Energy, Healing and Motherhood pt 1 with Monique Hayes

In this heartfelt conversation, Molly Ryden sits down with Monique Hayes to explore the transformative power of energy healing and how motherhood became the catalyst for profound personal growth. Monique opens up about her experience with depression and the emotional rollercoaster of the postpartum period, sharing how she turned to healing practices as a way to reconnect with herself and find peace. Together, they discuss the importance of trusting intuition—especially as a mother—and how deeply intuitive motherhood can be. From the beauty and trauma of birth to the struggles of asking for help, this episode sheds light on the often-unspoken emotional realities of new moms. Molly and Monique emphasize the importance of holistic health, self-advocacy in the medical system, and why self-care is not selfish, but necessary for connection and healing.

Expanded Takeaways:

• Monique’s introduction to energy healing began as a deeply personal journey to overcome emotional pain and find balance.
• Becoming a mother reshaped her views on healing, leading to a deeper connection with her body, intuition, and spirit.
• Motherhood often heightens a woman’s intuitive abilities, creating a natural guide for parenting choices.
• The birth experience is a complex blend of emotions—joy, fear, trauma, and transformation—all of which deserve space and validation.
• Postpartum support is not a luxury but a necessity for emotional, mental, and physical recovery.
• Many women struggle with asking for help after giving birth due to societal expectations and internalized pressure to "do it all."
• Self-advocacy in medical settings is crucial; mothers must feel empowered to speak up about their needs.
• True healing is holistic—it involves nurturing the emotional heart, physical body, and mental well-being.
• When mothers trust their intuition, they not only parent more confidently but also strengthen the bond with their child.
• Self-care is a foundational piece of motherhood. When mothers are supported and cared for, they can better connect with and care for their babies.

Transcript

0:00

On today's episode, it's all about energy. We're chatting with intuitive development coach and energy healer Monique Kays. We'll find out how she ditched the corporate grind and decided to become more aligned. Let's get started. Welcome to Mama Needs Me Time. A podcast by a mom for moms, where we talk about all things about being a mom. I'm your host Molly, a life coach and mom of two who is looking for a way to navigate the craziness of motherhood. I'm sitting down with real moms just like you to have honest conversations and shed light on how we all get through the chaos. So buckle up and let's get real because we all know we're better when Mama gets her me time. Hello, hello and welcome back to Mama Needs Me Time, a podcast by a mom for moms where we, I mean, you know the drill at this point. As always, my name's Molly. I'm so glad you're with us here today and I am beyond excited for the interview we have. This is gonna be part one. With Monique Hayes, she's an energy healer and intuitive development coach. Monique helps people heal from emotional and subconscious blocks that keep them disconnected from their body and their authentic expression. So after using her own intuition to heal from multiple. Chronic illnesses. She's used her newfound power and awareness to meet the love of her life and conquer the incredible feat of navigating a home birth with her son. She's now living happily helping others develop their intuition so they too can live an energetically aligned life and feel more trusting and free in who they are. I know that I myself have traveled such a huge. Journey when it comes to energy, intuition, and empathy. I'm so excited to have Monique here today, and I'm gonna stop babbling about myself. I'll do that plenty throughout the interview, but let's just get started.

Molly: 1:48

So the first thing I really want to talk to you about is how, how you went into this line of coaching and energy healing and then you know, the impact that becoming a mom.'cause you have a relatively new baby.

Monique: 2:02

Mm-hmm.

Molly: 2:03

And so like you were doing this before and then like how things kind of shifted for you. So two parter. Tell me how you got into this. Mm-hmm. And then tell me how. Motherhood family and all of that shifted that in a Yeah, if it did in a different direction.

Monique: 2:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Gosh. Um, I will, I will try to keep this as concise as possible because this could take up like an hour, but I got into this because, so I just turned 34 and when I was 25, so this will be my ninth year. In this space. So, but it started as, as my own healing. Like I haven't been coaching and working with people and doing energy healing for nine years, but it's like when I kind of deep dove into my spiritual journey and because prior to, I. 2016 was nine years ago. Yeah.'cause we're in 2025. My mind cannot like compute. But prior to 2016, I had no idea what like intuition was. What the empath was, what even like. The holistic space really entailed, um, because I was getting my master's degree in public health. Okay. And so it was a very conventional route, and I was like, okay, I wanna get my master's degree, I wanna work at the CDC, I want to do all of these things. And at the same time, I was working as a wellness coordinator for the headquarters of Goodyear, and they had established this position for me. I was the first wellness coordinator for one of the plants. The, the plants that make NASCAR tires is right in Akron, Ohio, where I was living and. So they created this position for me and like at first I was ecstatic, but as I was going there and like working more and more and more, I'm like, this is a dream like a company. Made a position for me. Yeah. Like a really well known company, like created a position for me doing exactly what I wanna do. I'm getting my master's degree. I have more money than I know what to do with because I was also bartending on the side and I loved bartending, but I was fucking exhausted. I was hardcore bulimic, I was asthmatic. I had really bad allergies. I would break out in like full body eczema and, but I was the space of health. I was very depressed. My, I'm a twin and my twin sister, she's really the only one that knew that. Um, I had recently lost like my high school sweetheart. We were still friends, but he had recently passed and so it, it like triggered this fear of death, which, which also triggered like somewhat of suicidal. Thoughts of like, well, what's, what's even the point of this? Like, why am I even still doing this? Because I was very depressed. I was very anxious, and on the outside it looked like I was doing wonderful and I was like living this awesome life. But on the inside I was like dying and suffocating and I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing. Like I was taking all my medications. I, I had a DDI was taking Adderall. I, I had my asthma medication. I had allergy pills. I took regularly. I had my eczema creams. And I just remember one day I walked into the, the headquarters at Goodyear and I'm 25 at the time, and I'm like, I just see this guy. And he looked right around my age and he just looked devoid of life. And I'm like looking at him and I'm like. This cannot be my future. And it was like in that moment, something just shifted. And in my spare time I started listening to podcasts and just whatever stood out. And now looking back, I can see that that was my intuition guiding me. So like just a little like. First, first tip here. If you find things that are interesting to you, like randomly or things start popping up in your reality, take that as a sign. Take that as a sign to follow that. Don't just brush it off as coincidence. There is no such thing as a coincidence. Don't just brush it off. Take it as a sign because like I like one podcast led to another, led to another, led to another, and pretty soon I'm listening to this random ass podcast with this person that I had never heard of before, but she's doing a retreat in Costa Rica, and something inside of me was like, you need to go to that retreat. And so I signed up. I did like a call with her, like a 30 minute call. I had no idea what I was doing. I felt very scared, but I'm like, I have to go, like I have no other choice. I'm like drowning in life right now. So I went, I, and it was, she was an emotional healer and then her partner was an energy healer and it was, this was the first time I'm hearing of these two terms. I. So I went and it was a week long retreat and that totally transformed my life. I learned what an empath was, that I wasn't empath intuition. I learned like how we hoard our emotions and our emotions are like responsible for everything in our life, like how our reality reflects back to us. And it's all just a reflection of our internal state. And I learned all of this stuff and it was mind blowing and I was like. My life has forever changed. I will never be the same. I came back and I quit my job and I started my own healing journey because up until that point I was like, like I said, on the outside, I was the epitome of health. I ate really healthy. I did all of the things you're supposed to do. I was doing two aday at the gym and I was gaining weight. I gained 30 pounds in less than a year.

Molly: 7:06

Cortisol,

Monique: 7:07

like yes, all the stress that I'm putting myself under and just living like a very inauthentic life that I thought was authentic, but looking back, it's what everyone else wanted me to do, right? I had no idea who I was. I. Before I learned who I had to be, and so this was kind of the first step in me relearning who I was. And so I came back. Yeah, I quit my job. I had enough money saved up. I was still bartending, but I, I had enough money saved up and I was bar, I cut back on bartending shifts too,'cause I recognized that that was not good for my energy at all, but it was just really good money. So I'm like, okay, I'll do like two days a week instead of four days a week. And so I, I just kind of took a year off and just lived off my savings and deep dove into my healing. Within that year. I lost 30 pounds in a month. Or in two months I healed my eczema, my asthma, my eczema, my allergies basically gone. I from that year forward, I hadn't used an inhaler since. With a caveat, I'm allergic to cats. My husband had a cat when we met. So when we moved in together until the cat died, I did have to occasionally take my inhaler and um. And then I, yeah. Depression gone, anxiety gone off all medications, and I just healed holistically. I used energy work and emotional healing and work. Learned how to work with my energy field, learned how to, how to connect with my intuition and just totally transform my body. I, up until this last, oh, I'm sorry, about a year ago, I hadn't, I hadn't been to a doctor. It had been eight years since I had been to a doctor when I took my health into my own hands, and that's because when I gave birth. I kind of, my body like went through a shit storm, which I'll get to later, but I, again, I, I came back to my practices and I healed because I did not like what the doctor said. But, but yeah, so I healed everything. And then from there I was in a toxic, I had just recently entered a toxic relationship and like eventually I left him, I used these practices to meet my husband and yeah, fast forward we. Have this life together, but, but I got into this because I needed to, to save my own life essentially. And from there I'm like, wow, this works so good on me. I have to teach this to other people. Even though I was like teaching it at a time when I. Everyone around me was like, you're fucking crazy. Right? What are you even talking about? I was gonna

Molly: 9:29

ask you how people responded to that, because we, I feel, especially generationally, like with millennials, we have been told, this is what you're supposed to do. Mm-hmm. You graduate from high school, you get a four year degree, you hustle and grind in a job forever. You get married, you have kids, you save, save, save for retirement. You know, you can have fun later. And that is such a. Toxic thought process. Mm-hmm. And a toxic way to live your life. And I'm not saying like we should all be going out and squandering every penny we make, or, you know, you know, never want for anything. But it's, you know, I, my journey is similar, but I, it took me a lot longer. Mm-hmm. Um, because I, I was like, but I'm doing everything I'm doing, but life wasn't working for me.

Monique: 10:18

Mm-hmm.

Molly: 10:18

Like, you know, I, my husband. It was a fluke that we met and it wasn't a great relationship for a long time. I mean, we loved each other and we cared, but like we couldn't make it work. Mm-hmm. Like, like we would always get really close and then like back and forth, and it was when I started to care about myself and what I needed that. It, uh, like I started to feel these shifts and like started to trust and now here I am. We were joking before we started recording. I've got a pile of rocks next to my desk. I got two tarot decks next to me. Like it's it. The intuition is there and I think that there's a part of it that gets for a lot of women, becomes more ignited and present. When you have a kid.

Monique: 11:06

Mm-hmm.

Molly: 11:06

And so like that is when I realized like, holy shit, like I don't like who I am. Mm-hmm. Like I don't like who I'm trying to be. Like when I had my son, if you've listened for a while, you've heard all of my drama and my trauma, I was like, I need something for myself. So what did I do? I jumped into an MLM. I went into Beachbody. I had a friend who was loving it, very successful, but she was like that before. Like she loved going to the gym and working out. Yeah. And she was like, Beachbody simplified everything for me. So I'm like, well, I'll do that. Like if all these people are doing it, I can do it and I've got a good story'cause I need to lose weight. And it brought me to personal development. Which was like my gateway drug Yeah. To, to all this energy healing. And the first book I ever read was Jen Centro, you Are a Badass.

Monique: 11:51

Mm-hmm.

Molly: 11:52

And I haven't looked back. So when you got to the point where you were ready to have a child Yeah. Did that enhance your intuition and everything? Or like, did that enhance your ability to spot the need for healing or mm-hmm. You know, how did that kind of shift things for you?

Monique: 12:11

Yeah, so I think that like being a person in this space, I had a lot of expectations of what to expect, like my pregnancy would be like. And um, and this is like, it kind of piggybacks onto what you were saying. I think that what can happen is people wanna give us advice like our parents and our grandparents, they thought they were giving us good advice. Right? Mm-hmm. When they said like, this is what you should do, blah, blah, blah. I didn't have these opportunities. You do, you need to go do this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But they're giving advice from their limitations and from like their limiting beliefs. And that's what we can, we can do is like, and then we see other people taking action and we're like, oh, that's working for them, or That's working for them. I should do that too. But people will act, they're either acting out of their limiting beliefs or they're acting out of their own like. Soul calling soul pool, intuitive pool. And like their intuitive pool is not our intuitive pool. Right? So it might work for them, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna work for us. But like you, it, it helped leave you to the next step, right? Yeah. So you might not have had like. The same successor or whatever enjoyment out of the Beachbody thing that your friend did, but it led you to the next step, which has given you joy and given you more success. And so I think that's an important thing for, to point out for people.'cause we can like look at other people and be like, oh, well that worked for them. I wanna do that too. And yes, do it. If it feels good and it feels aligned, but don't do it and don't like. Create expectations around how it should be based on what you see it being for other people, because it's always gonna be different for you and, and when I was pregnant, I would see these other people in the spiritual space like be all super soft and just like loving their belly and loving this journey and talking about the initiation of pregnancy and moving from maiden to mother and I'm like, I should be like that because I'm in the spiritual space. I'm not like that. I've never been like a soft type person. I just, I'm very assertive. I have a loud presence even though I'm, I'm a shy person at heart, like I have a loud presence and I mean, I'm tall. I'm five nine. I have long red hair, like, I kind of stand out. I have a twin, like we stand out and so it's just. I've never been that person that's just like been very soft spoken. And even though I tried to like warp myself into that,'cause I thought that's what I needed to do in order to be seen as a successful energy healer. So me comparing my pregnancy to all of this, I'm not joking when I say I fucking hated pregnancy my first time. Oh, straight facts. Me too.

Molly: 14:39

Like I was not like, so my friends were like, are you gonna do a maternity shoot? And I'm like, fuck no. Like a, I feel gross. Literally, like physically, I look at myself and I'm like, and like I don't care that my husband's still like, you're beautiful. And like, yeah, cuddling with him. I'm like, get away. Like I just, it's a lot. I'm sweaty, I'm stinky. I'm like all of these things and I know it's because. My body's doing its job, right? Yes. Like I am growing Yes. A, a beautiful life within me and my body is like, this is hard. Like it's a lot of work.

Monique: 15:12

And it's a lot of work. I don't think. Yeah. And people like, we don't really hear about like the side of it, that, because it, it's our bodies. Doing something miraculous and beautiful, and that part of the process is amazing. Like just thinking about wrapping your mind around that is like, it's literally incredible, but through the process it can be gnarly. And it was gnarly for me. So I, I do think that like when I was pregnant, I remember becoming. My intuitive senses were heightened. I just like knew things. I knew when things were gonna happen. Like, I mean, I've always known that and like I can, like, I do readings for people, I do healings for people so I can tune into the energy already. But I don't know, it was just like, it was almost as if before my channel was like a sprinkle now it was like a full on, turned on faucet. And then I, I knew as soon as I found out I was pregnant, I would, I wanted to do a home birth and. That's was, it was like, it kind of took me back to when I started telling people that I was like into energy healing and I was doing energy healing and them calling me like crazy and quacks and like just like questioning me, which in turn I created those, like in retrospect, like I created those experiences because I had self-doubt. So they were just my self doubts manifesting back to me. So. When it came to home birth. Now remember I got my master's degree in public health. So I used to be like, oh, take me to the hospital, gimme the epidural. Like, I want all the drugs. I don't wanna feel anything. I didn't, I couldn't have had a further experience from that, like my actual experience. And so I knew I wanted to do a home birth. I actually was fearful to go to the hospital because I did not wanna be in a very stressful setting. I knew that like my body, I hold tension in my body. I have a lot of repressed energy. I'm, I'm constantly working on myself. And so I knew that my body was already going to feel tense. Um, and I think this just from like childhood trauma and stuff, but, so I did a lot of work around that throughout my pregnancy. But, so I wanted the, the environment to be very, very, very calming. I just had my sister and my husband there and my midwife and it. I mean, I, I was in labor for 15 hours. I only pushed for 30 minutes. And I think that was all because I was just very intuitively connected to the process. Yeah. And I was able to just like, get out of my head. And anytime I started getting anxious or fearful of the process leading up to it, I would go through and I would like visualize, I would just give myself some energy healing. I would do some tapping, um, or I would just remind myself like. My body knows what to do. Like this is literally why the female body is the way it is, is to birth humans. There's the energy of billions of women before me supporting me, and I just really called on that energy throughout my, my birthing process and then being able to feel everything. I was able to push him out in 30 minutes and it was. I had zero terrace. I made myself breakfast the next day and he was born at 1130 at night in my living room. And it was just, it was a really awesome experience. And then like moving forward, I just. We all have the mother's intuition, right? Because literally our baby cells stay in our body for the rest of our lives. And so we're constantly sharing that. It's just, are you open to receiving that information? So many of us, we can be activated into like a scarcity spiral or some type of stress response, a primal stress response after giving childbirth, because especially if you live in the Western hemisphere, this, it's just, it's not set up for. To support the mother, right? No, no. Especially through that fourth trimester. And so it can, it can really like shock you back into like a survival state if you're not aware of it. And when we're in those, those states of survival, you cannot connect to your intuition because you're just, you're very closed off. Your intuition is, it's like a soft whisper and you're not like. It's not like you're sitting down and trying to have tea with yourself, like you're waiting, you're like waiting for a predator to attack you when you're in that survival state. Yeah. And so you're not trying to like connect to your intuition and, and understand what messages are coming through. You're trying to save yourself. So I think that. Having support put in place, which for a lot of women is really hard to ask for support.'cause also being a millennial, we grew up in the era of like, women need to do it all. Like the, the feminine, like the feminine movement of it. But like, it's like, it's like ask backwards femininity, because we shouldn't be doing it all. Right. We should be.

Molly: 19:47

That idea of doing it all is like rooted in masculine energy. Yes. Because like doing it all means productivity, action, productivity. Like Yes. And then that is not. Where we're meant to exist. Yes. That's not the plane that we're meant to, like, you know, thrive. Yes, exactly. And it's, and Sorry, go on. No, well I was, I was gonna say I had like, so I, I have two kids and my first experience was I was doing what I was told, right? Like I went to the hospital, I was gonna have the epidural, which. That was bananas for me in our birthing class when they were like, is anyone planning to do an epidural? And I was the only one who raised my hand. So then I started questioning everything. Guess who didn't get an epidural? Oh yeah. Didn't get it. Um. I wanted it, and they had placed it, but I didn't get any medication. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It was a lot. And then, so for my daughter, I was like, all right, I'm ready. I've got a plan. This is what we're gonna do. I'm gonna get the epidural as soon as I can. And because I just wanted, like that's, that's what I thought was going to bring me relaxation. Mm-hmm. In the process. And in turn. When it was time to push, they had to give me more medication to stop contractions. And I remember saying, I'm just not ready. I'm not ready for her. And like my body was like, well, okay. Like we'll just keep pushing her in and out. Like that poor little doll got the crap kicked out of her in labor because my body was like, it's time for her to go. But like I was like, no, I'm not. Like I'm not ready to do it. And people get mad at me'cause I'm like, oh, I pushed for like eight minutes with my son and like. They had to gimme medicine and then I pushed for like three minutes with her, my daughter, but it's like, it was, it's so interesting when we talk about the birth experience, because I believe this is, you might disagree with me on this, but like giving birth is a whole body traumatic experience regardless of how. Like you can, you know, have your ideal situation and it can go smoothly and go the way you want, but it is still putting your body through stresses that are the Oh yeah, while, while, while made to do it. It is still putting you through. Like the gauntlet of stress where you're like, am I doing the right thing? Is my body doing the right thing? Is everything gonna be fine? And so did you find at any point while, you know, in your pregnancy or labor that you had to, had to learn to stop and quiet that like the, could you feel that anxiety kind of trying to creep in and was there a, a way that you were able to be like, shut the phone? Mm-hmm. Um, yeah.

Monique: 22:28

Yeah. 100%. I mean, I think that like any type of shock, trauma, like. That will it, it has the potential to like make you spiral into more of like an, an anxiety response and Yeah. Like the body can also go lift weights, but that's still, you're creating micro tears in your muscles and you're creating that trauma and like it needs to heal'em. But that's how we get stronger. And, and I do think that like, yeah, birth, I mean it's the most stress that the human body can physi physiologically undergo without dying. And so it, it is, it's truly remarkable what our bodies are capable of being a female. And, and at the same time, it's a lot, but we, I, I also think that we're. Kind of expected, or I don't wanna say we're expected, but it's almost like we're taught or we're tamed to brush it off.

Molly: 23:15

Yeah.

Monique: 23:15

Like

Molly: 23:16

it's, no, this is what, this is what you wanted. This is what you should do. Yeah. Like, yeah. Yeah.

Monique: 23:19

And, and then like within three months you should be back together. And if you don't have your body back by six months and you should be start, you should start questioning why you don't. And that all I think can get into our head and create. A narrative of I'm doing something wrong. And if, if we are listening to those external voices and we're not listening to our body saying like, I'm exhausted. I just did. I just, I conquered an enormous feat and I need to rest. I need softness. I need to be taken care of. I need support as women, like I was saying, like with the. The feminine movement, we have a really hard time asking for support, especially millennial women. We have a really hard time asking for support, and we have a really hard time asking for help. We don't wanna seem weak, but. In those moments, like asking for help is literally the most courageous thing you can do because it's not that you can't do it, it's that you're, you're requiring support so that you can heal, you can take care of yourself, you can connect with your baby. Like we have to take that time to connect with our baby, to connect with our body, because that also stimulates our body's healing response. Yeah. Connecting with the baby and when we stay disconnected, then that. Hinders our healing response one, because we're putting ourselves in a stress response. Two, the baby is in a stress response even more if they're not close to us. So that's going to trigger stress response even more in us. And your body cannot heal when it's under stress. So just to stay close to the baby and like having things taken care of around the house or asking for meals or whatever it is, having someone, oh, you wanna come visit? Yeah, but I'm, I'm gonna need you to throw a load of laundry in like asking for that stuff. We have to be able to do that because as we start asking for our needs to get met, our intuition can actually come through and become louder. But if we're not even meeting our basic needs because we're scared to ask for help, to go take a shower, to go to the bathroom or whatever it might be, to have 15 minutes of alone time in, in that time period right after birth. We're, we're never gonna be able to connect to our intuition. Our, i your intuition is never gonna be able to grow. It's a muscle that needs exercise, and you are never gonna be able to work it out if you can't even ask for basic needs to get met so that you can fulfill very primal instincts like going to the bathroom, taking, like cleaning yourself, resting, whatever it might be. We have to do that. And I noticed that. I like. After I gave birth, it kind of triggered a lot of stored trauma in me, emotional trauma that I didn't even, I wasn't even aware I had and that like, put my body into a shock. And I was doing really well for like the first three months, but around month four or five, my son hit a sleep regression and I was not prepared for that because around the first three months, like, I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna utilize all my tools. I'm gonna stay connected with him. I did, I, I did. I think I did decent with asking for support. Um, it was very uncomfortable though, but then around month four or five, I, I, I don't know, it's just like something in me like. Some stress was triggered. Some like repressed emotions from, I don't even know what time period in my life, but again, that's how the subconscious mind works. We don't know what this, like something can happen as little as like someone drops something in front of you and it triggered a memory from when you were seven years old that you don't even remember, but your body remembers. And that's what happened. I went into like a, a severe stress response and my kidney started declining and I was just like, I was not doing well. And so I. Went to the doctor to get my kidneys looked at. I'm like, something is off. I could feel off. And when I was there, they're like, oh yeah, everything looks fine. Everything looks good. Like you, you look healthy. Like your numbers are good. But then they're like, but we're gonna go send you to get blood work just in case. So I went and got blood work and it came back that like my cholesterol was elevated and my kidney numbers were super, super, super, super low. And the doctor basically, and I told her, I was like, I don't wanna stop breastfeeding. I really don't wanna take medication. Um. I wanna try to do this like as naturally as possible. And she's like, oh, looks, yep. Looks like your kidneys are in decline and your cholesterol is elevated. I wanna put you on a statin. You can't breastfeed when you're a statin, even though statins don't fucking work for cholesterol. And elevated cholesterol is such an archaic way of thinking. It's a thing of the past. But I digress.

Molly: 27:42

That's a whole other episode. Yeah.

Monique: 27:43

Because,

Molly: 27:44

yeah, I

Monique: 27:45

digress. So

Molly: 27:46

I feel like yeah, women's medicine in general could be a whole episode. Yeah.

Monique: 27:49

And then she wanted me to like start. Looking into like getting, go see a, a kidney specialist to get on medication or get surgery for, for that. And I'm like, no way. No way. The body is meant to be healthy. The body wants to be healthy, the body's natural state is health. So I found a holistic doctor online and I healed myself within like a month, within, uh, probably two months. Within two months, everything was back to normal and like. When you listen to the body, when you listen to your intuition, my intuition was screaming at me like I was just stuck in so much fear and anxiety, and a lot of women, this happens to postpartum. We get into like those spirals of fear and anxiety, whether it's fear of, of dying, fear of losing our kids, fear of of losing our spouse, fear of just how am I gonna do this? Did I ruin my life? Like, what's happening? What did I do? Like questioning everything. All of these fears get activated and we're not necessarily supported in working through them. So we can never get back to that state. If we even were able to connect to our intuition prior to having kids, we can never get back there because we're stuck in this, this energy of repressed emotions that's just swirling around and we're listening to everyone outside of us saying, oh, you should do this. Oh, you should do that. Oh, you should do that. So when the doctor kind of told me that, it like snapped me out of it and my husband's like, you are stuck in a story of being unsupported. Like you need to get yourself out of this story because. People are supporting you, you're just not willing to be supported. And how many of women are in that same boat where like people want to support us postpartum, but a lot of times we're like, no, I can do it. Like I want to do it. It's like, let yourself be fucking supported because you're not letting yourself be supported. You're not gonna let yourself heal on any level, emotional, physical, or mental.

Molly: 29:27

And I feel like there's this con like unspoken conversation where we lie. Like we, we lie to the next generation or we lie to people who haven't gone through the journey into motherhood. And we, we, we live in this society where it's, it's so wonderful and it's what you're meant to be and what you're meant to do. And we don't talk about like, yeah. Uh, like. You could have a grade three tear where they're gonna stitch you your entire lower half together. Or like, you know, I, my son was born two months early and that's a, that's a different level of, I mean, I was supported, I was, I had lactation consultants coming to talk to me. Like he had the, you know, top of the line medical care at Children's Hospital. Mm-hmm. But my. Mental health

Monique: 30:22

mm-hmm.

Molly: 30:22

Was, and, and my recovery as well. Like, I wasn't laying in bed, I wasn't resting. Like I would sit, I was sitting in a chair in a isolated room, 12 to 16 hours a day. Mm-hmm. My husband was trying to store up his parental leave. So he was, you know, he'd come in for rounds in the morning, we'd get the, like, we're just kind of sitting and waiting and then he'd leave, go to work. So I'm sitting by myself. I wasn't doing anything. And so through between, between my kids, I was like, okay, this time's gonna be different. What do we need to have lined up for support? And we ended up hiring, hiring a postpartum doula.

Monique: 31:03

Mm-hmm. To

Molly: 31:03

come and like mm-hmm. And like do all those things. Like she did our dishes, like all of that stuff. And my friends were like, why would you pay somebody to do that? Just ask your friends to do it. And this was where I kind of realized that, like I knew my situation way better than anyone else did because I'd had multiple, like major surgeries and things like that and nobody showed up. Mm-hmm. Like nobody was there to help, even though everyone always wants to offer. Mm-hmm. And they, they want to, you know, like, oh, you know, let me know what you need. Let me know what you need. And then being the. The person I am in my social circle, I'm, I'm the giver, right? Like, it's totally a trauma response. And I'm recognizing and healing that part of me. But it's, you know, I'm like, oh, like let me, let me pay for pizza for everybody. Let me, let me do this. Like, I'm always like giving, giving, giving. So then it kind of scares people when you ask for help.

Monique: 32:05

Mm-hmm.

Molly: 32:05

And they don't know what to do. And so I like shameless plug for a resource I made, but I actually made a like. Aftercare checklist.

Monique: 32:14

Mm-hmm.

Molly: 32:15

And so it has like, these are the areas where you're gonna need support, whether it's postpartum post-surgery, post death, traumatic event, whatever. And it's meant to be on the fridge and it says like the last time this task was done, and then I. And it's meant to take that mental load because no one ever says, I'm gonna come over and do your laundry.

Monique: 32:38

Mm-hmm.

Molly: 32:38

I'm gonna come over and clean your kitchen. They always say like, what can I do?

Monique: 32:42

Mm-hmm.

Molly: 32:43

And when you're in that kind of postpartum recovery needing to rest, it's a whole body rest. Yeah. You have no idea. Like you're like, my boobs are leaking. My son couldn't eat like, I mean, he had a feeding tube. And so like I had to pump and I didn't have to. I realize now that that was something that was like pushed on me to do and that is what truly tanked my menthols because I felt like I wasn't doing anything for him.

Monique: 33:12

Mm-hmm.

Molly: 33:13

Like yes, I was pumping and then they would take that breast milk and fortify it with formula'cause he was so tiny. That really put me in a place where, as a mom, I started off thinking. I'm not good at this. Mm-hmm. And like, and so that is where it was a total battle for me to understand like where my role was with this baby. Because doctors, nurses, everyone, you know, taking care of him, I was barely, I wasn't taking care of anything. Wasn't taking care of myself, wasn't taking care of my husband, wasn't taking care of the kid. And I remember at one point I said, I don't wanna pump anymore. And that was questioned. Lactation was like, you can't give up. You shouldn't give up. And I'm like, I can and I'm gonna, and like once I stopped doing that. I started to regain cognizance because it was, pumping is a different kind of challenge. It, it's very mentally challenging.

Monique: 34:11

Yeah.

Molly: 34:11

Yeah. Because like, I'm not getting the hormonal kickback of holding my baby and realizing that I'm sustaining life, like I'm just hooked up to a machine, like a fucking cow. Yeah. But I, I will say that once I started to kind of heal things, I realized that. I did have a major thing I could do, and it was advocating, it was advocat advocating for the level of care. Mm-hmm. But I, my, my one contribution, my major contribution could be, I. Advocating for the care that I wanted for my son and pushing harder to hit our end goal of getting home. Like, you know,'cause there would be times like, oh, you know, feeding can't feeding therapy, can't come today because of this. And I'm like, no. They're like, I'll be here all day. They can come whenever they want, like squeeze us in. Like he, we need to try to feed him. Like, and that was when I realized. Like that I had power.

Monique: 35:05

Mm-hmm.

Molly: 35:06

Because I, I do feel like until 35 years old, I felt powerless. Mm-hmm. I felt like I had to do what everyone told me to do, and I was always that loud girl. Right. Like always that social butterfly. And, but it, I realized in the moment where I was like, no, let's try the caffeine and see if that helps him and we can get him home. That like, oh, holy shit. They listened to me and I was right.

Monique: 35:36

Mm-hmm.

Molly: 35:37

And so, you know, was there a moment or has there been a moment since you had your baby that you've realized, like a heightened sense of intuition when specifically when it comes to parent child interaction or someone else dealing with your kid? Like have you felt kind of an increase in that energy?

Monique: 35:57

Yeah, I would definitely say so. And um, just to your point of a couple things that you said, like, I think that one thing that we have to be really aware of is like, yes, we can receive support, but is it the support that you need? Right? Right. Because if it's not the support that you need, then you're not gonna be able to relax. You're not gonna be able to access your intuition and, um. Then like everybody pushing opinions on you or pushing things on you, like still, how does that feel in your body? Even when you are recovering from something as as big as birth, you can still feel like, I don't know, this just feels awful. Like even if I'm not 100% sure I need time to sit with this. Like you can always ask for time to sit with something to make a decision because. And like intuition is felt in the body. Like a lot of people will think like, I need to think about it. I need to think on it. No, stop thinking, because thinking is what the mind, the mind pulls from the past and projects it onto the future. We need to feel into it. We need to feel the energy of the situation. We need to feel the energy of the words that the person just said. We need to feel how it would feel for us to be in one scenario versus another scenario. Literally put yourself in each scenario. How do they feel? Feel that is your intuition talking to you. That is your body talking to you. So just like a little exercise that people can do, even if you've never worked with your intuition before, start feeling into potential solutions or potential experiences or potential outcomes. How do they feel? And if someone's asking you something and you're not 100% sure you're, you're not like getting a yes or no, just wait. Just ask for time to wait and then see what comes up. But back to answering your question, yeah, I would definitely say that like my intuition is heightened with my son. It's just, it's always been as soon as he cries, like I just know what he needs because I don't, I never overthought it. And that's what I think a lot of. Women are taught to do is like, oh, there are specific cries for different things. Or like, when your baby does this, like if they start to do this, like that means this or that means that. And like I, I just, I never overthought it and I actually stopped taking in external information because yes, although it's helpful, I didn't. Feel like it was helpful for me at that time in our journey of like those first few months I just needed.'cause I did have a lot of questions, like when you're a new mom, you are gonna have a lot of question. Yeah. Even when it's your second kid, it's almost like I feel like I'm, I'm seven months pregnant now, and I'm like, gosh, I feel like. I've never done this before, almost. It's like I've just been like wiped memory wiped and so when it comes to when or when it came to my connecting to my intuition and like connecting with my son and stuff, yeah, it was, it was always just like first instinct of what came up, of what he needed. I, I just followed it and it tend to work like he, thankfully. I, I don't know. He just, he is never, he was never a baby that cried a ton. Like yes, he went through his, his leaps or his moments of growth spurts and he went through sleep regressions and they were hard and we were both crying at times. But, but there was always like, it was always like, okay, he's crying. What does he need? I would just ask myself like, what does he need? And then the first thing that came up, I would just go with it. And then if that wasn't it, okay, maybe that was my mind trying to take over. What if I felt into it? If I just feel his energy, like if I'm just holding him close and he's crying and I'm feeling his energy, even if I just fed him and I'm like, he needs fed again. I just fed him again. I didn't care if I just fed him. I didn't care if you're supposed to wait however many hours. Like I just, I stopped overthinking, and when I stopped overthinking, I was able to get out of my head and into my body. That also helped me heal as well as helped me form my relationship with him and helped him feel safe too, because I was able to meet his needs because I wasn't like following some type of schedule or some type of timing or what this person said worked, works for baby. So this is what the everything should be. I just, I did what my intuition was leading me to believe because I, I let myself trust that and I, I let myself just kind of. Receive the messages from him and go from there. And then if I got it wrong, I didn't care. Like, okay, so what? What's next on the list? Like if I could feel into this, what's next? And that's something else. When you're working with intuition, you never want to be like, oh, well it was right this time, so I should do this again next. Or It's wrong, so I'm never gonna get this. No, no, no, no, no. Again, it's a muscle that needs work. There will be kinks that need to be worked out. You just need to. Take it as all data. It's all data coming in. Okay, this felt this way and I listened to it and it ended up working out. This felt this way and I listened to it and it wasn't quite quite right. So let me just keep track of this and in a week or so I'll look back and I'll see the parallels. Of what happened. So if someone wants to start working with their intuition, specifically with their babies or with your kids in general, that's a way that you can start or just with anything. Um, but yeah, it's felt, it's definitely felt and we have to get out of our head. So we have to practice relaxing. We have to ask for, for that support so we can relax, even if it's 10 minutes a day. So you can start letting that voice get louder and letting that that muscle get toned. And I think that's a big

Molly: 41:11

conversation as well,

41:13

And unfortunately it's where I'm gonna cut us off for this episode. It was so hard to edit this interview with Monique because we had such a great conversation going back and forth. Um, we are going to see you next week and continue talking about how you apply this sense of intuition, empathy, and just basic energy understanding to connecting with your child at any age. It doesn't have to necessarily be with a newborn, but so tune in next week. Thanks so much for listening. If you loved this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and leave a review. It really helps other moms find the show. For more tips, resources, and real talk on making time for you, head to Mama needs me time.com or follow us on instagram@mamaneeds.me time. See you next time.