 Welcome back to every way woman. So you can't take good care of anyone unless you take care of yourself, but women classically self-sacrifice You know, and I feel like for instance Madison you have kids. How do you not put them before you? Um, you lose yourself. No, you can't kids come for everything else But you know and you don't think of it that way a lot of times you don't think of what you do in the energy That you put into things as self-sacrifice. You just do it I know for sure when I was growing up every now and then we get knocked aside the head and you know You'll understand, you know, and then do you understand? Yes, I do Because and I walked up to my mother the other day and I just hugged her and I just started to cry and she's holding me She's looking me like why why are you doing this is like I understand. Amber Do you understand being a mother? I mean, have you lost any sense of yourself? Chad I haven't lost none of myself. I'm not losing myself over all of them kids I love my babies, but I was like you on mommy's train, okay, you're not on your train But I recently got a new job where I can take my kids to work with me Blessing it's like, you know, it's like a camp and they go and they have a great time You know, I have Kai he's four. It's nice a so I mean really they love what I do They're like my cheerleaders actually so I mean you know what that's that's interesting You mentioned that because the whole business about you're on mommy's time. See that's how I grew up You know in in my in my family, you know, my mom and my dad they did their thing and we just went along for the ride We were it's like this is this is our world you are in and yet two of my best friends have What I consider to be very very child-centric families and I look at you know I look at the way that they operate in that model and I'm just like I look at it And I'm terrified because I'm like was that what parenting is do you feel that wouldn't work for me Cheryl do you feel like you've lost your friends in that you know what no because because I'm the only single one left So I kind of go and snatch them back into reality every so often You know I but even even that said I think I because I'm the single one then I'm the one who does the most reaching out I do the most planning and coordinating and in fact most of the time I have to go do things that are centered around kids if I want to be able to participate You're single, but do you ever feel like you've had a tendency to lose yourself in a relationship? Or you sacrifice to you Oh my goodness. I have a story for you Yeah, I mean I mean in a relationship I was with somebody for seven years and everything was about them You know what I mean, and I I you know it was too much. Have you dated somebody with kids? Yeah, he had kids It was horrible when when we broke up like but what now now I put myself first I'm too selfish and and I am I am happy that I say that because I went through a lot And I'm you know and now so is this a stage in your life where you're deciding? It's about me Well, I'm just guilty to a fault of putting everybody else before me my my friends my you know My lovers my parents anyone and I never saved time for myself, and I finally realized that at a point I wasn't doing a good job of meeting anybody's needs in these relationships Because I never took care of myself. I mean for years. I did this and I'm when I was I'm divorced now But when I was married I was guilted into staying into the marriage because I wasn't being a good mother I wasn't putting my children's needs first and therefore I had to stay in a relationship where I had lost myself And there was a lot of guilt play in that and oh, you're not doing this. Well, you're not being a good wife You're not doing this and I and I did and because it was supported by other family members, right? You know, oh, well, he's the husband. He should lay down the law Oh, you are a mom now. You cannot and I wouldn't let them. So you won't be taking Yeah, I'll live in other states at that time But I wonder at what point then did you realize you had lost yourself and you wanted to get back to the Madison? We know I'm not when I didn't when I looked at myself in the mirror and I didn't know who I was Wow, that's what happened that look like to you Madison I it was a for me I it was looking at a stranger and it you know You put you see the image but you you don't know who it is and that person doesn't make sense to you anymore And that's why I and I had to do that I did that for my children right because I didn't want them to grow up with a mother who was living in the shell of herself Do you think that addicts have a tendency to do that? I mean they lose themselves to what they're addicted to mostly You know, I had a very close friend of mine who was addicted to drugs and she lost herself essentially to that same could be said with You know friends of mine who have had eating disorders that became then but I think anything you give your attention to That's your treasure. That's your true treasure. So I mean like my children. They're my treasure. I love them But at the same time, I don't want to lose myself I came out here with a purpose with a goal You know and for them to be like my biggest cheerleaders is the best thing in life And then that I can cheer them on right whatever they want to do You know, but if I consume myself with them all the time, you're right You're gonna look in the mirror and you're gonna say what happened to me. We're in sweats and I'm Dream your children are part of the dream life is bigger than life Exactly, that's what I want to do I want to be the example for my children so that you know so that they can live their life without regrets and I Because they can look at me and see that I did exactly the same Well, I'm going to just try and live in an example to all of you. Stay tuned. We'll be right back every way woman After this commercial break, there's more every way woman