House of JerMar

Joywell: A Maternal Wellness Company

• Jeanne Collins • Season 1 • Episode 36

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Today, in our conversation with Abby Dixon, the visionary behind JoyWell, we explore the essential elements contributing to maternal wellness. Abby shares her journey from traditional mental health practices to a more holistic approach, deeply influenced by her personal experience with motherhood and the challenges of the pandemic. We discuss wellness for new mothers, emphasizing the importance of joy and self-awareness for personal growth.

We address pressing issues such as postpartum depression and anxiety that often appear as women move through the complex identity transformation that accompanies motherhood. Abby emphasizes the power of connection and community through programs like postpartum group coaching, which help mothers reconnect with their identities. These initiatives provide a vital support network and access to mental health resources, empowering mothers to embrace their new roles while maintaining their core traits. The concept of fostering a tribe of like-minded women is highlighted as crucial for well-being and personal growth during early motherhood.

Sharing personal stories, we reflect on the significance of support from family and friends, illustrating how a strong network can help balance work, motherhood, and personal growth. Plus, get a sneak peek into JoyWell's future initiative, the New Mom School locations in Westport and Greenwich, Connecticut, designed to provide comprehensive resources and community support for mothers navigating the early stages of parenting.

Abby's Book Recommendation:

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

More about Abby and Joywell:

Abby Dixon is a licensed therapist and founder of Joywell, a maternal wellness company dedicated to helping mothers and families thrive. Guided by personal experience and her expertise in perinatal and maternal mental health, Abby’s work supports clients in defining their unique journey, whether it’s preparing for a new baby or navigating the postpartum period. 

Joywell’s customized services are designed to meet each family’s individual needs, offering comprehensive support for the emotional, mental, and practical aspects of early parenthood. With a commitment to following her clients’ lead, Abby’s approach ensures that every mother feels empowered, prepared, and fully supported.

www.thejoywell.co

Instagram: @the_joywell

House of JerMar:
Learn more on our website: houseofjermar.com.

Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/houseofjermar/

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@Houseofjermar

Read Jeanne's Book: Two Feet In: Lessons From and All-In Life

WELCOME TO OUR HOUSE!

Speaker 1:

In identity maintenance. I do a lot of that work in my private practice as well, but I do a lot of it in groups. We do a lot of who are we as moms? Who are we as people, standalone people right Outside of our family and outside of our job, if we decide to work outside of the home, who are we? What lights us up, what brings us joy? And even in my honestly, in my maternity concierge clients, I have them identify what brings them joy before baby comes so that they can remember, so that they can do their best to incorporate that in whatever way makes sense for them after baby comes. When we lose those things that really light us up, what service, like, what good is that doing our child? We don't wanna model that for our child and it's not keeping us whole as parents.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the House of Jermar podcast, where wellness starts within. The House of Jermar is a lifestyle brand, empowering women to live all in through interior design and personal wellness. We are a destination for women ready to reimagine what is possible in their homes and lives and then create it. We are honored to have you join us on our mission to empower 1 million women to live all in. I am your host, jean Collins, and I invite you to become inspired by this week's guest, jean Collins, and I invite you to become inspired by this week's guest.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the House of Germar podcast, where wellness starts within. I'm your host, jean Collins, and today's guest is Abby Dixon. I'm so excited. I've never met Abby in person, but we happen to live right near each other and she specializes in something that I think is really, really interesting maternal wellness. So she is a therapist. She has her own company called JoyWell, and we're going to talk about how she got into that. She's a mama of three, how she got into becoming an entrepreneur, starting her own company. She looks at holistic wellness. She's not just your average therapist and she really focuses on helping moms at many different stages it's not just about pre-birth and right after birth. So, abby, thank you so much for joining the show. I'm so excited to get to meet you in virtual person.

Speaker 1:

Virtual person. Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

Speaker 2:

It's a pleasure, and I see you because we're connected on Instagram with lots of similar people, so I see you, I follow you, I see you in magazines and stuff, so it's an honor. It's an honor to get to see you in person because your resume is very impressive. So thank you for making the time and, just so everybody knows, this is right before the holidays Couldn't be a more stressful busy time. So, hey, thank you for making the time right before the holidays. Thank you for making the time.

Speaker 1:

We all have kids. It's a journey, it's a special time.

Speaker 2:

It's a special time, so share with everybody a little bit about your professional journey leading up to deciding you were going to become an entrepreneur and start your own business.

Speaker 1:

I went back to grad school in 2013. So I just graduated college in 2009, went back to grad school and I didn't really love the way mental health as a profession, as a subject of study, was presented to me. It was really like you are your symptoms. There was nothing more to it other than treating these symptoms and moving on, and I think that that's the reason why a lot of people are in therapy for years and years and years and years is because we don't get to the root cause. We don't get to the lifestyle factors. You know, we talk about the problems but we don't troubleshoot them. We kind of learn some coping skills, which are great and I'm not knocking coping skills, I teach them all the time and they work really well, but we don't change the patterns of behavior necessarily or the patterns of interaction that then create more problems, right?

Speaker 1:

So once that kind of came and went, I pursued another master's degree in mental health and wellness counseling, which was a little bit more of a holistic view. It was still all the basics that you get in any graduate psychology program, but from a different perspective, and I thought that spoke so much more to me. And during that second round of grad school I also happened to get married and have a baby, and then another baby and then, when I was studying for my licensure, I had one more baby. I've really been on this journey of growth alongside the growth of my family, and I do think that that dictated a lot of what specialty I picked. I knew moms were unsupported. I knew don't forget, covid also happened during that time.

Speaker 1:

And mom yes, parenting in a vacuum and unable to connect. And I ran groups completely free, like people could join, for moms who were about to deliver alone and for moms who had just delivered, so that they would have at least something to connect about, something to talk about, even if they were all over the country didn't matter. At the very least we had that Do. I prefer in-person connection Always, but it was a good stopgap and once I saw that I really leaned in hard into Joywell and that's where Joywell really came from was those free groups that were held during COVID.

Speaker 2:

Which is so interesting because, as you're saying that, I think I sort of forget that back in COVID, like you were not allowed to bring anyone. It wasn't like the birth that I had of my daughter where everybody was there and everybody comes to visit and everybody's in and out and all day long, and the idea of visiting hours doesn't even exist in the hospitals around here. And to think about these women who are going through that experience very much, like you said, almost by themselves, is really wow, like that's hard. And then I can see how you really were providing a service to these women that can make a difference. You can make a difference in someone and you couldn't be there in person, but you were making such a difference.

Speaker 1:

I was just hoping to foster connection. That's all I really wanted. I wanted them to not feel alone, and if they were feeling alone, I wanted them to realize that they weren't the only ones. And then I realized that it could really be helpful, and so I need to grow this in a way that makes sense for my family and for moms. Yeah, and Joywell has kind of gone through a few evolutions over the five years. It's been around, but it's been, it's been a passion project, it's one of the loves of my life and I'm so, I'm so happy and honored to be doing this as a profession my life and I'm so happy and honored to be doing this as a profession.

Speaker 2:

Do you find that Joywell has evolved as the stages with your children have evolved? Because they always say you're best suited to serve the person that you were. And so now that you have three under your belt and they're growing, and they're getting older, do you think Joywell is evolving a little too as a result?

Speaker 1:

So I think, yeah, I think Joywell comes from, of course, my own experiences, but it also comes from all the moms that I've worked with. Yeah, I learned something from every single client I've ever worked with, be they you know I worked in rape crisis before grad school those women to my private practice clients, to my concierge clients they all teach me something. I think that that's one of the biggest gifts of being a therapist is that you're constantly learning. But I think, more than anything yes, of course, I lost my mom at 26, before I got married or before I had kids, so I didn't have that sense of guidance.

Speaker 1:

When I had my first kid, second kid, so on and so forth, I also didn't have that support. Normally, when a mom is still involved in a new mom's life, she comes in and helps her somehow, be it, you know, virtually, somehow or in person. She'll stay over, she'll help with the groceries, she'll help. And we had, like during COVID, we certainly didn't have that, but I never had that and I wanted to find a way for moms to find a village outside of their nuclear families, outside of their families of origin. So, yeah, it's really very personal to me where Joywell came from.

Speaker 2:

And that's an interesting experience that you're providing, because the reality is is that we'd like to think that our mothers are present for us when we go through these important stages of life but, just like it happened for you, that's not always the case and, and especially I think, as women are having children older and older, their parents might not live here anymore or might not even physically be or mentally at this stage, capable of helping in the way it happened 30 years ago or 40 years ago, because if women are having children in their late 30s and early 40s now their parents are older and that level of support doesn't exist. And I love how you're providing a community to provide that support so they don't feel that they're unique and that they're different or that it's bad. You're giving a substitute which is special.

Speaker 1:

In my opinion, arming moms with knowledge and actionable steps before they deliver can help mitigate a lot of the shock that comes with especially your first child.

Speaker 1:

I do think there's no substitute for the village. I think that's something that we've lost as a society in many, many ways, and I will get to how we're kind of fixing that too. But I do think that preparing especially a first-time mom but certainly any mom, no matter how many babies she's had with resources, arming her with knowledge and resources instead of stuff, is so much more valuable and is going to benefit not only her but her child and her partnership and her family, so much more than a standard baby registry. And that's really what Joywell, the course that we have is postpartum prep. That's really how that serves, but also that's how my maternity concierge service works. It really takes into account who this mom is before she delivers, what she wants to preserve about herself throughout motherhood because our identities evolve as we become mothers, they grow and what her core values are that she wants to carry forward into her journey with motherhood.

Speaker 2:

So you said something that's so interesting because you're a therapist and not just a coach and not just a service provider. You added such an interesting level to it, which is acknowledging who that mother is before birth as a human being, and the traits of that mother. And then, who does that mother want to become as their identity changes and they then become a mother? But what about their core traits? For them as a person? Do they still want to embody and I would think for some women they might even want to embody new traits as mothers?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, our identities grow in motherhood for sure.

Speaker 2:

That's so cool yeah.

Speaker 1:

We're never going to be able to keep our identity the same Once we go through motherhood. We can grow right. So that means we might trim a little bit of the stuff here and we might sprinkle some water and nurture some other traits. But the point is not to get so lost that we no longer recognize ourselves as women, as friends. We no longer recognize ourselves as women, as friends, as partners and as mothers?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so do you also help women with postpartum? Depression and what do they do after the baby's here, and how do they maintain their identity and still find a sense of self when you don't really have much of a sense of self? And I think on your website you talk about the fact that it's just so overwhelming being a parent and it really is and I would love to hear about how you help people navigate that overwhelming path, because it is very overwhelming perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, pmads for short.

Speaker 1:

So that includes things like postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety. We see a lot of postpartum rage and that typically stems from overstimulation in motherhood, which again with the hormones it's like are you kidding Really? But I see a lot of that for sure. And in identity maintenance. I do a lot of that work in my private practice as well, but I do a lot of it in groups. We do a lot of who are we as moms? Who are we as people, standalone people right Outside of our family and outside of our job, if we decide to work outside of the home, who are we?

Speaker 1:

What lights us up? What brings us joy? And even in my honestly, in my maternity concierge clients, I have them identify what brings them joy before baby comes so that they can remember, so that they can do their best to incorporate that in whatever way makes sense for them after baby comes. Because when we lose that playfulness in our life, when we lose our hobbies, when we lose those things that really light us up, what service like, what good is that doing our child? We don't want to model that for our child.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and it's not keeping us whole as parents that that struggle exists, because I think so many women, especially those of us that you know, work outside the home it's this expectation that you're just going to be great at all of it and then you're just going to figure it out, which is still to this day.

Speaker 1:

I'm not sure how we still have that, because it's unattainable.

Speaker 2:

It is. It's unattainable. We can't have it all all the time. No, it's 100% unattainable and still have a sense of self. It's absolutely.

Speaker 1:

And then what you're doing is you're perpetuating a sense of failure, and none of them are failures. We're not failures, we're just real people.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so back to your services. So you offer group classes.

Speaker 1:

So I do group, I do postpartum group coaching, yep.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and can people be anywhere? Can they be anywhere for that, or they have to be in person?

Speaker 1:

It's not exactly postpartum group coaching. It's kind of like, once moms are a little more established, we work on reengaging with our identities, reengaging with our own expectations of ourselves, our life goals, our values, stuff like that. So that's probably a little bit later on. But for the immediate postpartum moms, I actually am bringing New Mom School here to Westport and then to Greenwich, which is huge, yeah, and it matches moms. It started out in California and so I'm bringing it over to the experts in and it's all in person and these moms are together from birth so they have an inbuilt support system with each other. They have people who are walking the same paths as them so they don't feel alone, so they don't feel like they're the exception to the rule, but also so that they know which experts they have access to Interesting.

Speaker 2:

It's not just like a play date, because you don't have those in the beginning.

Speaker 1:

Really, it's all very purposeful, yes, and we know that these bonds forged in early motherhood are protective against many of the effects of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. So again, that postpartum anxiety, that postpartum depression, connection with other people who have been there and who are there is invaluable.

Speaker 2:

Just to have another I know as an entrepreneur just to be able to have a network of other entrepreneurs that you can call.

Speaker 2:

And it's exactly the same thing. It's people who can understand some of your struggles and also your successes, where your immediate family member might not be that excited about those successes. But as a new mom, there are a lot of things that happen that you want to celebrate that just because they really are big deals. Like you know, if you get to take a shower before five, that's like hurrah, or your spouse might be like whatever.

Speaker 2:

You showered today Great, so the benefit of connection and community and you mentioned the word tribe in the beginning is really powerful, and also, I think, because you were packaging it up with a service that has an intention of looking at mental health and looking at parenting through that lens, you tend to attract, I would think, like-minded women who are interested in their mental health and their well-being and interested in keeping their joy and interested in keeping their identity. So you're creating a tribe of people who not only are in a similar place in time, but have similar goals and objectives in terms of their wellness too.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and I think even more than that, I think acknowledging that there's an example you want to set let's say you have daughters, because I have two daughters and then I have a little boy I want them to know that they don't have to be the sacrificial lambs in their family. I saw my mom do it and I also saw her pursue her own career. She was a pediatrician. I saw her go for what she wanted. I saw her go out and be in the world and those were all things that were important to her and lit her up, and once we were kind of old enough, she engaged with it again. On the other hand, I also want to acknowledge that there are lots of moms who don't have that ability to have that exact balance, and those are the moms I really like working with, because we find a way. We find a way to bring yourself back into motherhood, to include you as a whole person in the experience of raising a family.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I love that, you as a whole person. I pull out quotes from episodes that one's coming with me.

Speaker 1:

That's a good one, you know, especially as moms and I'm sure you relate to this we forget that we were humans before we had these tiny, tiny dictators for lack of a better term in our lives, right.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

As much as we love them, right? And the beginning you talk about this on your website too. The beginning is so hard Not if you're a first time mom, or even a second or third time mom. They're just sucking the life out of you and you get so little back. When they start to get older, they start to refuel the energy that they're pulling out, but the beginning is really such a struggle, and it's also a struggle because there's no manual about how to do this. And you just mentioned hormones. You throw in hormones on top of it. Everybody's reacting differently to how this whole thing works, and some women are crying all day and others are like what's wrong?

Speaker 1:

with you.

Speaker 2:

This is the greatest gift ever.

Speaker 1:

I think it's so important and I think there's like a trend now going around on Instagram and TikTok I'm not on TikTok, but on Instagram I've seen it like why did no one warn us about this?

Speaker 1:

Like there are certain things that no one tells you to expect, no one tells you to prepare for, and I wonder if it's just that we keep having babies or if it's just something that we kind of forget, like the pain of labor and delivery, right, right, you do forget.

Speaker 1:

And so, with you know, joywell's kind of rebirth in 2024, I did bring a lot of prenatal services in because had I known after you know, having my first, second, third, the amount of resources out there, had I prepared them in advance, especially before my first, who was an emergency C-section completely out of nowhere? Had I known all those things, I would have had people lined up other than a baby nurse, I would have had a postpartum doula come, and of course, this comes from a tremendous place of privilege, right, and us being here in Fairfield County having access to all of these wonderful resources. I know that's not the case everywhere, but I did, you know, give birth in New York City. I was living in New Canaan, I had access to all these things. I just didn't know that I had access to all these things and really my husband had to go back to work five days after my first was born, so I was really by myself.

Speaker 2:

Right, and your mother was no longer alive.

Speaker 1:

And then it's you no, and my sisters live elsewhere.

Speaker 2:

Right, and so you've been there, done that. You know from experience how alone you can be. And it's interesting. You mentioned resources because I think we're in this information age where there's so much information out there, which in some ways is great, but, like Google, md is not cool and you know, and I find it overwhelming on so many different subjects and I can only imagine for these new moms. There's so much information out there and it's so hard to know where to go and who to trust and what sources are the right sources and what things work. So you just offering services that connect people so that they can be like. You know what this like. Follow this person, go read this blog, go read this book, because there is so much information out there and not especially in the medical profession. Not a ton of it, in my experience, is like policed, let's say.

Speaker 1:

If that's the right word, but Right. Well, you don't know the sources, right, Right? Yes, you don't know the sources, right, right?

Speaker 2:

Yes, you don't. And it's like people think like Wikipedia is like the source of all and I'm like Wikipedia is not a doctor.

Speaker 1:

It is not a doctor. Webmd is not a doctor. None of these things are doctors. But even beyond that, for your own support, right Like postpartum prep, for example, ends up in a it kind of there's a printout at the beginning of the course and it ends up in this whole postpartum plan that you show to your loved ones. If you see me behaving in XYZ way, this is who you call.

Speaker 1:

Ooh, I like that If I'm feeling lonely and I can't express it, this is what we do, like we call XYZ person and we say, hey, we're going to go for a walk in the sunshine if it's sunny out. Or we say, hey, I'm going to come over and make you dinner and we're going to chat while I cook for you, right, because it's not just about the drop and go situation. I think meal trains are great and they're a lovely way to support new moms, but oftentimes new motherhood, especially in those first few weeks, is so stinking lonely. It is so lonely. You are contact napping a baby in the dark because they don't sleep anywhere else, right. You're constantly feeding, right, because bottle or breast they still have to eat every two hours. You're not sleeping at night because, again, that kind of every two to four hour situation is still happening. It is so lonely.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, oh, and I love that you're giving resources to the broader family. So it it puts. It puts some accountability on the other people, but it also allows them to help, Because I think other people want to help. They just don't always know how and we just think, you know. You mentioned the food chain. Like we just think like, oh, they had, you know, or someone died, oh, we bring them food, oh this. But you bring a really interesting perspective, which is that might not actually be what that person needs the most.

Speaker 1:

I mean food's great, food's great, but sometimes Eating something off of a new mom's plate is amazing. I'm not going to knock it.

Speaker 2:

No, but sometimes just having someone come over and hang out is also a lot of that was lost in COVID because we were too scared, right and rightfully so.

Speaker 1:

We had no idea what this virus was going to do. A lot of that was lost in COVID and I was seeing evidence of it, especially because my third was born in 21.

Speaker 2:

I was seeing, you know, a lot of this kind of go when all I wanted was to have a conversation with someone, Right, yeah, not on the phone, right?

Speaker 1:

Someone actually physically just sit there with you and be like hey, let me, let me get you a tea. Yeah, I remember one of my closest friends, who we had first the same age, came over and held my little baby while sitting next to me so that I could eat my dinner. But she was sitting next to me. I had someone other than my husband sitting with me, talking with me. One of my friends came over to help me bathe her, just so that I wouldn't have to do it alone or with my husband.

Speaker 2:

Right, right, no offense to them, but sometimes you need-.

Speaker 1:

No, he's a wonderful father and he's so supportive, but sometimes you just need another mom.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and sometimes you also need someone to talk about something other than the baby Exactly, and it's like you know, recognizing that you have these friends from other things, and even if it's someone to just come over with and talk about their job or what they're struggling with, or just something that isn't related to diapers and feeding right Poop like all that stuff. That's just like consuming your life.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes it's kind of interesting to up as this goddess, for lack of a better term especially during pregnancy, but after pregnancy too, the mother was once relegated to bed and tended to 24-7.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's not so much anymore. It's not real life anymore. Right, that's probably not possible to that extent, although in some cultures it is absolutely possible. But we've gone so far off the deep end. We've gone to this level of hyper independence and this expectation that moms should be able to do it all alone. And I'm really starting to see the boomerang come around a little bit, where we see movements and trends and articles about the village coming back to life or, you know, postpartum doulas are becoming a little bit more popular, thank God. I'm a big fan of postpartum doulas. I think that they're an invaluable part of your birth and postpartum team. So I'm starting to see that boomerang kind of swing around to where we're trying to implement villages, but a lot of us don't know how.

Speaker 2:

Right, which is really interesting, so talk to me. Different subject concierge service. What is that? That sounds cool, so maternity concierge.

Speaker 1:

It's actually like my favorite in the whole wide world, is it? Yeah, because I get to work with a mom. Therapy has very strict for very good reasons boundaries. Okay, right, therapy. The work done in therapy is often very deep and very sensitive in many ways and it should stay that way. Okay, and that's a very sacred space. Maternity concierge is similar in that it's a very sacred space for mom to explore who she is, how she wants to show up as a mom and how she wants to show up for herself going forward into her family journey. We do kind of all the fun basic things right, like we do pick out a baby registry, because you do, in the end, need things for baby Not as much as we think.

Speaker 2:

You do need things, not as much as the store wants you to believe. You can't live without.

Speaker 1:

Right, and oh my gosh, the amount of stuff I got rid of when my first, when we moved after my third, was born. Unbelievable amounts of stuff. I mean, it was great to give it away and, you know, hand it to people who would have great use of it. But it didn't all go to one person, right? Oh, of course not.

Speaker 2:

Because it's not all needed, it's not all needed. It's like anything you can only use so much at a time. They can only play with so many toys. It's the same idea.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's the same idea. It's kind of wild. That was one thing. So we obviously do that. But we really, with maternity concierge, we take inventory of your values, of mom's values, how she wants that to show up in her life with child. You know, before after all of these things, we do a lot of work on boundaries. We do a lot of work. You know I provide scripts, we facilitate conversations. I do four to five prenatal counseling sessions where you know a partner can join or she can do it by herself to work out things that she anticipates might come up so that again, if and when it happens postpartum she's not surprised and unprepared.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

The name of the game here is preparation. So, yeah, we do the registry, we do the preparing to go back to work, if that's what she chooses to do. We do the preparing to transition to full-time stay-at-home mom, if that's what she chooses to do. We do all the legwork before we're exhausted, hormonal and recovering from childbirth, and you do it with someone who's A walked it three times but is also a mental health professional who can help you really work through these things so that they don't become problematic later on.

Speaker 2:

At what stage are women coming to you for this level of service?

Speaker 1:

So I usually go late second trimester no later than early third trimester, right. So, like 27, 28 weeks yeah, that's sweet spot, because we want it all to be fresh, but we also want to be able to make it through the three month period. Yes, right. So we don't want to be starting at like 30, 35 weeks because we won't have enough time.

Speaker 2:

Rome isn't built in a day. It's too late? Yeah right, it's too late. And then how long do people keep working with you after the baby's born? Because I would think some of it can be ongoing, depending on the person.

Speaker 1:

Yep, so that's up to them. Typically we do one to two postpartum check-ins, depending on how much they feel they need. I often like to take a lot off of mom's plate once baby comes. I don't want her to feel like, oh my God, I have an appointment I need to get to, and while, yes, that does teach mom to prioritize herself, it can also really be a stressor for a lot of moms. So I follow their lead in that way. I always do at least one postpartum check-in and they also have access to me via WhatsApp or text, so they can kind of be like, oh my gosh, abby, I'm feeling this is not the baby blues, this is something else. Like I need help. I will immediately get on the phone with them.

Speaker 2:

We'll find resources for them, you know within 24 hours we'll get them set up with something. Right, which is such a gift because you're giving that mental health professional therapist angle to the whole process, which is not. The services I've seen are either service based. I haven't seen anybody that does it with the approach that you do. Let's just put it that way, which is really interesting.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think you know, I think, maternity concierge especially. There was a show on Bravo I don't know if you ever watched it called Pregnant in Heels with Rosie Pope and she's kind of known as the maternity concierge for wealthy people and I don't know if she's still doing it. But this was, you know, 10, 15 years ago and a lot of it was around planning the baby shower and a lot of it was around the nursery and a lot of it was around conversations with your husband. But it could only go so far because she didn't have the training that I do.

Speaker 1:

As wonderful as that service was no-transcript.

Speaker 2:

You are so calm. It's like I don't know how you're doing this, because we're going to talk about how in the world you balance this with your kids, but you come across as so calm.

Speaker 1:

I think I'm calm when I'm working because I really love what I do. Yes, and it fully engages my brain, so I can't really be anxious. I suffer from generalized anxiety disorder. I have since college. You would never know. Even when I was postpartum with my first, second, third, I actually never recognized the signs of postpartum anxiety in myself. Wow.

Speaker 2:

Which is why you can help Right.

Speaker 1:

Yes, now you can help others we kind of leave a list for family members of like if you're seeing this, let's reach out to someone and get assessed. We don't need to suffer.

Speaker 2:

Yes, well, and I love that, that we don't need to suffer, because I think sometimes we are just conditioned that this is part of that stage and it's stressful and it's overwhelming, and get over it.

Speaker 1:

It makes me so mad that it's just motherhood, but it doesn't have to be.

Speaker 2:

Even if it is it doesn't have to be. I love that Oof that is powerful. All right, let's talk about balance. You have three kids, Okay, how old are your kids? Talk about balance you have three kids. Okay, how old are your kids?

Speaker 1:

Seven, five and three Holy cow. Oh my goodness, we're a little nutty, you have to be nutty to kind of work, but we're really nutty.

Speaker 2:

So how do you balance being a mom and being an entrepreneur and running your own business and still finding you in there as well, just like you do with your clients?

Speaker 1:

So me took a really big backseat until Did it May of last, yeah, may of 24. Yeah, Okay.

Speaker 1:

There was very little room for me, mm-hmm, and that's kind of just how it was. I mean, that's just real talk. Yes, right, you don't want that for other moms, because it felt really crappy, and so that's. You know where a big inspiration of mine comes from is let's not let you get there Right. You know it's balance is not a thing. Some days we give more to one area of life and some days we give more to another area of life.

Speaker 1:

I have help. I have a nanny. That is how I can do my work. Stuff that lights me up. That is how I can go to the grocery store on a Tuesday, so that I don't have to spend my weekend with my kids going to the grocery store. That is a tremendous amount of privilege. It also frees me up mentally to hold space for moms that I work with. If I was parenting them full time, I wouldn't have the bandwidth. There's no possible way. Yes, there is. So I have to always acknowledge that I have an amazing nanny who helps me tremendously.

Speaker 1:

My husband's very supportive. He doesn't work in the city. I have that too Great Helpful. I have super supportive friends who are my biggest cheerleaders and I love them and I'm so grateful for them. A lot of them are entrepreneurs themselves, which is really helpful and kind of speaks to what you were talking to about earlier.

Speaker 1:

Yes, in that we need people who are in similar positions to us so that we have accountability, we have camaraderie, we have deeper connections. But yeah, I mean, I'm just now finding the balance, I'm just now engaging in balance. I'm just now engaging in who does Abby want to be in motherhood? And so I've been so happy to kind of bring my clients along with me on this journey because I'm in it with them. Yes, which is real, and I never claim to be. I hate one. One major pet peeve I have with therapists is that sometimes they claim to be the experts, and here's what's real. You are the expert on your own life. You are the only one who is in your shoes, in your skin, living your life day to day. I cannot say that I know more about you and your life than you do.

Speaker 2:

No, because you don't have the past that that person has. That has been brought to the present, and you don't know their future either. You only know the present of them, not Egan, right?

Speaker 1:

I don't know what it's like to live your life.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yes, in no way.

Speaker 1:

You can debate to me as best you can, but I'm still not living it. It's not experiential, right? So my work has always been even from grad school, when I was doing, you know, bariatric evaluations at St Luke's Hospital Like, yes, nothing to do with what I do now. But even then I was like, ok, well, what's it like to be you? How do you feel on a day to day? Why is this important to you? I can't say why it's important to you. I can try, but it might not be accurate, sure.

Speaker 2:

You can't answer those questions. I like that perspective. Yeah, I think that's really important. You're there to guide and help them and provide your expertise as it exists, from as a medical professional, but recognizing that you were not them is really important. Yeah, I've never heard someone say that, that's the misperception of therapists.

Speaker 1:

We kind of look at them as these infallible beings because we have all these letters after our names or whatever, and the reality is that we're human and we know our lived experience. But we need to help you with your lived experience. In doing that, you need to convey it to us so that we can help you.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and it's their journey. You're there to help them with their journey, but it is their journey and they need to own it. They need to own that too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So in kind of rediscovering me and kind of rebuilding JoyWell from what was once a postpartum group platform into what it is now, serving different women at different points in their lives. It's been a journey of exploration for me too, like, how do I interact with this work? Yes, how does my own experience show up for my clients? Because you can't totally leave yourself at the door.

Speaker 2:

No, because you are you. That is that, but that, your uniqueness, is what you bring to the table.

Speaker 1:

Also, of course, and that's, of course, when we talk about client fit right. Yeah, we fit together. Do our personalities complement each other in a way that it's going to be productive for you? Correct? Yes, so how do people find you? My website, wwwjoywellcocom.

Speaker 2:

Interesting. I love it. I'm on.

Speaker 1:

Instagram. Okay, mm-hmm Interesting, I love it bringing you know in. Hopefully late March, early April, new mom school will be opening here in Westport and then later this summer well, summer 25, we'll be opening a location in Greenwich. So that's great, that's big. Yeah, it's going to be so amazing for moms and it's for me such a natural continuation of Joywell, especially because my focus really is prenatal and then again in, like those later years. I think that new moms will fill such a void, and especially for pediatricians too. They're like where do we refer our clients? We bring in the pelvic PT, we bring in the sleep specialist, we bring in the therapist. They all come to these moms. So it's been a really great. It's going to be for me. It's been a really great experience working with the new mom team out in California, but it's going to be an incredible resource for local moms.

Speaker 2:

Sounds like it. That's really exciting and I can tell that you love it. You light up when you talk.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my God. Well, I went and I like watched one of the groups and they'd been together since their babies were brand new and it was their last meeting of the eight-week session and they were all so deeply connected to each other and to their instructor and I mean, who doesn't love holding a baby? Like, come on, of course, of course I do. I don't want any more babies, I'm very done. But I am so, so excited to help moms who have just had babies really engage in this process of really the fourth and fifth trimesters and try their best to thrive through it, because really most of us are just surviving.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you don't have to. You don't have to settle, you don't have to struggle, you don't have to just survive, as you said in the beginning, to settle. You don't have to struggle, you don't have to just survive, as you said in the beginning. All right, so before we run out of time, I love to ask all my guests to recommend a book you mentioned. You're an avid reader. I am too Love to read. I love to recommend books that you think our listeners would like, that have something that's impacted you personally or professionally. So what could you recommend?

Speaker 1:

for us. One of my favorite books of of all time it's actually relatively new ish is how to Know a Person by David Brooks, and I have not read it, but I've heard of it.

Speaker 1:

It's spectacular. It really is. In a lot of ways. It talks to what I do in many ways, and also how I try to show up, even in my nonprofessional life. I'm not that person you're going to make small talk with. I'm very much. I'm going to ask you some. Let's get real. I love that, though, and I'm also not one of those surface level friends Like. I'm one of those people who was very, very close friends not a ton, but very close friends and very strong, enduring friendships and the book really is about what it means to know someone and then to be known by them. He has this definition of wisdom which really spoke to me, and that's the ability to hold two truths that are in opposition of each other at once in your mind. Oh, that's powerful, yeah, and for me, that was really, really present when I had my first daughter. I was still really in the throes of grief after losing my mom. It had only been like four years, and I also had this brand new little baby.

Speaker 1:

And I was excited about becoming mom, because since I was five years old, I wanted to be a mom, and so there was this grief that she wasn't with me for this experience, because she would have shown, as a grandma, but also so much joy in building my own family. And those things had to coexist. And that is really when it became clear to me that they do coexist, that opposing things, opposing emotions, opposing thoughts can coexist quite harmoniously.

Speaker 2:

And that's powerful because I think a lot of us have been there at different points especially when you've lost a loved one.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. But it isn't like mourning something and then celebrating something can happen concurrently. That's really powerful. Loving someone and being angry at them can coexist, like these things are being angry at them. Can coexist, like these things are natural parts of a spectrum. They're not opposing black and white. We live in the gray most of the time Right.

Speaker 2:

And there are emotions, allowing yourself. I've had a lot of guests come on and talk about emotions and the importance of allowing yourself to feel them and not stuffing those down. Oh, that just makes you sick. Allowing the emotions to come and acknowledge them and not stuffing them, and that is part of that by allowing the emotions to exist together.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think he also talks about the concept of an someone else to shine and bringing forth that shininess in a way, and for me, that's so much of who I am. I love to cheer everyone on, I love to bring light to their light, and I find that that concept put a name to what I was feeling all of these years. And so for me yeah, it was. It's a huge love, this book, I cannot recommend it more.

Speaker 2:

All right, I'm going to have to get it. I buy all the books that all my guests recommend and I do read them Eventually. I get to all of them because I just think there's so much wisdom in books and a book can change your life. It really can, oh yeah. So thank you. Oh, abby, it's been such a pleasure to meet you and learn more about your business. I'm so excited for you and everything that's going on.

Speaker 2:

Thank you and thank you for sharing your wisdom on a subject that we really don't talk about a lot, I know. So I'm really happy that we were able to have you on the show so we can talk about it, because it it's actually a really important. It's an important topic, and mental wellness and new mothers and maternity wellness and holistic wellness, I think, is really important. So thank you for the time. I appreciate it and wishing you a really happy holiday season.

Speaker 1:

Happy holidays. Oh my gosh, thank you for having me. This was such a fun conversation it was great.

Speaker 2:

All right, we'll talk soon. Thank you. Bye everybody. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the House of Germar podcast, where wellness starts within. We appreciate you being a part of our community and hope you felt inspired and motivated by our guest. If you enjoyed this episode, please write us a review and share it with friends. Building our reach on YouTube and Apple podcasts will help us get closer to our mission to empower 1 million women to live all in. You can also follow us on Instagram at House of Germar and sign up to be a part of our monthly inspiration newsletter through our website, houseofgermarcom. If you or someone you know would be a good guest on the show, please reach out to us at podcast at houseofgermarcom. This has been a House of Germar production with your host, jean Collins. Thank you for joining our house.