MomCrush Monday: Meet Jenna Hermans, High-performance Coach, Entrepreneur, and Author of “Chaos to Calm: 5 Ways Busy Parents Can Break Free from Overwhelm”

1.) In your book, Chaos to Calm: 5 Ways Busy Parents Can Break Free from Overwhelm. How will your book relate to the everyday modern mom?

Every modern mom is trying to manage more than any one person is capable of. With the current culture and society we live in, the majority of moms have more to do than ever before, with less time and energy to do it all. Additionally, because we moms have so much on our plates, and so little time to intentionally take care of ourselves, we end up zapped of energy, losing patience more quickly, and not able to be our best self. 

Currently, a mom’s needs are deprioritized over everyone else’s, which is not sustainable for anyone, including her family. Moms need an infrastructure set up in their lives to make sure their needs are met, too. But how? When?

In Chaos to Calm, along with relatable stories from my clients on issues all modern moms face (like having no energy, not feeling heard, feeling left behind while everyone else gets what they need). I provide a system that dissolves chaos and overwhelm using my 5 pillars of calm: Efficiency, Habits, Communication, Community and Self-Care. And, my favorite part, moms don’t have to lose any sleep to make it happen! (I love sleep!) Chaos will always exist, but with these methods, moms can own their calm.

2.) What motivated you to write it?

Interestingly, I didn’t initially have an inclination to write a book. I actually got asked by moms in my community to write a book after my family and I moved to the Bay Area. After people in our new community started getting to know us and our story, they started asking lots of questions. They found it hard to believe we would move with our 3 kids (at the time ages 4, 6 and 7) to a place where we had no family or friends, and that I was able to manage and run our family and household sanely with my husband traveling a lot for work and me working full time. After getting asked questions like, “How do you manage it all and not lose your mind? “How do you manage to have a tidy home with so many kids?” “How do you have time to make dinner every night?” [short answer, I don’t!] “You don’t have a nanny?” “When do you have time to connect with your husband?” and similar questions so many times, I decided to write down my answers. Apparently, I had more responsibilities and fewer resources than these other parents and was managing mentally better than they were. Some might call it witchcraft (j/k!), but I call it calm. As soon as I started writing, I didn’t stop for over a year. I didn’t know that this would end up becoming a book when I started writing the tools and tactics I use in my everyday life. Between random voice recordings I shouted into my phone while in the shower, to quick notes between business calls and while food prepping, all of a sudden I had a book’s worth of content and I knew that this needed to be shared with as many moms as possible. 

3.) Can you share why you find it so important to create MORE time and less stress in our everyday lives?

I mean, who wouldn’t want more time and less stress? But really… It comes down to intentionality, health and vitality. With more time, we can find ways to ENJOY life, instead of just surviving it like a hamster wheel from waking to sleeping. 

With more time, we can fill our tanks with what increases our energy and vitality so we aren’t showing up empty to all of life’s stuff. When we have time to prioritize our mental and physical health, we can better serve our family and extended community. 

Stress is an incredibly insidious killer, contributing to heart disease, lower immune function, and decreased emotional and psychological awareness, among other negative health effects. For the sake of life itself, reducing the amount of stress we moms internalize is non-negotiable. 

With less stress, moms can be more thoughtful and intentional about how we show up with our kids and partners. Our entire home will be more calm, with less losing our cool on our kids and partners. 

Additionally, as moms we are role modeling to our kids at all times. If all our kids see is a stressed out, overwhelmed parent, they’ll unintentionally internalize that and have a harder time with stress management and healthy coping as they get older. It’s our job to model what living a healthy life is and to share our methods for decreasing stress and for creating time for the things that are important to us. When we imagine our kids’ futures, don’t we want them to live a calm, more fulfilling life no matter what chaos surrounds them? 

4.) The chapters are targeted at Efficiency, Habits, Communication, Community, and Self-Care. Can you share two highlights from each chapter that you’d like for our readers to know about?

Some highlights from each chapter: 

Efficiency:

• You own your calendar, it doesn’t own you. You can use your calendar as a tool to be efficient with your time with time blocking, buffer times, energy flow management, and it can also serve as an accountability partner.
• Decision-making fatigue is real and there are ways to combat this with efficiency. E.g., meal planning and staple outfits and more. 

Habits:

• To ensure the success of any new habit, start off small. The smaller the better. Have it be so small that there is no reason to not do it. No one can say, “I don’t have time to do 2 jumping jacks” because that’s BS. 
• It is impossible to just stop a habit. The way to get rid of an unwanted habit is to replace it with a different habit. Want to stop eating from the vending machine at 2pm? Bring a snack from home to eat at 2pm, go for a walk, or have a catch up call at that time instead. 

Communication: 

• Active listening is one of the best ways to create trust and respect. Showing someone they have your full and undivided attention by turning your phone off, making eye contact, and paraphrasing back what you heard builds an interpersonal bond and stimulates reciprocal respect and understanding. 

• When communicating with kids, setting expectations helps them feel in control so that they don’t keep pestering you. Instead of saying, “Not right now” when they’re trying to show you the snowman they made in class today, you can say, “I need 2 minutes to finish up an important email and then I can give you my full attention. Set a timer for 2 minutes and then I will be right there.” 

Community:

• Community and relationships come in different forms and support us in varying ways, from friendships based on how you help each other out more than a deep connection to your deepest closest people, to  your broader community. Each type is important to create support which leads to calm in your life.

• We end up taking on traits and behaviors of the people we spend most of our time with. By intentionally choosing who to spend your time with, you can increase your likelihood of obtaining and enhancing the positive attributes that you admire in those people. 

Self-Care: 

• Self-care are moments we fill our spirit, and should be especailly done before, during or after challenging moments. Self-care moments are like bank deposits into our checking account of groundedness and calm. We should keep putting deposits in and try to keep the balance as high as possible to be ready for chaotic moments. Self-care can look like doing a crossword puzzle before afternoon school pick up or doing a 2-minute dance party in between work calls. These small but important acts of self-care are important for bringing you joy and recalibrating you for the next part of your day. 

• Recovery is an important process in self-care. By intentionally creating the space for mental and physical recovery from a strenuous physical or mental activity, you build up your resistance and endurance. After a kid’s birthday party, recovery can look like watching a movie together. After an intense meeting at work, recovery looks like going for a walk and venting with a coworker. 

5.) If you had to share ONE key learning from your book that you hope everyone takes away from it, what would that be?

The ONE key learning I hope everyone takes away from my book is that you already have everything you need to make your life run the way you want, and that with a few small, intentional changes, you can live a calmer, more grounded life.

Other notes: 

It would be that you are not alone. 

It would be that you can do this.

It would be that you have everything you need to make your life run the way you want it to. 

It would be that all of this is temporary

It would be that you are the puppet master of your life. 

It would be that although it feels like life runs you, you actually run your life. 

It would be that with a few small intentional changes, you can live a calmer, healthier and more joyful life. 

It would be that you can and should make you a priority