Hey everybody! I have a wonderful special
guest, Mindy Mcknight, is here and she's technically,
like, coming on "my couch" but we're
sitting on stools.
M: But we're not on the couch. K: Exactly.
- We're on the big couch.
*intro music*
So tell my audience a little bit about what you do!
So, I'm Mindy, and my channel is called "Cute
girls hairstyles" which is primarily a
channel designed to just teach easy
hairstyles. So it started as moma teaching
their daughters but now it's kind of
morphing into, like, DIY hairstyles,
like all about hairstyles.
- Yeah and that's how I learned how to do a
fishtail braid. So thank you very much.
- You're welcome.
- Yeah. So I'll put the links to all of her
stuff down below so you can check that
out and just like every "On the Couch With Kati," I
start off by asking, when did you
first hear about mental health, or think
that mental health was a thing?
Was it something at school, friends and family?
- I would say I started hearing about mental
health probably in high school. I don't
think I was really that aware of it before
then, which is weird because now I think
about it, I think my kids are, like, way more
savvy with that, now. But for some reason,
I didn't add a lot of, like, I guess touch
points to people with mental health
issues than or maybe we just didn't talk
about it as much? - Yeah, maybe.
- So I think it was probably high school when you
started hearing about kids battling, like,
depression, or really, like, eating issues
- Yup. - Like, that type of thing.
- Yeah and I think that is kind of true like it's
generational and it's great that we're
talking about it more because it
becomes more of a normal conversation
and I think it does for, for me I think that
it started happening, like, maybe feeling
bad, or feeling good, like, maybe in middle school?
So maybe a little earlier. - So you were a little earlier.
- But I don't know if anybody talked about it.
- I definitely we talk about things a little more openly
now. I certainly do with my kids,
like, we're way more open than, like, my
parents were with me so I think that's
probably like, also true about mental
illness as well.
- So, the second question I
have, because you have, five children?
- Six.
- Six!
- Six! Bah!
That's a mental health issue right there.
- Could be. Could be. I can see it. Getting a little crazy.
What is it has a really great, easy,
schedule, everything flows type of thing.
- Well, I mean they don't really exist, for one.
But if they were going to exist,
I would say it's like, maybe like a
Saturday, where you get to sleep in a little bit,
and it's just a little more chill.
Like the whole vibe of the house is just a
little more relaxed, things aren't quite so
high paced.
- Yeah.
- You get to have a little more
like, family interaction, that type of thing
would be an ideal, like, mentally
calm day.
- Yeah, same. -No filming. That would be also mentally calming.
- Agreed. Agreed. And so then, on
flip side, what would be like chaotic,
terrible, unscheduled, things are happening day.
- I think, I mean any day they go
to school. Because the mornings are,
I always say the mornings are so intense, and
then the evenings are so intense and then
in between if we have like a heavy day
with work, like we have a lot of phone
calls, we have a lot of meetings, or somebody is
town or you know things like that where,
especially if that overlaps the kids coming
home from school then you're dealing
with
like, how do I run the carpool, how do I be mom, get them
dinner and then I also still need to
be working and that type of thing like
that's when I feel like my tension rising
and you know you're not putting the kids
to bed and they're up late and I feel
like I'm in the stress zone.
- Yeah. Totally. Because there is a lot of
moving parts, a lot of things going. You want to
make sure you're there for them, for
all of their events and everything. Especially after
school events, that it could be a lot, I
can imagine. So are there things that you do to
like lower the amount of those types of
days, and increase the amount of nice
days? - I mean we definitely try to maintain a
balance I think we tried to, I always say
life is a teeter-totter, and like the more you
put on one end the more unbalanced the
other end becomes and so like you always
have to be reevaluating, like is my
balance off like is the teeter-totter
shifting way too far to one direction
and if thats the case, like remove some of
that. You know, like if you can give up
a gym class maybe or something like
whatever it is, you have to eliminate for
mental help with the whole family. And
definitely mental health of mom, so also we
do what, we actually call them mental
health days. That's so funny, it's like really weird. But we call them
mental health day and that's like if my
kids say, "Mom, I need a mental health day."
That's to me is like a signal that they're
feeling overwhelmed so at that point it's
like okay, what can we do to lower your stress. Maybe,
you know, you don't have to film the video today.
Maybe you don't have to go to gymnastics
like what can we eliminate, just give you a day to kind of have
a breather. Like go in your room and watch a
couple episodes of TV just take a chill
for a few minutes and just mentally like,
regroup.
- Yeah, and I like that analogy of the
teeter-totter because we've all felt
that. My mom and I actually, when we're having
a hard time, call it, I'm off kilter.
Which is almost exactly what that means.
And I always, when I'm feeling maxed out,
I find I get out of anything
I can get out of.
- Yup - I'm like, "Oh I guess I don't really need to sit
on the peer support group thing," I can get out of that
And then just start sweeping things
away and Sean's like "I though you had a busy day?"
And I'm like, "I couldn't." - You're like mental health
day. That's when we say "mental health day."
- Yeah. - And it's kind of like the unspoken
law, like, I'm about to lose it so we're
just gonna not. We're going to ignore
that I was a really really bad mom today
or really like bad as far as carpools go,
like I'm just gonna take a breather and
be me.
- Yeah and I think that that's something that's
really important to remember and know
for yourself a lot of it's like keeping in touch
with yourself and knowing when your
off kilter, or your teeter-totter's a little off
and especially because of YouTube we
work a lot of weekends. -A lot of weekends
- and evenings, and different times. -Birthday's, and anniversarys.
- Yup, there's not a day, really unless you
take a mental health day. - Christmas! We had a video go
live this year, on Christmas, like we
did Christmas morning, and then we worked,
Christmas night.
- I watched it!
- Hey! Well thank you!
- And as every "On the Couch With Kati" I end with
and this is my favorite question,
- Oh no. - Is what advice would you give to
younger Mindy?
- Oo. I think I would tell
myself to not, be so, to be more confident in
myself I think like I don't know I
think I just always second question
everything and I feel like my advice
would be to just be more confident
like have confidence in myself that it's
gonna be okay in the end that we're
going to work it out, that I'm going to, you
know, that I can be strong I can have
strong ideals, that I can be a good mom, you
know, like all that stuff. You just kind of have to
persevere through for a while so you
figure out that it works. - Yeah and my
last, at least in my experience, it can last into
your 30s. One of my favorite quotes
now is
"life's got my back." And it was something
my therapist told me. And so I wrote it down because
I worry a lot, and I question, a lot and I
think that's a really great message
because a lot of times we worry about
what's going to happen, or am I gonna get through
this?
-Yeah
- Can I do this? - Am I destroying my children?
I am? You know and it's, like, almost
like you just need to have the confidence to believe
that it will work itself out in the end
- Yeah, yeah. I think that's a really great message.
If you're out there worrying, have
a little confidence.
- Take a mental health day.
- Yeah. And life's got your back.
Thank you so much for coming on our couch.
- Thank you for having me on the stools.
- I know, exactly. And I'll put all the links to her stuff in the
description and we did a video together
so make sure you check that out and
we will see you next time! Bye guys!