Episode 94: Finding Your Way with Anna Lee Landin
Description: “The Little House knew it would all be okay, sometimes it takes time when finding your way.” Join me and my dear friend and author, Anna Lee Landin as we discuss all the different lessons and themes in her book, The Little House Saw, a book about deconstruction, rebuilding, embracing your uniqueness, and the journey of the human experience. It’s a conversation you don’t want to miss.
In this episode:
1:15 Who is Anna Lee Landin
4:11: The Little House Saw
6:03 When Your House Falls Down
9:56 It’s Okay to Be You (When People Judge Your Decisions)
12:30 The Journey is Messy (and that’s beautiful)
16:43 Life is about relationships
20:00 Being a Lifelong Learner
30:58 Encouraging Your Childs Uniqueness
37:35 Sometimes It Takes Time When Finding Your Way
Who is Anna Lee Landin
Anna is a mom to 4 darling girls, the author of the book The Little House Saw, and a believer in lifelong learning. At the time of recording she was living in Hawaii and just spent the last 4 months driving across America to their new home in Virginia.
The Little House Saw
The Little House Saw is technically a children’s book that came to live during the 2020 global pandemic. Anna actually wrote the book in 2019 (I was lucky enough to hear her read it to a small group of women when it was still just a “wouldn’t it cool if…” dream. She found the illustrater of her dreams, who happened to live in Italy to bring her book to life. Unfortunately Italy was hit hard during the pandemic and it really slowed things down. Which became a powerful lesson for continuing to pursue your dreams even when it seems that everything is telling you to throw in the towel..
The book is beautifully illustrated and is in rhyme. It is a fun whimsical read for kids, and holds so many truths and lessons for adults. To say I loved this book is a huge understatement.
“It's my story, but it’s also a universal story of the human experience really. I wanted to make it simple enough for children to enjoy on a level that they could understand it.”
- Anna Lee Landin
When Your House Falls Down
You know I love a good metaphor, so this book just had me smitten. The house is a metaphor for each of us. Part of the human experience is going through things that knock us down, either from the outside or sometimes from us deconstructing out own lives and having to rebuild. Anna said she wrote this book also as almost a preparation for her kids to know that it’s okay if your house breaks or falls down, it’s what we do in the aftermath that matters.
Its Okay to be You
The book teaches you that while it’s okay to be you, sometimes people in your life don’t like the things you do and they will judge you. Those thoughts and judgements of others are not important, you’re uniqueness should be celebrated! And The Little House Saw gives us such a great example of bravery to be different even when everyone else is the same.
The Journey is Messy (and that’s beautiful)
The Little House Saw also teaches us about compassion. Self compassion and also extended that same grace to others who are in the messy middle. So often we want to go through our hard things and do it beautifully, but the truth is that some of the work and the mess is what makes it beautiful and inspiring to others.
I think there's just a lot to be learned from holding space and allowing and helping other people through life. You haven't walked the life of somebody else. You have no idea what that's like to be them. Their actions are reasonable and the way that they're choosing to live life and then that's what the book did is, I just tried to simplify that message.
- Anna Lee Landin
Life is About Relationships
I’ve realized that life is about people. And life is about relationships and life is about learning what we can from each other. We can glean so much from each other when we open up. Our live then becomes so much more full instead of just our own singular experiences.
Being a Lifelong Learner
Number one thing is just following your curiosity. If there is something that peaks your interest, follow that. Secondly is giving yourself permission to not fully dive in. It’s important to know that you don’t have to make a career out of it, or a side hustle or that everything has to make money. You can just learn something just to learn it. Give yourself permission to be curious and just TRY new things that interest you. Thirdly is being interested in others. Curiosity is truly a super power that can help to illuminate your life.
Encouraging Your Child’s Uniqueness
Anna is a firm believer in nature vs nurture. A child comes with innate gifts and incredible things about them. She tries to create space for them to be themselves. One child is very creative and it doesn’t mesh well with her sister who is more of a child who thrives on order, so it’s important to support and guide them to embrace their gifts and not be burdened by them.
Sometimes it Takes Time When Finding Your Way
You aren’t on a deadline to have everything figured out, or to fix the problem you have, or to get over your grief. It takes time to find our way. It takes time to rebuild and to change and to experiment and explore. I often wish for a deadline, but part of being a human and having this experience on earth is embracing the unknown.
Helpful links from this episode:
Buy The Little House Saw
Find Anna on Instagram
Join The Positively You Community on Facebook
Slide into my DM’s on Instagram