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The Motherhood Mentor
Welcome to The Motherhood Mentor Podcast your go-to resource for moms seeking holistic healing and transformation. Hosted by mind-body somatic healing practitioner and holistic life coach Becca Dollard.
Join us as we explore the transformative power of somatic healing, offering practical tools and strategies to help you navigate overwhelm, burnout, and stress. Through insightful conversations, empowering stories, and expert guidance, you'll discover how to cultivate resilience, reclaim balance, and thrive in every aspect of your life while still feeling permission to be a human. Are you a woman who is building a business while raising babies who refuses to burnout? These are conversations and support for you.
We believe in the power of vulnerability, connection, and self-discovery, and our goal is to create a space where you feel seen, heard, and valued.
Whether you're juggling career, family, or personal growth, this podcast is your sanctuary for holistic healing and growth all while normalizing the ups and downs, the messy and the magic, and the wild ride of this season of motherhood.
Your host:
Becca is a mom of two, married for 14years to her husband Jay living in Colorado. She is a certified somatic healing practitioner and holistic life coach to high functioning moms. She works with women who are navigating raising babies, building businesses, and prioritizing their own wellbeing and healing. She understands the unique challenges of navigating being fully present in motherhood while also wanting to be wildly creative and ambitious in her work. The Motherhood Mentor serves and supports moms through 1:1 coaching, in person community, and weekend retreats.
Follow on IG: @themotherhoodmentor , send me a dm and let me know you found me through the podcast!
Website: https://www.the-motherhood-mentor.com/
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The Motherhood Mentor
How do you know when you are done having babies? Navigating the seasons of motherhood with Angela
How do you know when you are done having babies? How do you actually know when you are ready for another or if you are ready to close that chapter?
These are some of those hard questions that we get answers to like, "You will just know!" with out anyone ever teaching moms HOW to know.
Join me and my guest Angela Das in this episode where we dive into all things postpartum, mommy myths, and hard questions and even harder answers. Angela shares her personal journey into motherhood and how it has shifted her in the different seasons. We talk not only about what that can look like, but also how it FEELS.
About Angela:
A mom of 3 whos passionate about changing the natrative around breastfeeding and early motherhood. As a lactation consultant and new parent educator, supporting new families in this season is my passion. Teaching new parents to understand their newborn is my magic sauce.
Find Angela:
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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
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. Today I have a guest with me who I'm super excited to have Angela, who is a mom of three who's passionate about changing the narrative around breastfeeding and early motherhood. As a breastfeeding consultant and new parent educator, supporting new families in this season of motherhood is her passion. She also teaches new parents how to understand their newborn and me and Angela. We're talking about what topic we wanted to do and we were talking about the transitions of seasons and, like that new baby early motherhood stage, where like making all these choices and you know, just raising, having babies versus like moving into raising babies. So, Angela, would you just introduce you and your season of motherhood?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm Angela. Thank you for the intro. I'm an IBCLC with a private practice here in the Fort Collins area and just a heart for mothering. Um, my like kind of journey into parenthood was long and filled with lots of heartache. Um, we've got like we've had seven pregnancies, we have three babies here earth side with us and we have an IVF baby. We have IUI babies.
Speaker 2:We did lived deep in like an identity that was trying to become parents and then we were a parent of one and we were deeply like identifying as like secondary for infertility and trying to become parents again secondary for infertility and trying to become parents again. Um, and then, as somebody that like loved and wanted to be a mom so bad, realizing how hard it was to be a mom, like to walk into the hospital one day which is where I chose to birth my first baby and and walk in as Angela and walk out two days later as mom, and that identity that I was just given through the birth of my child never, ever turns off, whether it's 2am or 1pm or like. It just never is. It is your like leading identity instead of who I was, and I struggled so deeply with that identity instead of who I was, and I struggled so deeply with that and that's where my passion for supporting new parents came from, that like fire in my belly that I didn't know what it was going to look like, but I knew it was going to be something someday. That's where that came from, so fast forward.
Speaker 2:I am a mom of three beautiful babies. They are currently nearly eight. I can't believe that. Five and a half and two and a half and that's our team.
Speaker 2:And so I have swam through the deep of postpartum anxiety and depression before I even had words to know that that's what this was with my first, and then struggled again with a colicky second time baby and then had this beautiful kind of surprise little caboose baby after multiple miscarriages.
Speaker 2:And my husband and I have always said three is our team, three is our team. But when you sit so deep in an identity of like, I want all the babies, give me all the babies. I want all the pregnancies. I love pregnancy, I love birth, I love breastfeeding obviously is what I made my career out of. And to know that this is our last pregnancy, this is the last time I will experience childbirth, this is the last time I'm going to breastfeed a baby. This is the last time I'm going to do all these things. All his firsts are my last, and so to know that so solidly, because it makes the most sense for my family, it makes the most sense in all the realms, I'm not quite sure I would survive another child, another postpartum with three, four other, my husband included, four other humans, myself included, so five people that are required that are putting on me and another child.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure I could survive, so we made the decision. We're older parents, like we're done, so now I'm in this season of like. What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Because, all I've ever known and done is trying to be pregnant, trying to stay pregnant, trying to raise these little tiny humans that really are just like keeping alive at this point. Right, we're keeping them safe, we're keeping them fed and now that shifts somewhere, when they're about two or so, keeping you safe and loved and alive, to really like helping mold the person that you are into the best person you can be, and we're truly parenting at this point. So now I'm in this season of like the next thing the next yeah, that's my long-winded where I am.
Speaker 1:I I loved it.
Speaker 1:I was just so enamored with getting to hear your journey because I think each woman's journey into motherhood is so different in her experience of things, even if they look the same on paper.
Speaker 1:I think our journeys into motherhood and becoming moms is so profound because it does impact the way that you feel about your identity and even just your role as a mother, and it's so fascinating. I wonder what your journey feels like right now, in this two to two and a half year old, as you're transitioning seasons, because you're in it right now and I think what's so fascinating, that is the most common age of child that moms find me, common age of child that moms find me, and I think it's because they're no longer treading water, like the child is alive, they're kind of getting like they're no longer just getting their feet wet in motherhood with this baby and all of a sudden there's a little bit more space and capacity and all of a sudden there's this like remembering of, like oh yeah, I exist because I matter too. It's so all consuming. I think there's a reality and a biological need and like I don't think we need to demonize mothers for being so all, all focused on their babies. I think it's pretty normal and natural.
Speaker 2:I think it's really normal and honestly, like the first two years of life, you're likely up frequently in the night. Maybe you're nursing your baby and so your body is physically in demand for those years and we just naturally we could sidebar, of course, on like mental wellness in the postpartum season, but even a very like mentally stable and healthy mom, it's so natural to be all do, all, like, just we become, like I said, your identity totally shifts, like yes, I'm still Angela, there are still spicy pieces of me, I love my margaritas, I like love all my sassy friends and trips and things like that. But that has been put on the shelf for a moment. Yeah, it's put on hold. Yeah, it's not a lot of space for it. Martyr to where, even when our well and our soul is so empty because we pour out and we pour out and we pour out constantly that there's nothing left to pour and so we are not getting our, we're not watered right, we are not able to take a drink.
Speaker 2:That we still keep going and in that early first two years I think a lot of us just we just keep going.
Speaker 2:I swear that they created Dory off of from finding Nemo, from a mom like just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep going, just keep doing, just keep going. The mental load, the to-do list, the doctor's appointments, all the things, and I do think around that two to two and a half, I think there's a couple of things. So, with our talk today about closing the chapter of bringing new babies into our family, when you hit that space in your life, then you get to, because usually around two, a lot of us are trying to have another baby or maybe we're pregnant again, and so we're still in this tumbling cycle, we're still in the washing machine, right, we're still on spin cycle, but when the washing machine completes and we say this is our team and we're done and our baby is two we. It is like I tell my clients that I'm working with um, that it feels a lot like, first of all, like the newborn forest. It's a little Alice in Wonderlandy.
Speaker 2:You don't know what day it is and that newborn air quote there, like it's not the first eight to 12 weeks of your baby's life, it's really like the first 18 to 24 months. And then a door opens and you look out into this beautiful world and it's like, oh, hello, there I am, here I am, and you get to take what you put on the shelf that was your spicy pre-mom's shelf like and flip through it again and I think that's when they find you in this podcast.
Speaker 1:And so while there's grief of closing a chapter, there's also like, oh hey, so I want to. I want to talk about like the timing and how you knew you were done with having babies and all of that. But I'm really curious what did? What did it look like showing up to Angela, to who you were in this season up to this two years old? Like, how did you find space and time to care for yourself in a season that is very all consuming?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it from my own mother, from other friends that had become mothers before me, like how hard it is to be a mom, right. So then I become a mom and I'm like so thankful because I wanted this so bad. And I'm also like, holy shit, I've never done anything harder in my life, like this is the best job and it's the worst job and it's the job that never stops. And I didn't realize, because I think in part of the narrative, that this is just hard. Of course this is hard. This is hard that I didn't realize my hard was abnormally hard. And so me just literally treading water with my nose above the sea. I thought that was the hard people were talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and in hindsight.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh, girlfriend, you had postpartum depression. Yeah, that translated it into a little bit of postpartum anxiety in the like. I heard someone use a phrase once that I was like that's it, maternal gatekeeping. Like I have to do it all. I changed diapers, I know when he goes to bed, I know how to soothe him, and, and I think we accidentally gatekeep our babies from our partners who, like no one in this world loves your baby more than your partner.
Speaker 2:If you're lucky enough to have a loving partner and supportive parent with you, right, so. But we, we feel like, oh no, I can do it best. Like he's crying, you've been trying, given to me, given me, but then our, our, we're empty, right, so for my firstborn and me, but then our, our, we're empty, right, so for my firstborn. It was, it was a little ugly. It was like, you know, all of us want to, deep inside of our belly, want to take care of ourselves, right, even in this season of motherhood, our beings are so wise that they're going to show up for themselves. It might look ugly if you deplete, deplete, deplete, deplete, and that's what I did. I would deplete, deplete, deplete, deplete. And then I would just like this is your baby.
Speaker 1:And then your being gets your attention by throwing a fit. I tell moms all the time when you ignore it, it doesn't go away. It doesn't go away. It will come, come out, it will explode or it will implode because your body, your being, wants you to like, wants you to be taken care of. You want to take care of you, but if you're ignoring that part of you, it will either shut down or throw a fit to get your attention totally.
Speaker 2:And my first kid, that was it it threw a fit. And my second kid, that was it, it threw a fit. And my second kid, I, was like we're going to do better, we're going to be better at this. I tell people so often that, because I'm solidly not alone in that kind of experience of the entrance into motherhood and how do you like water yourself while watering everything else? Right, where does everything come from? Everything come from?
Speaker 2:I tell people so frequently that second time motherhood was such a beautiful gift because you enter in with more knowledge. First of all, you already have the identity of mom and you have sat with her and you know her. And maybe you've like woven this beautiful braid to where you are mom, wife, all your titles right, and they, they feel nice together. If you've had enough space to be with them, you know them. So it's not that shock. But then you also have this confidence level too and you know what you need. So, like going into Gabrielle, my middle child, I knew like I need spaces for me. I need to like what fills my soul is like doing something I would say crafty. I'm not like wildly crafty, but like I need to like what fills my soul is like doing something. I would say crafty I'm not like wildly crafty, but like I need to complete a project. I need to like have a vision, like execute it and then look at it and be like I made something. And so we found spaces. We were better at finding space for me to do those things in the second time around as partners.
Speaker 2:Um, and then I also you know, I'm naturally very selfish Um, I'm a third baby, I am the baby of the family and um, a Leo, so I'm stubborn and go and get this done. Um, and I had to really be cognizant of, like my husband needs this too. It's not just moms. This is like, how do we take care of your partner in this as well? Because, while our kids are so, they are important. Like a well tended to marriage had to take precedence as well. Like I got to take care of myself. He needs to take care of himself. We need to take care of us so that we can take care of this small village we're creating, and we got better at that the second time around. I also knew I was highly likely to like experience postpartum depression, and so it was more on my radar Doesn't mean I did anything about it until she was like five months old and I was like I just don't.
Speaker 2:I remember crying to my mom I don't know if I'm like deeply depressed or if I'm just so tired and like girl, both yes and um. And then with my third, you know, I just knew like no better do better. I knew like I had a track record of really struggling in the postpartum space and so I went on a drug to support me when I was still pregnant, even though I was like hesitant because I'm crunchy and like I just didn't quite want to, but I also wanted to survive and so but I got I was better at so protecting me from like that, that point of view, like that aspect. And then I knew like I need I need time to be me. I need time to be me that the baby is not with me, that I can turn off the to-do list and the constant thinking about someone else's schedule and just think about me.
Speaker 1:And so we were better attention to you and pay attention to you, and I love what you said of like taking up space and time and putting your needs first, at least sometimes, and I think that's what moms are terrified of. They're really terrified that like it will be extracting from their motherhood or their care for their children to care for themselves, and it's not reality, it's not reality.
Speaker 1:That's what gives you the capacity to show up for motherhood and not just, oh, I survived, as in, I'm alive, but like actually being present or connected or taking care of your kids. When you are a leader, you only have to give what you put in what you receive. And so, as mothers, even postpartum, we have to take up time and space for our needs and prioritize. Okay, yeah, maybe sometimes I tend to the baby first, but, like then I can also go get something else, and it's not pretty and it's not perfect. I think so many women are waiting for like the ideal season to like make it happen.
Speaker 1:And I'm like I had like two years of quote unquote, the ideal season of motherhood where, like my kids slept through the night, they went to bed on their own, they were very like independent, they didn't need a ton for me. Well, now we're in like the big kid season where it feels a little all consuming again of like now we're parenting big emotions again. We're in the teen stage where, like, there's big feelings and big emotions and big boundaries and big conversations and sports. So it's like there's no convenient, easy time to need things, to have emotions, to want things, and taking up that space is so vital. So I want to swing back to closing off this season and knowing I think so you know we were talking before we started. Recording of so many people are like you'll know when you're done. I for sure did not know, um and me knowing my decision changed very frequently in that season and I'm so curious what your experience has been of closing out that chapter and for moms who are still in that space of, do I want more?
Speaker 2:Yeah, how do I?
Speaker 1:know, how do I know if I have another one?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you pay attention to the moms groups, if you're a part of that on Facebook, whatever your platform is, you see that frequently, right, like, I'm a mom of one and I we aren't sure if we're we're a family of a single child or if we need more or whatever the the environment is that people are asking that same question. Are we done yet?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're looking outside right and one of the like what you said, the most common thing that I think most of us hear is you're just going to know, you're just going to know when you're done. Most common thing that I think most of us hear is you're just going to know, you're just going to know when you're done. And I wish that I could mute that from our, from our society, because it's unhelpful, I think for most of us. We don't just know, especially if it's a season that you love. Um, for me, it was truly like an identity becoming pregnant, staying pregnant, like you know, all the things that was so much a part of me. Um, and then I truly do love who I?
Speaker 2:I did not just know that we were done. There was not just like this, like, oh, my goodness, you're a caboose, where that's it. Um, it was a lot of like really hard conversations. It's still hard. Um, I don't think like and it's not this longing to, to do that again A little bit like it's the missing of them when they were little. Yeah Right, it's the. It's the reason why it's a grief.
Speaker 1:There's a grief to watching your babies grow up and like opening those boxes of those baby clothes and like, just like picture, like oh, it like hurts my heart and my ovaries, Just like thinking about it.
Speaker 2:And I think we have to honor that right. We have to honor the hard. My postpartum seasons were hard. They were beautiful but they were hard and they got better each time. Word they were beautiful but they were hard and they got better each time.
Speaker 2:Um, but, and also, like you can love, as I do, I love newborns. I like I study them for a living to help their parents understand them. I love moms in that season. I love that tender space of life where it's so. I love the extremes, I guess, like I love newborns and I love the elderly and dying, like I.
Speaker 2:Just like those bookends are amazing, and so it wasn't this like, oh, we're done with that, and I hope that people can hear this and know if they're on the fence of what are we finished? Sometimes you don't, and oftentimes you don't just know it is a. Can we afford another child? Do we feel like there's enough energy to go around If we fast forward in our mind to having bigger kids, like you do, becca, does it feel right to have four instead of three or does that feel like holy crap?
Speaker 2:What did we do here? Because like they don't stay babies and we all keep going, and then you know, like our team is a family of five, there's a lot of personalities, there's a lot of all the things. So I think you know it. Like, our team is a family of five, there's a lot of personalities, there's a lot of all the things. So I think you know it's not this like fairy tale. Oh, we're just finished and this is beautiful. It is real life. It's. It's conversations with your partner about what feels best for them, and a lot of times I think we're not on the same page.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I was about to say I think we had a good, I would say, three or four years where we were never on the same page and this wasn't like a I don't when I say we weren't on the same page. It wasn't like a conflict, it wasn't like a me versus him kind of a scenario, it was like a hey, if we're going to do this again, we want to be on the same page. And it seems like we were always on a different page. Like when I was ready and wanted to have another, he was like no, I think we're done totally. And then all of a sudden he's like well, maybe soon. And then I was like oh no, I put that.
Speaker 1:I like closed that chapter and I thought I was done, and it was like whiplash or like I would pull that on him. And then it's kind of interesting. I feel like enough time passed that both of us were like did we wait too long to make the decision? Like because, because now we're out of the baby season, and like do now, it's not just do we want to have another baby, it's do we want to go back to a completely different chapter of parenting and life and traveling and everything. Everything changes and I think I love that, like you'll just know, I think so many women are told that about so many things in motherhood, but they're not taught how to know and most women did not grow up knowing how to know their own being, their own, desires, their own boundaries.
Speaker 1:Or, if we know it, it's a quiet whisper that we don't trust. Desire for something, but maybe not the capacity. Because there were times where I'm like, oh, I want another baby, but can I handle six months of HG, of throwing up four to five times a day? Can I handle having to take what was it? What's the sleep medicine? I can't remember the name.
Speaker 1:Just so that I don't have to be hospitalized for throwing up. Can I do that with two kids? Because I love the idea of having another baby and birthing and, like I was good at the newborn season, I loved it, like even even the first one, when I had postpartum stuff. It was hard, but yeah, that I think we can't just tell moms. You'll know, moms need to be moms, need to be encouraged how to know, how to feel. Into the questions of not just logistics but also emotions. And I love that you navigated that of how is it going to feel when we have the baby, how's it going to feel when our family is this big, what does that look like? And giving ourselves the space to find the knowing, to sit in the question long enough to have an answer that comes from you and your choice, like you're choosing it and then trusting your choice and then grading your choice too.
Speaker 2:I think, like we can. Two things can be true. Two things can be true. You can know deeply in your belly that another child is not right for you. Your marriage, your life fill in the box and you can deeply wish that that weren't true. That another child was right.
Speaker 2:I joke frequently that in another life I had my first child at 31, almost 32, and my last at 37. And I joke all the time. If I would have been like barefoot and pregnant at 25 and pregnancy was an easy thing to come by and keep for me, I could see myself like little house on the Prairie, sourdough bread, making mom of six, yeah Right, but that isn't practical for the life that I live. Um, and so, yes, closing the chapter after Callum who's our caboose baby, so, yes, closing the chapter after Callum who's our caboose baby has been really hard and I think that. But I've, I've soaked up, I've tried really hard to be present through his last or his firsts, my lasts, because I know they're the lasts, lasts Um, I, and my heart goes to parents that cause.
Speaker 2:I remember, with my middle, laying in bed a couple of nights before delivery, rubbing this giant baby and saying this isn't the last time I'm going to do this, babe. This isn't the last time. We're going to lay here in bed with me having this giant baby in my belly, watching her move. Well, we didn't know she was a girl, but watching this baby move and my heart goes to the people that had that same conversation and then life chose differently for them. Yeah, Right, so I think there's I am lucky, and I that is not missed, that I'm lucky that I got to choose this and it wasn't chosen for me, and so I just I want to. I know that's not our focus, but I do want anybody that's listening to this and they're like well, that must be nice.
Speaker 1:But here's the thing, and I hear that I think it's so important to name that, though, because I think motherhood is is sold to us as here's all of your choices, choose wisely. And then we make all of the right choices, and then life chooses for us, we, we, we cross off a, b and C, and all of a sudden we're at Y and we end up somewhere that, like we didn't ask for, we didn't want, and I think motherhood is one of those places in life where the rug gets pulled out of a lot of women of I didn't choose this, I didn't want this, or I did choose this right. Like I look at my first postpartum and I remember being like I chose this, I wanted this so badly. I have everything I ever wanted, and it I had this immense shame of.
Speaker 1:I should be so grateful. I like I need to just be grateful and happy, and I wasn't. I was grateful and I was happy and in the dualistic, like I was also drowning in, like reoccurring trauma stuff coming up. Like I like postpartum stuff was coming up and it kept me silent about how much I was drowning, because I was like I wanted this, I chose this, I had a miscarriage before my first daughter and so I had this, like I would have killed to have this, and now that I have it, why am I?
Speaker 1:not just like living this like Disney princess dream where I'm like baking the sourdough with the baby on my hip, just like gleaming all of the time, when I was just like trying to keep myself stable and trying to make sure my marriage didn't completely combust right, like it wasn't the experience I thought it would. So I love that you named that, because while so many women feel like they're choosing, a lot of women feel like that choice has been taken away or they have to work so hard to get to that choice, or you know, there's so many different scenarios in which that happens and we have to learn to transition and be where our feet are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. I think feeling your feet on the ground right Like literally grounding yourself to this world, with your eyes open to see what is in front of you, and deep in your heart, we can always go back to the grief that comes with changings of seasons. I'm living in it right now. I'm weaning my last baby.
Speaker 2:Um, I am so deeply passionate about breastfeeding and mothering through breastfeeding, and now this is over for me and I'm never going to do this again and and I've had to really honor all the feelings that come with that and I think all of us have, whether it's the newborn midnight cuddles and it's the, you know, tucking away these tiny newborn diapers and onesies and and snapped onesies I'm never going to snap a onesie together again. You know all of these pieces and honoring the profound change in us that happened as we walked through this like super slow and strangely blurry, fast season of parenting small humans, the zero to two range, and looking like what forward, to what is next, because where you're at in parenting kiddos that are like tweens and where I'm at in parenting two, five and eight it are different seasons. You know like there's the zero to two and then there's the like you know three to 10 ish maybe, and then beyond, and I think each season we're going to grieve just a little bit, right, I think, for me. I feel like maybe that's what's so magical about a healthy grandparent is that they probably felt this way too.
Speaker 2:Like I remember having my first baby and looking at him and being like did my mom love me this much? And like I have a beautiful relationship with my mother. I love her. I'm honored to call her my best friend as an adult and it changed how I viewed her. I was like damn. Alternatively, it was a little hard on my relationship with my dad. You know, you look at everything differently. You look at your religion differently, or yourself differently, your family systems differently. When you become the hierarchy of the family right, you are the top tier as mom and dad in your family. And moving into, what does that look like next? Who am I next? Where is this next identity shift? I just I wish that we, I wish that we held space for how big those things are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just that transformation of man I resonate so deeply and I think this is a man I resonate so deeply and I think this is when we become mothers. It changes the way that you see everything. It changes the way that you see your parents and it's really interesting. I do a lot, a lot, a lot of coaching on mom's relationship to their mothers, to their fathers, because you start seeing them as human beings, you start seeing their choices or maybe things that to us now because we are their children, so we still see them from a child perspective.
Speaker 1:A lot of times we look at their choices, which might not have been a choice. It might have been what life handed or what they had the capacity for, and sometimes there's more grace for your parents. But then also sometimes there's some clarity and some truth telling of like Ooh, wow, this is a sticky part that like doesn't actually feel good and I'm navigating this now as an adult because I have capacity from this place. I'm now in this role and I see that I don't want to do it the way that you did and it can change the way, like you said, like religion. It can change the way you see medicine or health or body or you know name X, y, z, yeah, and I think what's so fascinating? So many women are chasing balance in motherhood, right like what is that elusive every every single intake, I swear, almost every single intake.
Speaker 1:Someone mentions the word balance and I think what we have to understand is that balance is going to shift every single season because you are shifting. So balance is not looking outside yourself and seeing how do I get these two things to be even?
Speaker 1:it's looking inside and learning to understand your knowing of what you need of what you want and where your choice and agency is, because there's so many seasons where you only have so much choice and agency, seasons where you only have so much choice and agency, but if you can find that it allows you to create the balance by shifting, by saying, ooh, we went too far this way and we need to swing it back, we need to shift and parallel this.
Speaker 1:And it's so interesting, coming back to the topic of knowing when you're done having babies. So when my son was in let's see, he would have been in preschool I was kind of going through that transition too of like, okay, now I have, like a baby who's going to be away for a little bit. Yeah, what am I going to do with this space and time and capacity and identity? And that's when I started creating my business. That's when I started dreaming up the motherhood mentor, if you will. That's when I got pregnant with a new thing that wasn't a baby and wanted to birth a business into the world and a vision and this thing. And that was so significant because I didn't really have that before motherhood, like I didn't really. I had jobs before I became a mom. Have that before motherhood Like I didn't really.
Speaker 2:I had jobs before I became a mom, but I became a mom, so fire in your belly.
Speaker 1:No, like I worked, but I never had, like, a passion. The only work I had a passion for was motherhood. And then, all of a sudden, I had this deep growing ache and fire of like I want to create something different and my and it was so fun to do that, it was so fun to like. It really did parallel motherhood and like it I took on a new identity. I accidentally got a little over-identified with, like, my identity of entrepreneur, business owner and I had to come back to that's a role that I play and it's a part of me, and it's not all of me, but it's just. There's so many different things that women can be passionate about and I don't know it. Just I love this, just thinking of these transition seasons and knowing and it makes me think of your work even with mothers, so many people say you'll know how to breastfeed. It's so natural, but it's, but no no we don't.
Speaker 1:How do you teach women to know, Like, what's your experience with that? That's where I'm going with this. I was like there was a thread I was trying to pull at and I finally found it.
Speaker 2:I think our knowing. I mean we can equate knowing and confidence, right? One of my favorite research studies. I love science. I'm a nerd. You come to me, I'm going to teach you evidence-based things. I love it. I also deeply believe in the woo side of life. Yeah, one of the favorite things that I know is that the leading indicator of your breastfeeding success is your confidence in your ability to do. It is your confidence and your ability to do it. And so when we talk about how do you teach someone the knowing, they teach themselves the knowing. But we give grounding and support for their confidence. And when they go damn, my intuition was right which, by the way, moms, our intuition is always right.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And when we have people that we're looking up to as professionals, that we're seeking their guidance and their help, are looking back to you and saying you tell me what's going?
Speaker 2:on, not because I don't have opinions and education and ideas about what could potentially be going on, but because I believe that you know best and I want to know what you know so that I can take what I am educated in to shift it and help you really know what's going on. So I would equate how do you teach women to know and trust their knowing to? How do we increase each other's confidence? Because that's where the magic happens, that's when we have people that, instead of seeking an outside validation for this is what my gut is telling me we just go. This is what my gut is telling me. We just go.
Speaker 2:This is what my gut is telling me. This is what's going on. How am I going to navigate it? How do I want to navigate it? And so I think, like that's what my hope and my prayer out into the world, that that is the work that I do is help not just the women that I serve and babies that I serve and families that I serve, and I truly feel it is service to them. I want my life and my impact on anybody to always be confidence instilling and not faux confidence. But just like I see you, do you see you like those interactions with people that you're like damn that person, like really I feel like they just kind of saw me and how good that feels to be seen, especially in the invisible season of mothering Right.
Speaker 1:Like yeah, that was just what you just said was like mic drop moment, because I don't know, have we even talked about like I don't think you know? My history of I was a little leche league leader and then that's what brought me into coaching is because I realized that every mom who was calling me she didn't actually need help with the breastfeeding which is what I love about La Leche League is it's it's about the mom and teaching her to trust herself and helping her work through all of the information and experts and like becoming but I it really profoundly shifted and I had this realization of the thing that massively changed not just my motherhood but the threads of my entire life. I literally can trace it back, literally my entire identity was shifted by the way that my it's going to make me cry, by the way that my doula and my midwife saw me and treated me, Because there was a profound shift of having these powerful, grounded women look at me and say, what do you know? Yeah, and it wasn't just, they were trying to make me confident. They already believed me as competent Right, already believed me as competent Right. So like they treated me as a competent person that they trusted and it allowed me to trust myself and step into this whole new thing, which is, I mean, same Like when people come to me as a coach, I'm like listen, this is your life, this is.
Speaker 1:This. Is you. Who's in this marriage?
Speaker 2:This is you, what do you want?
Speaker 1:This is you. Who's parenting your kid? I don't know you and your kid. I am not at your house. I can't tell you your values. I can't tell you, but my hope is always to bring you back to. Maybe I can bring you some tools to help empower your competency and your knowing and trusting, your knowing and knowing how.
Speaker 1:Once you do know how, do we move into action based off of that? But I think that is something that so many mothers have not experienced. They have not experienced people who are experts or supporters, or the people quote unquote teaching us how to be mothers of. There's no like empowerment. Let me slow down. My brain's moving faster than my mouth. I think external validation is powerful, but I think what so many women are looking for is external permission. I need you to tell me that I'm okay and for the most part, they're not getting that in our world. They're not sitting in rooms of women who know how to empower each other in the way that you and I are just talking about right now, and I think that's something that we have to collectively shift and change, not just what we're saying, but how we're saying it and even just the way that we view each other Totally.
Speaker 2:Which I think, like you're so right that so many of us don't know how we've never had, we've never felt seen, and so we don't know. And I that feel like we can see others and help them see themselves and feel like they have been given the permission that they didn't even need, that lived inside them but they finally see it. I think it's so important for us to be those women, not just in these closed circuits of a of a podcast, sitting here together today, or in the confines of my tiny little office where magic happens like, but out in the wild happens Like, but out in the wild like. You know, you, I, I, I joke pretty frequently that a little bit I'm becoming my mother. Um, she's like Brene Brown, but not famous.
Speaker 1:Hi mom, Um, she's a she's a.
Speaker 2:she's a family therapist. She's a. She's been our family therapist since before she was a family's therapist. She sees people and people pour to her. Like she is that. She's a magnet for people's things.
Speaker 2:But I grew up watching her compliment other women in the grocery store and I grew up watching her embarrassingly to me as like a tween be that person in the grocery store. That's like it gets better as she passes. A mom with like wailing toddlers and she's just doing her damnedest to get her groceries. Back in the 80s and 90s when there was no click list and you had to go to the grocery store with like terrifying, but people lived through that. How did they grow up with? I grew up with her modeling that and I think that's why and how I can do it.
Speaker 2:Women that are feeling like we are grounded in ourselves and confident in our knowing and our own being can gift that forward by modeling it for others. And it's not modeling like oh, I'm so confident, I trust myself. Look at this world I've created. It is modeling through those bite-sized pieces of mirroring somebody else. I see you doing this. You're a rock star. It's so hard to go grocery shopping with babies and it's close to nap time. Can I help you get to your car? Like it's that that could like collective community, that gives the people that aren't quite yet there to trust their knowing. But like, huh, I've got this and I think that's how we change the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause I it's. I love that you said that of women who don't quite feel that, because I have to say that, like again, my brain is moving faster than my mouth, let me so. It brings me to this place of. It makes me think of like, diet, culture, and I promise I'll tie this in. I remember in early motherhood when I realized like I no longer want to hate my body and I looked to the like, body positivity movement and their solution was like you just love your body and I'm sitting there like, but you don't understand. I've had 20 years of hating my body and being taught by like, taught by culture, to hate this body, taught by abuse that this body is not good or safe or okay and it's just like. So I felt left behind by like. The positivity and I think that that happens a lot in motherhood is that women feel like they're either in this camp of positive, happy mother or mother who's miserable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as you're speaking, all I'm hearing is like I'm visualizing a ladder right and the top of the ladder is where we're talking with mothering and just really like personning, not just like I am a mother, but I am a person first, motherhood and being at that top where I trust my knowing and and I can be the one. That is like leaning down from the top and and helping others climb up the ladder. But the toxic positivity of like it just gets better. Like that's true, but we have to like lend the hand to help to add the stair steps in.
Speaker 1:It's like all the rungs out of the middle and you're looking down there like just be up here yeah.
Speaker 2:We need the rungs. You have to be the rung that is that extra hand held out of like. Yes, it does just get better and this is really hard. Can I help going back to the grocery store idea? Can I help you back to the grocery store idea? Can I help you get your groceries to the car?
Speaker 1:And it's not just the mom by herself climbing the ladder, it's we as mothers helping each other. Hey, I do actually know there's a couple steps between hating your body and loving your body and, like me, that was not like a quick, instant transformation, that was not an E, it's still a. I still have rungs on this ladder and it's like here's, here's your first rung, mama, and one of those rungs. I just want to share this Cause I, you know we're talking a lot about like how do you know? And actually one of the tricks that I have found in coaching is one of two things what do you believe and how would you act if you were making this decision for your child?
Speaker 1:I think a mother's love is so, so powerful and so many women use that against ourselves, but I think we can use it for ourselves. So if this, if you are making the decision of if your child eats lunch or doesn't, you're going to choose that your child eats some lunch. So if the decision is, do I take a shower or do I not take a shower, what would you decide for your child? And the other one is finding a friend or a woman who you just like, love and adore. And when that little voice inside your head is shaming you for your house or how well you're breastfeeding, or even just sadness.
Speaker 1:I think shame and perfectionism comes in for our emotions just as much as it does our behaviors I always externalize it of. If my best friend was going through this, would I talk to her how I'm talking to myself in my head? Would I treat her how I'm treating myself in this high moment or in this low moment? Because if it was her, how would I want to love her, how would I want her to show up for her and it like we use it as a trick of like reteaching ourselves how to relate to our knowing. Like if my friend was going through this, I'll bet you I have advice that comes from, like, my deep knowing and my gut instinct of what she needs. We can find that for ourselves. We do have it. We just have to kind of learn the language and learn how to listen and then learn how to trust it and witness that it is wise.
Speaker 2:In doing that too. Yeah, it's slightly. I mean, it's cognitive behavioral therapy, right, where we are thinking about and being aware of. Would I speak to my child this way? Would I hope that my child eats lunch? Would I hope that my best friend knows that it is fine that your house is a hot mess and that you're, you know, struggling with the season that you're in? We? It also makes us aware of how we speak to ourselves.
Speaker 2:What are our themes that play on repeat in our head? My body's not good enough, my body is, is not perfect, is not meant for love, and I need to beat her down, right? What are these tracks that we're hearing? My mothering, I shout, my house is a mess, my kids are not even in day clothes and it's 2 pm. You know all of these negative reels that are in our head. It brings them to light and when we know them, when we see them and we name them, we can change the tape. We can change what that is, and I think that's so important, so we don't get to the top of the rung right away. It's these baby steps and I think that's the same thing.
Speaker 2:Going back to our main topic of like, when we were talking about. How do you know that your family's ready to go to the next step? You might not know, you might just make this decision. Because when you sit in the quiet of your closet, like Glennon Doyle tells us to do, and we just get deep with ourselves and we listen to our dang self, what is right in that moment? And then you say, yep, that's what we're going to, bravely tread forward, that's one next step on the rung. And then you have these babies and they're not so much babies anymore and you walk out of your last season of mothering small babies and now you're mothering toddlers and preschoolers and early grade schoolers. And we're just continuing to climb that rung. And each time we sit quietly with ourselves and go, yep, this is the right decision for me and my crew, then we trust ourselves a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think, yeah, I think it really does having that trust in yourself to make a choice, and I think so often mothers feel like I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't, and it's like, well, the good side to that is that you realize that, like you aren't a God-like being who just like makes these choices that are always perfect. Just make a decision for the right reasons, like I like my reasons for making this choice, and then you have your back, because the reality is is that, like you'll never know how the other option was going to go anyways. And having that regret is something we try to do to avoid feeling the grief and the weight of our decision, cause our decisions do always have them. They always like there there is a grief to any decision, whether it's right now or down the road, like that's any decision, but that doesn't make it a bad decision.
Speaker 1:And what would it look like to trust yourself that, like I made the right decision with the information that I had, and also, right now, maybe you're at a place where you want to pivot and make a different decision. That's, it's a continual thing. So, as we talk about this ladder, I also just want to name. There's not an arrival place.
Speaker 2:No, I'm pretty sure the ladder just keeps growing. It's like magic.
Speaker 1:I love that you said it's a magic ladder, because it's not this exhausting like, oh my gosh it's. This is awful. It's like, no, you're just, you're growing and there's going to be seasons and there's going to be summers where it's warm and there's more space and capacity, and there's going to be winters where things die off and the old things no longer move on to the next season. Like there's just going to be different seasons and there's going to be different points where you're moving up or down the ladder. But I think that remembering we're lifting each other up and being there for yourself is such a powerful thing.
Speaker 1:When we look at the choices we're making in motherhood, when we look at these different seasons and I think it's important to name the transition between two seasons I think is always the hardest, because what was working stops working and then you have to find a new way of working it Right. Like and sometimes that's a really fun thing You're like oh, all of a sudden I have this time and energy, what do I do with it? Which can feel like pressure to some women. And then there's other seasons where you're like ooh, I have less time and now I have to figure out how to make it work in the margins.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the in-between is always the most challenging, right, we know. But it's the saying of the devil you know is better than the devil. You don't right, because we know what we just walked through, but now we are in this in-between where we don't know what's next. So I would love to share that. If you are a young mom, in the in-between that you are choosing, maybe you're trying to listen to yourself Is this the right decision to say yes, we're done with babies, we're going to move to the next? I just want to lead with the encouragement of when we sit with that transition and walk out from that transition, how beautiful it is on that other side and that's not to downplay the fact that it is hard to climb the ladder or do these big movements to get you towards the next space. It is to say that you get to become more you again. There's room for more. And there's room for more mothering of older kiddos there's room for more you. I absolutely love.
Speaker 2:I don't remember who it is that coined the. You get your pink back. But they talk about how flamingos are like the only animal that loses its color in early postpartum. They literally become pale and as their offspring gets a little bit older, their bright, brilliant pink comes back. And I'm here to tell you that when we get two-ish plus years postpartum from our last baby not like still trying to grow but from our last baby we get to be pink again.
Speaker 2:And we get to say this is what I know feels good, this is what I know I want and where my goals are, and we have the like capacity to move forward towards those things like we might have had the capacity to think about it when we were really in that young season, but now we have the capacity to actually do actionable steps towards becoming who we want to be, doing, what we want to do, and it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was so good and I love, yeah, honoring the last season, honoring the transitions, and then enjoying the season you're in, yeah, being where your feet are. I love that. Thank you so much for being here, angela. This was so much fun. Thank you for having me. Yes, absolutely, so much fun. Thank you for having me. Yes, absolutely. 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.
