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Welcome to 3 in 30, a podcast for moms who want to create more meaning in motherhood.

Each 30-minute episode will feature three doable takeaways for you to try at home with your family this week.

I'm your host Rachel Nielsen. Thank you so much for being here.

Tis the season of shopping, am I right?

I live in a small town in Idaho with very few local shopping options, so most of my holiday purchases are made online.

I honestly don't know what I would do without these online shopping options because my nearest good-sized mall is about 2.5 hours away.

The stacks of delivery boxes pile up on my doorstep during this time of year and that can feel a little embarrassing.

I have to say that envisioning this online purchasing process that I am so familiar with did help me a lot as I prepared for today's episode.

In this episode, Emily Ricks, a certified Christian life coach and mom of four, walks us through a very clever metaphor for how our brains are a lot like Amazon.com.

And how we can order more joy in our lives as we become more aware of the automatic processes happening inside of our brains.

Emily is one of my oldest and dearest friends going way back to middle school and I can't wait for you to hear her explain this metaphor that feels all the more timely because it's the time of year when many of us have been doing a lot of online shopping.

Here's our conversation about how to shop your mind to choose joyful thoughts. Let's go.

Emily, my friend, I am so glad to have you here on 3 and 30.

Thanks for having me. I am overjoyed to be here.

Well, as I just said in an introduction, we have known each other for over 25 years and you have always been such a force for good in my life.

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