Previa Alliance Podcast
There are few experiences as universal to human existence as pregnancy and childbirth, and yet its most difficult parts — perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) — are still dealt with in the shadows, shrouded in stigma. The fact is 1 in 5 new and expecting birthing people will experience a PMAD, yet among those who do many are afraid to talk about it, some are not even aware they’re experiencing one, and others don’t know where to turn for help. The fact is, when someone suffers from a maternal mental health disorder it affects not only them, their babies, partners, and families - it impacts our communities.
In the Previa Alliance Podcast series, Sarah Parkhurst and Whitney Gay are giving air to a vastly untapped topic by creating a space for their guests — including survivors of PMADs and healthcare professionals in maternal mental health — to share their experiences and expertise openly. And in doing so, Sarah and Whitney make it easy to dig deep and get real about the facts of perinatal mental health, fostering discussions about the raw realities of motherhood. Not only will Previa Alliance Podcast listeners walk away from each episode with a sense of belonging, they’ll also be armed with evidence-based tools for healing, coping mechanisms, and the language to identify the signs and symptoms of PMADs — the necessary first steps in a path to treatment. The Previa Alliance Podcast series is intended for anyone considering pregnancy, currently pregnant, and postpartum as well as the families and communities who support them.
Sarah Parkhurst
Previa Alliance Podcast Co-host; Founder & CEO of Previa Alliance
A postpartum depression survivor and mom to two boys, Sarah is on a mission to destigmatize the experiences of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs), and to educate the world on the complex reality of being a mom. Sarah has been working tirelessly to bring to light the experiences of women who have not only suffered a maternal mental health crisis but who have survived it and rebuilt their lives. By empowering women to share their own experiences, by sharing expert advice and trusted resources, and by advocating for health care providers and employers to provide support for these women and their families, Sarah believes as a society we can minimize the impact of the current maternal mental health crisis, while staving off future ones.
Whitney Gay
Previa Alliance Podcast Co-host; licensed clinician and therapist
For the past ten years, Whitney has been committed to helping women heal from the trauma of a postpartum mental health crisis as well as process the grief of a miscarriage or the loss of a baby. She believes that the power of compassion paired with developing critical coping skills helps moms to heal, rebuild, and eventually thrive. In the Previa Alliance Podcast series, Whitney not only shares her professional expertise, but also her own personal experiences of motherhood and recovery from grief.
Follow us on Instagram @Previa.Alliance
Previa Alliance Podcast
How to Navigate Motherhood the "Lazy Genius" Way with Kendra Adachi
In this episode Sarah speaks with Kendra Adachi, a three-time New York Times bestselling author, podcaster, and expert on compassionate time management about how to implement her Lazy Genius principles into our lives. From living in your season without resentment to the benefit of therapy this is a must listen episode to “be genius about what matters and lazy about what doesn't”.
About Kendra
Kendra Adachi is a New York Times bestselling author, nationally ranked podcaster, wife, and mother (no awards for those last two).
Her lifelong attempts at perfection have thankfully been tempered by age and therapy, and now she empowers people to get their stuff done without turning into a tired robot.
Favorite things include birds, books, Oxford shoes, and James McAvoy.
Kendra lives with her husband of 20+ years and three kids in their forever hometown, Greensboro, NC.
Kendra Adachi - The PLAN: Manage Your Time Like a Lazy Genius
Podcast #401 How to Live in Your Session (Without Resenting It)
Follow Previa Alliance!
Previa Alliance (@previaalliance_) • Instagram photos and videos
Keep the questions coming by sending them to info@previaalliance.com or DM us on Instagram!
Hi guys, welcome back to Preview Alliance podcast. This is Sarah, and this week I have the lazy genius Kendra Adachi on with me and we are gonna talk about living in your season and not being bitter and resentful for it and, as her tagline goes, we're going to learn to be genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. So stay tuned. Welcome, guys, to Preview Lions podcast. And today I have herself, the lazy genius Kendra. Welcome to Preview Lions podcast. I'm fangirling so excited right now.
Speaker 2:Oh, thanks Sarah, I'm happyangirling so excited right now.
Speaker 1:Oh thanks, Sarah, I'm happy to be here. So for listeners who may be living out in Iraq and have not heard of you, can you just introduce yourself to us and give us a little bit of what the lazy genius means?
Speaker 2:Definitely so. Being a lazy genius is about being a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't, and you get to decide what those things are in whatever season of life you are in. There is so much about how we need to be amazing at everything and put all of our best energy into every part of our lives, and I did that for a really long time. And then a lot of times we're like, oh wait, that is not sustainable, that does not work, I do not have energy for that. But what we often do is we swing to the other side of that and we go well, I just don't care, forget it, I'm going to be lazy about everything.
Speaker 2:And that is also unsustainable in its own way, because we are people who are made to care and there are things that we really love and we care a lot about and we want to put our time and energy into. And so the Lazy Genius is meant to create this wide middle between those two options. It's not just try hard and give up. It's not just like boss, babe and then like hot mess mom on the other side, like we have a wide middle of how we can each live, and so I've been doing that since 2015.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and personally, you're a mom, and tell us just a little bit. Do you think motherhood brought you to Lazy Genius forced you into it?
Speaker 2:So that's a great question. So when I grew up I'm like a recovering perfectionist, very type A I like organization, all the things. And so I started when I had my first kid. I have three kids my oldest is 15 now and when I had him I was like we are going to do this so well, I'm going to be so good at this and you know, I'm going to make all this food and I'm going to breastfeed and it's not going to be hard and like he's going to sleep great. And he none of those things happened. And so I really felt like, well, I can't, I can't do this.
Speaker 2:And then I had my second kid, two years almost to the day. So I was pregnant with like a one-year-old. And then I had another kid, like right after my oldest turned two. And that's when I swung to the other side and I was like, well, I can't do it all, so I might as well not do any of it.
Speaker 2:And that first year of my second child's life was kind of a blur because I wasn't anchored to anything. There wasn't anything that I felt like I was giving myself to, like even parenting, even mothering. It just was like that's not sustainable either. So in many ways, this concept was almost galvanized in my own life because I had children and then I have a daughter as well, who came as a surprise several years later. We can talk about how I took a pregnancy test in a kickboxing gym, thinking it was going to be negative, because I was going out for drinks that night with some friends and I was like, well, we should probably just, and it was two weeks before my husband was going to go get a vasectomy, so that was, that's fine. So yeah, motherhood has been quite a, quite a quite a journey.
Speaker 1:I tell people you are not the only person I would say more than not the vasectomy appointment has been made and they're like so guess what? And I'm like. That might be I don't know what that is, but that is more than not. I hear that story. It's the funniest thing, yeah, and I guess it's too, and I think I'm definitely a perfectionist. I'm a type A person and I find that this is often not talked about with moms when we're transitioning into motherhood or even the moment we're pregnant. Like you know, when you saw that pregnancy test in the kickboxing gym, you're just like something switches of what we ultimately, like you said, we want to care right, and it's engraved in mothers to be a good mom, right, and society is pressing down on us. Well, sally, down the block. You know she has five kids, crafts, organic, breastfed them all, and the fridge looks like you know something off the home. Edit.
Speaker 1:And here I am with one kid, or you know, I'm trying to work this job, so how does I guess this brings to a bigger conversation of where does it fit in to a mother's life, the lazy genius method, and really a deeper message of her self-worth and making it work for her?
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, okay. So if I could go back to my 27 year old self is that how old I was when I had my first kid? I think if I could go back to my new mom self, I would first want to, like, take her baby and tell her to go take a nap. That would be the first thing I would do, like, hey, just go take a break, be rested, and then we'll have this conversation. There was so much pressure for, and still is, outside cultural pressure to be, yeah, the best mom that I could be, to make the most of every opportunity with my kid, to make the most of every phase, stage of life and all of those things. And I have come to realize, because my primary you know, sort of job and message in this is time management. I talk about what I call compassionate time management because we still have to get our things done. We are still raising humans, we are still trying to make sure that they are clean and fed and loved and, as they get older, that they are still clean and fed and loved, but then you have to teach them how to clean themselves and it's like all of these things, so it never stops, like there's so much that we're always doing, but because of this message that we see everywhere and we don't even really know it, it's just in the water we swim in that we have to make the most of everything. They would have to be great at it all, and then everything is, through this lens of 10X optimize, level up, do the best that you absolutely can. If every single day is not built upon the one previous towards some ultimate goal of you being this amazing mother, then it was a waste of a day.
Speaker 2:I remember, and that's just not true. It's just not true, this kind of galvanized for me. I remember reading a book by a woman who was a time management book, just like how to manage your time as a mom, kind of vibe, and I was just desperate for help. I was so desperate this was in my, you know, two under two time and I remember she kind of laid out this picture of her two kids had, like they were chaotic and they didn't take their naps when they were supposed to, and she had to, like leave her cart in the middle of the grocery store because like somebody had a blowout, or you know, it was just this day of chaos. And then she followed it up with the next day. The kids slept. Not only did they both nap, but they napped at the same time, which is magical.
Speaker 2:And she, like, had on kind of real clothes. She had on hard pants, and dinner was made, there were all of these things that went really well. And she set it up. She said I was sitting at the table at my kitchen table reading a magazine, and my husband brought home a colleague for dinner unexpectedly. But the house was tidy, dinner was made, the kids were happy. You know, da, da, da. And what I wanted her to say was and both of those days count, that's what I wanted. And she said.
Speaker 2:she said, and I never felt prouder as a wife and mother than I did in that moment and I was like oh, I'm deflated, like I thought well, we can't have days like that.
Speaker 2:So does that mean that every single day is measured against that, against that sort of best day? And that's the pressure that we're all living under, that everything is measured against your best day. And I am just here to say to everyone who's listening there's no such thing, there's no such thing as a best day. And I am just here to say to everyone who's listening there's no such thing, there's no such thing as a best day, because best by whose measurement? Like at what cost?
Speaker 2:You know, I feel like when I have a good day, it's that I was kind to myself, that I was kind to my kids, that if I wasn't kind to my kids, that I went and apologized to them and I repaired and I was kind again afterwards because we make mistakes that I felt like myself and was kind to myself in whatever the circumstances were, that my best day is not dependent on my circumstances. Because I don't know if anybody knows this, but when you have children, you have very little control over your circumstances, and so it just becomes this like micromanaging of, almost like playing Barbies, you know, like you go here and then we hang at this up here and then this is kind of perfect this way and that is not real life. It's not real life. So, to look at your day not as like settling because it falls short of something, there's no falling short. There's no falling short, you are just being who you are, where you are, and it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing, it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:I think that's a beautiful tie into. I love one of your principles. It's living your season and I wish I would have went back, especially with my oldest, who's six now. And even when I was pregnant, I had a high risk pregnancy, so like I had to go on bed rest. So I like, literally you know my restrictions my life went away. My accomplishments was I'm a very like, I did this task. I'm accomplished. You know type of person I'm recovering. It's still a try, day after day, but I wish I would have had someone introduced to me this concept and that you know, when he was young and I was, and I was a nurse, but I did stay at home. I didn't have as much joy as being a stay at home mom as maybe someone else would, and I felt bad. It felt maybe ungrateful, or why am I complaining, Sarah? So just speak to what that means Live in your season and not being bitter because I was bitter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, Live in your season is. So. My first book, the Lazy Genius Way, has 13 principles, because most of us really don't need more hacks and like very specific things to do. There's already enough to do. We need some overlying, foundational. It's sort of like in the air. We need principles that can work with us, no matter who we are and what season we're in, and one of those principles is to live in your season and the difficulty. There's some difficulty there because we're like what if I don't? What if I don't like it? What if I don't like my season? I don't like being here, and part of living in your season is being honest about that and kind to yourself about that.
Speaker 2:I was the same way. I did not enjoy being a mom to little, tiny kids. I just felt like I was just a shell, Like I felt like I was. There's a line in Fellowship of the Ring when Bilbo says to Gandalf he says I feel like too little butter spread across too much bread. And that's how I felt when I was home with tiny children. I just was like there's not enough of me, there's not enough, I'm scraped, I'm pulling the bread with me, Like this is just, it's unpleasant for everyone. And if I were to stay in that space, that mindset of this sucks like I want this to be over. That's okay to feel that way.
Speaker 2:I think that living in your season is being honest and saying like this sucks and I really am going to be looking forward to when this is over and there is good here now. Both of those things can be true. There is good in the season you're in and you can also be honest about not really liking it very much, and I think that what that does is it sort of gives you permission to feel what you need to feel, but not let that feeling if it is kind of quote unquote, negative or discouraging or leads to resentment, it keeps that feeling from being in charge. You're acknowledging it at the table and you're going this is so hard and I do not like this and I really want this to be over and also I am going to allow the good that is.
Speaker 1:So, kendra, we've went through some principles. I mean a little bit of the lazy genius, but to continue on and live your season. Something that I want you to touch on that I heard you talk about recently is every season has something to teach us about ourselves, right, yeah, and I know I did not want to learn about myself because I was just surviving to be in that timeframe of being a new mom, but what can you say has taught you about living in your season and what you hear, like others, so I think for me personally, it depends a little on especially when you're thinking about motherhood.
Speaker 2:You know we talk it's so funny we talk about motherhood and parenting in general as almost like one thing. You know, like this is the thing that we do. And yet when you experience, when you're like, when you consider the personality of your kid, whatever things that they're going through developmentally that are really difficult, and the changes that happen so quickly and your own changes that are happening as you learn to figure out what it means to be a mother and the other things that are going on in your life, it's just kind of comical that we kind of have this expectation of ourselves that there is one way to do this thing, there is one way to be a mother, there is one way to be a parent, that we're all just trying to do this like match the picture on the box of the puzzle box, and so I think one of the biggest things that I've learned is that there's no puzzle box, like there's just not the way that I. I think that's also one of the beautiful things about living in your season is, by choosing to live in your season, as you are where you are, you are also giving other people permission to do the same for them. You know you mentioned the mom of five who crafts and cooks organic food, and you know all the things, and we compare ourselves to someone who's doing it differently than we are.
Speaker 2:I had a friend who I spent some time with when our kids were young, in the same age. She had two boys and she was a former preschool teacher or kindergarten teacher. She was a former teacher, so girl was like on it with the games and the you know like the manipulative thing, you know, like all these words I don't even know what they are like and she loved to cook and so she would cook a lot of new things and her kids were more amenable to new flavors and textures than mine were, and I really enjoyed being with her and her boys and she never, like, made her choices feel like I was supposed to do them too. You know there was no judge, she was just living her life. She was just living her life, and it took me a while to let her inside myself to go like. She can make different choices than I do. It's okay, it's not better or worse, it's just different choices, and so that is, I think the biggest thing that I've learned in living in my season is it does teach me about myself that really it allows me to have more compassion for other people who are choosing differently from me, which really invites so much permission and compassion and connection.
Speaker 2:Because you don't feel like you're trying to measure up or it doesn't feel like a competition. You know that you're just being two people who are being a mother the best way you can, or not even the best way you can, just in what way matters to you and just letting each other exist. You know, just like letting each other exist. I think that freedom has brought a lot of lightness to me, especially with the recovering perfectionist side of things and the it has to be a certain way. It really doesn't. It really doesn't.
Speaker 1:I love that and I love that you're even talking about this. I think everybody secretly maybe holds that in them as a competition factor or and it's not and they can be your close friend, they can be your neighbor, they can be someone you cheer and support on, but it's like this inner thing of well, she does it this way and I'm not. Am I failing? Or you know and that I hear that so much from moms is Sarah, I feel like I'm failing? Or you know I'm struggling, but I can't say that because then I'm a bad mom.
Speaker 1:And then if they have mental health struggles which is the number one complication of pregnancy and childbirth is maternal mental health illnesses, and I think I had to reframe and now I'm a lot more compassionate about myself and I tell people you know, if you are experiencing depression, if you are experiencing anxiety right, if you've had a traumatic birth, if you've had a miscarriage, that season of healing, work and treatment is going to be a lot different than the season that's after it, when you've on the path of recovering. But no one wants to talk about it and no one wants to see it that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, talk about it and no one wants to see it that way. Yeah, absolutely. I've used this analogy in my most recent book, the Plan where and I mentioned it just now but this idea of we think that life is putting a puzzle together, that it is okay. We have a picture on the box, this is what it's supposed to look like, and every piece has one spot. There's no fluidity, there's no adjustments. You're not cramming a puzzle piece into a new spot. It's very linear, it's very methodical. When you put a puzzle together, you'd start with the edges and then you group the flowers and the birds and the pink sunset, whatever, and we sort of have this.
Speaker 2:I think that's part of that sort of secret feeling we all have that well, her puzzle looks put together. This is matching. Mine isn't matching. I've lost pieces already. Like it's, it's already over, you know.
Speaker 2:Like there's this hopelessness, and so, instead of thinking of it that way, I love looking at life as the act of painting that you are showing up with whatever colors are at your disposal. It could be a preschool tray of primary color watercolors, it could be black paint, and that's all you've got today because you are just out of it. It could also be just this wealth of colors, and your painting could be detailed, it could be just one, you know, like very Jackson Pollock and abstract or whatever. And every single painting, every single day, every single season, no matter what it looks like, they all count because they're all life Like. If we can stop trying to match the picture on the box, there's just so much more like oh. And that also allows for, like you just said, when you are struggling with your mental health and all you have is one brushstroke in you and then you look at other people's fully put together puzzles, you feel like a trash person, and so this reframe, it really expands the sort of definition almost, of like what it means to just be a person. Some days it's really hard, but that does not mean it doesn't count in the same way as a day that was less hard. It's all part of your life and it all is part of you and it does teach us, it does help us become hard. Things really do make us. I usually struggle to say words like stronger or things that are a little bit superlative in nature, because then you're like well, if I don't come out quote unquote stronger by this definition, then did it really count. So it's less that, it's just you're just becoming more whole, you're just becoming more of who you are and it's just hard to see in it sometimes when you're in it.
Speaker 2:But I think that that analogy of puzzle versus painting has been deeply formative for me and just gives so much permission to yeah, on days that are like I can't get out of bed today, like I don't know what to do. I remember when I was pregnant with my second and my son was like a year and a half and he when I tell you that he went, he was 18 months old before he slept more than 15 minutes at a time. It was I don't know how I survived, like, genuinely, I don't know how we did it. I don't know how I survived Genuinely, I don't know how we did it. I don't know how we did it.
Speaker 2:I felt like I was going crazy and so part of that I was pregnant during. I was so tired and I remember lying on my couch because I couldn't get up. I was so exhausted and because I had started my parenting journey, my mothering journey, doing the classic my kid will never have screens, vibe, which is okay if you choose to choose that and you can sustain that. Everybody gets to make their own choices and that's beautiful. But I was saying that because I thought that's what I was supposed to say. I thought that that meant that I was doing a good job and I was like I cannot survive here, I don't have help right now. I wasn't living close to anyone who I knew very well and so I gave my kid I turn on PBS on the TV and I was like sit up here with me, just stay here. And I closed my eyes and went to sleep.
Speaker 2:And I remember closing my eyes and thinking am I a bad mom right now? Am I being a bad mom? And I'm so glad that there was this kind response right away that said no, you're doing what you need to do. You are a pregnant mom with an 18-month-old child and you are exhausted, lay here, let him watch Arthur, it's going to be okay. And it's those kinds of moments that we need to have, not just like a low key judgmental acceptance, for you know, like, well, you're right. I mean, you needed that then, but you can't do that forever. You know there's still sometimes we give this edge of judgment to that and it's like, no, let it be what it is. Right there, it's okay. That's a good day because you took care of yourself and your kid in a different way than you might've chosen if you had.
Speaker 1:And you talk a lot about being kind to yourself and speaking kind, and it's something that you know. I'm trying to teach my boys that too, like how we talk to ourselves. And I don't think you say, I don't think a lot of women mothers were ever taught how to speak kind to themselves. And then they enter into motherhood and you are met with so much criticism on the outside. On the inside you're saying it to yourself. You know. It's like where you turn there's marketing about motherhood and it's so you think it should be intuitive, right To be like oh, just be kind to yourself. But it's really a learned thing. So how did you learn how to be kind to yourself?
Speaker 2:Therapy. Mostly, I think that giving yourself the opportunity and you could do this with a friend, but there is a tremendous safety in speaking with someone who has no stake in your life. Just, they are completely neutral party and are trained to hold difficult things Like that's what they do is they hold space for hard things and so there was just so much healing for me and growth and depth and also like a release in saying to this person things that I probably would have been a bit scared to say to other people and and also kind of you know, we all have inner kind of messages and these defense mechanisms. We all know this. You know things from how we were raised and you don't necessarily know what they are, sometimes like they're just there, and then when you get into were raised and you don't necessarily know what they are, sometimes Like they're just there, and then when you get into a conversation and you articulate something, it's like, oh whoa, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Now I didn't realize that this is a vulnerable but also, I think, relatable example. So I had an abusive childhood. My father was abusive and my mother struggled with mental health for most of my childhood, and so it was a difficult home to be in. It didn't really feel safe and I decided as a little girl that it was up to me to kind of be my own safety but to also make sure that I did not do anything that would make anyone leave. You know, like it was up to me for everybody to stay together, for the family to stay together, because I did feel abandoned. I don't know that I I didn't articulate that word as a kid, but I felt that so fast forward.
Speaker 2:My son is three months old. Maybe we go to church and it's like quote unquote time for us to take him to the nursery so that we go to big service or whatever. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't leave him there because I knew he would cry, because he never slept, he was a difficult baby, all the things, and I knew he would cry and to me I thought that he would feel abandoned if he felt left, if he cried, when babies cry a lot and he would have been okay.
Speaker 2:But it took me months and conversations with my therapist to realize why that was so hard to leave him in the care of someone else, because I was afraid he was going to feel abandoned and I wouldn't have known that I wouldn't have known that without the help of the therapist and so, and that allowed me to be kind to myself when I did cry, when I left him with a very sweet nursery worker and I'm crying and I left and I cried too because it was so hard, but I was able to be kind to myself and go. It makes sense that this is hard. Of course, this is hard. You love him and this is difficult to hear him cry and also you're both okay, like you're okay now. You weren't okay then, but you are okay now, and he is't okay then, but you are okay now and he is too. And that's kindness Like being with yourself, even in really difficult emotional situations is also kindness. So I'm such a proponent of therapy. I think everybody should have a therapist.
Speaker 1:We, we that's our stance is that you know you, therapy is for everyone and we are so encouraging and I, I go back and people go. What's the one thing you would do different? I said I would have gotten into therapy. Yeah, it's so insightful and it's good for our children because to see our us as parents doing the work, you know, looking inward, and I love that you're open about it and supportive of it and I, one of your podcasts you were talking about how that therapist allows you to be raw.
Speaker 1:I tell people this. I said you know they're like well, if you're having an issue, say with your husband or maybe this person at work, and you're having a conflict, and it's like, well, if you go talk to your therapist about it, maybe your initial like you know like out and it's like you're not hiding that from that person, right, but you're saving that person from probably some things that you need to work through. Saying it first and process and be like that was kind of tough Because I've done that. I've done it to my husband where I have unleashed and I've been like, oh, it's really. I said that the wrong way. I came across so ugly and I've ruined that opportunity with him, to come to him in like a nice way or just like a saying Sarah way instead of crazy. So I love that point that you made. Was that initialness, because I don't think people realize how powerful that is that second conversation.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, it is. I think it's true. I think one of the things that has made me a better parent and better, you know, but a parent that I the kind of parent I want to be which is connected to my kids, engaged in their lives, a safe place for them to come. You know, I'm very much a person who's like I want you to know that you are loved more than you are compliant Like. That's more important to me. Now, everybody gets to choose what matters most to them, but that is what matters to me.
Speaker 2:But one of the things that sort of gives me the tools to be the sort of parent that I want to continue being is getting out some of those initial frustrations with my children, with my therapist, because I have two teenage boys now and y'all listening don't have teenagers probably yet, and they're a delight, and they're also kind of gross and mean and it's both at the same time, and so it's really helpful for me to be like why is I get out that frustration? And then I find, kind of the core of my own fear really, that sometimes we equate our children's behaviors with our own success, quote, unquote our own success as a person, as a parent, whatever. And so it allows us to articulate almost what's really going on, so that we don't take that frustration, that misplaced reason of what's going on, to our kid, who's just like trying to figure out how to be a person too. So I think therapy when you are a parent is a tremendous tool. A tremendous tool and it takes the edge off for people who this is a funny example, but for people who watch the Office, there's a little scene where Pam answers the phone and she sends it through to Michael Scott, who's a chaotic person and he will always respond.
Speaker 2:He was like hey, sarah Perra, how's it going? And she's like still me, hold on. She always pretends. She sends the first call through as a pretend so he can get the weird wiggles out and then he's like oh hi, sarah, how are you?
Speaker 2:Like I feel like that's what therapy does, sort of lets us get our weirdness out on the first pass and then we can go to our people and we're like more calm and whole and connected.
Speaker 1:And it's great. I love that. I absolutely love that. So now everybody knows what I would have done differently. So what? We ask this to all our guests. So what would Kendra, now teenage mom, been through it? Go back that first pregnancy test. What do you, what would you want to say to her?
Speaker 2:Man, so many things, but I think the biggest thing is just to be kind to yourself, like this is going to be hard and it's going to be beautiful. And it's going to be beautiful and it's going to be confusing and it's going to feel like forever and it's going to go so fast and the process of not just it's becoming a mother, it's not just once the baby's here, like all of those things. It's a series of seasons that are overlapping and it's a lot to take in. And then sometimes you're like, am I going to be here forever? Like it's just a strange paradox, yeah, of like light and dark and hard and beautiful, all these things. And when we are whether it's parenting or any other phase of life, season of life, when things feel unsteady or like they're not anchored or they're changing too fast or not changing fast enough, when things don't feel like they're just going according to plan which is very rarely, by the way. But when we're in that place, for me it's very easy for me to become an assessor, become analytical about it, that I'm trying to figure out how to fix the thing, and I kind of turn into a robot sort of and robots are not known as kind beings, you know they're like get her done, let's get it done. And so it makes sense that I would feel that way, that I would feel untethered and worried and confused and in needing of fixing things. And there is something pretty spectacular about meeting that energy with kindness and going. You know, it doesn't take away the confusion or the desire to fix things or whatever, but it's sort of like just a softer place to land with it where you're going. You know what I don't love this feeling Like, for example, if you have a little kid at home and you're postpartum and you're in a recovery, you're like equally in a recovery season and also like trying to figure out how to take care of this human and there's laundry all over the place, like that's a common.
Speaker 2:You know that's a common occurrence. You can say to yourself man, I'm really overwhelmed that there's laundry all over the place, I'm really overwhelmed. And you can at the same time, you can say and it's okay, this is the season that I'm in and it's okay that there's laundry all over the place. I'm not a bad mother, this is actually just normal.
Speaker 2:This is a morally neutral thing that there's always something dirty to be washed or folded or put away or whatever, and at the same time, a kindness too could be hey, is there a way? Would it help me feel more like myself if I did address this thing, if I did put a little energy into this thing? I can't put this amount of energy into everything right now, but maybe the laundry is kind of making me discouraged to a level that other chaos in the house is not. So is there a kindness in me, sort of looking at that and going I wonder if I can I don't know organize this a little bit more, like maybe take one small step in making this a little less chaotic for me it might help.
Speaker 2:Like it's not that kindness means that you just are like, well, screw it, this is how it is. Like sometimes that's how we feel and that's okay. And other times kindness is entering into what matters to you, entering into what makes you feel like yourself, entering into what makes you maybe feel calm, like a little bit more calm. So, yeah, kindness is just really powerful. It's just really powerful.
Speaker 1:I love that. So our listeners who want to find more of you, who want to hear more, tell us where we can find you, where we can buy what's coming up in the future, any fun projects you can hint at.
Speaker 2:That's very sweet. So I'm an author. I have three books. They're all New York Times bestsellers, which I only say that because not to like toot a horn, because that's weird, but it's a very resonant message. It's really spectacular and humbling to see these books do what they have done, and I think it makes sense in many ways, because we need someone to kind of be a kind big sister and come along and be like hey, you're doing great. And also, if you want a little help in making this one hard thing a little easier, here's some help, but you don't have to fix everything at once. So the two best books for that are the Lazy Genius Way those are the 13 Lazy Genius Principles and then my recent book, the Plan is about compassionate time management specifically for women. Since 93% of time management books are written by men, I think we need some more ladies to talk into that space, absolutely, and so those are two books that I think would be really helpful.
Speaker 2:And then I have a podcast the Lazy Genius Podcast. Episodes are on Monday. They're pretty short, they're 20-ish minutes and the titles are very specific. 20-ish minutes and the titles are very specific. So if you are looking for, like even Google, lazy genius baby or lazy genius mom or something like that, and you'll see some episodes come up that could be very relevant to you, to the people listening. So those are the places to go. I love it.
Speaker 1:I'm obsessed. So, Kendra, thank you. You are the big sister voice to us who we need in our lives, and thank you for your vulnerability and just transparency and being like you know. Really, I think there's so much power when we share and we say come along with other people on a journey that we've went on and are on and you're changing lives. So we're just really appreciative of that, Thank you. Thank you for having me. All right, guys, we will be back next week.
Speaker 3:Maternal mental health is as important as physical health. The Preview Alliance podcast was created for and by moms dealing with postpartum depression and all its variables, like anxiety, anger and even apathy. Hosted by CEO founder Sarah Parkhurst and licensed clinical social worker Whitney Gay, each episode focuses on specific issues relevant to pregnancy and postpartum. Join us and hear how other moms have overcome mental health challenges, as well as access tips and suggestions on dealing with your own challenges as moms. You can also browse our podcast library and listen to previous episodes at any time. Please know you're not alone on this journey. We're here to help.