HGTV Star Gets Real About Self-Reflection — Here’s Why It Helps
By Movieguide® Contributor
Joanna Gaines is reminding us of the importance of self-reflection, even when it’s uncomfortable.
“I’m a fixer, a refiner — and in some ways I’ve made a career out of sharpening the instinct that draws my eye toward the off-balance and out of sync,” she wrote in her column for Magnolia Journal. “The part that can be harder is the pausing.”
Gaines wrote of the importance of “looking curiously at the chaos of my own busy life to try to create some order or fine-tune a few too-familiar ways of living that may no longer serve me,” because, “while self-reflection is healthy and good and necessary, it can be uncomfortable. It can be quiet. It can go slow. It can make you second-guess, well, everything.”
She wrote that sometimes she can feel like she’s “living in a held breath. Days when I wonder whether my minutes and hours really reflect the things I value most. But: attune. This theme we’re exploring begs for movement, for interruption.”
“It reminds us that it’s OK to adjust and readjust the rhythms and choices that have become our way of life if the promise is more peace, more days of feeling at ease within the life we’re scripting,” Gaines continued. “Tuning in gives us permission to pause the background music and rewrite which notes come next.”
She concluded, “In the end, here’s what I’m hoping for: the beauty of what we’ll see with this little bit of clarity. There may be some discomfort and awkwardness at first. But slowly, truth fills the space we’re making. Maybe something does need to change. Or maybe you realize that you’re already living the life you dreamed of. You only needed clearer eyes to see it.”
Gaines recently marked her oldest son Drake’s return to college.
“Second year in college… saying goodbye doesn’t get easier,” she wrote on Instagram under a photo of the pair hugging. “Lots of love to all the parents sending their kids off to school this season.”
She and husband Chip have spoken about how sending Drake off to college gave them a new perspective when it comes to the kids they still have at home.
“Something about Drakey going off to college really does make you shift your attention to Crew, who’s on the tail end of all this,” Chip explained. “And you’re kind of living very intentionally because you know that — which is so hard to believe when you’re holding a 1-year-old — ‘Oh, this time’s going to go by quickly.’”
Movieguide® previously reported on the Gaines’ commitment to family:
While Chip and Joanna have found fame through their HGTV series FIXER UPPER and have built a design empire through their Magnolia brand, the couple has remained focused on their kids.
“They’re so young, and we want to give them the chance to have a normal childhood,” Joanna said in 2021, explaining why the couple ended their time on FIXER UPPER. “Family is the most important thing in the world.
Through this time with their children, the pair has emphasized strong values and hard work, rather than allowing their kids to become spoiled by the comfort brought to them by fame.
“It’s in how intentional we are about reinforcing goodness within our home, nurturing our values as a family over and over again until it takes,” said Chip about their approach to parenting.
Though the couple is thankful for taking a step back from their work to focus on their kids, their time parenting has still flown by. As any parent can attest to, one day their kids were seven, and before they knew it, they were seventeen.
“When [Drake] was Crew’s age, people would look at me and say, ‘Oh, you better hold on tight. It goes by fast,’” Joanna said. “Now, being a mother of a 4-year-old and an almost 18-year-old, it’s a constant reminder to not take these moments for granted.”