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The crunchy movement has a dogma problem, and even the homesteaders are starting to question it.

In this episode, Corey and Christine sit down with Sarah Stutsman of Wellfolk Revival, a homesteading mom of three teen daughters in Pennsylvania who has spent nearly two decades raising chickens, milking cows, fermenting everything, and teaching community classes in her renovated garage. But Sarah comes to the conversation with a confession: she's been holding her ancestral lifestyle a little too tightly. She's reading *The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry*, taking candle-light showers, and just last week, she bought cereal at the regular grocery store. Not the organic kind. And she's wondering if some of what she's been doing has cost her joy.

Together, they unpack the trap of "perfect" ancestral living, why Sarah is rethinking the high-fat carnivore-leaning approach as she enters her mid-40s, the truth about perimenopause (and whether the word itself is a pharmaceutical invention), and how chronic stress may be spiking our blood sugar without a single bite of food. Corey and Christine also get into the cultural addiction to busyness and self-sabotage, the power of effort-based dopamine, and why Sarah installed a landline in her farmhouse to fight the constant phone reach.

✨ *Topics Covered in This Episode:*

✔️ Why ancestral living can become its own form of diet culture

✔️ Sarah's countercultural rhythms: candle-light showers, dry brushing, castor oil packs

✔️ Installing a landline in 2026 (and why more families are doing it)

✔️ Cory's no-baby-containers approach with her newborn

✔️ The truth about perimenopause and whether it's a modern construct

✔️ Why indigenous women historically didn't experience perimenopause

✔️ How stress alone can spike blood sugar without food

✔️ Effort-based dopamine vs. instant gratification (and why your brain needs the hard stuff)

✔️ "Power-down hours" for the whole family, including teens

✔️ Raising three daughters with one shared phone

✔️ Why busyness is its own addiction and self-sabotage is a cultural pattern

✔️ The lost art of doing hard things together (canning, processing, putting up food)

✔️ Why your friends actually want to be your burden

✔️ Sarah's Wellfolk Revival community classes and how she built them from scratch

🧠 *More About This Episode:*

This episode is for any mama who's deep in the crunchy world and starting to feel the weight of it, anyone questioning whether perfect ancestral living is actually serving her family, and every mom navigating the messy middle of hormonal shifts, teen daughters, and modern motherhood. It's honest, reflective, and a little bit of a permission slip.

📚 *Resources & Links Mentioned:*

📍 *Wellfolk Revival* (Sarah's website, classes, and upcoming hormone guide) – https://www.wellfolkrevival.com

📍 *Sarah on Instagram* – @wellfolkrevival

📍 *The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry* by John Mark Comer

📍 *Join our Patreon Community* – https://patreon.com/modernancestralmamas

📍 *NEW Website* – https://www.modernancestralmamas.com

📍 *Knead Your Cure Conference* (August 2026 in Oxford, MS) - https://www.kneadyourcure.com/

📍 *Earthley* – https://www.earthley.com (code: ancestral10 for 10% off)

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💬 Comment below: What's one part of crunchy living you've started to question?