What Happens When You Stop Looking for a Way Out with Catherine Marston

This week on the podcast I got to talk with Catherine Marston—a mom, health coach, author, and 14-time Ironman triathlete (yes, you read that right…14!). Catherine’s story is one of grief, resilience, and learning how to take small, consistent steps toward healing and strength.

She shares about losing her daughter Helen, how she processed that deep grief, and the ways she found power in self-acceptance and exercise. I loved how real she was about starting small—sometimes just 10 minutes of movement—and how that shift can completely change the way we feel in our bodies and lives.

We also talked about her book Finding My Stride: A Guide to Finding Power, Raising a Child with Special Needs, which offers guiding principles for parents navigating both caregiving and grief. Catherine reminds us that while there may be no “way out,” there is always a way through.

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Transcript

Speaker 6: 0:05

Hi, I am Kara, life coach, wife and mom to four incredible and unique children. It wasn't all that long ago that my son received a diagnosis that had my world come crashing down. I lacked the ability to see past the circumstances, which felt impossible and the dreams I once had for my life and family felt destroyed. Fast forward, past many years of surviving and not at all thriving, and you'll see a mom who trusts that she can handle anything that comes her way and has access to the power and confidence that once felt so lacking. I created the Special Needs Mom podcast to create connection and community with moms who find themselves feeling trapped and with no one who really understands. My intention is to spark the flare of possibility in your own life and rekindle your ability to dream. This isn't a podcast about your special needs child. This is a podcast about you. If you are a mom who feels anxious, alone or stuck, then you are in the right place. Welcome.

Kara: 1:14

Hello and welcome to the Special Needs Mom podcast. Oh boy, has this been a week, and I will eventually share all the different parts and pieces of the stories that flow from this week. My brother's comment as I shared with him, some things that are going on was, wow, well, this will make a good podcast episode more like 20. Okay, but beyond my personal check-in and. Witness that we can smile and laugh our way through. Along with all the grief and all the other things that we do. I want to introduce you to Catherine Marston. She's the guest of this week's episode, and she is a mom, no stranger to grief. Her daughter Helen, passed away when she was 13, and Catherine has shared generously about. Parts and pieces of how she essentially transitioned from the hopelessness of the stories that we start to spin when we experience profound grief. And she shared her story of processing through that. And like so many of us, she's using her story and her witness to help others. I think that's the gift of being in community is that we get to use our pain to hopefully be a light and support to others. And she's doing this well. Let me tell you a little bit more about her formal introduction. Catherine Morrison is an author, health coach and blogger in her first book, finding My Stride, A Guide to Finding Power, raising a Child with Special Needs. She explores the challenges faced by special needs parents. Highlighting the path to overcoming grief through self-acceptance and regular exercise to ultimately achieve their dreams. As a health coach, Catherine brings her unique experiences as a mom of a child with special needs to help women in menopause and caregivers stay fit and reduce stress. With 25 years of corporate experience in marketing and project management, she creates customized coaching programs that foster lasting change tailored to her individual client's needs A 14 time. Holy smokes Iron Man triathlete with a passion for health and wellness. She's a national board certified health coach and certified personal trainer. She holds a graduate degree in marketing and undergraduate degrees in communications. Okay, well, who's not impressed? Am I right? 14 Ironmans. I mean, one Ironman is a lot of Ironmans, so that's pretty impressive. But I think what you're gonna love about Kathryn is her. Down to earth ness. Not coming from a place of like, just go work harder, grind it out. It's really meeting yourself where you're at. It's starting with baby steps and transparently, you know, I get her, her publicist, I share this in the episode, but her publicist reached out to me, said, Hey, you know, gives a pitch and. I have to scan those through those pretty quickly because there's a lot of publicists that wanna, you know, get their authors on podcasts. So scanning through it and I'm thinking, oh, this might be helpful for me. So I think, well selfishly, let's talk to her and see what insight she has. So knowing that. We are very, very similar in the ways that we need support. I thought this would be a great conversation and it was. So with that, I welcome you to listen to our episode.

5:09

welcome to the Special Needs Mom podcast, Catherine. Thanks. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me on, Kara. Well, I was just telling you before we started recording that as the possibility of you being on the show was presented to me. Somewhat selfishly, I was like, yeah, I need that. So I'm gonna bring you on the show. So not just myself, but actually all of us can benefit from your lived experience, your heart, your mission, and of course your expertise. So let's start with. More of your story of origin, and I'd love to hear about where you live now, kind of how you spend your days, but also you know, a blast from the past. Tell us a little bit about what led up to who you are today and kind of the mission you have today. Wow. So that's a lot of territory. So I, my name is Catherine Marsden and I live in Arlington Heights, Illinois, with my husband Allen. I started my career in marketing and project management and was so, you know. Set on, you know, getting all the, you know, the rising of corporate ladder and getting into the right schools. And then my daughter was born with special needs and not just little special needs. They were, she was born with severe disabilities and so that came. You know, cracked me open, if you will. It just really was a difficult time in my life. So I quit full-time work then and stayed home to raise my, my kids. And right now I am working at a house coach and I personal trainer, and I specialize in helping women over 50 stay active and get the most out of life in their retirement years. And. My personal lived experience is that this helped me overcome that grief state of when I was, you know, kind of feeling alone, isolated, raising my daughter and my other child, and then it's the third child. So it just helped me so much and I dove headlong into endurance sports. So that's kind of, mm-hmm. You know, it in a nutshell and have done specifically triathlon is, is my passion. So amazing. And I have done, I guess it's one half of one leg of a triathlon. Okay. In college I did, I don't know why they called it. So basically I, I played water polo in college, so I was in quite good swimming shape. And so you could split it up to where one person would do the running, one person would do the swimming and one person would do the cycling. So I, you know, raised my hand for the open water swim, and I can't remember actually now if it was a half or a full, but it was a qualifier for Ironman and boy was that hard. Okay, I'll tell you that. So you did the whole shebang. Okay. So actually backing up for a little bit, so you had three children, had, I should say, your daughter passed when she was 13, correct? Mm-hmm. Yeah. The, yeah. Helen with special needs. Yeah. Helen? Yes, thank you. And I love that name. It's my grandma's name. And your other children are, where do they fall in the mix? So Helen was our, yeah, Helen was middle, and then Owen was my oldest. And Jillian was my youngest. And so she was right there in the middle. And yeah. So the inspiration for triathlon came about as Helen and I were watching the Hoyts. If you are not familiar with the Hoyt, it's Rick and Dick Hoyt. Well, he is in the Hall of Fame now for triathlon, so he was a dad who pushed his son, his, his adult older son all throughout Hawaii. And so one day Helen and I were hanging out on Saturday afternoon and we watched a, B, C, wild World of Sports or World of Sports, and we saw the hoist and that was like, wow, look at this. Amazing. I mean, for a human being to push himself through the lale fields of Hawaii in that heat and wind. But let alone, he had a makeshift, he towed his son it through the swim portion, he pushed him and the run portion and a makeshift wheelchair. It was just amazing. And he also carried him on a, like a sidecar bike setup. So it was just amazing to me, and I said. Wow. Someday I wanna do that. And that was even when Helen was born. So after she passed that passion for triathlon and moving my body and getting over that grief state a second time, if you will.'cause I always say Helen kind of passed away twice. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that's really where triathlon and how it all began for me. Amazing. I wanna go back to what you just said. That Helen kind of passed away twice. Would you be open to kind of elaborate on what you mean by that? Sure. So you know the anticipation I had for Helen the first time, and I think you know, that dream of having a perfect baby, being able to do all the normal and typical thing so it. That had to die. You know, that had to, I had to let go of that and that notion of what it, you know, what our relationship was going to be and my expectations for her as she moved through her life that had to. I had to let go of that. And so that was a, you know, not a little bit of a death experience. That was just kind of a transformative experience. So I shouldn't really say she died, I should say that my expectation for her needed to be adjusted and my dreams had to die in terms of what I thought was possible. And then she, then she did pass away, so. Yeah. Right. So that's obviously, a lot more typical of how we experience or the context of which we often hear about grief is when somebody. Actually does stop living as in die. Mm-hmm. But I actually, the reason I asked you about that, that comment you made or what you shared is because I think actually I resonate a lot with the experience now Levi is still very much living, and yet what I recognized is that, and this is even recent work in the last, gosh, probably like six months, is really going back to when he was two and recognizing, oh my goodness, like I actually lost my 2-year-old. The 2-year-old that I had was no longer, and yes, I have a different variation of Levi, but the Levi that I knew and had loved was gone. Mm-hmm. And rec, like really actually using that language to help me through moving more towards acceptance of who he is now and kind of where we're landing. Because I think one of the challenges is for all of us is. Yes, we wanna maximize the potential of our children, as in help them be the most fullest experience of who they are. And nobody knows where that is. And so I think that can be very disorienting, but sometimes really freeing to let go of, like kind of trying to get that person back, you know, in terms of who we expected to have or who we even maybe once had. So thank you for sharing that experience and. What I know you're all about is sharing your story of grief, and particularly through the lens of self-acceptance and exercise. So I'd love for you to dive into what do you mean specifically about self-acceptance? So I think when. When Helen was first born, I blamed myself. So I think that I made it very personal and that, you know, if you think about the grief states, and as I began to research this for the book, I wrote it. It is that we think it's personal, that nobody else could possibly, I wasn't one of the lucky moms who had a perfect baby. I was, it something must have been my fault somewhere because you can't make sense of, you know, out of the blue my, what were my chances? Okay, there must be something wrong. So it, I did not accept myself in that I was really, A, a mom trying to do her best and instead I thought that, that I must be different than others. And so it was a very isolating experience for me in the beginning. It also, I had a lot of shame about being a special needs mom because I felt like. I was other, so that, you know, that mm-hmm. I was not able to, you know, bring my kids on. We liked the playground and it was just so much more work for me to move Helen through, you know, her life and her day. Then I think that I just didn't accept all of that, and as I began to realize that, oh. I'm really the captain of my ship. There's really no other cavalry coming except for me. Mm-hmm. And as a matter of fact, all the experts are really looking to me to tell them what to do. And so that's really how I began to accept myself and accept my role, if you will, in Helen's life. And. I think I needed to separate myself from Helen's experience. So Helen's disability and me were intertwined, inextricably intertwined as her primary caregiver, but her problems were not me. So that's kind of, I think, my journey. Yeah. So many, there's so many good words there. And just the way that you articulated, I think. Mm-hmm. Experiences that. I hear shared with me over and over again. Mm-hmm. And, you know, ultimately the quest to make sense of all of this. Mm-hmm. It's like trying, I'm constantly reminded that we don't un have to understand our pain to feel our pain. Yet that doesn't stop us from trying to understand our pain and understand the worlds and understand why something happened and. Yeah, I love this. You know what you're, what you're now able to recognize is the reality is that you were and are a mom that was doing their best, but this lie that was undermining you is, I'm different from others, or it sounds like something is wrong with me. And it's actually funny, I have a post-it on my desk because I'm constantly having little thoughts of like, what do I wanna talk about on the podcast? And this one right here, this little post-it says, what is wrong with me? If it actually says what's wrong with me? Very sloppy. And then some weird pen mark. Because in talking to one of the people I talk to during the day, it's a question that keeps coming up. What's wrong with me? It's what I've experienced for sure. So thank you for sharing your version and your variation, because I think that the more of us that are looking at one another and being like, oh. That's interesting. You're having the same doubts and questions about yourself that I am, I wonder, and you're pretty great. So I wonder actually, if there's nothing wrong with us. Yeah. But that's, it's kind of profound. That's a great, great way to think about it. And, and I think you always, I began to research. The, in addition, if you will, of being a, a parent of a child with special needs and particularly a mom, with of a special needs child, or child with special needs, it falls into the classic. Fed up, if you will, for a grief state. You know, so it's like feeling that it's permanent, feeling that it's personal, feeling that it's pervasive. This is affecting every aspect of my life. So a guy named Seligman did, he's a famous psychologist and he talks about this and, and really, I. Identified with that so much in the uniqueness of being a, a parent of a child with special needs. It's got the perfect setup for really heavy grief states though. Yeah. Actually it's interesting, I haven't heard this particular language before. Mm-hmm. Permanent. You said pervasive and what was the other one you just said? Personal. Personal, like it's, yeah. So that personal goes back to what is wrong with me? Why me? Yeah, yeah. pervasive. It's, it's affecting everything, all my relationships and it's permanent. I don't see a way out of this. And so that, he described it really well. And actually there's a fourth p that, I forget what it is, but, I, I think that those are the three big ones. And Uhhuh. Yeah. So. you'll remember. Learned up. Yeah, I know. And I first learned of this from Sheryl Sandberg's book Option B. So, and as she deals with her own grief, losing her, her husband.

Kara: 20:19

yeah. Thank you so much. And I think that, yeah, these are such good questions. Like, you can see why the experience, right? We're talking about this grief state. This permanent, pervasive, personal of why so many of us start to feel so hopeless, particularly this permanent part. I don't see a way out of this. And again, that's why having these conversations, putting words to our feelings, but also identifying our feelings and sharing the common experience. To help each other see a way out of this, particularly in terms of like, you know, let's talk about a little bit more of your rebuilding and your recovery. So you obviously really dove into, processing all the emotions of course, raising your daughter, but then obviously losing your daughter and saying goodbye to her. And How did you incorporate regular exercise and kind of, I'm particularly, you know, interested in hearing your thoughts and I love your insight. So I wanna give a little bit more backstory, and kind of present, the challenge that many of us find ourselves in. There's gonna be a lot of head nodding in terms of, okay, yes, I hear you on. I feel the same way. I feel the hopelessness. I feel the heart, I feel stuck. I have so much weight and a lot of guilt. Maybe blame, and then I have all of the same stuff on all the things I know I should be doing for my health. I, you know, I kind of often joke about people's experience or kind of calling moms out. Be like, okay, I know we all wanna roll our eyes when we hear people talk about self care and talk about the things that we know we should be doing, but like, we just can't figure out how to do it all. So I really love to have kind of your insight of how, how you look at regular exercise, knowing what it takes to be a primary caregiver. To a person who's dependent on you. So it's kind of a long setup. So I don't know where you wanna start, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Catherine: 22:24

Yeah, so when I had Helen, well, first of all, it's, it's the whole cliche, put the oxygen mask over yourself first. So you have to take care of yourself and refill your own cup first before you can give it away to anybody else. So on that premise. I really was so involved in Helen's care before I really moved into understanding that her. Like, if I didn't do it, nobody else could do it. I didn't delegate. I didn't, I was not the CEO if you, if you will, of my life. I, I really was delegating and hoping other people would solve my problems for me in terms of like, oh, a doctor's gonna give me the diagnosis I want. Oh, this therapy's going to everything outside of me that. I was bored to solve my problems, and that's what I mean by that. but once I decided, you know what, I really wasn't happy with the way that I looked. I wasn't happy with the way I felt. I knew that I had to do some kind of carve out for myself. During the day. And I was lucky in that, you know, Helen was at in school during the day, so I was able to, oh, let me go, I can go work out, then I can get 30 minutes in. maybe it would be the smallest thing. I bought a jog stroller so I could push her in a jogs stroll, so whatever could get me moving Became really, really important to me. And the more I moved, the better I felt. And then, You know, I had a wake up call. I mentioned this in the book, is that, you know, somebody, I had my third child and somebody said to me, oh, well when are you going to have your third child? And I was like, well, I already had my third child, but it was because I still was pretty heavy and had all this other weight going on that I just looked in the mirror. I'm like, something's gotta change. And so that's when it kind of hit me like, I need to make this important in my life. And then the

Kara: 24:32

Mm-hmm.

Catherine: 24:32

the better I felt and the rest, as they say, so.

Kara: 24:36

I say this a lot or hopefully I say this a lot. I don't know. I feel like I say it a lot, but I feel like it's this shift that you know, in your story to simplify the shift. It's like you went from, I can't. To how can I, and so even how you're like, okay, like she's at school, I can do it when she's at school, or I can, get a stroller and do it when she's at home. in really kind of going into that different part of your brain that's actually, actively solving the problem.

Catherine: 25:04

Mm-hmm.

Kara: 25:05

but you know what I'm saying? versus I love how you're like, yeah, I was looking for everyone else to solve the problem for me. So you see, we see this like this shift that you had. And so thank you for articulating that. So I don't know how I wanna ask this question, but I, I feel like I, some of us would want to be healthier'cause we know it's good for us, but some of us wanna look in the mirror. And feel happy about how we look. And I guess I wanna, hear your thoughts on like,'cause I feel like sometimes like, you know, no one's like, yes vanity is like really important. We should all go for looking good. But there is something about feeling good inside of your body. What are your thoughts on that? Especially for a mom that's in transition, maybe like, she's not there yet. Maybe she knows that there's some things she wants to change, but also my guess is we don't want her looking in the mirror and thinking terrible things about herself. So I guess I'd just love to kind of hear your thoughts on, women and weight and feeling good.

Catherine: 26:09

Hmm. That's a big topic for me, I feel like. First of all, it's not a vanity play to take care of yourself. So women who, you know, just having like an extrinsic, if you will, call to look good, it doesn't stick because it, it's really intrinsic. It's, it's like intrinsically I knew I needed to do it. and I think part of it is really because of our own brain chemistry. So because. you know, the endorphins and the brain chemistry that get released when we work out, when we lift weights, it has nothing to, I mean, I shouldn't say nothing to do with looking in the mirror. Looking in the mirror is more extrinsic. This is much more powerful and it's why exercise, especially in midlife when even. More caretakers getting that sandwich generation. It's like we can feel like we're being overrun, but nothing cures that more for, in my mind, naturally and physically to help all systems in the body than working out. And it just helps us look good.'cause we feel better and yeah, it just all is interrelated for, for that reason. So, I don't know that that answered your question, but That's how I look at women and, and health and aging and working out and why it's so important.

Kara: 27:37

Well, I don't even know if I had a clear question. I guess I just wanted to kind of address This, a, I think you said it great. You said that's a big question or that's a big topic because I literally think there could be an entire podcast, like for episode after episode about that topic. And so I think you did a great job of kind of, talking about the interior or intrinsic experience, that is available to us. And so now I wanna kind move to talk a little bit about. like a how, because. A lot. Well, as you know, caregiving is a very demanding job. It's very hard and physically, like you could be just exhausted. And so, and I'll speak from my own experience sometimes I'm like, I don't wanna do any more hard things like go lift weights. I'm tired.

Catherine: 28:23

Mm-hmm.

Kara: 28:25

And, I joke with my friends. Turns out I don't like doing hard things. And I, I say that with humor, but I also say that recognizing that most humans, if they see an easier way. They're gonna wanna take it. And so the idea of being like, okay, I'm really tired at the end of the day and I'm, you know, this was really hard. I'm gonna go do something else that's hard. Like that's a big hump to get over. If you're not, we'll practice at it because I know intellectually you're like, I know awful better at the end. I know it's good for me, but that's not enough for where some people are starting. So I really wanted to get your insight and advice on, okay, so let's say mom's listening and she's like, okay. I hear you and I want this, and I still feel like I don't know where to start. What would you, how would you kind of, meet her where she's at?

Catherine: 29:18

Yeah, I think you have to start. Doing, you know, again, little carve outs. If there's just no time in the day, you can either. I was able to, to work out while Helen either sleep or at school. and those, those times in some ways were like my chocolate. They were, they were for me. They, it wasn't something that I looked at as, shoot, now I gotta go work out. It was like, oh good, I get to go out because. It was such a great release for me. if I had a moment, it was like, oh, well just get Helen in the jo stroller or, let's, let's make sure, you know, so even moving, six blocks, let's say it's. And so if there was a mom who was exhausted, who was tired, I would say just take even 10 minutes out. And especially getting in the sunlight and getting outdoors is critical. for your brain, for feeling releasing those, you know, for your brain chemistry, I would say. So I hope that would help them.

Kara: 30:28

Yeah.

Catherine: 30:30

Just

Kara: 30:30

Yeah.

Catherine: 30:31

starting out, even any movement, you would be surprised how it builds, so.

Kara: 30:38

Yeah, I think where I would kind of just summarize what I'm hearing from you is start where you're at and start small, right? Like this 10 minutes. And I think when we can tell our brains, that we don't, it's not like we're asking ourselves to go from nothing to all, like asking yourselves to do the next step as in 10 minutes and actually maybe five minutes. I do tell myself, okay, go lift weights for five minutes. And then usually you're like, okay, well I can do a few more. But when you make it really small, it makes it a little less intimidating and unpalatable.

Catherine: 31:11

Right.

Kara: 31:12

Okay, let's see. Let's talk about your book. So you've written a book, congratulations. That's, a lot of words and, a big accomplishment. So I'd love to hear a little bit about your experience, like what had you, take that on in your life.

Catherine: 31:28

Well, what triggered it for me is I. I really, when I was parenting Helen, I was, I was at a loss a lot of times. Like, what should I do? What should I do? Where should I go? How come this, how come that? And I remember my husband saying to me, well, nobody ever wrote the book on this. Or there is no like, what to expect when you're, when you're expecting or what to expect in month, whatever, because there was no manual and every child, In my experience is different, so I just wanted to have something out there that would be kind of just some. Guide posts, if you will, some seven principles to build around, you know, just to say, okay, let go of the self blame. Let's start there and, and how did I move from being devastated and grief stricken? To feeling more empowered, filling in control and feeling more, I balance. And so that's really what the book was about. And it was for, mothers of, children with special needs and some parent and some dads too, but mostly for moms.

Kara: 32:39

Mm-hmm. It sounds amazing. And will you tell us the exact title?

Catherine: 32:43

Sure. It's called, finding My Stride, and it's available on Amazon, but it's a guide to finding power, raising a child with special needs.

Kara: 32:53

Ooh, I love that word, power. Sometimes I don't think. My audience resonates with that word quite yet'cause they haven't like really tapped into their own power, but, and they used to have a really great definition of power and dog on it. I can't think of it right now, the exact words, but basically it's like the, ability to make something happen or it's something like, I mean, I'm not a poet, so clearly that's apparent, but, I don't know. I love it and I feel like if, Moms could tap into their power. Like

Catherine: 33:23

Mm-hmm.

Kara: 33:24

some good stuff happening in the world, not just for their people around them, but for themselves. And it's kind of what we're all about here at the Special Needs Mom podcast. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. Your passion, your lived experience, you know, the little, peaks into your, your book and I would encourage anybody to go check that out. You said it's not available on Amazon. Is there any last, just thought or concept that's, come up as we are talking that you would like to share before we wrap this up?

Catherine: 33:55

I, yeah, I think we covered most everything. I will just say when. A quote from Eckhart kind of summarizes the lived experience that I had and that he said in terms of grief, there's no way out, but there may be a way through or there's always a way through. And so once I stopped looking for the way out. And the way through and what, who I needed to become to enjoy my life again and, and really look forward to, you know, and to appreciate all that I had. And so that's, that's really, what I would leave them with is that there's so much to appreciate if, if you can, you know, just take time out and listen to your own voice.

Kara: 34:39

That's a good word. That's a good word. And I feel like it's like the saying of, it's simple but not easy. it feels appropriate. And so I feel like these take these simple things. To have them really permeate and impact your life. That's kind of my challenge to the listeners and thank you so much Catherine, for being a guest here and for being a listener of the show. And I cannot wait to share your story with the rest of us.

Catherine: 35:05

Okay. Well thank you Kara, and look forward to listening to the episode and, thank you for having me on. It's been a pleasure, speaking with you,

Kara: 35:14

Yeah, likewise.

Catherine: 35:15

bye.