The Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It...

Ladies Like Us is on a mission. Are you coming with us? 
This episode is an overview of the mission of the podcast.

Here's what you need to know 

Ladies Like Us -- that's LLU-- was created as a space for non mothers, pre-mothers, alterna-mothers, motherhood curious, etc. Why? Because when what society reflects back to you as the ideal life looks really different from yours, (doesn't include children) we can feel a sense of Otherness. Here's a place to let your hair down and feel like you belong to a tribe. 

We unpack otherness and what it is to be in the Otherhood. Words matter.

We dig into the energy of motherhood and motherhood potential. Don't be afraid!

We invite bigger conversations about sex and sexuality when you're trying to have a baby, and when you're NOT. 

We declare a war on SHAME. 

We pull our triggers. And meet them with compassion.

We put a stake in the ground to give fewer f*cks about what the world thinks of our life choices and dare each other to love the  lives we've created.

This is an invitation. We share our stories to give space for yours. 

Transcript

The Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It...

[00:00:00] Hi, this is Linda and I'm so excited. You're here at this very moment. I want to invite you into ladies like us. And before you accept, oh, savvy lady. I want you to know what we're about. What's on the menu and what is the mission? Should you choose to accept it? And just how we roll around. So here's, what's going to get served up here at ladies like us.

So first and foremost, think of it as a space to empower the tribe of non mothers. What does that mean? Well, think of it as a place where the ongoing concerns and conversation aligned with your life concerns as a number. And I want to take a moment just to offer that moms are totally welcome to no one needs to get butt hurt in the space.

Okay. I love my mom tribe members too, but this place exists because when culture at large, isn't reflecting your realities, concerns, your fears, anxieties. It can feel lonely and it can intensify the feeling of otherness. Am I right? That is this space for you. Now with respect to otherness, and you're going to hear me use the word otherhood a lot.

I just want to highlight that I'm using this to contrast with motherhood. If that wasn't obvious. Um, you know, it's, it's a good word. Uh, this term was created by Melanie napkin and author who wrote a brave book, entitled otherhood modern women finding a new kind of happiness. And she talks a lot about that.

Circumstantial and fertility, we're going to get into that in a future episode, but just for now understand otherness and otherhood and how I'm using them. So to be clear here, we love moms and we honor mothering energy. You might be in the game and trying to become a mother or me done that and are just looking to 
[00:02:00] have a life you love in the Otherhood.

Any way you find yourself not a mother. This is a story that we honor, and we would love to hear about in this space. So there's another reason I want to call out my use of the word otherhood it's because a large part of what we're trying to do here at ladies like us is lessen the polarity around motherhood and other hooks.

Okay. So meaning motherhood and other hood right now is like the north pole and the south pole, right? Like just, you know, it's very black and white it's this or that, or if like you're a visual person think of a Venn diagram. Right. You know what I mean? Like. Circles. Right. And the concerns of one item are all in that one circle and the concerns of another, uh, term word, whatever are in the other circle.

And most of the time, you know, we create Venn diagrams to show where things overlap, the mutual concerns, right. But like right now, motherhood and other hood, they sound like circles that don't touch at all. They're just completely different zones, again, black and white and never the Twain shall meet kind of thing.

Right. And well, I disagree with that. I Lyndon lacing of ladies, like us completely disagree with that. So yeah, on the biological material level, you know, either there's a child or not a child, I get it. Totally. But let's go back to that Venn diagram for just a minute. What about people who are trying to achieve motherhood?

They're in the other hood circle and yet, are they not overlapping with the motherhood circle? Although, you know, there's no child and we'll say yet, are they not engaging in the very energy of motherhood? Right. So anyway, back to the word, otherhood I fear 
[00:04:00] that there's something unsatisfying about this term.

Um, cause it kind of points to what we really don't want, which is to feel other. But until we can really change this conversation and like change some paradigms around here. It's what we got and what we're working with. And, you know, rather than hang my head low, I'm just going to own it because like I am technically in that camp.

So. So I'm in the other hood. And so life looks different for me rather than how it might've looked. If I had created motherhood, because for me, this is, you know, looking like the rest of my trajectory. I have to negotiate like, well, what does it mean when I don't have say my kid's growth to mark the years?

Right. Or I'm not, you know, hanging out, expecting to be a grandmother someday and waiting for grandchildren to show up. Right. Or even, um, what my old age looks like when I can't expect to have my daughter shuttling. From appointment to appointment, right. I have to make different plans for my life. So, you know, again, different concerns and I wanted to create this space for you.

My sister's in the other. You know, so we can have a place to vent, um, really vocalize some of our frustrations and fess up to maybe some of our anxieties, our desires, our fears, our obsessions, you know, like whatever comes up. We're living in the other hood. Are you with me so far? Okay. So now this is where I'm going to get a little cosmic on you because I want to stretch our understanding and I'm going to start right here.

Okay. This space 
[00:06:00] is also an exploration of the energy of motherhood, potential itself, the energy of mother. Now, I mean, is that a sexy topic? I mean, I think it is our mothering energy is part of our divine feminine. It's our creative and creation based self, right? So we have ourselves, our biology, we have our soul and our spirituality.

And then we have our energy, the most dynamic and flexible and expansive part of ourselves. If you really let yourself feel what I mean here. So you can tap into your mothering energy as much as you want. And really in, in this podcast and future episodes, I intend to repeatedly dig into how to do just that.

Okay. So just kind of remember mothering energy, mothering, mojo, if you will. Okay. Remember back in school when we were learning about potential and kinetic energy, you know, so potential energies, like it's sitting there, but like it could fall, you know, can move. We could start rolling. Right. But while it's sitting there, it's, it's got that pent up sort of energy.

And the kinetic is like, as it's in motion, you know, you think about a woman who. Does not have children, but is like a teacher. And she's like living out like kinetically her, her mothering energy in a way. Right. So we're born with this motherhood potential energy and like, Female baby, we're born with all our eggs, right.

And from that place, with all that potential, we grow, we go through puberty, you know, we start to get a period and this might be the first real marker, like, um, 

[00:08:00] like reminder of that mothering potential. And maybe we don't let it sink in at the moment or it's just a pain. Like we have to learn how to deal with our peers.

Maybe it's scary. Right? I'm sure a lot of us felt a sense of like, Ooh, what is this? And, you know, we probably knew just enough from, from sex ed to go, Ooh, um, we're not supposed to get pregnant at 13, right? Like technically I'm a woman, but come on, your parents don't really think you're a woman. Right? Like they don't want you to exercise that potential.

Not like even a little bit. So. How do we get from that potential that we're born with to understanding that like, we can create life that like, we want to create life because, um, as we, as we create our lives, we may delay that decision in numerous ways, like, hello, we discover our sexuality and we started to engage in the activity, the very activity that can result in shock.

And when we first do it, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but we do it in spite of the fact that we don't want to get knocked up. Right. So when we progress, you know, we get good at it, right. We have more command over it, figure out what we like, and we start to make our life choices. So there's the kind of guys we like to engage in that activity with.

And they may not necessarily know. Good father material, right? Think about, yeah, like our development in that area. And I love talking about sex. Um, but you know, think about like our, the role of sex in her life. And then, and then this idea of like suddenly needing it to create motherhood. Right. And there's definitely like a disconnect.

So one day. We decide we want this, right? We're like, it's time for whatever, you know, wherever you find 
[00:10:00]yourself, it's like, It feels like it's time. So we decide we want to become mothers. And what is that like to kind of flip that switch and then move into the space of trying to create it? I think it's pretty wild to spend so much time in our motherhood, potential years trying like, hell not to get pregnant until we flipped that switch.

And it's like, Totally intense and it needs to have happened yesterday. You know, I think this is why we need a space to talk about it because culturally, you know, we get you better not get knocked up until it's like, you better get cracking. And we are not always prepared for that 180 talk about crazy messaging.

Right? So making that shift can look different depending on where you're at. Um, it can mean now you're looking for your partner. Or you are getting ready to create a nest, or maybe you start simply theoretically thinking about motherhood or legacy or, you know, what you would like to share. So, I think ladies like us is a space to think about and explore all this stuff.

And although it may seem odd that like someone like myself who is in the other hood, um, might want to create a space to really just tie up this conversation earlier than, than we're having it. Right. Like not waiting till the 11th hour and, and then freaking out and. Kind of setting ourselves up to feel through, through stress.

Right. And so I think that this is another paradigm shift that needs to happen is that like, we can think about this early. Right. Cause I don't know about you, but it feels like we're only really allowed to talk about it. Like after we got the ring on our [00:12:00] finger and you know, we're already married and it's like, okay, family planning time.

And I just think that's weird. Like I said, we go through so much of our life negotiating our fertility from, you know, the period or contraception standpoint, but we don't really get to think about what it means to have that power. To have that potential. Right. So yeah, this podcast is not just for women in the other hood, honestly.

Um, if you are motherhood curious, Childless, child-free, um, maybe childless, not by choice versus by choice. You might be super ambivalent and just need to hear more stuff or use from, you know, real stories from, from the fronts, the different fronts, right? You might be a self-defined mother of any kind. Um, you know, you could be a stepmother, you might be a foster mother.

You might be a planter dog, mother. Right. You might be contemplating freezing your eggs because you don't know what's ahead. Honestly, what binds our conversations here are really just looking at that undercurrent of the energy of motherhood itself. And, you know, what is it to explore that energy when there's a child and was what is it to explore it when there isn't and, and what tools do you need to navigate that?

Right. Uh, what are the challenges to creating it and you know, what is this yearning to have it, or what's the fear in creating. We all have this potential and we're not really always shown what to do with it. And, you know, I know for myself as a teenager, like, it seems like it would have been the worst thing in the world, uh, to have come home pregnant.

Like, can you relate? I mean, I was raised Catholic and like, holy shit, that would not have been okay. But [00:14:00]you know, at this juncture, my parents are not grandparents and. You know, in retrospect, I mean, they would've thrown in my face all my life that I had, you know, gotten knocked up at 17 or something, but they would have their grandchildren, but now it's sort of like, Sort of obeyed the rules, I guess.

And, you know, I made certain life choices and, you know, they have no grandchildren. Right. And so, yeah, it's, it's an interesting thing because I also carry the weight of their sadness about it in a way, even though it's not my responsibility, it's, it's palpable, you know, I feel it. So not an easy topic for discussion.

I know I'm not alone in this, in that feeling, so, yep. So there you have it. Um, I don't know. And the thing about motherhood is that we can say all this stuff in retrospect, like, oh, this should have happened and we make life choices and you know, there's a lot of regret proofing that can happen. Right. We humans are uniquely able to torture ourselves about the past and the opportunities for non mothers to feel like they didn't do life.

Right. Are pretty plentiful. Am I right? But I'm here to say that. You did life, right? You might feel like you're here to lick your wounds and find support, but I just want you to know you're also allowed to feel a 100% fucking whole and amazing for doing life. Exactly. As you did it, you might feel behind or that things passed you by, but babe, you are right on time.

How about. How about that, you know, I'm with you. I get it. We can all feel a sense of being culturally left behind on some level, or maybe not feeling like we get to [00:16:00] fully participate in, you know, how our culture works, right? Like we're children of somebody and we had grandparents, so we know what we're missing on some level, but then we don't all these.

Spaces all of these ways to feel, um, The things that might be missing or that you yearn for. These are all going to happen in these conversations here. And I know they're serious topics, but I think that when we really dig in, they're fascinating and they're all part of the deeper reason we're here. And I am not afraid to go deep, my friends.

So I hope you're still with me. Don't be afraid of the deep end. I, I won't let you drown and your sister's not going to let you drown either. Okay. So let yourself feel and hear the wisdom of each story we share. Here. You are not alone. Okay. There are a lot of non mothers and, you know, women who are in some part of the motherhood spectrum, and it is a spectrum.

Okay. We're, we're getting away from this polarity bullshit. Again, we are taking aim at it. Okay. At that black and white thinking, and we all get to show up. We all get to participate. There are beautiful mother allies there. Okay. Beautiful pre mother's here and committed child-free by choice people here.

They're single mothers by choice too. Don't close your heart to motherhood because you feel like you fail to create it. We all get to be. Are you feeling me? We're aiming to fill in those gaps. Okay. And, and, you know, we're just aiming to eliminate, eliminate meaning light up how many different kinds of stories there can be in terms of, you know, how [00:18:00] motherhood was created or how it was not created.

And I really want to challenge the idea of shame and existential anxiety. These are topics that are really good, close to my heart. Think about a scenario, right where let's say there's a couple struggling with infertility and they may be experiencing a lot of shame and. Probably I see this played out a lot.

They only feel allowed to talk about it after it finally proved successful. Like you can talk about the difficulty once you quote, unquote, create the success. Right. Well, we probably even want to forget that anything was ever wrong or broken or like those fears that it was never going to happen. But I think that once you're on the safe shore, then maybe you could acknowledge it, but probably not.

Right. Um, yeah. And people never really want to share that. It just couldn't happen. And I bring this example up because there's a lot of themes at play here. Um, and, and these themes persist. So one is that a lot of, uh, childless, not by choice women get very triggered by any birth announcement and that pain is so real, right.

But the energy of failure, like the fear of failure of the couple that's trying, and then being only allowed to share results when it's successful triggers the feeling of failure for a woman whose child has snapped by choice. Right. And do, do these women want no one to be successful in having children?

Of course, not like not in their heart of hearts, but their sense of failure can loom large because in a way. Our society would have it. So, you know, we're not supposed to fail here. Right. And you know, whether it's fertility physical, a physical failure 
[00:20:00] or somehow circumstantially, you couldn't create it.

Yeah. You know, women who have moved on to becoming mothers after some difficulty, I know they can really feel into the space of not having, because they can remember the. I think that there's some greater empathy from women who have experienced that right. Women who are still trying, probably find themselves.

And I'm being general here. Uh, every circumstance is different. So. We all know that. Right. But imagine a woman who still trying might find herself almost between a rock and a hard place. So it's like hard to be with women who have children, you know, you're like the only one in your workplace and everybody else has kids and you're struggling.

And you don't want to talk about that with all the people that have all the stuff, right. If you're around someone who has struggled and could not create it and you are still trying, and you kind of know you are triggering that person and, you know, on some level. Want to stay away from someone who is exemplifying, like what you're trying to avoid, which is no, you know, unsuccess in that area, right?

Yeah. That's a very human tendency to avoid there for the grace of God. Right. Like go I, and what if that's me? That kind of discomfort. So, so let's all take a deep breath here and remember, you know, D shaming. Right. This work we do to de shame even one small part elevates the whole thing. It elevates us all.

And a big theme here too, is we need to tackle this shame from within and without. So stay with me here. It's revealed that you are not a mother. Most people will just make a read. They'll have their own read about why it is. You don't have children. 
[00:22:00] And you know, that's something I know, happens to us women in the other hood all the time.

And, you know, we can't control what happens to us out in the world. Right? You can't control other people. So that's the part that I'm referring to as the, without part, the part outside of us. But we can control what happens within, right? Like you don't have to take those judgments home with you. The within part is the part that we control, the part that we get, right.

The wish and the mission is to have deep conversations and change the within meaning really just challenge that shame and like own the beauty of our lives. Don't be a participant in that shame. Okay. And go educate some people, right? Like you're going to have to smack some people down and I would expect no less from a lady like us.

Okay. What we're here to do is challenge, shame, and existential anxiety. And you know, if we're getting triggered from the outside it's because like we have it inside, like we're judging our own. Well, I don't know our own status in that regard. Right? Like, or we've, we've taken in what the outside has told us about it.

I mean, we, yes, we have, we can have some personal sadness. I'm not saying that we don't right. If you don't have blue hair and someone's like, oh, you have blue hair. It's like, it doesn't bother you. Right. So check that part of yourself and the part that you can control the within part comfort that part, you know, and let it know that you're doing a kick ass job of your life.

I can't emphasize that enough. I'm going to lead into my little spiel about existential
[00:24:00] anxiety and existential confidence. I just want to offer this way of thinking about things. Okay. So. Existential confidence is just that feeling that you're doing life. Right. Right. And you know, we're human. So that can just be hard for anyone, you know, think about parents.

I mean, they worry about their kids. They worry that they're making the right decisions in this area. So yeah. All humans. The anxiety that we couldn't feel in the other hood. Um, I would say that that feeling of having missed out can really like fuck with you, right. It can wash over you again and again.

And so I want to offer an antidote, an ongoing treatment for that. Uh, think about, say like how you feel at 35. Versus how you feel at 45, you know, uh, 45. You're like, Ooh, that's kind of like the possibility of it happening is pretty slim. Unless I really bust some kind of move and open my parameters or do something different.

Right. And then think about being sick. And maybe at this point, your friends are starting to become grandparents. Um, or they have homes filled with people and generations and you know, this full teaming family feel. And meanwhile, it's just you and your boo or, you know, you and your boo and your cat dog too.

Um, and it can be a lovely thing that you've created, but. You know, once comparison or, you know, we get these reminders, it can be a place where you can feel anxious again and again. So here, I'm just 
[00:26:00] trying to create empowering conversations and, you know, challenge you to reconceptualize the stuff of your life.

Always exercise that power. Like know that you have that power and exercise that power always, always allow yourself to love your life. We allow for sadness here too. You can have what you consider an amazing kick ass life and go for long stretches of feeling good. And you can suddenly get hit by. You can later realize that maybe you are mourning your childless self at some future date, a road not taken, not having a specific kind of love.

Um, you know, not having someone to pass things on to all these little things, right. We are allowed to be sad about it. It's not a one-time deal where we just pack it all up. We're good to go. That's it? Life's amazing. No, this is about resiliency and not to be all Oprah, but like living your best life. It's not about avoidance, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna.

And again, this is a space where we can go there. So we're here for you. We want to have those tough conversations and really just want you to love your life no matter what you've created in it. Okay. And so finally, in case you haven't guessed, um, coach and, you know, coach has got a coach, right? So, yeah, coach Linda might show up here and share some opportunities to be coached.

Um, I might share some life hacks, help you shift your mindset, share some tools, some resources. You know, point you in the 
[00:28:00] direction of what you wish to create in this world. There's no such thing as a problem. And it's our thinking that creates the problem, right? Yes. I just put my coach hat on. I really did.

But anyway, what I really, um, whatever they want to say is that, you know, it's the thoughts that we're thinking really that create the quality of our experience of our life. Right. And so we just aim to make the inside of your mind an awesome place, a happy place, a place where you can literally give fewer apps about what the world thinks about you, your life choices, your body, whatever.

And that's okay. One other pillar of the lady's like us community learning to give fewer fucks. I say this with total fucking love. And generally speaking, I'll probably most likely say F's right, rather than Fox, but I won't say Fox sometimes. So I take, you're not going to listen to this with little ears around.

Right. So hopefully I won't be offending anyone, but what I do mean is. You know, we as women and especially as childless women, we're subject to a lot of judgment and people have their own interpretation of what it means that we're not mothers or that we don't have families. What can help us here? And it's, you know, a few things, it's how we are internally.

It's how we show up. It's us being bold enough to love ourselves and our life choices. And so giving fewer fucks about the stuff that gets in the way of. Those are the things that I'm going to apply you with? Lots of good tools, lots of bad-ass Surrey and yeah, lots of fun stuff to look forward to. So not all preaching.

Okay. I promise lastly, um, this part is so important to me. 
[00:30:00] I am so into hearing your stuff. And if you think that this is a place where you would like to share it and spend some time with me, I want to hear from you. We can really dig into anything about your life that you think this tribe would appreciate or learn from, celebrate or even be challenged by, okay.

If this invitation excites you, follow that impulse. Seriously, follow that impulse, My lady. Okay. Please contact me through my Instagram. And my Instagram is at @helmthislife and that is H E L M T H I S L I F E. There's a form on the link. Fill out my phone. Let's become friends. Ladies got to stick together.

Right. Anyway, it was wonderful to spend this time with you. And I look forward to talking to you again, stay strong, stay beautiful.