, mother of three, and the woman behind the hashtag "take the trip." Elise believed, down to her bones, that making memories with your kids was always worth it — the chaos, the cost, the exhaustion, all…
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469: How to Lighten the Load of Motherhood // Greg McKeown
A few years ago, I read a book that made me think it was reading my mind. In the introduction, the author asks: Do you ever feel like you're running faster but not moving any closer to your goals? Do you want to make a higher contribution but you lack the energy? Are you teetering right on the…
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468: Stop the Runaway Train: How to Get Back to What Actually Matters
Right now I am definitely feeling the pull to simplify things in my life. I even said to my husband the other day, "I feel a bit like I'm on a runaway train!" Luckily, it's not the first time I've felt this way. I now know that this happens sometimes and life will suddenly accelerate faster than…
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467: How to Become a Better Partner // Dr Jennifer Finlayson-Fife
It's easy to notice when your marriage feels disconnected, but it's much harder to know what to actually do about it. And it's even harder to look at your own part in the dynamic instead of just wishing your partner would change. This Valentine's Week, I'm bringing back one of my favorite...
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466: You Have Permission to Pause
Six weeks before I recorded this episode, I woke up early with my heart pounding so hard I couldn't ignore it. The house was dark, everything was quiet, and as I lay there thinking about the medication I was on, the surgeries I'd been through, the pace I'd been keeping, this thought came to me so...
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465: When Your Spicy Child Takes All Your Energy (And What That Means for Their Siblings) // Mary Van Geffen
If you have a strong-willed child, you know how much energy they require—and if you have other kids too, you've probably wondered what this dynamic is doing to their siblings. Are they getting lost in the shuffle? Will they resent their brother or sister? Will they resent you? Many parents worry...
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464: What If Your Home Could Be Your Parenting Partner? // Jan Odesanya
I stood at the stove the other night, and in the span of ten minutes, I was asked where the charger was, where the batteries are kept, and where the headphones went. And I thought, why am I the only person in this house who knows where anything is? It's not that my kids are incapable. It's that…
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463: What If Your Only New Year Goal Was to Let Go of the Shoulds?
I recently sat down to reflect on 2025, and I was honestly shocked by how much lighter my life feels now compared to just a few years ago. I'm not talking about having less to do. I'm talking about releasing the weight of expectations that never fit me in the first place. The guilt over my son's...
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462: 3 Questions to Help You Grow This Year in Ways That Matter Most to You
A few years ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop feeling completely overwhelmed by all the things I thought I should be doing better—as a mom, as a wife, in my work, in every area of my life. My brain was foggy, my to-do list felt impossible, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was failing at...
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461: "I Hate You, Mom" — How to Respond When Holiday Stress Brings Big Emotions
It's mid-December, everyone's running on fumes, and your child just screamed "I hate you." And even though you know it's the exhaustion talking, it still stings because you're killing yourself to make the holidays special, and this is what you get in return. The truth is, the holidays amplify...
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460: Embracing Winter: How to Thrive through the Season // Jamie Gines
As the days get shorter and the cold settles in, I can feel the pull to just hunker down and survive until spring, and I have to consciously choose not to give in to it. Maybe your winter is the literal season, the dark mornings and the gray stretches that feel endless. Or maybe your winter looks...
About this show
A podcast with 3 actionable takeaways in every 30-minute episode because you are a busy mom with a full schedule and an even fuller brain. Listen in to feel encouraged and inspired, as we learn together how to overcome overwhelm and find more peace and magic in motherhood.
Hosted by Rachel Nielson, a mother, teacher, and writer.
Hosted by
Cloud10