Welcome back to Conquering Chaos a mom's guide to self-care and sanity . I'm your host , sydney Crowe , and today we have Alyssa Ran . Alyssa is a speaker and transformation coach who has touched down touched countless lives with her message of pursuing your passions . In every season , her captivating and vulnerable stage presence has activated audiences worldwide , while her coaching has impacted hundreds over the last decade . She's been featured in publications like Faith Heart Magazine and Mummy Brain and events like Fear Into Faith and Wives of Integrity Conference .
Speaker 1Alyssa openly shares her up-and-down journey of pursuing her dreams without sacrificing her family . She empowers ordinary women to resurrect their dreams , fostering profound change in their families and communities . Alyssa enjoys precious moments with her families and cozy journaling session over a warm cup of tea . Welcome , alyssa . Thank you , so excited to be here with you . I am so excited that we connected . We were just kind of having a little bit of backstory before the episode kicked off and I feel like our stories are very parallel . You know , we've been talking a little bit about how motherhood has impacted you and how you were able to take that you know , maybe not so much dark period of life , but it definitely a harder season for sure and transform yourself , and now we're paying that forward , so I'd love for you to share with the listeners who you are and what you're all about .
Speaker 2Yeah , I'd love to . It really was when I had my first son he's six now , and when I first had him it was a struggle Like I had pictured . You know the commercials where you see the mom like sitting with her baby , just looking all like , you know , looking at the baby , and adoration and so much joy and maybe a little bit tired but like , for the most part , just super in love and like looks motherhood , looks good on her , and I thought that's what I was going to have . And what I got , though , was so much more difficult than that . It really just felt like this dark you said a darkness , and it really was . It felt like this dark fog had just come over what was supposed to be the happiest moment of my life the happiest , you know first , you know months of my life having a newborn baby , and it just wasn't . I had post-prime depression , and it was just such a struggle . I remember like getting in the shower and just crying to myself and thinking , you know , lord , like I can't do this , like I don't know what to do here . I feel like I made a mistake and , you know , like my baby , like this sweet little , innocent , beautiful baby boy , like he just deserves so much better .
Speaker 2And I just went through his first year like that , for some reason I thought , you know , once I hit one year , like once I hit his first birthday , it's all going to be okay , like it will just go away , everything will be fine .
Speaker 2And I found that I was just wishing the time away in that first year , just wishing away all of those firsts . And you know , like posting about his first tooth popping through , you know , like on social media you get all excited and you're like , oh , you know , he just popped his first tooth and he's so great and all these things , you know , and I'd , you know I'd post it . And then I just feel like , oh , like I can't do this for another six months , like I don't know how I'm going to actually get through this . And you know it was just counting down the days , like , oh great , he popped his first tooth , we're one step closer to being out of this dark period . You know it wasn't like a celebratory my child's growing , it was okay . Just get to the first year and like , let's hope that this ends .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean , and I think a lot of women go through that , thinking , you know , motherhood is gonna be this picture perfect , or like they have this idea of what it should look like and then , when the reality sinks in and they're feeling over-exhausted and depressed and they're going through all of these motions and they there isn't this normalization around it .
Speaker 1So I appreciate you coming on and being vulnerable and sharing that story , because I think it's so important that we start bringing these conversations to the mainstream , because so many women struggle in silence and there's so many ways now that we can help them and support them , and I think that that's where this podcast was born from . It's like I went through something very similar where I was , you know , feeling very isolated and alone , and it wasn't so much my first year . It was when my second daughter was born , that I started to have more struggles with my oldest and had a newborn baby , and I was like what have I done , you know ? And I just remember like raging and being so unemotionally , like emotionally unregulated and just not being able to control and figure this all out , and just being like what is going on . You know , I thought this was supposed to be the most beautiful time of my life , and there was so much guilt and shame around that . So , yeah , why don't you talk more about that ? Because I know that you felt something similar .
Speaker 2Oh yeah , like you said , it was just the guilt and the shame surrounding that . So for me , like the depression before and like knowing that I wished away that time , it was really . It was bad , like it hurt a lot , but what was worse , almost , was the guilt afterwards , Dealing with that guilt and just like I lost a year of my son's life basically you know , like being stuck in this fog , and then you know all the things come up of oh my gosh , what kind of mom am I ?
Speaker 2Like that I was wishing away that time , and what kind of mom am I that I was even thinking about , you know , not wanting to be a mom and , yeah , like the guilt around all of those feelings and thoughts was just so overwhelming . And , you know , guilt for moms , I feel like it just carries . It carries throughout everything , if we don't learn how to recognize it and stop it and redirect and , you know , speak truth over ourselves .
Speaker 1So , yeah , because we're our worst critics , right , it's , we're always our hardest , like we judge ourselves the hardest . We want this like perfect picture , perfect life , that we have this like idea in our head and then when we feel like we're falling short on that , it's not that it's falling short , because on , from the outside , everything looks really great and it is really great , but mentally , that load of carrying it all and feeling that like that weight of perfectionism . You know , I had a coach just actually this morning talk about it and talk about how it's so common for us not to celebrate the small wins , right . And so when you break down your whole week and you can look at that and say , well , sure , that there was a bad moment here , sure , maybe I could have stepped up a little better there , but overall I've had this amazing moment and this amazing moment . And it's so easy for us to just focus on those two negative situations or make negative moments where we maybe we're not at our best , but we were at our best in so many other ways . So it is really important that we learn how to look at the bigger picture and really just celebrate those smaller wins .
Speaker 1You know , maybe it's just the fact that you had a shower today , like high five to you , right ? You took some time for some self-care and had a moment of peace and quiet . You know , I know that that's not always available for all the mums , but it is . It's those little pockets of every day . You know it doesn't have to be this picture perfect Instagram post that you know we curate right and that we see .
Speaker 2Yes , and that too , I was just thinking about that the other day , about just the comparison that we have available to us as mums . Like you know , in the age of social media and all the different ideas flooding in , we have so much to compare ourselves to and not realizing we take a piece of like , say , that post , or even if we see multiple posts from this person , a very small fraction of their life , and we start to compare our entire life around just that piece , just that little sliver of what they're showing us , and that gets that guilt going too . You know , it's 100% , yeah , it's just prodding us to .
Speaker 1you know , like , see , you're not , you're not doing good here and you're making a different decision here , and you know just yeah , well , and like now that we're in the day and age where we have trillions of pieces of information at our fingertips , right , we've got podcasts and audio books and the internet and social media , and like the list goes on and on and on . Like when we were younger , it was like we had to go to the library and look up in psychopedias or talk to your neighbor . You know it was just trillions of pieces of information coming at you , and so you know there isn't a single way to do motherhood that's like , oh , this is perfect and everybody should follow this method , because if there was , we would know about it .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah . Yeah so you've been able to take this , all of your experience , your postpartum depression , and transform this into speaking on stages , being on the cover of magazines , transforming hundreds of women's lives around the world . How do you do that , like ? How do you help moms remove the guilt from their lives , pursue their dreams , awaken these desires , like I mean , just hearing you talk about how you've been able to pay that forward and leave that impact has been really inspiring , so I'd love for you to share that with the listeners .
Speaker 2Yeah , I mean it kind of . After dealing with postpartum depression , I knew that there was this desire to help , to help other moms , especially when I started speaking out about postpartum depression and having other moms like in come into my inbox and be like , oh my gosh , thank you for sharing that . Like I dealt with that too , or you know , and they they didn't have a place to talk about that and they felt ashamed to even bring it up so they weren't getting any sort of help that you know they could have been getting . And so I knew , like , from that moment , like I just had this desire to help moms like planted within my heart and it has transformed , you know , sent them . It's transformed a little bit to where , you know , because I , through motherhood , we go through like these ebbs and flows and we , you know , we almost can sometimes kind of lose ourselves right , like who actually am I outside of motherhood ? And I Want to be this great mom and I also have like this desire that's within me to go do something else . And how do I marry the two ? And ? And one thing I realized is that there there's some things that are keeping us from actually Recognizing our dreams and desires and goals and a lot of that is .
It comes down to guilt , it comes down to not releasing or not Not dealing with our past , almost , you know , not going back and kind of recognizing those things , the hard stuff , right it's . It's keeping that that part of us that can dream kind of blocked off and shut off . And so what I found is when we can get past those things as moms and we can we can have that , that time to go through those hard feelings and also start giving ourselves some time with self-care .
Speaker 2I know you talk about a lot of , you know , self-care and it looking different for everyone and not being a Check the box . You know , I heard , I heard that on your podcast . We're like it . We don't want it to be like another thing on your to-do list . You know it's meant to be something that's refreshing and I'm gonna be able to enjoy it for sure and helpful and and just helping moms get to a point where they can do that , so they can actually start dreaming again , because the things that we go through actually Pro like , propel us towards our dreams , or like our passions , our purpose , and you know that was my story and and I know that's part of your story too .
Speaker 2You know , wanting to bring awareness to certain things because you went through it . Yeah , I just , I just think that's so important and I want to . I want to spread that and just get moms to . You know , motherhood is beautiful and it's challenging and there's also a part of you that you're not just mom , you're something else and when you find that dream and that passion , you get to now go out and like Impact the lives of other people , you know , and it's I always think about . You know , when you make it through something , it's like you're turning back . You just have to be a couple steps ahead and you're turning back and you're taking the hand of those who are behind you and Like bringing them forward with you .
Speaker 1Yeah , I love that . I mean , and it's such a powerful analogy , right , and it's it's really important that we , you know , build that village and help the women , right , I think it's and that's what this is all about , right , I wanted this podcast to be so powerful where we could bring this community together and make these connections and start bringing these Conversations to the forefront , because , even if it's not even in the capacity of them working with one of us directly , it's like we're putting these conversations out there so that these women are not like sitting at home feeling so alone , feeling like there's something wrong with them , because you know they wanted to be a mom so bad . And then they got there and it was just like , oh , like a punch in the gut , almost like you're like this is just not what I expected , this is not like . And then you start thinking it's , it's me , right , like all these other people have these picture perfect , curated hosts .
Speaker 1So are you like mentioned , like the the TV commercial where you're like I just wanted to be like looking down at my son and it would be like this you know , beautiful commercial moment , and it's like there's so much media and marketing that's portraying motherhood in this , like it's just beautiful and glorious , but they don't highlight the struggles . And it is struggling right . Like you said , it is beautiful and it is glorious , but it's also really freaking hard , and so it's like let's get these conversations out there so that we can help support women and just say like hey , you're not alone . Just because you're having a tough day or a tough month or a tough season right now , it doesn't make you a horrible mom . You're gonna get through this and there are so many resources and people out there that want to help you and that you can lean on , and so thank you for coming on and sharing that . Is there any last tips that you'd love to share with the listeners while I have you here ?
Speaker 2Yeah , I would just love to share that . You know , sit , just take time to sit , and the first thing that I can give you because we talked a lot about guilt , you know , like in motherhood just sit and really think like , what am I feeling guilt right now ? Because the number one thing is acknowledging it . Right , we want to sit and we want to acknowledge it , give it the space to actually come into our minds , be like , oh yes , I'm feeling guilt , and then you name it , you name what it is , you name what okay . So , if it's , you know , maybe you feel guilt over actually taking self care , like going to the gym and exercising or whatever it could be right . We could choose to feel guilt over a lot of different things and saying , okay , this is when I'm feeling guilt over .
Speaker 2Now , what is that guilt saying to me ? Because that is the only way when you can recognize , like this is what it's actually saying , and knowing , like , okay , is that actually accurate ? Am I really a bad mom Because I'm going for 30 minutes to work out ? Or , you know , go to the coffee shop to sip on my coffee in peace and quiet with you know , headphones in . I'm really a bad mom for doing that Well , no , no , I'm not .
Speaker 2Like you know , like you mentioned , there's so much throughout our week and we tend to look at maybe what we think we did wrong , you know , or places where we actually could have done better , and I think that's an important , that's a really good thing . To point out too is that conviction and guilt are two different things . That's really important to get , and I actually talk about that in my training and workbook that I actually want to offer for free to everyone , and it talks about the difference of guilt and conviction , and then I walk them through these seven different steps to get rid of the guilt . So once you , once you've recognized it , once you've named it and you know what it's saying to you , like now we're going to actually turn that around and remove that guilt for good and hands actual tools to do it every day , any day that you need it .
Speaker 1That's so powerful , and thank you for gifting that to the listeners . You guys , we will make sure that that is in the show link so that you'll be . You guys will be able to have access to download that free course and workbook with Alyssa , and I think that is really important ,
right ? Like , like you said , guilt and conviction are very , very , very different things , and our ego tends to play a big role in the differentiating factor of that . So , making sure that you're not just beating yourself up for that , for something that just probably isn't even true , yeah , right . So thank you , alyssa , for being here . I'm so grateful that we've been able to connect and get in each other's orbit . You guys , thank you for tuning in to today's episode , where we help you conquer the chaos one day at a time .