I’ve got a list of random questions that I’m answering for you today! Let’s jump in so you can get to know me a little better!

In This Episode Allie Discusses:

• What minimalism means 10 years later 

• How she’s feeling in the midst of the pandemic, writing books and adopting

• How to start deep inner work

• Hiring a personal assistant 

• Creating an intentional, fun family culture

Mentioned in this Episode:

Instagram

Courses (Use the code PURPOSESHOW for 10% off!)

The Purpose Show Facebook Community

The Body Keeps The Score

Unburdened Waitlist

BONUS Life Update: Homeschooling + Adoption

Mom life. We’re surrounded by the message that it’s the tired life. The no-time-for-myself life. The hard life. We’re supposed to get through it. Survive. Cling on by the last little thread. And at the same time, Carpe Diem—enjoy every moment because it’s going to go by so fast. The typical mom culture that sends us all kinds of mixed, typically negative messages. We shouldn’t take care of ourselves; it’s selfish. The more ragged you run yourself, the bigger your badge of honor. But also, ditch your mom bod and work out. Don’t yell. Make more money. Show up. Be better, but not at the expense of time with your kids. I am putting a hard stop to all of this. While being a mom, running a business, and whatever else you might have going on is hard, it is a lot and there’s lots of giving of yourself, the idea that motherhood means living a joyless, nonstop-hustle-with-zero-balance kind of life, where you give and give and give and never take, needs to stop. 

I’m on a mission to help you stop counting down the minutes till bedtime (at least most days). Stop the mom guilt and shame game. Stop cleaning up after your kids’ childhood and start being present for it. I want to help you thrive in work, home and life. I believe in John 10:10 that we are called to living an abundant life and I know moms are not excluded from that promise. Join me in conversations about simplicity, some business and life hacks, spirituality and lots of other good stuff that leads to a life of less for the sake of enjoying more in your motherhood. I’m Allie Casazza and this is The Purpose Show.

1. I’ve got a bunch of questions here that are so good and I’m just going to bust through them. I skimmed but haven’t really read them, so if we hit something that I don’t know the answer to we’ll just disregard and edit it out of the show, ‘cause that’s how I do. 

First question: What does the term “minimalist” or “minimalism” mean to you almost a decade into this journey? 

Great question. I feel like it has definitely evolved for me. Sometimes I feel strange even using the words “minimalist” and “minimalism.” 

I started this journey almost 10 years ago. I was either pregnant with Hudson or had just had Hudson, and he’s going to be 9 in a couple months. So, it has been a while.

I feel like when I started this journey “minimalism” wasn’t really a thing. I didn’t know that it had a title. I didn’t know that it was called minimalism. 

There were no best-selling books or documentaries or anything on this topic. I didn’t even have this set idea that I could even do this. I didn’t know that it was even a thing. 

I didn’t know that it would be a solution to my problem. I was just a desperate mom who was tired of being tired and who took a stab in the dark. 

Then it evolved. I had a little blog at the time that was the basis for everything that you see here today and I was sharing my journey as I went. And it just evolved into what it is today.

Throughout that time, as it was evolving, the world was evolving as well. Things were developing. People were coming out talking about minimalism. 

Books were coming out. Trends were starting. And I thought, “Oh, well that’s what this is. Cool.” And it took its own path. 

But I feel like because of that minimalism now has all these stereotypes attached to it. It has all these ideas attached to it. But everything is so relative, right? 

If you were to close your eyes and think of minimalism you might get images in your head that are very different from the ones that I get in my head. Sometimes people get upset about using that label when you’re not doing it the way they have it in their head, which is really a problem with labels in the first place, right?

I find myself wanting to use those words less and less just because I identify with what people  think minimalism is (or what most people think it is) less and less every day. In every season of my life I have looked and re-evaluated. I have asked what is too much and what is essential. 

And that has shifted for me over the years as I moved from having no help, being so overwhelmed, having no money and very little resources, and trying to figure things out in my life. Minimalism served me by being stripped to the bare bones. 

The bare minimum amount of dishes—that’s what I needed right then to survive. The bare minimum amount of laundry—that’s what I needed to survive. I could not be a decent mother, a happy human, and function and get myself out of that place, that unsustainable lifestyle if I was doing more dishes, more laundry, and more pickup than was absolutely necessary to just keep breathing and stay alive. 

But that is not where I am anymore at all. And praise be to the Lord. I can’t even imagine still being there. 

It is a reevaluation. Just kind of a regular time of me questioning, “What does that look like here?”

Because we do move a lot  every time we relocate I think, “Okay, what about here? What am I feeling? Where are we at as a family? Where am I at in my life? What is essential? What is helpful?”

But I personally really, really don’t like the ideas around minimalism that involve cutting things down to the bare bone for the sake of saying that you’re minimalistic. It feels very legalistic, pointless and empty to me. And pretty stupid. 

Things are fun and things are nice. I love having a beautiful home. I love having options to get dressed in. I enjoy that. 

It has served me in each different season in my life as I’ve gone, so it has certainly evolved. I think it’s just really about what’s working now. What’s essential? What’s helping me and what’s hurting me? What’s pulling from me unnecessarily? 

There are certain areas in my life and in my home that have remained extremely minimalistic throughout all the seasons of my life. My kitchen is one for sure. I think we have the most things in our kitchen now than we have ever had, but it’s because we’re cooking literally everything completely from scratch. 

I’ll get into that at another time, but with my food allergies and all the stuff I’m figuring out, it’s so crazy. It’s so much cooking. I do have help too. I have an assistant that’s here helping. 

See what I mean? I’m not asking, “What’s the bare minimum amount of dishes I can do?” I’m not in that place anymore. 

But for an overwhelmed mom that is really not doing well, getting really minimalistic is a huge solution. I will still stand by that. It is a huge tool that can help you simplify. 

It’s just changed for me. I would say I am still extremely minimalistic with my calendar. The term really ebbs and flows with me and with my life. And right now it’s just, “What’s working? What’s serving me? What is essential? What is aligned?” 

And anything that’s not is clutter. What is aligned is very relative to where you are in life. That’s why it’s important to reevaluate regularly. 

Next question: How are you really doing with the move, the book, the pandemic, the adoption, et cetera? 

Such a sweet question. Thank you. 

It’s funny that you mentioned the move because I feel like the move was forever ago. And like I said, I kind of enjoy moving even though this one was terrible because of the movers we tried to delegate to. I feel like the move was forever ago and I’m actually kind of gearing up to do it again because our lease is up in August and I don’t really know what’s happening after that. 

We have a lot of options and things that we’re looking at doing. It’s funny to see that and think, “The move? What does that have to do with anything?” 

It was just in August, so I guess that is kind of recent. But that’s no big thing. I’m good with that. 

I love settling into a new home. I love decorating and getting things the way I want them. I love living in this house. 

I’m super curious to see what’s going to happen next for us. I literally have no idea. There’s so much up in the air right now. I just don’t know what is going to happen for our family next. 

I’m really enjoying it here. I love living in Carlsbad. I love living in this house. I love the space. I love the privacy. 

I’m definitely settled into the house. I settle in fast. When we move, I settle in right away. I feel like I’ve been settled for quite some time and I really am enjoying that part of things. 

I really enjoy this house, but we don’t own the house we live in. We lease the houses that we live in, which is a topic for another day.

But we do own a house. I actually forgot to announce that. We bought a house last year in another state. 

We don’t live in it. It’s just there and I’m renovating it. I forgot to announce that. I do that a lot. People always say that I’m an “influencer” and I always say, “Not really, because I’m really bad at it.” 

I have a massive life change happen and forget to say anything. Then I’ll just mention it in passing online somewhere, and people are like, “What?” And I’m like, “Oh yeah! I forgot this massive life change occurred.” 

I didn’t think to share it because I don’t think of myself as someone that shares my life. I don’t think of myself as an “influencer.” I don’t think of myself as someone that anyone gives a rip about, even to go online and be like, “Allie bought a house!” 

Who cares? You’re raising kids, leading the next generation. Who cares about me buying a house? 

But yeah, we did buy a house last year in another state. It’s just kinda there. It’s a fixer upper. I’m actually working with a contractor right now to get it going and start doing all the work on it because it’s just been sitting there. 

So, I don’t know. I don’t know what will happen. Will we live in there for a little while? Will it just be there when we go to that state? I don’t know. 

I’m learning to get really good at just not having to know everything. Not having to have control over everything. Not having to have a plan. 

There are two big things in my life. One is the adoption. And the other is the big secret thing that I’ve been working on that I can’t tell you guys yet. 

But those two things in my life right now are just so up in the air and everything is hinging on those two things and how they shake out, so there’s really no point in trying to plan or control. I’m just running my business, raising my kids, and waiting for a little girl to come and just stay and chill. 

And it’s been actually a really good lesson for me. It has been really peaceful and really good. That’s how I’m feeling with our move, our house, and all that stuff. 

I’m also super busy so I feel like there’s not a lot of time to sit there and wonder what’s going to happen next. I’m running my business. I’ve got interviews. I’m recording for my podcast. I’m opening Unburdened again soon. 

I’m planning, working, and doing things, so it’s just kind of like, “Oh yeah, I forgot that we bought a house. Oh my gosh I just got an adoption update in my email. What is going on with that? I haven’t thought about it in a day.” 

Life is going and it’s good. I’m learning to be chill. Learning to receive and not control. Learning to fight where I need to fight, but chill where I need to chill. And right now most of it is chill status.

To continue answering this question, the book is going great. Basically this is the situation: I have a four book deal with Harper Collins. And because of the way things are the books are kind of piggybacking on top of each other, per my request though.

I told them, “Hey, our lease is going to be up here in August. I don’t know if we’re going to stay here or if we’re going to move on. And so, I think it would be better if we just busted through these books because a lot of them are photo heavy and this house is done and decorated. Let’s bust it out, get these photos done, and get some things moving.” 

And they agreed. So we have been piggybacking the books on top of each other. Declutter Like A Mother is book one and that comes out on September 7th. 

We’re going to start pre-orders for that soon. It’s going really well. I’m super excited about it.

I’ve already finished the first draft of the children’s book that doesn’t come out until March following that. So a year from now. And I’m already thinking about book four. 

It’s weird. The books are a project that stays in my sphere of awareness all the time. I will come in and touch the books for a week and work really hard on it for a week and then exit that and get back into my regular business. 

But it’s going really well. I’m super excited about the message. I’m very excited about the message being in so many hands. 

The book is different than everything else. It’s different than the courses. It’s different than the podcast. It’s different from a lot of what’s in my message out in the world because it’s the most current, most evolved state of my message. 

It’s just so different because it’s not a course and I can’t say it, show it, and give examples. I really thought that I was going to run into a problem of “What’s the difference between the book and everything else?” 

But I actually now feel the opposite. How could I even ask that question? They’re so different. 

This book is very expansive, current, and updated. I was able to restate a lot of things that are old on my platform and revisit a lot of ideas that needed to be revisited. It’s been really, really good and very therapeutic to write it.

I’m very excited about that. That book comes out September 7th. 

The pandemic was the next part of this question, right? Yes. It’s weird. You guys, it’s so weird. 

I live in San Diego County. While California tends to be the most restricted, it can be the best and the worst of everything just depending on what it is. It has been the most restricted state and L.A. has been completely shut down. 

It’s been super crazy. But San Diego is kind of like L.A.’s chill, always high cousin so it’s been a lot more chill here. It’s been chill in a good way. 

There’s so much safety. Everyone’s very aware. Everything’s very restricted.

I guess it’s an energy thing. The beaches are still open. People are very respectful of what’s going on in the world. 

Our cases have been good. Everything is going well. It’s just less terrifying.

“Shut down! Everyone’s locked out of everything. You can’t even go outside.” 

It’s not like that here, which is good because we need the ocean, right? We need to be outside. 

I’ve been feeling good. I feel like I used the pandemic situation from this place of being home to plant a lot of seeds in my business and they are all blooming this year. It’s crazy. 

I feel like I haven’t known anyone that’s been really affected by COVID, so I’m super grateful for that. I have a lot of friends whose families were affected and I’ve been supporting them and just hanging out trying to stay home and just planting all those seeds.

The adoption. I did an episode where I shared an update, so you can listen to that if you’re curious about that, but it’s actually the same thing. I just recorded that episode a couple of weeks ago. 

It came out really quickly, which is not usually the case with my episodes and there’s really no update. I got an email update the other day and it was not really an update. It was just kinda like, “Hey, just a reminder that everything’s still stuck and slow.” 

Next question: Where do I start with doing all this deep inner work you keep talking about? You are glowing. Love it, but I just don’t even know what to Google or how to start.

This is a really big question. And now I kind of wish that I had looked before I hit record. But it’s fine. What comes out is what’s supposed to come out, right? 

So the deep inner work is whatever you want it to be. It can be prayer and just talking to God. It can be therapy. It can be energy healing, energy work.

It can be just getting a journal and sitting down and asking yourself, “What is going on inside of me? What am I feeling? Where am I at? What’s going on? What’s happening?” And journaling through what comes out of that, working through what comes up.

That’s the thing, whatever modality, whatever way you choose to get in there isn’t as important as what you do with what you find. That’s the deep inner work: setting an intention to not just suppress and avoid our emotions, or suppress and avoid trauma or things that we’ve gone through but really making space. 

Setting an intention for it to be able to come out. Creating a safe space for ourselves to feel and look at what’s going on. To really get in there and not just keep that door closed because it’s dark and scary in there and who knows what’s going to come out. It’s actually being willing to see and then healing what does come up.

The book I’m reading right now (very slowly, I’ll probably be reading this the rest of the year because it’s too much to just plow through like I normally do) is called The Body Keeps The Score. It is about trauma and how the body holds onto things and sends you messages. The things that happen in our lives are stored in our body. 

This is one reason why you may have heard the thing about people who have a lot of unforgiveness in their lives get cancer or that illness can be caused by emotions. There’s so much truth to that. The body is really connected to what’s going on emotionally. 

During part of my physical journey I accidentally stumbled upon the emotional journey and the inner work as we’re calling it here. It just fell into my lap as I was trying to heal physically, if that makes sense. I saw the truth in it and had several experiences that really opened my eyes up to the way that this works. 

I dove all the way in and really started to do all those things that I listed: therapy, energy work, journaling, prayer, really connecting with myself, the internal self that I suppressed for so long, really connecting with God, really looking at what’s going on. 

Asking myself, “What have I experienced that I have not allowed myself to feel? What have I been suppressing?”

This is one reason the anxiety has recently gotten worse because it’s coming up. Once you give space for things all the stuff will come up that’s ready to come up. When it comes up and it rears its ugly head and you wish it wasn’t happening, you have to be grateful and see it as the next thing that you need to deal with. So, I’m grateful that it’s here bothering me and really stopping my life because it’s time to heal this. 

That’s such a healthy perspective to have and such a more positive perspective rather than suppressing yourself and constantly silencing your body and your mind. Telling yourself to shut up. Telling your body to stop being a problem and avoiding things. 

It’s so not good for you. It’s so dangerous, so toxic, and really a form of self hatred. 

That is what I mean by the deep inner work. That’s the beginning of the process that I went on and I’m still in and will probably never stop. 

I think to start, first of all, when was the last time that you sat down with yourself and just asked how you were doing? Checked in on how you’re feeling and what emotions are coming up? Or what big events have happened in your life in the last couple of years? Have you processed?

Checking in with ourselves, especially for those of us who are mothers, is so abnormal. It’s so abnormal in motherhood to do that, which is such BS. It’s so annoying, ridiculous, and backwards. 

I can’t even begin to go down that road, but it’s just abnormal. Unfortunately, it’s very abnormal to check in with yourself, to take care of yourself, and to give space for yourself to feel. 

Start there. When was the last time you even did that? 

I no longer have the perspective of, “Oh my gosh, body! More breakouts? Screw you. I hate this. Cover, hide, conceal, and suppress.” 

I don’t see it that way anymore. I no longer see anxiety as something that needs to be changed, avoided, suppressed, shoved down, changed immediately, fixed. It’s not a problem that needs to be fixed. 

The perspective that comes from doing that inner work is literally everything. It’s completely changed my life in the way that I feel, the way that I live, the way that I do everything. 

Next question: You have shared that you have a personal assistant. (Yes, I do. And she’s amazing.) What is your advice for hiring someone and what to delegate? 

Okay. So here’s the thing. You have to look at your life, look at your means, look at everything. 

I went from being a stay at home mom to not just starting to work but starting my own business. Then that business grew and grew and grew and I scaled it and all this stuff. I was basically running an entire corporation alone. 

Then I added Hayley to my team. I added Kenna, Amy, Danielle and all these women that you guys are connected to in the business to help support me. But still, I’m running this business. 

I’m still Allie Casazza. I’m the boss. I’m running all of us. 

Plus I am a mom. Plus I have a home. Plus I have chosen to have a large home so that I’m not shushing my kids every two seconds when I record, which I record often. 

I chose to have this space so that it’s more expansive and I don’t have to shush them all the time. The kids can play, do their thing, do school, and be here without getting shushed every two seconds. 

But with that space is more maintenance. It’s more to clean, right? Even if you have less stuff, there’s still dust and crumbs and people living here. It’s just more. 

Oh, also my food stuff. Oh my gosh, my food stuff really, really pushed me over the edge and led me to looking for a personal assistant. I couldn’t run the business, homeschool the kids, be a good mom, be the wife that I want to be, be the person that I want to be for my own self. 

Forget Brian and the kids. For me, I wasn’t able to do all those things. And my least favorite thing in the world is cooking. You guys probably know that I literally hate to cook. 

Figuring out how to cook for myself around these allergies that I was finding. I’m allergic to stuff that’s in everything, like garlic. How the F do you figure all this out? How do I eat without garlic? 

I can’t eat out almost anywhere. It’s very difficult. Plus when you couple all the other things I’m allergic to and the fact that I’ve been pretty much plant-based for a while now it’s just very hard to eat out. 

And so, that’s more cooking. That’s more meal prep. I’m not doing the multiple meals things, so everyone’s eating the same and that’s a lot of food to make. 

It was so overwhelming. I was like, “This isn’t working.” I found myself not taking care of what my body was telling me with my allergies and going more towards ease with meals. 

I was just saying, “Well, this is easy. I know it’ll probably make me kind of sick, but I can’t do everything.” 

And that’s not cool. So then I thought, “I have the means. This is my life. I’m running this company. Most people that do this kind of stuff have assistants. I need to get an assistant.” That was what the conversation looked like in myself and between Brian and I when we were talking about it.

In terms of what to delegate, what do you hate? What do you wish was off of your plate? If it’s laundry, make it laundry. If it’s cleaning, make it cleaning. 

You can hire a housekeeper and then ask what she would charge to also do the laundry for you when she’s there once a week. And then you could do it another day and kind of keep it balanced. 

You can delegate errands. You can delegate grocery shopping. You can delegate meal planning. You can delegate the meal cooking. You could delegate just the meal planning and then cook yourself.

What is your budget? What are your means? What is it that’s really feeling heavy that you could do to just make things a little bit lighter for yourself? 

And I also want to say, you don’t have to be a CEO to have a personal assistant. That’s ridiculous. You can be a stay-at-home mom and have a personal assistant. 

If you can swing it and that is what you want to do, go for it. I literally wish that every single mother could have a personal assistant. You’re basically buying your time back. 

I spend my time with my kids because my assistant, Kaylin, is here. I spend it doing revenue producing tasks that grow my business which is creating more jobs for other people. Creating more means to help other people. Creating a better life for my family and time with my kids.

Let’s just say Kaylin is meal planning and prepping at the house that day. Without her I would have had to be doing that, but instead I’m with Brian and the kids walking to the park. I’m buying memories. I’m buying time back. And that is so worth the investment for me. 

It’s also a very empowering thing to do. I feel very strong. I feel very successful, empowered, and proud of myself that I’m able to do that. 

If that is something you can start to do or even having a mommy’s helper just come for minimum wage per hour to just help with some things. That is not far off for a lot of women. They just don’t give themselves permission to do it, which is ridiculous.

Then people get to my level where they are CEOs, they have influence, they are public figures or whatever stupid thing is that you want to call what I do and they are so worried about staying relatable, staying normal that they don’t share that they have help. Then it’s not normalizing having help. 

I also want to say that the reason that they don’t share and the reason that they’re afraid of saying they have help is not just for not being relatable. It’s also because there are people who straight up hate on everything that we do. 

They don’t want you to be successful. They don’t want you to be happy. They want to shame you for anything and everything they possibly can. 

These are the same people who take all my free content and never buy anything from me. They just take, take, take, and then shame, shame, shame. And they’re just trolls. That’s the energy they choose to bring into their life. 

That is not the energy I choose to bring into my life. I choose expansion. I choose positivity. I choose light. And that expansion, positivity, and light has manifested itself into me having an assistant that takes a lot off my plate so that I can walk with my kids to the park every day, record podcast episodes, and speak my truth to the world. That’s what I want to do. 

I also think that everything is projection. We’re all just projecting our own insecurities and judgment on ourselves onto other people. So maybe it’s just that they feel like they’re not worthy of that help and they see me taking that freely for myself without any problems and it’s all just coming out and that’s okay. You’re allowed to feel that way, but you’re definitely not allowed to come into my space and rain down, you know? 

Next question: What intentional things do you do to create a fun family culture with your kids? 

I love this question. Okay. I’m just going to list it. 

Does anyone else feel like board games are so underrated and went away and they need to come back? Okay, let me reframe this. I actually hate playing board games. 

Just follow me here. I hate playing board games. I really don’t enjoy sitting and playing with my kids. I feel like there are a lot of people that think that I love playing with my kids. 

Honestly, there are quite a few other things I’d rather be doing than playing with my freaking kids. It’s the worst. But I love the connection that comes from pausing and doing something with my kids. 

Board games are so underrated. I do enjoy the results that playing board games with my kids brings me and my family. Board games are the best. 

Card games. I taught Leo to play the card game “War.” It’s very intense and we’re both really competitive, so it gets really intense. 

Uno, Crazy Eights, and Spoons. Remember Spoons? 

Card games and board games. I feel like it’s always, “Uh, he wants to play a board game with me and he’s asking me and I feel like I should say ‘yes’ but I don’t want to.” But then once we start, I’m like, “Okay, this is cool.”

So yeah, let the record show that I don’t have a deep desire to play with my kids. But what I want, the vision I have for my family, is togetherness. And now that Bella is 12, I know from experience that if you avoid and ignore those opportunities to connect with the kids on a daily basis, that kind of stuff that you’re like, “Oh, I really need to clean the kitchen and not play this right now or whatever it is,” and you just constantly are doing that, then when they get older, they are not going to come to you for things. 

One thing that I have done well in my motherhood is playing with the kids, despite the fact that I’d rather do a lot of other things. And now that they’re getting older—Bella’s 12 and all the preteen vibes—it’s really paying off. 

I’m super grateful that I followed that pull as a mom because she talks to me about everything. She knows how to communicate to me. She knows how to communicate herself and her own boundaries to me because I showed her that she’s valuable and worthy of time being spent on her. 

She is worthy of taking up space. She gets to take up space in my day. She’s not in the way. She’s not a problem. And that’s been really huge. 

I’m going to Google this right now because I want to find out what it’s called. I’m looking it up for you guys right now. This is going to be a game changer for you. 

There is this system that we have where you can literally play all the old Nintendo games. What is that thing called? Super NES Mini Classic Game Console. You can buy it right now. 

It says this is $50 at Walmart. Oh look! This one is $30 right now on Amazon. Basically there’s little mini versions of the retro game systems. 

We have the Super Nintendo one and we play it almost every day with the kids. They will beg. All they want in life is for us to play that stupid game with them. We have Yoshi’s Island, all the old Mario Brothers, all the Donkey Kongs. 

I’m really good at those games so the kids think it’s so cool that we’re playing together and they ask for it. It’s cool for me because I get to just kind of veg out, sit on the couch with them and play a couple of rounds of Donkey Kong or whatever. 

They just think it’s the coolest thing. It’s better than a board game and super chill, but it is still bringing us all together. They think it’s so cool that I’m so good at it because I played a bunch when I was a kid. 

That little console is the single most amazing thing we’ve ever bought for our family. We play it all the time and it’s super fun. 

Also on Friday nights we have pizza. We’ve always had pizza, but now Kaylin makes us pizza dough and we bake it and make our own pizza because I’m allergic to everything. We have pizza and game night. 

We’re doing that tonight and I’m super excited. I’m already looking forward to it. Just things like that. 

I guess my answer is to ask yourself “Where in your family culture can you infuse joy? Maybe write that down and think through it with yourself or with your partner. 

Where in your family culture can you infuse joy? What is being taken way too seriously? Where can you have a freaking blast with your kids? What would be so fun? 

If mom just randomly ordered a super Nintendo Console and you guys played together and then had pizza? Such a win! $50 bucks and then you’ve got a lifelong win. Those are memories. It’s just really sweet and special. 

Also we have turned homeschooling into a personal way for our family to create joy and create fun. Doing hikes, going to the beach, then turning everything into a lesson. 

Life is a lesson. Seeing it as a really positive thing, rather than a giant thing we have to keep up on and something that we have to do, that’s been really good. 

We use our home a lot. Brian and I spend our money on our space. That is our wellness and our home is where we spend our money. 

The most money I spend on my personal things is going to Anthropology. I just don’t really care about having super, super nice name brand, crazy, fancy things, but I will pour money into wellness and my space. That’s both of our values with money. 

We really invested in leasing this house. We use the spa and the pool. We have the spa on a lot. It’s expensive, but it brings so much family together time. 

We’ll go out in the spa with the kids and we do this thing where I’ll ask, “Okay, how old was I the first time that I tried this…? How old was I when I met dad?” And the kids will guess. 

We sit in the spa for hours. They swim around and we play quizzes and games. They answer my questions and I answer their questions. 

It’s a really good way to just bring togetherness where there’s a safe space for them to just ask me things because I’m kind of stuck out there with them in the spa. They know I’m there and I’m staying there, so that’s a time where they always ask questions. 

Even when the questions are kinda dumb and it’s like, “Okay, I thought we were going to talk about life or something deep and it’s about dinosaurs.” But those are the moments that solidify that when they do have something important to say they will come to you because they’re used to you being a safe space for their questions.

If they will ask you about dinosaurs and dogs, they will ask you about more important and terrifying things later. Bella is doing that now. It’s really cool to see proof of that. 

It’s been really fulfilling this year to have her be a little older, going through all the things she’s going through, seeing how she feels safe to talk to us and, where there’s room to grow and all that. I feel like those are some intentional things we do to create a fun family culture with our kids. 

Let’s stop here and do the rest another day. This was really good. Thank you guys for hanging out with me. 

I just randomly felt like doing this one live and that was so fun. Thank you guys. I love you. Thank you for your questions. Thank you for just listening and hanging out with me. 

It feels so weird that anybody cares, but just being able to share what I’ve learned and open up about what I’m going through with so many people who are so full of love is really cool. I love my job so much. I love you guys so much! Have a great day.

Thanks so much for hanging out with me! In case you didn’t know, there’s actually an exclusive community that’s been created solely for the purpose of continuing discussions around The Purpose Show episodes. It’s designed to get you to actually take action and make the positive changes that we talk about here. I want you to go and be a part of it. To do that, go to alliecasazza.com/facebookgroup. 

Thank you so much for tuning in! If you’d like to learn more about me, how I can help you, how you can implement all these things and more into your life to make it simpler, better, and more abundant, head to alliecasazza.com. There are free downloads, online courses, programs, and other resources to help you create the life you really want. 

I am always rooting for you, friend! See you next time! I’m Allie Casazza and this is The Purpose Show.

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