You’re Not Alone: The Hidden Struggles of Moms and Mental Health with Leah Knapke

In this powerful episode, Jill sits down with Leah Knapke, a working mom whose life was forever changed by the devastating loss of her father to suicide. Leah vulnerably shares her journey of navigating motherhood, career, and grief—all while learning to prioritize mental health in the face of unimaginable pain.

Together, Jill and Leah explore the power of asking for help, the importance of support systems, and how healing often begins with simply admitting, “I’m not okay.” 

Whether you’ve faced loss, struggled with mental health, or simply need encouragement to keep going—this episode will meet you with compassion, truth, and hope.  

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Transcript

Jill O'Boyle (00:02.242)
Well, hello friends and welcome back to another episode of Your Life, Your Story, Rise Up. I'm your host Jill O'Boyle and I am so excited to be here with you today. Thank you for always choosing to tune in. If you have been a routine follower of this show, you know that I just provide relatable stories and bring other people along to share their journey in hopes that it just meets you.

right where you are today. So if you've been following the show, thank you. If you are new to the show, welcome. I'm so glad that you landed on this episode and I believe everything happens for a reason. And so if you landed here today, I think it's because you were meant to. And today's guest is someone whose story just embodies just both incredible strength and just deep vulnerability. So let me share with you a little bit about our guest, Leah Knappke. She is a mom of three.

with one on the way, a full-time senior product manager in the medical device industry and an MBA graduate in healthcare commercialization. So from juggling babies and business school to supporting a husband who farms and runs side business, Leah knows what it means to live a full life and a fast-paced life as well.

But what makes Leah's story honestly truly powerful is not just her accomplishments. It's her honesty, that vulnerability that I just mentioned before. So in December of 2022, Leah's life was shaken by a devastating loss of her father to suicide. And so while seven months pregnant with her third child, she was forced to confront the kind of grief that just no one is ever prepared for. And rather than just shrink from it,

She's here today and able to choose to walk through it with just courage and purpose. And so Leah is here today to just share what it looks like to prioritize mental health while navigating just motherhood, grief, career, and the unrelenting pressure to just hold it all together. Leah, thank you so much for being here.

Leah Knapke (02:17.391)
Yeah, and thank you for the introduction. I don't feel like I'm holding it together, just reading that bio, so thank you.

Jill O'Boyle (02:25.826)
Yes. this is a, this is a space Leah, you know, where we just, we just get real. And so, uh, I had a guest the other day and I'm crying. She's crying. I'm like, but that's called life, right? And that's why we're here together. So, um, and it is a very, your story is just, um, extremely powerful. And like I said, one that no one can fathom going through. Um,

Leah Knapke (02:37.147)
Yes, it is.

Jill O'Boyle (02:51.438)
So let's just start there. Let's start with, why don't you share with the listeners a little bit about you, your story, maybe your relationship with your father. I know for me, today is the last day of school, which is like exciting, but it's also like, okay, we have two working parents that work from home and we have two rambunctious boys that are gonna be with us side by side at home. So I can't even imagine what your life might look like.

Leah Knapke (03:19.323)
Thank

Jill O'Boyle (03:20.842)
as a working mom, a wife, soon to be mom of four. Amen, girl. Amen. I give you all the grace. So tell us a little bit about that.

Leah Knapke (03:33.755)
Yeah, so I hate the term busy. We are balanced and I think all the things around May-Sember are real, especially with, as you mentioned in my bio, my husband does farm, so he's working extremely long days in the month of May and October. So in my professional life, I try very hard to minimize disruption as much as possible during those months because they are just hectic for us.

Jill O'Boyle (03:37.422)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (03:52.897)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Knapke (04:02.699)
and it is all based on the weather and whether or not it's raining, which as you know, and I'm from Ohio and I'm sure Indiana is not that much different, you never know, you just don't know. So yeah, you can have a plan, you can plan it all you want, but it'll rain one day and then you're like, we have a new plan. So yeah, I have an eight-year-old.

Jill O'Boyle (04:13.142)
You don't. No, you don't. You don't.

Yep.

Jill O'Boyle (04:27.118)
it

Leah Knapke (04:30.893)
a five-year-old, a two-year-old, and one on the way. So life is hectic at times. And I think the challenge of motherhood and just giving my kids what they need for the ages that they are is also challenging. My eight-year-old needs me in different capacities than my two-year-old needs me, than this infant will need me. So it's juggling all that.

we try our best to be balanced. I try very hard to give it all I got at work. And then I come home and I disconnect and I focus at home. So I struggled with burnout with my second kid. I was not in good place. So I tried really hard to put those boundaries in place. After I had my son, Louis, and just I had to, I could recognize myself burning out there. So

Jill O'Boyle (05:02.786)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (05:24.515)
Yeah.

Leah Knapke (05:26.363)
A little bit about my dad. So I grew up in a farming family. I married a farmer. it's I'm in the farming village, I guess I don't. It is. Yeah, it is. So I am the oldest of five, I have four younger brothers. So I kind of grew up the mama hen, right? I helped take care of the kids. was the

Jill O'Boyle (05:33.718)
Yeah, it's in the jeans. It's in the jeans. Yeah.

Leah Knapke (05:55.097)
you know, the babysitter, we had lots of responsibilities on the farm. I had a great work ethic, but maybe some of the listeners can relate, but that work ethic can lead to burnout if you're not careful. that kind of is the busyness in me. So I try really hard to rest when I can. We recently moved. So I'm sure my neighbors think I'm crazy because here's this pregnant lady, you know,

Jill O'Boyle (06:09.794)
Yes, I can.

Jill O'Boyle (06:16.226)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Knapke (06:22.509)
inner garden and in the flower beds and washing windows. So I try very hard to rest more often. Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (06:31.106)
And you should while being pregnant, right? When's your fourth one due?

Leah Knapke (06:34.307)
Yes, this may be September, so I'm over halfway. Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (06:40.996)
yeah, be here before you know it. So you talking about busyness and I totally agree with you. I try very hard to not say that word and I reframe it to my life is just full at the moment because I do think busyness is a choice and I've learned that, like you said, the hard way through striving through most of my career, prioritizing work.

Leah Knapke (06:44.719)
I know.

Leah Knapke (06:54.927)
Mm-hmm. It is.

Jill O'Boyle (07:06.666)
over family in certain areas, just prioritizing the busy lifestyle because honestly, that's kind of a lot of people that listen to this podcast know that was just kind of my life. Like if I was busy, I was successful, right? All these different lies that I believed as I grew up and work hard equals success. And maybe from a farming background, you probably saw that as well, would I imagine?

Leah Knapke (07:18.723)
Right, exactly.

Leah Knapke (07:25.338)
Yes.

Leah Knapke (07:32.251)
yeah, first hand, the harder you worked, the larger the success. That was sort of ingrained in how we were raised.

Jill O'Boyle (07:41.676)
Yeah. So you talked about earning and in your bio I'd mentioned that you gained an MBA while raising two littles and being pregnant. So what did you learn about yourself during that season of just kind of pursuing both family and professional goals? And you mentioned that balance is something you're striving for in this season. Was it through that that you kind of learned that or talk us a little bit about that time in your life?

Leah Knapke (08:11.205)
So that is where the boundaries came into place and the discipline came, had to come just to get my schoolwork done. So I call it a serious slowdown maybe. Like we couldn't be busy Saturday and Sunday because I needed to allocate one of those days for schoolwork. Thankfully I had a mentor that.

Jill O'Boyle (08:19.212)
Mm-hmm.

Leah Knapke (08:37.925)
coached me along the way and was like, you know, your kids are only going to get busier into sports and running to activities, baseball. I know you said your kids do baseball, my eight year old does baseball. like baseball is a full time job. And I would say he's not even that active in it yet. So I had a mentor that kind of coached me along the way, which really got me to do my degree when I did. I had to say no.

Jill O'Boyle (08:42.542)
Mmm.

Jill O'Boyle (08:46.967)
Yes.

Jill O'Boyle (08:53.199)
Sure is.

Yes.

Leah Knapke (09:07.973)
to things. There was definitely family activities that I had to miss, friends activities that I had to miss just because I had to be home doing homework. But what I learned more about myself on a personal level and just the discipline and the grit that it takes to work full time, still manage a household, and you know, being that default parent that schedules all the appointments and then still do schoolwork.

Jill O'Boyle (09:33.037)
Right.

Leah Knapke (09:36.959)
Once I got done, I almost didn't feel like I had enough to do. And it took a while to like rebalance myself after that. We honestly still try to not do too much on the weekends. We've turned into quite the homebodies. We still have our close friends and family, of course, but we do try to prioritize at least Sunday or Saturday, depending on what it is, just being home as a family. So

Jill O'Boyle (09:52.343)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (10:05.496)
Yeah.

Leah Knapke (10:06.201)
that is healthy for our family dynamic and going into the week. So we've recognized that really early on.

Jill O'Boyle (10:15.062)
Yeah. Yeah. And family is everything, right? I mean, for me, it really is. And I remember when I was in those burnout days, I would tell you that face to face, say, family's number one. But there was no boundaries in place to honor that statement, right? I was still working late at night. Yeah. Yeah.

Leah Knapke (10:36.751)
to protect it. Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (10:39.854)
So I can imagine in your story, this is happening, you're doing so much, you're going to school, you're working full time, you're that primary parent that's doing all the things, and your life comes to probably a screeching halt, I can imagine. Can you take us back to December 2022? In that moment, is a year, oh, I can't.

I'm imagining just a devastating moment where you are finding out that you have lost your father suddenly. Just what was going through your heart, your mind back then? Is that kind of where some of this reprioritizing family time, slowness, stillness, being in the moment with your kids? Just kind of talk us through a little bit about that day in December.

Leah Knapke (11:15.941)
Okay.

Leah Knapke (11:31.695)
Yeah. So the prioritization of family even grew further when my dad passed. So my dad died of suicide the day after Christmas. So Christmas is a very busy, like it just with all the parties and all the things, all the gifts. And it's still a challenging season every, every year.

Day after Christmas is not what we expected it to be. And even Christmas day still brings back feelings, because it was the last conversation I had with my dad. The guilt and confusion that came the following days and weeks was also just a really challenging.

time for all of us, right? I mentioned my four brothers, my mom, like we were all just very perplexed on what had happened and why. Those that knew my dad, he would literally give the shirt off his back to anyone. He was the jokester. Like he always had probably very inappropriate jokes for someone and was all around like just a funny guy and you just would not

Jill O'Boyle (12:43.074)
you

Leah Knapke (12:51.671)
expect that. So I think where the guilt came in is, you know, like you mentioned, I was seven months pregnant. I'm walking into this large Christmas party with 65 plus people. I've got the gifts, I've got the dish, I've got, I'm pregnant, so I've got my two kids and my dad says he needs to talk to us. And that's where he shared that he was struggling. We knew that he was off.

Jill O'Boyle (12:53.014)
Hmm.

Leah Knapke (13:21.179)
in that moment is where I wish I could have done more. my husband and I felt that way. My husband and him went on a drive. So my husband had him in a vehicle and we could have taken him to get help. I guess we thought we had one more day, like to figure this out, like let's get through Christmas. We were coming back to my parents the very next

Jill O'Boyle (13:43.426)
Yeah, let's just get through Christmas. Then we'll deal with this.

Leah Knapke (13:50.253)
Yeah, we're coming back to Christmas or to their house the very next day for our intermediate family Christmas party. We'll we'll huddle up and figure out how to deal with this. So we thought we had one more day. And if. And part of like what I want to share is if anyone ever shares anything with you, that is suicidal thoughts or suicidal attempts like you don't have.

24 hours. You really don't. You have minutes and hours. And I didn't know how to ask for help. I didn't know what help looked like. So that was a challenging thing. Yeah, it was the whole day was guilt, confusion, processing, just a perplex situation that we were all trying to figure out as a family.

Jill O'Boyle (14:19.199)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (14:36.118)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (14:47.658)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Leah Knapke (14:48.645)
just something I really would never ever wish on any other family.

Jill O'Boyle (14:54.966)
Yeah. Well, thank you for, thank you for sharing that. And I am so sorry, truly that that has had to happen in your life. and it's in those moments, you know, where we can only sit there and thank God. Why? Yeah. I can only imagine it's in those suffering moments that it doesn't make sense, but yet.

Leah Knapke (15:03.183)
Thanks.

Jill O'Boyle (15:23.458)
There is a purpose. I do believe that. do believe God has a purpose. nothing can, in those moment, I don't believe, I've never experienced the loss that you have. But I can't imagine that in those moments, there's anything that anybody can say, right? To take that back. Like, you just can't, you know? And it's in time, it's in prayer, it's in God's But.

One thing I think you mentioned to me or what you just had said earlier that I wrote down is nobody could have seen this coming from the outside. Nobody could see that. We look around and there's so many, you look at your neighbors, people, it's always on the hindsight, right? Where you're like, oh my goodness. you would think they, everything had it, they all have it all together. Everything's great.

Leah Knapke (16:02.906)
No.

Jill O'Boyle (16:20.076)
You mentioned maybe there was some signs, some maybe clues, but nobody really knows what is going on in the inside. And that is our mental health. It's our things that we hold dearly to us. Can you talk a little bit about some things that you started to realize maybe in your own mental health journey after that day, things you started to put together about your dad?

that about his own mental health was anything that you can think of that might help somebody listening that you know, maybe they they themselves are going through some mental health concerns or maybe just an eye opening to say hey your family might not be as okay as they say they are. How do we help them?

Leah Knapke (17:02.979)
Yeah. Yeah. So unfortunately, my grandpa, so my dad's dad also committed suicide. genetics or not, the challenging part with mental health is you can't go and get a genetic screening and better understand what the chances are, right? So understanding that it was my grandpa, it was my dad and

Jill O'Boyle (17:18.082)
Yes.

Leah Knapke (17:32.203)
I was next, like I'm the next generation.

Leah Knapke (17:39.173)
Did we?

Jill O'Boyle (17:49.014)
Now I might have lost Julia.

Leah Knapke (17:51.907)
I'm back, I'm sorry.

Jill O'Boyle (17:53.992)
there we go. That's okay.

Leah Knapke (17:55.683)
Okay, okay, okay, we're back.

Jill O'Boyle (17:57.56)
So the last part I heard was, yeah, we're back. Okay. Last part I heard was genetic. your grandfather. Okay. So pick up from there.

Leah Knapke (18:06.267)
Yep. Okay, so understanding that I was the third generation that could have a crisis like this happen really encouraged me to learn everything that I could about not everything, right? We can't all be experts. I guess I always assume somebody's probably dealing with a battle that they're not talking about. That has what has shifted my priorities where if somebody's having a bad day,

Jill O'Boyle (18:30.848)
Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm.

Leah Knapke (18:37.219)
I don't know what the home life is or I don't know what happened that morning. So I give a lot more people grace because I don't know the battles that they're fighting. And I think that's always a good assumption to have is if somebody's grumpy or the waitress wasn't nice to you or your friend is acting different, like there could be battles there that you don't know yet. Yeah, so.

Jill O'Boyle (19:00.556)
Absolutely.

Leah Knapke (19:03.715)
We started to put some pieces together after his death. And I think for me personally, I had dealt with my own smaller mental health struggles. I say small, they're still big. So I don't want to deprioritize them, but I was pregnant with my third. had definitely had some like, I don't want to call it postpartum depression, but there was some blues, baby blues after my first.

Jill O'Boyle (19:19.822)
Great.

Leah Knapke (19:31.451)
We had a miscarriage in between my first and second. So when I got pregnant with my second, nobody prepped me for the the prenatal anxiety that exists of is my baby going to be okay? Am I going to make it to full term? Just some of the anxiety that I was dealing with there. And then this is just me and like hormones, right?

I nursed my babies for a while and once I stopped nursing, the plummet and the hormones just overcame me. So going into my delivery with my daughter, so my dad passed away in December and I had Georgia in February, I knew that I couldn't do this on my own. I knew that I had been through so much trauma in the past two months.

Jill O'Boyle (20:26.787)
Yeah.

Leah Knapke (20:29.083)
I knew I needed help. I had the therapist's number on my Safari in the Google search for weeks. And it was just the courage to at least type that in that I knew I was going to need this number. Like, and I just had it in my tab, and I just kept it there. And it was there for a very long time. I ended up going through with

Jill O'Boyle (20:44.878)
type it. Yes. Good for you.

Leah Knapke (20:56.633)
Delivery with Georgia and then shortly after is where I was like, okay, need to call this number. So I think.

I don't know what the overall message that I'm saying is, but like it was a baby step just to put the number in my phone. And then it was another step to call. So start small, baby steps. If it's talking to somebody else or talking to your husband, like I'm having these feelings for whatever reason, I guess just find your people would be the message. Find your people. Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (21:14.39)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (21:29.74)
Yeah. Behind your people for sure. Yeah. Yeah, you gave.

Leah Knapke (21:35.739)
that know you on a deeper level. Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (21:39.448)
Yeah, that you can trust, right? You have to have those people in your corner. You know, I would say Jesus had 12 disciples, but there was three that he had in his inner circle. And when we say like for stuff like this, those hard things, you need those three people. You need to be able to know who they are when you need them. And I love that you said that, you know, I recognize that I can't do this on my own. And I think that is a, it's a huge, you know, humility to say.

Leah Knapke (21:41.753)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (22:09.164)
especially for, you know, I think you're a product manager. So I was in project management. There's so many times I can go back to the control, to the fixer, to the doer, Jill, to say, I can do this. I don't need anybody. I got it on my own. And so I think there's some great humility in that to say, I can't do this on my own. I'm gonna recognize that I know I'm about to walk into something that I can't do on my own. So I'm gonna take that baby step now.

Leah Knapke (22:19.823)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (22:38.338)
have this when I have this number when I need to reach out and call. So I think that I think that's great. You gave so I was typing a couple things you just said. I mean just so much great advice for somebody that's listening that also someone is having a battle that I don't know about. I don't know the battle that they're fighting. I think if we could all walk out of our own self, our own situations and walk through life like that.

how much pleasant this world would be, right? I I try to be mostly optimistic. I try to look at the other side on some things. Like my husband and I were joking the other day, because we were, he took a wrong way home. was late night after a baseball game. We're leaving at 11 o'clock and the GPS took us the most crazy way. You know how GPS can do that, right? And so it's like, he's like, this is definitely not the fastest. He said it's gonna be the fastest, but we're hitting every stoplight, every stoplight.

Leah Knapke (23:09.86)
Absolutely.

Leah Knapke (23:26.809)
Yeah. Yep.

Jill O'Boyle (23:35.18)
And I'm like, you know, I think God, maybe, maybe there was a reason we weren't supposed to get on 65 tonight. And this is why we're going to go just check out some towns at 11 o'clock. It's okay. Like, so, I mean, I try to be on the optimistic side and I love that when you're thinking about other people to give those people grace, like you have no idea what somebody has just walked through that day, who they might have lost that day, what challenge or situation may have come up that day. So just give them, give them grace. So

Leah Knapke (23:46.809)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (24:04.782)
Let's talk a little bit about how do you go from something that devastating, living a full life of parenting, working, all of this, what are some practices that you found super helpful? What was some support systems that you have placed in your life to just help you walk along this healing journey? Because it definitely is, that was what.

Leah Knapke (24:16.965)
Yep.

Jill O'Boyle (24:33.934)
three years ago, you're still healing. I'm sure of it. It is a journey for sure. But what has kind of, what's some practices that maybe have ground you or helped you that could help somebody else?

Leah Knapke (24:36.079)
Yep. Yep.

Leah Knapke (24:47.757)
Yeah, so I would love to say that I journal and I do all these things. I've tried journaling and for me, I don't know if I'm a communicator. Mine is talking. Being here with you today has been helpful. Last year, I spoke at a conference where we met, Fill Your Cup and kind of shared a similar story as I'm sharing with you now. I just want to make sure and help that this

Jill O'Boyle (25:08.323)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (25:19.768)
Yes.

Yes.

Jill O'Boyle (25:33.581)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (25:50.146)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (26:04.226)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (26:20.46)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (27:05.25)
Yeah, yeah. There is definitely a healing of talking. I'm very much with you on that. And that's honestly the process I took in my own healing journey through my own story was creating the podcast. It was like an outlet to say, just as you had said, if I can share this with somebody and that helps one person, then that...

is going to make me feel better and I hope it's going to help them right in return. It's a give. It's a process of just giving and faith. I mean, we serve an awesome, awesome God. And there are so many times where the most painful things we cannot understand, but it is his grace and his mercy that we can trust him in it. So I'd love that you, I love that you mentioned that. And there is always a bigger purpose. We may not know or see it this lifetime, but

You know, it is right. And what you're doing today, Leah, is, is, you know, planting seeds. I mean, you're, you're planting a seed into somebody's life right now that you may not actually see the fruit of that or see it fully bloom, but you're going to help somebody today. who's going to help somebody else. And I mean, that is all, I believe what God is wanting us to do is just to be ambassadors of his grace and share stories. so we can build connection. and that's what I was going to ask you, like, how did that vulnerability of you

showing up and sharing your story. What has that taught you about that? Just the value of connection.

Jill O'Boyle (28:49.442)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (29:48.706)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (30:01.299)
Yes.

Jill O'Boyle (30:21.155)
Yep.

Jill O'Boyle (30:36.366)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (30:45.24)
for sure. Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (30:50.806)
Yeah, I love that you said that, you know, I so relate to you just asking for help. It's so hard, but there's so many people out there that want to help. if we would just let them, like they really do want to help, but it's just that initiating that I might actually possibly need your help. Like I can't actually do all this on, on our own.

and people are not mind readers, right? I mean, we can kind of sense, like I like that you said that you can sense when people are off or they may need some, but some are really good maskers. Like I was a good masker for a long time. I mean, I acted like I had it all together. I'm good. I'm good.

Jill O'Boyle (31:40.768)
Yes. Yeah, yeah. But it is in the communication. I communication is everything. You know, I've said it time and time again in my in my corporate job, my work as project managers, we were the glue that held everything together. And so communication was my and all the assessments, everything. It's what I'm really, really good at. But yet when it came to personal life, I sucked at it, really did. And it was in the suffering.

where God was able to restore a lot of that and healing in our marriage to say, Jack does not know everything, Jill, that's going on up in here. So you gotta open your mouth and you gotta voice your opinion on some things. You gotta share with him what's going on. And as we talk, as we, relate that to mental health, the same thing, like nobody knows what you're going on in your mind. So if it's a therapist or if it's your three disciples, you've gotta be able.

Find the space to share with somebody to say, this is what's going on. I look like I could bet it all together, but my world is falling apart inside. here, here's some areas that I could help use your help or I don't even know. Like that's okay. I don't, sometimes you just don't even know what you need help with. But if you just can say, I don't even know what I need help with. If you have the close friends around you or the people that trust you, they'll, just going to jump in. They're just going to jump in and help you, I believe. So yeah. Yep.

so for anybody listening, Leah, that's just right now, maybe they're in just a state of just overwhelmed. They're, they're lost. they have too many tabs open in their brain and they just feel like they can't close them all by themselves. if they're in grief or they're struggling just to keep up, like, I mean, what is the biggest thing that you

you know, want to share with them today. What do want them to walk away with today?

Jill O'Boyle (33:51.884)
Yeah. Yes.

Jill O'Boyle (34:07.818)
Exactly.

Jill O'Boyle (34:14.029)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (34:46.605)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (35:07.054)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (35:15.086)
Do it.

Jill O'Boyle (36:47.512)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The best advice, I mean, really it is. mean, asking for help is just, it's so huge and you just, you don't know. love that. So asking for help, but also asking yourself those hard questions. Sometimes it takes sitting down and saying, so I love that. Ask yourself what you need today and do it and give it to you. Whatever comes up, give it to you. Give it to yourself.

I want to close with just your legacy that you're leaving with your dad. You said you want to live your dad's legacy by helping others. So what does that legacy look like for you right now?

Jill O'Boyle (37:51.874)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (38:30.444)
Yeah, so good. And it's a great one. I mean, it's a great one. it's it's it's so needed. And it's what I your story spoke to so much of my mission and what I'm also wanting to help others. And I want others to realize like your lore, your life, your story. It matters. Don't waste it. Yeah.

Don't waste it. Don't miss it. Don't forget to share it with somebody that needs to hear it. Rise up from it. Like keep sharing it and keep building and keep asking those questions to yourself. What do you need today? But also most importantly, keep asking God how he can, you know, what he wants for your life and your story and how can he, you go on and share it to help somebody else because he will give you.

So many crazy ways to do it. And there might be some fear there to open up. So, you know, I appreciate you for stepping on the other side of that comp, you know, that comfort to just stay here in our own self and being obedient to hearing God's word and being able to say, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to step out of my comfort zone, stand up on these stages and I'm going to come on these podcasts just for the sake of somebody receiving, you know, help on the other side, which is so.

So powerful. So thank you, thank you.

Jill O'Boyle (40:00.738)
they are.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Well, Leah, thank you so much for just sharing your heart, sharing your story. The courage to just speak openly about your father's loss, grief, motherhood, mental health. It's so, it's so important. It's so needed for people to hear.

So if you as the listeners are listening and if Leah's story has resonated with you, if you're navigating, you know, loss, overwhelm by just simple life's demands or just simply needing permission to do prioritize your own wellbeing, know that you're not alone, right? That's what this podcast is all about. You're not alone. And honestly, healing is going to start with just this awareness. So hopefully Leah said something today to kind of say, wow, maybe I am.

taking matters into my own hand. Maybe I haven't asked for the help that I really should be asking. You know, this is why what we're here is just to say, you know, maybe it's just this one story right here that needed to remind you that it's okay to admit that you're not okay. Like totally okay to give yourself permission to say that and be able to reach out to somebody. So I know Leah would be somebody you would definitely be able to reach out to right now.

So Leah, where is the best way that listeners could reach out to you if they just want to have a conversation with you, if something touched their heart today? Maybe there's another listener that has a podcast right now that wants to share your story on their podcast. Like where's the best place for them to get in touch with you?

Jill O'Boyle (41:50.435)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (42:05.806)
Yeah. Well, thank you for that. I will put your Instagram handle on the show notes. So anybody want to go direct message Leah, um, and just know if this episode moved you, um, please, um, don't be selfish. Share it with a friend. Um, follow those nudges that Leah and I talked about. Um, if you're listening to this and somebody came to your mind, um, it probably means that God's nudging you to just share the episode with them.

So share it, share it with a friend who needs to hear these encouraging words to know that they're not alone. And just let the conversation continue to grow. So thank you so much, Leah, again, for being here. Everybody go out, make it a great day. Be you, love life, and just continue to keep rising up. Thank you.