The Motherhood Mentor

Matrescence: The core shifts of identity in motherhood with Kendra Williams 

• Rebecca Dollard: Somatic Mind-Body Life Coach, Enneagram Coach, Speaker, Boundaries Coach, Mindset • Season 1 • Episode 3

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On today's episode of The Motherhood Mentor podcast I’m joined by my friend and fellow mom coach Kendra Williams. 

Kendra Williams is a motherhood coach who helps high achieving women redefine success in motherhood and beyond. She is a certified conscious parent coach, master practitioner of NLP and Mama Rising Facilitator.

Wife and mother to 2 she is passionate about re-writing the modern motherhood experience so women can enjoy TF out of their own lives while raising the next generation.

Today Kendra and I are talking about matrescence and the core identity shifts that take place in motherhood. Matrescence teaches us more than just the physical changes of pregnancy and childbirth—there is also a  profound psychological and emotional shift that reshapes every aspect of a woman's life. From the exhilarating highs to the challenging lows, we discuss the inner healing work that takes place in a mother’s life. Whether you're a new mom, seasoned pro, or just curious about the journey ahead, this podcast will give you insights and permission to how you are shifting and growing as much as your child is. 

We tackle topics today like  the different hats and roles of motherhood, inner child healing, internal family systems, the power of mentorship, and share about our journeys in motherhood. 

Referenced Video that describes having different "parts" of you (Internal family systems/integrative somatic parts work) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZutYzsuC9Wk


You can find Kendra and her work here: https://www.kendra-williams.com/ 
Waitlist for Kendra's group program Free the Mother : https://www.kendra-williams.com/unleashed-waitlist

Kendra’s IG:
http://www.instagram.com/kendramariewilliams



Join us next time as we continue to explore the multifaceted journey of motherhood.

Thank you for tuning in to The Motherhood Mentor. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review us.

Stay connected with us on social media and share your thoughts and experiences tagging @themotherhoodmentor

Becca :

Welcome to the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. I'm Becca, a holistic life coach, mom of two, wife and business owner. This is a podcast where we will have conversations and coaching around all things strategy and healing that supports both who you are and what you do. So grab your iced coffee or whatever weird health beverage you are currently into and let's do the damn thing. Welcome to today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor Podcast.

Becca :

I am so excited for my co-host and guest today, kendra. She is a motherhood coach who helps high achieving women redefine success in motherhood and beyond. She's a certified conscious parenting coach, master practitioner of NLP and mom arising facilitator, wife and mother to two. She is passionate about rewriting the mother, the modern motherhood experience, so women can enjoy the fuck out of their own lives while raising the next generation.

Becca :

And I just have to say that, like Kendra and I met on Instagram. We connected through DMs and had been chatting a little bit, and then we met on a Zoom and it was just this instant like oh my gosh, I want to talk to you. This is my people, just the work you were doing with mothers. And so, as soon as I was starting a podcast, I was like I have to have Kendra as one of my first people, because these are the kinds of conversations that I think women and mothers are craving, but our culture just keeps giving us this like candy snacks and these band-aids. And what I love about you is that you talk about the thing actually going on underneath the thing. So if you will introduce yourself just like a little bit and today we're going to talk about mattresses Did I say it right? This?

Kendra:

time, yes, you did.

Becca :

Okay, this is a word and an experience that I think most moms have, but that none of us really had language or permission for. So tell us just a little bit about you and what we're going to talk about today.

Kendra:

Yeah, of course. Hello, and thank you for having me on this podcast. It's so fun to see you. We haven't hung out in a while.

Kendra:

Yes, I'm Kendra, we both live in Colorado and I just love talking about that word mattresses because I went through this huge. What I felt was like a personal development portal, like I felt like I had died and was reborn in motherhood. I was coming out the other end and then this word I found on Instagram. Of course, it's like what is this mattress? This sounds too fancy. What is this? And I learned about it and I was like oh my God, that's what I just experienced, that's what I just went through.

Kendra:

And mattresses, in the simplest of terms, is the process of becoming a mother. It's been around for over 50 years and I think the idea that I had, and what maybe most of you listening had, is that we become a mother, like when we pee on the stick and you're like I'm pregnant, or the baby comes out and you're like I'm a mom now, but like you get the title but you kind of feel like I was just a kid. I've never held a baby, I don't know what I'm doing, how to handle the tantrum. It takes time to be fully embodied in that role, and that's what mattresses is. It's the inner world shifting and adjusting and your relationships adjusting and your career adjusting to this new role that you got in an instant.

Kendra:

So it does provide language where we just didn't have it before, because I think the experience now is you become a mom and you either love it instantly it's rainbows and butterflies or you're like, oh shit, something's wrong with me. I must have postpartum and everyone's labeling I've got postpartum because I'm not perfect and I don't understand it and I'm not loving it. And this gives us so much space and that's what I think we'll talk about here is like what happens in that space and the space of becoming, and it's scary if no one tells you that you're supposed to be in that space. And it gets to be fun almost when you're like, oh, I'm allowed to be here, I'm allowed to be a beginner at this whole gig, yeah.

Becca :

Yeah, well, when you touched on something that I feel like I talk about all the time to women is there's a difference between the role of mother, like it, and it is a whole ass role, like it is an entire. You are managing an entire human beings mental, physical, social, environmental, health. And so there's all these parenting experts that have sprung up to teach us the act of mothering, which I think is beautiful, wonderful, helpful. And what about the being? You said like the becoming, like the identity of who we are. So in your work, how do you work with women on not just what they're doing as a woman, but who they are? Would you say the mattressence?

Becca :

I don't like think of it when I'm saying it now. I think I said it. I don't know how I said it. Anyways, there's this who were becoming as a mother, or who were, who were not anymore, this evolution of identity and self concept and the embodiment of who we are. And then there's the role we have as mothers. Would you say mattressence is both of those, or do you think it's describing the role of motherhood or the identity of the woman who is becoming the mom? Does that make sense?

Kendra:

It makes perfect sense to me to answer it in two parts, because I believe there are actually three parts to motherhood. This is one of like the foundational frameworks I give to everyone that enters my world. There is you touched on two of them being a mom I always use the analogy when you put on that mom hat. What happens to the woman wearing the hat? It's like a swirl in the inner world, is shaken up like a snow globe. There's being a mom that has nothing to do with your kids, it's just it's you girl. And then there's doing, the mothering. That's the parenting, the mental load, the logistics, the cooking, the cleaning. And then there's relating. They are all mattressence.

Kendra:

And I kind of pull people into my world with stories of relating, because I have a storyline in my own life where my marriage fell apart. We separated, we came back together. I have the Silicon Valley workaholic boss, babe, who chose to stay home, and now I'm a motherhood coach. I have all of these storylines but what they really speak to is I dove into the being. I let the doing change me, I let the tantrums and the triggers change me, and then I show up in the world as this new person and people get really excited about the after stories, the relating, and it's like, okay, if you want to relate differently to your husband, we've got to dive into your being.

Kendra:

What are you becoming? And we actually have to start with who you, who were you, and so mattressence is all of those. I think the world just gives a lot, a little too much, credit to the doing because we're so obsessed with productivity. But it does create who you are Like. If you have a very sensitive child or any type of special needs, high needs child, your parenting is going to trigger you and that's going to change your inner world as well. I would 100% put that as part of mattressence. So you have the being, doing and relating all a part of mattressence.

Becca :

Yeah, and what I love about that is it's a holistic view of the mother and I think that has become so separated. You know, when moms come to me there's I often share the experience of five different moms can share with me the same experience on their intake form and all five of them are going to need a different thing because of who they are or what they're doing, or where they've been or where they're trying to go, and understanding the whole person, the whole thing going on, the whole picture of who you are as a holistic mother. There's the mother doing, there's the mother being, and then there's the way that you're relating to all of it. What do you feel for you impacted? Was there, was there a point that you remember that like something shifted, where you realized you couldn't just keep changing behavior or focusing on what you were doing? Was there a moment where you remember like, oh, there's something like inside I'm going to have to work on this like deeper spiritual journey that I think it's hard to explain sometimes or it's hard to bring people into, because where is society that, like highly views productivity? So women are like I want to stop yelling and it's like well, what's making you yell? Where's that anger coming from? Because we have to talk about that.

Becca :

So, was there? Was there a behavior that you saw that kind of brought you to the deeper inner work? Was it the relationship stuff that you were just mentioning? Because that was it for me is, when I saw the relationship. I saw the smoke and I saw the smoke becoming this massive fire and I was like, if I don't do something, we're not surviving this. I'm not like you, me or the baby, one of the three of us. Something we can make it like this isn't going to work, and that's what prompted the deep interchange. Was there a moment like that for you? Was there a season?

Kendra:

Yes, there was an actual moment on September 5th of 2019. Oh wow, yeah.

Becca :

I have an actual date and a time and I have a whole ass moment.

Kendra:

I had to under two. My son was already. It's a now misdiagnosis, but at the time he had a diagnosis of autism at 22 months. I was a stay at home mom by choice and I was not loving stay at home mom life One. I was missing, being in sales and like hitting my numbers and knowing that I was effing, crushing it. I was really struggling with my son because obviously he had an early diagnosis. Something was up and then I accidentally had the second one, so they were way too close together.

Kendra:

I was getting therapies for my son, I was carting him around and I had my daughter. I had my daughter clipped into the mamoru and I had her in a play pen that was bolted to the wall because my son was so physical and I would call violent. He was only 22 months but he was hitting and throwing and biting. I thought my daughter was safe, so I go around. I was never allowed to do this. I had to go around to the kitchen to reheat my coffee and I come back and he had hopped over the play pen and flipped her over in the mamoru when she was facedown and I filled with rage Like no one has ever seen Kendra fill with rage before and I was like fuck it, like this is it. That was supposed to be the safety corner. Fuck it, that is my corner. And within six hours I had Christmas put up in that corner and September September 5th 2019, christmas was rock and rollin' in the corner of the house. That was my inner child screaming like it needs to be about me.

Kendra:

But at the end of that day, I spoke to my husband and I'm like we can't fix my. We can't do anymore for my child. We're not going to quote unquote fix him, get him to be quote unquote normal. Something has to change within me. We are literally doing everything all of the resources, all of the sleep coaches. I was saying if there is a mom coach, I want one.

Kendra:

I was already on medication. I was in therapy and they kept on telling me your son's really hard. The message I received was just, this is a hard time. He's a hard kid kind of like waited out and I was like this can't be it.

Kendra:

I had already been begging, like this must be postpartum, like everyone else, like label me so I feel like I make sense and they're like no, you don't Like. You're having a very appropriate response to what's going on and the takeaway was okay, I'll take my medication, I'll go to therapy and literally, this is it, this is it. And then I decided that night this isn't it. I don't know what I'm going to do, I don't know who I'm going to find, but I'm going to do the inner work and figure out what's going on within me, because if I can't get him to stop crying for all these hours, then I need to somehow get okay with it If this is the normal. That was my breaking point to somatic coaches, women's circles, learning about matrescent, all of the things. And it's not that weird actually to put Christmas up in September, now that we've lived in like the pandemic life, but in 2019, that was a big, freaking deal.

Becca :

Oh my gosh, you just shared such like a powerful story and one of the things I'm hearing in it and I wonder if you would relate to this. I meet so many women who are like I'm doing fine, I'm coping, and everyone's telling me that this is okay, like that, this level of how I'm showing up, it's just normal. And I meet a lot of clients, and even myself included. I looked at that and I said, yeah, okay, fine, but can't I equip myself? Isn't there some way to equip myself, equip my marriage, equip who I am as a person, so that I can handle this better, so that I can take on this pressure, not because I was awful or there was some shame about how much I was struggling, but because there was absolutely something that could take me from this baseline to being able to carry it in a different way, to hold it in a different way, to lead it in a different way.

Becca :

And I think that's why I love coaching is it comes along and says, like here's where we are, here's where we're wanting to go, and like, how do we bridge that gap? But not from this assumption that, like you're just this broken thing and this is how you always be, we can equip and grow mental, emotional maturity and strength. What would you say, builds up women? What built you up to take you from this is I can't do this anymore, right? Like something has to change in me. What were those things that changed in you and I know it's hard to like break it down, like it's okay if it's overall themes what were the things that shifted in you that did change?

Kendra:

it Right. I mean, for me it's actually really simple, it's really clear. I have, I had lifelong anxiety. Mm, hmm, I will call on you and it was, you know, to my advantage before motherhood, because I was just a hyper-doer and the perfectionism Like every time I got anxious, my work got better and I got more money and I got more jobs, and like it was a quote unquote strong suit, like I was rewarded for my anxiety. I didn't love it, like I felt, like I mean I knew I couldn't sleep but like life was working, I was doing like all the things I was supposed to.

Kendra:

What changed for me was literally finding an anxiety coach, a nervous system like somatic coach, and the one thing that changed my life was finding a safe container. And while I did therapy for 10 years cause I knew about all like big T and small T trauma, it was all talk therapy and I wasn't a good candidate for that, not bashing therapy, but I was not a good candidate for that. I needed body work with my anxiety and what changed for me was having a place to learn how to get into my body. It wasn't just one breath work, it was a consistent place where I was told that I could go inside, because when my son was quote unquote colicky for nine months, like it was I mean that's hard for anyone, let alone with someone who's already uncomfortable with every feeling in their body I needed to be able to withstand my discomfort so I could withstand and then support my child's discomfort. It was the answer for me, and for my clients, I believe too is safety when we know that anger is like I'm not actually gonna blow up, I'm not actually gonna like rage and hurt someone.

Kendra:

Anger is just this type of feeling or fear feels like this guilt, feels like this. It's not about just naming it to tame it, it's naming it so you can go and sit and befriend it. So, finding the places and spaces for me to finally feel what safety felt like. Guess what my son got quote unquote better, as soon as I found my safety, because anxiety is so contagious he has his own stuff, but he was I would always say I would hold him and I was pouring hot lava right onto him, right off my chest, because that's how anxious I was.

Becca :

Cause.

Kendra:

I'm like, how do I fix this? Cry baby, and this is my only job is to suit the baby and I can't do it and raw.

Becca :

Yeah Well, and you spoke to something so powerful of that I have yet to meet. A woman who hasn't had this experience of motherhood is so all consuming, like aggressively so, and even biologically. It makes sense that we start attuning to the needs of the baby, because those are a lot more urgent. I'm putting air quotes here and we effectively learn to meet their needs, to pay attention to their bodies, to their emotions, to what's going on with them, and we become so obsessed with the mother doing right. That role of what we are doing is that a lot of times we don't have a time and space where someone is holding a container saying, okay, but you, the mother, being the human body of you, who has capacity, who has needs, who also has a nervous system, who also has dysregulation what is she needing, what is she saying? And learning the language of safety, dysregulation, even building capacity within yourself to be able to feel these things within your own body is such a powerful thing for women and I don't think mothers understand that time and space to themselves is not just having a break, it's literally being able to say like I'm not attuning to my child anymore, I'm attuning to me as a human body, as a person, as an embodiment of myself, and being able to have someone hold that container with you so that you can explore these things, that they end up either being repressed or taken out on our kids a lot of times because we are already so at capacity. So I love just hearing your language and experience of that.

Becca :

And something else you mentioned is these things that made us high functioning outside of motherhood. We come to motherhood and they don't make us feel successful. In fact, they make us feel really overwhelmed. We're always spinning our wheels. How has success looked and felt like for you as a mom Like that's the language I'm giving. It is how do women who are very high functioning in their businesses especially like they're perfectious in their businesses and it works, and then they come to that in motherhood and they're like it's not working?

Kendra:

The baby's broken. Well, I have two things that I usually speak about. I mean the most simplest reminder. I think we have been told that we want to do all the things. Literally, I gotta do all the things. Hashtag mom life. I just say mother is a noun and a verb.

Kendra:

For some people I talk about being and they're like I don't really know what you mean by being. Like, what do you mean being? So I go okay, you are the noun a mom, and then you are focused now on the doing, with all of the things that happens with parenting. Then, within that, once we get into, okay, there's a being, there's just like the soul.

Kendra:

Here I usually get into masculine and feminine energy and like balanced energies because the masculine there's nothing wrong with the masculine, but when we're in our wounded aka toxic masculine hyper drive, burnout, overwhelm, anxiety, all those things. There is a place for consistency, there is a place for standards, there is a place for boundaries, but we need to make sure we have some feminine parts, some being version of us online and the strengths of the feminine, like one of the biggest strengths is being present, like when I was a stay at home mom and the doing was relentless, and like you can clean the dishes but they're gonna be dirty in two hours. Like you could never really finish the list. So for a hyper doer, like motherhood is, I'm like this is where perfectionists go to die. Like you cannot be perfect. You can't even pretend you're perfect anymore, because kids exist. They exist and they're sticky.

Becca :

And life just keeps happening. No matter how high functioning and masculine you get, life just keeps happening. And then you keep getting more and more and more high strung or disconnected, or yeah.

Kendra:

So success becomes how much was I present today? Like to be honest, I was fully not present for the first two years of my son's life. We got to work on some attachment issues for him because I was so stressed out, he was so stressed out, I was unavailable. I was physically a good mom doing all the things I was so good doing. I was failing at being because I didn't know how to be beforehand. So success now is did I stay present during that trigger? Did I truly stay present?

Kendra:

That is success and that's not measurable and no one's celebrating that except for me. But that is the beauty, I think, of the portal of motherhood, as we literally stop looking outside of ourselves for the validation we were looking for the whole time. It's like damn, I really am proud of myself and when you have your people, they're gonna celebrate with you. But it's hard to find people that want to celebrate literally being oh, you didn't do anything today and you didn't feel guilty about it. I'm so happy for you. Other people are like you're a lazy, crazy person, like go do something. So truly success in motherhood is you know how many tantrums did it take yesterday? It took me one tantrum to lose my shit and today took me five, like that's a win.

Becca :

Okay, it's tricky because I think for so many women, the things that they value most in motherhood are either one intangible or two. The success isn't clear in this season and may not ever be, because what I talk to women about too is your input doesn't always equal the output you were wanting In business or even like in the household, and this is why I think moms get super equated with their household management. Being parenting, it's like where are you struggling motherhood in there, like keeping care of my house? So it's like, well, that seems like you're struggling with homekeeping skills. That's different. There's house cleaner you and then there's parent you and, yeah, those two like interact a little bit. But there's this oh, if I do the dishes, they do get done. They don't stay done.

Becca :

But when you're parenting a kid like especially when I was a new mom and I was learning conscious parenting and gentle parenting, I remember I wanted to like hit my head against the wall because I was like it's not working, because no matter how gentle I am with my toddler, she is not gentle back. Yeah, yeah, because I thought. I thought that if I could just be this conscious parent, she would all of a sudden be perfect, like I was trying to be. That was like where I first kind of you know baby mom Becca, trying to be this really good mom, and then I was like it's not working, like it doesn't matter how patient I'm being, and then there was this like I know what to do, but I can't do it.

Becca :

So feeling successful just felt so intangible, because I don't think I was even just looking for validation. I was looking for permission of like I'm good, I'm okay, and there was a lot of shame there, and I think all of these things were already in us before motherhood. I think motherhood is just like the pot, it's the pressure cooker, where there's all this pressure and then someone hits that little button on your pressure cooker and all of the steam comes out. And moms are like what is happening? And I was like okay, this is going to be good, though, like I promise, like I know you're feeling edgy, but I feel excited. They're like what?

Becca :

do you mean yeah, I know they're like why are I don't know?

Kendra:

I always smile when women on connection calls are sharing where they're at and they're like do you think I can help you? And I'm just smile like this big shit eating grin Like girl you're about to come alive, like you're perfect.

Becca :

Especially when they come to me and they're super dissatisfied and they're super angry and I'm like, see, but here's the thing you are feeling you right now. You don't like it, but you can feel you. You are connected to your essence. You are connected to your resistance and I know you don't like it because it feels like you're misplacing your resistance on your children or on your marriage. But I was like, if we can work with this, it's the women who are still trying to play the game of good girl. Those are the clients in me where I'm like, oh, we've got to get deeper than that. We've got to get more honest. We've got to get back to truth telling, because if you want to heal and grow and change and be a leader, we can't just come in and pretend like everything's fine if things aren't fine and truth telling and integrity is, at least I've seen. One of the things that holds us back most from the kind of work we're talking about is our. It's not an inability, because I think everyone has the ability.

Becca :

I think, there's, yeah, yeah. What's your experience, either with your own life or even with your clients, with that shame around who we are, when we're telling the truth about not just what we're doing, because there's a lot of women who are doing great from the outside, but inside they feel completely dissatisfied, but they don't feel like they're supposed to. It's like you were talking about earlier. You feel like there's this camp of I love it and I'm thriving or I hate everything.

Kendra:

Yeah Well, I think that brings into all these truths that we were able to ignore before motherhood there aren't good days and bad days, good kids and bad kids. I'm happy and I'm sad. Life is not that simple, and it never was, and motherhood is the magnifying glass on your strengths.

Kendra:

It's a magnifying glass on your weaknesses, on your beliefs, on your limiting beliefs. So it's the push and pull that is a very mattressence focused thing, which they call it mattressence. I'm like that's just life. Like you love that shit out of your kids but you wanna leave them. You wanna hold a boundary but you wanna go scroll. Like you constantly hold these conflicting things and there's so much shame and not fitting into the box.

Kendra:

I'm a good mom, I'm a conscious mom, I'm a gentle mom, and it's like we literally don't belong in a box. Our emotions don't belong in a box, like they're just there and we just need to feel them and your thoughts are just there. You're the one taking them on. You've been taught to take on your thoughts as your identity, and so when I'm working with women, we usually look at I like the analogy of the hats, like the mom hat, because if I say, like Kendra and Becca, I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I've got kids and so do you, who the hell are you and who the hell am I, that tells me nothing.

Becca :

Yeah, no, just because we're both moms doesn't mean we're doing things.

Kendra:

So then it does. If you go one layer into that, we can look at what do you think a good mom is? And I'll look at what I think a good mom is. Like. What is the best designer mom hat I could wear? And a lot of us come into motherhood unconscious of the scripts of what a good hat is. We all know what at your job like, we get paid and we get reviews. We know what we're doing and how it's performing. But we all come in with these unique hats. They're invisible and they're completely not real. We'll never attain whatever these hats are, but we're living our lives based up against them. So I usually go into like what is a good mom?

Kendra:

I remember this is just a funny story I already shared I was a stay-at-home mom but when I was little I was the one that cleaned the house. There was two brothers and I and I was the cleaner and I hated that. So I think at age 22, I got a house cleaner. I had like an 800 square foot apartment. I've had a house cleaner my whole life. Everyone else was getting bags, cars and I'm like I'm getting a house cleaner.

Kendra:

I became a stay-at-home mom and someone was like well, why do you have a house cleaner? And it did not dawn on me that moms were cleaners because in my view, my unconscious view of the mom hat I was putting on, my mom never cleaned, and I didn't either, cause I had a house cleaner. So I was feeling I took on the shame from this woman that, like I must not be a good mom Cause I was like, oh, I must add her hat to my hat. So good, moms clean the house. And in my mind I'm like but my house is even messier. I'm home all the time and I have a baby Like this would be the time to have one.

Kendra:

I didn't really need one before. It was really cause of my childhood. So that was my personal introduction of like oh man, we all have wildly different views of what like a perfect mom is. If you know, like, let's get clear on yours, and then we drop in like you know who's the woman beneath the hat. But there is a lot of work to be done. Sometimes it's really simple Like what do you think a good mom is?

Becca :

And actually, yeah, go ahead Just actually assessing what are the agreements I've come into either consciously or unconsciously, about what I should and should not do and what I do and do not have capacity for. And I love that you named this like this tension, because so many times when I hear moms using like, oh, I have mom guilt because, you know, I have to work but I want to be present with my kids, and when they start talking, I'm like let's first of all name what guilt is, let's name what shame is, and then let's talk about when it's neither guilt nor shame and you're just having the human experience of having two different things that you want, need and value and you absolutely do, in that moment, have to choose. Because I think there's this narrative of you can have it all as a mom and my experience is sure I have a thriving career that I love and I'm very present with my kids. So I would say like, yes, I am succeeding in both motherhood and business, and when you look at my day to day life of what that actually looks and feels like, it's so much fucking messier than that it's. My business got completely put on the back burner because I had someone in my household sick for like eight plus weeks I'm not even kidding, someone was home from school with me for seven plus weeks. So my business didn't get the capacity or the attention that it needed and there was a conflict in that inside of me of okay, I want this thing, but this thing matters more to me. But I trust myself with that.

Becca :

Now I think so many women don't trust themselves to make the decision between two needs, between conflicting desires, because as women, as girls, we learned to prioritize the needs of others and so in motherhood and babyhood there's this actual biological need to do that. But as our kids get older, we start feeling this thing and you even named this earlier of like what about me? And we become starving because we're not paying attention to those inner desires, to those inner values, and we're not giving ourselves permission to make choices and then trust ourselves with those choices and pivot along them. But you named that shame and there is I would not say it's mom guilt that most moms are facing. It's mother shame it is.

Becca :

There is something wrong with your existence and it is paralyzing, especially because everyone has a different rule book, depending on what religion you came from, depending on who you follow on Instagram? Are you following their Instagram? Comparison is so, so prevalent and women act like it's not because we're like well, I know it's not real, I know it's a social media thing and I was like. Your body does not do that and shame is not happening in your logical brain. Shame is happening in your body. It's that paralyzing fear and anxiety or overwhelm or perfectionism. That's how I see shame showing up, or even anger, because you can't just get it right, like those other moms clearly do. I just went on a rant there.

Kendra:

No, I love it. No, I love you and I just love the same stuff.

Becca :

I know.

Kendra:

I get ripped apart because I'll scream it from the rooftops Mom guilt is not real. Mom guilt is not real. Mom guilt is not real. Guilt is real. You are a human being who has guilt. If you are putting mom in front of it, I know that we need to unravel what patriarchal standard you're running up against, because let's use your example of a mom going to work and feeling guilty.

Kendra:

I've had clients who have quote unquote mom guilt for going to work, because one wants to be home with her child and the other doesn't and fucking loves work. So they both have quote unquote mom guilt, but they're running up against different scripts and one that's not guilt. They're just saying, well, someone told me a good mom should stay home and someone told me a good mom should work. And then you get to say do I subscribe to that? Now, now that I know that that is how I was operating, do I subscribe to that? And then, underneath that, did we take that on a shame? Let's do the work. And if it was guilt, guilt is so productive, it can be so productive. That doesn't align with my values. You know what. I want to do it differently next time. And sometimes you just feel guilt, like you got triggered, you yelled or whatever and you go repair. And that's the human experience. The other thing I think you touched on in the languaging I would use is your higher self, your lower self.

Kendra:

In my work I do a lot of work with inner child and ego is what I call the lower self and then what you belittled to be your essence or your higher self. When women are doing this work unassisted or they've never been shown their higher self, you can start here. You can say is this my belief that women should stay home? Is this my belief that moms need to clean the toilets, like whatever the thing is? But if you make that decision from your lower self, you're going to keep second guessing it Because the lower self, we keep those parts of us on board, we keep them safe, but they're not supposed to be the ones making big decisions in our lives. We want it to come from the ground. And when it comes from that knowing, from your intuition, not from your anxiety then you get to finally say, yeah, no, we're hiring the cleaner. Or yeah, no, I'm doing, I'm going to work, or I'm going to reduce my hours, whatever the thing is. I always tell women who come into my world they usually hear one of my story lines of the marriage or the career or healing journey with my own mom and they want to know should I leave my husband, should I quit my job? Should I start the business? And I was like girlfriend, that happens after we are going to go in. We're going to get to know you, we're going to love on the parts that felt all the shame. And once everyone's online, not happy because that's like until our inner child can be safe and unhappy, only then can our children be around us and have their anger not trigger us and their tantrums not trigger us. But if our inner child has to be happy and smiling all the time like girlfriend, your kids are going to trigger you. So I always say we're not taking any big moves until we've gone in. We dive in and bringing this back to metrescence.

Kendra:

Metrescence is like the split that we all go through in that process and I think for a lot of us, without language or support, time does not heal all wounds. But we let time pass and we just don't seize the opportunity or deal with anything that may have bubbled up and, I think, both of our worlds. What we do is we seize the opportunity of motherhood, the pressure cooker, all of the expectations, all of the overwhelm. We can go outside and start fixing and doing all the things. Or we say I'm taking a beat, I'm going in, I'm doing the remodel right now. What do I really want, what do I really need? And then when we come out of the metrescence, we're like what I call our adult selves. The joke that, like, adulting is hard is because no one taught us how to be a freaking adult. I was a 30-year-old child who had a kid. I was not an adult, I was a little child.

Becca :

Well, in one of the experiences I have seen so commonly with so many different clients and even just women I've interacted with, is that already, especially once they come in and start doing this inner work, they're surpassing their adult parents or adult pastors or adult leaders mentally, emotionally and spiritually Like other than age, people are witnessing adults, even their own parents, who still behave emotionally like a toddler, who still behave emotionally like a teen girl to them. They have mothers who are codependent, they have mothers who aren't owning their emotions, so they are put on them and then they become mothers and they start doing this work and they start seeing this split and they start seeing this opportunity for I get to mature and stop looking outside myself, to my children or to my spouse or even to my parents or to culture or to this religion to tell me what I need to know, and I'm going to start trusting that. I know that I am an adult, that I am a grown-ass adult who has her shit and also sometimes loses her shit, and that there's not any issue with either of those when you can witness those different parts of yourself, like it's not about constantly being regulated and grounded. I am not either of those things Like just take a peek into, like my household and you would know that, like I am not always quote unquote coach Becca, I'm also just like really fucking messy Becca who's having a day, who's having shit come up, who's having emotions that aren't comfy to feel, or having relational struggles. But I've done the work of learning to say, learning to go inward, for where is my capacity? What am I actually needing? What am I actually trying to create here? Because what I'm trying to create can only come from me, and the marriage I have with my husband or the relationship I have with my kid it's going to look totally different than hers.

Becca :

And I think people talk about this message in motherhood, but they talk about it on such like a surface level that we're not talking about. A lot of times. Shame and I'm sure you've witnessed this shame becomes this internal critic that you start to think is your intuition. You start to like name that as the voice of God. I think so many women learned that like shame and their inner critic is the voice that they should listen to and they don't ever question it. Who told me that? Who does that sound like? How does it feel when I hear that?

Becca :

And one of the ways that I work with women around shame and guilt is I help them externalize it again. So, instead of it being this internal thing, we externalize it of find someone who you love and it's usually either their kid or a friend, or if they're like a coach or a therapist like us, I'm like, okay, find a client who you just like, adore, you can look at her and it doesn't matter what she brings to you. Would you talk to her that way? And here's the thing, even if she's acting out of alignment with what you know she deserves, would you say it like that? Would you bring it to her in a demeaning, awful, criticizing, shameful way? Or would you bring it in a way that says like hey, sis, you deserve more than this. You are worthy of good things, let's take care of you better. That's how you would approach her, versus the way you're approaching yourself. Is using this shame as this proof that you're not good enough? It's just this rabbit hole of this rabbit wheel, of a hamster wheel. That's the animal.

Kendra:

Hey, you know what I heard? Hamster wheel. It made sense to me. I'm like rabbit.

Becca :

Apparently, my daughter is getting rabbits. Don't get me started on that. But yeah, I don't know about this. But a hamster wheel it doesn't matter how fast you run, it won't be fast enough. They'll always be different. That's what happens when we're looking external to validate or for permission or even for success is. It's never good enough. You and I know this because we work with successful women who have it, whose lives look really good, I would even say our lives. I think people are really quick and easy to see anyone on Instagram who's a coach or an influencer and they're like oh my gosh, it's so pretty and it's like no, it's not, it's messy and it's human, but there's just not the time and the space and the nuance for that, even if you're being authentic. So where do you go with that? I just put like, I just thought out there.

Kendra:

No, that makes so much sense to me. The one thing I would add when it comes to the inner critic, it is one thing to say like point out yeah, I wouldn't talk to my best friend like that, I wouldn't talk to my clients like that. But I tend to go at shame a little bit differently, with gratitude.

Becca :

Ooh, tell me about it.

Kendra:

Because the way the inner critic is really there in the most messed up way to protect you, right? Because the inner critic was like dude, you're too effing loud, you're too this, you're too quirky, you're too messy people like you when you're all these things. So your inner critic is just like being so good at keeping your little heart safe, right. And so I always say before you can go in and love on your inner child or really, aka your nervous system, you've got to get through the gatekeeper. And the gatekeeper is that inner critic and he's got the keys to all of your joy and all of your grief and all the things. And if you're just like dude, can you just like talk differently? He's like fuck off, man or she.

Kendra:

I don't know what masculine, feminine energy your ego has, but the ego or that inner critic has been in a dysfunctional way, in a maladaptive way, keeping you very, very safe. So I always say dude, we got to be friend the ego and my flip and way is like thank you for your service. But like I'm here, adult self is here now I'm gonna do this a little bit differently. That's how I get to work with my own ego. When I get triggered, like okay, I see what you're doing there. Thank you for your service. We're doing it differently. Literally, that's how I get to speak to myself and my clients eventually get to speak to themselves. And because we've held the container and we have a relationship with that part of ourself, they go oh, okay, okay, okay, and you know what that part is tired of shaming you.

Kendra:

You know, like that's the anxiety, that part's like we got to do good, always think about all the scenarios, so all that you can protect yourself. And so there is the logical part. But I think you spoke to the logical part and like the feeling part is when you tell, like someone tells you're freaking out and then you go, oh my God, it makes so much sense.

Becca :

I was like calm down, yeah, yeah, exactly when you're anxious and someone's like calm down, you're like oh my God, I never thought of that. Thank you.

Kendra:

Yeah, I just had a client the other day. She was doing all of these things. Her husband was trying to help, but he wasn't helping and I'm like imagine if he had known in that moment just to come over and give you a hug and her whole body melted Like she was so anxious and she needed to do everything. And everything needed to be done, because sometimes you don't just get to throw away motherhood and that's what we're doing to our ego. It's fighting so, so hard and we just wanna give it that hug of like. Thank you, thank you.

Becca :

You just opened the box for me of, like, my favorite work right now, which is a lot of that shadow work and inner child healing, but from this perspective of having your adult self resourced and being able to feel her like, being able to feel in the room how old you are, how capable you are, what you know, your values, having her in the room and having her be the one who comes into relationship with this part of you, because I think so many women on a healing journey they're looking to get rid of those parts of them, they're looking to get rid of that cringy inner critic and they're like how do I get rid of her?

Becca :

I was like I don't know, I just learned. I just learned that like, sometimes my inner critic is literally this like abusive asshole who just needs a middle finger and is like, no, I need like step out because that's not even me. Yeah, sometimes she's this, this teen girl who needs a loving mother to hear her out and let her cry. And sometimes she's a mom who's like let's go take a nap before we talk about this, right? Sometimes my inner critic is a toddler or so. One of the modalities that I love using is somatic parts work which is very similar to IFS, which very, which sounds like the language you're using.

Kendra:

Yeah, I call conscious parenting true, conscious parenting has nothing to do with your children's, your physical children. I would call it lay persons, ifs. Like, conscious parenting allows you to actually speak to yourself. Speak to yourself and relate to yourself within the family system, without being a psychotherapist. It's freaking brilliant yes.

Becca :

I love that and all. I actually have a video that a client sent me we were doing this work together and she was like I have a video for like these different parts and I'll actually put it in the notes in the podcast because I share it everywhere of like we start talking about this and people are like what do you mean? Parts?

Becca :

or you know a lot of women who are very logical or like in a child Like what do you mean? Yeah, it's just like there are different ages of you that will show up reflexively. This work is helping you understand when those parts are coming up and how to relate to them without repressing I, because a lot of women understand how to repress very well. We are excellent at repressing A plus repressors. Yeah, I'm very much like you have like talk therapy. I could talk my way out of anything, especially once I started doing coaching work or when I became a coach. I can talk my way through, I can bullshit myself so well, logically I can, but the body she does not lie Mm-mm, and that's why we avoid her, because she's got really inconvenient truths to remind us of and our feeling and our knowing and our souls. Some of this work is inconvenient and it's uncomfortable, all of it is yeah.

Becca :

All of it is Especially when you're first starting it or when you're in the middle, where, like, it's not impacting your doing yet. It's all of this like internal emotions and dialogue and learning the relationship with yourself, when all you want to do is go save your marriage but like you can't see that because you're bringing all of your wounding to that and until you understand how to relate to that, everyone else is just going to trigger it. Yeah, and I like to. I've started using the word, the language of being a leader, of witnessing that you are leading your own life and coming back into not blaming motherhood, understanding that it's impacting you or your marriage or your kids or what business even, but understanding that, like this is a relationship between you and you.

Kendra:

Yeah, it is. It's. My brand is called Free the Mother because of this specific conversation. There's two parts. One, free the Mother from society's expectations, and we spoke to that like everyone's got their own version of society's expectations. Yeah, and you do that by recognizing the individual and by recognizing the internalized patriarchy. I'm not blaming men, I'm not blaming anybody outside.

Kendra:

We are the biggest perpetrators of the patriarchy the mothers that must be doing Okay, and we are mirroring and modeling that to the next generation. So one, we Free the Mother from expectations. And then this is the most important part we Free the Inner Mother. All like Inner Child Work is trending. Everyone's heard about it, blah, blah, blah. But guess what? Inner Child Online and all you have is that ego. Now you're the biggest abuser you've ever had.

Kendra:

Oh yeah, you need to first build up that inner grounded mother which for a lot of us if you're even in either of our worlds, whether you love your mother or not, you were probably under-mothered is the term. You don't have a blueprint, you don't have a model to parent your kids, let alone parent yourself. So in my work, the first thing we do is we look at what comes along with that invisible mom hat you put on. Let's pick through some major things, get that off our plate, and then we start looking at what is that highest self, what is the adult in the room so she can soothe the Inner Child and befriend and say, hey, thank you. Like eight year old ego who's trying to be perfect Like I'm here now I'm gonna handle this, and that's when transformation gets to happen really quickly. I think there's a lot of people that say my Inner Child's triggered because I never got to be mad and my child's mad, but it's like, well, your ego's over here and your mind telling you that you shouldn't be mad anyways. It's like a double wounding that happens. So you're calling it a leader.

Kendra:

In my work, I call it adult self or inner mother. But that's what we're working towards, is not? I'm not gonna model that for you and make it appear within you. It already exists within you and every single woman who's listened to this. We have that part in us. It just hasn't been mirrored yet. It's buried under all of these patterns and parts and we just need to peel back the layers. Enough with safety and we go oh shit, I'm that adult now.

Kendra:

I know when I'm about to pop off, when it feels like a feather in my body, versus I'm only gonna pop off when it's a truck. I always say the feather, the brick and the truck. The goal here is not to never be triggered, it's just to catch it sooner and know how to repair quicker. And that's what the leader gets to do Like, hey, there's humans involved here. There's a lot of people within me. We all have different wants. We all have different needs. How do I help us make sure we're all online and then, ultimately, the leader makes the decisions. We don't want that inner critic making decisions anymore.

Becca :

Yeah well, and even just witnessing, there has to be a relating and a relationship to self to even do this inner work, which is why it's so important to go from not just what are you doing, but what are the reasons you're doing it. What is going on behind and underneath the behaviors, whether they're good or bad behaviors, or you have this goal of this new behavior, which are the top three things that people reach out for. There's a negative behavior I want to stop. There's a new behavior I want to start, or there's this aching. I don't know what it is, but something has to change.

Becca :

It's like, okay, here's all of the surface stuff and that's great, but we're going to have to dig a little bit deeper than that, not in excavating the past, in the trauma, but in currently witnessing what's creating your decisions right now. What are you feeling, what are your emotions? Where's your nervous system? Actually being able to come online in relationship to those things and building up your ability to be with yourself and not just stay in your head and not just stay in the constant busy work of motherhood, but actually the being a mother, the noun, the noun of mother, when you have that online, the doing the verb part. I wouldn't say it becomes easy. It's not easy and it feels completely different.

Kendra:

Yeah, I get to say it gets to be more easeful. Easeful Because we don't get to take a lot of the tasks off. Meaningful Right, we have to do the things, but the quickest thing for us to eliminate is really the inner critic chatter that turns into shame. When I like to say you burnt the pizza, you go oh, I burnt the pizza, I'm going to do this instead Instead of oh I burnt the pizza, I'm such a piece of shit. I'm the worst mom ever. Oh, my God, why is it pizza? I should plan. Delete that because I made a mistake. Oops, move on, feel it. I really wish I didn't do that. Don't gaslight, suppress whatever Be like. Yeah, that stings, but you just let it sting once instead of carrying it in your baggage backpack for the next week and a half.

Becca :

Yeah, I just love this work so good, it's so good. So, man, I could just talk to you forever. I'll have to have you back on again. Yeah, what is something that makes you feel like you, that brings you to your mother's self, that we were talking about my mother's self, your higher self, your embodied Kendra self?

Kendra:

Well, you know what? If you follow me on Instagram for at least one week, you will see me dancing. Oh yeah, I am not a professional dancer, but I do consider myself a dancer because I must dance multiple times a week and it gets me in my body. It's the time where I don't look at the clock. I'm with other women moving in synchronicity and we're high-piving and we're laughing, and it's just a time for me to feel in sisterhood and truly in my body and I would say it connects me to my inner child. But she's only there because I believe all of me is there, because my adult self really is there, and I always say I wish every woman could find their thing. It doesn't need to be a movement activity, but if that's gardening, it's reading or something that brings you that I couldn't be thinking about anything else when I'm at dance. I'm just purely fully in the moment and I love it.

Becca :

And I love it. You should come to dance with me. Oh my God, I love dancing. Let me tell you how much I love dancing. So when you said that, I was like wait, okay, this is a date you have to come. We'll be scheduling it after this.

Becca :

Okay we're willing, we have to. One thing you said that I think was so profound that I think ties up. I don't wanna say this ties up perfectly. One of my clients' favorite, least favorite quote is when I was like I don't have a pretty bow for this, like I'm so sorry that we can't tie this with a pretty bow, but what if we just let it be messy? But I love what you said about your whole self. Your full self, because I think that's what so many women are craving is that they feel pieces and parts of themselves are offline, or they're repressing it, or they're denying it, or it's being really inconvenient and showing up as rage and anger, which are not cute, and so they don't feel their full selves.

Becca :

They feel incomplete, they feel shattered. Or when they're working, they feel separated from their mom selves, even though they're still fully their mom selves. Or when they're their mom selves, they feel like they have to disconnect from their ambition. And it's like what if all of you was always allowed and that doesn't mean that, like there's always, you're always front facing wearing that hat, you're not always front facing wearing certain hats. And what if you didn't feel disconnected or out of connection to all of those parts of you, the messy ones and also like the really fun ones, that like love to dance?

Becca :

Those parts of you are so important. We need to not just focus on the I'm sure you are like this too, but it's like we can't just focus on the messy, hard parts. We also have to find the parts that are like shiny and fun and hilarious or quirky, weird, like those parts of you are life giving, it's your energy, and so I love that and we shall have to dance together. So how do people find you, how do they work with you? Just tell me a little bit, tell people where they can find you and connect with you.

Kendra:

Yes, you can find me on Instagram, it's dotkenderwilliams. I'm also on TikTok. I am actively enrolling in my group program. It's an eight week signature program called Unleashed, where we pretty much do everything we discussed in this and the goal here if I were to say like what it feels like.

Kendra:

I think the biggest compliment I get like in life is especially for clients. When I show up on a connection call. They're like you're the same person that I see online and I am the same person. You can change my hats all you want. I am so Kendra and I know my strengths. I know my weaknesses. I know who I am and I'm like I had a bad this hat day. Put another hat on. We get to know the woman viscerally beneath the hat and we love her. That program starts on March 19th. I actually don't know when this is airing, but I do run cohorts throughout the year but I would love to invite any woman who's wanting to go in and tap into the being and let life be more easeful. It's still hard, but you get to enjoy it Like have some fun, let's laugh. Your version of dance, yeah.

Becca :

I love that so much. Thank you so much, kendra, for being here and I can't wait to talk to you again. Thanks for hanging out today on the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. If you love today's episode, share it with a friend or tag me in your stories on Instagram so that we can connect. Take up audacious space in your life and I'll see you next time.

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Kendra Williams

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