Postpartum meets Career Focused High Achiever: The BEST episode on this podcast

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What's up, you guys? Welcome back to the Dopamine Diaries podcast. This is Coach Kate. I'm super excited to share this episode today. I don't think I've ever been ready to talk about this. And I think the reason for that was I hadn't done some of the work yet. So this episode timing is probably one of the most serendipitous timing episodes I will ever do. And I think that's really cool. So if you're here listening to this episode specifically, I hope you hear my heart. So it's not that I'm gonna be vulnerable, it's that what I'm going to say is so, so important. And it is truly what I wish I would have heard in my pregnancy as I was approaching this new land of motherhood. but also being a working mom. And if we really want to add some flavor to it, being a entrepreneurial working mom. So this is just, you know, this would have this, you know, I, you know, I can't say for sure that it would have changed postpartum for me, but it certainly would have given me more information to maybe have different days, early postpartum that were better. So, um, I want to first explain a little bit about me and what you need to know about how I operate. And you'll see how all of this blends together. This may be a little bit of a longer episode. It is what it is. I'm just going to say what I need to say, okay? This has been inspired by a conversation that I had with one of my one-on-one clients. So her and I talk every other week and she's high achieving and Operates the same way I do. And it's just as I was coaching her through what she could be doing as she enters in this new season of slowing down, welcoming a new baby, it was just so obvious to me that, man, I wish I would have had me as a coach back then because I needed to hear this. I would have valued this. so much from hearing this before I stepped into postpartum and motherhood. So what you need to know about me is my nervous system. And when I say nervous system, if you've listened to any of my other episodes, you know that I refer to this as your software. I think it's a little bit easier to understand if when you hear someone say the word nervous system, you're like, what is that? What if all of my systems are nervous, right? I like to use the word software because it's a if nervous system understanding is new to you. But essentially, I want you to understand it like this. My software is programmed a very unique way. Your software is programmed a very unique way. And this shows up as different qualities that we describe about ourselves. I will use me as an example for this whole episode. I'm a high achiever. I like to work. I value productivity. I struggle sometimes with placing my worth and how good I am or am I loved by how much I can produce, by what I can give, right? I've struggled for most of my life being what we would call type A, very much liking to have control. And so my software is programmed to be controlled. hypervigilant in a way, be very type A, be very, okay, I need structure, I need order, I don't want to slow down. If there's free time, let's fill it with something. That way I can check a box, get the dopamine, say that I worked, say that I achieved, say that I accomplished, right? My system is programmed in a very unique state. So for me as a high achiever, I am prone to being in a fight or flight state, your classic fight or flight state, for a a long time. That's just, I've spent a lot of time in a fight or flight state. And here's the common misconception about being in a state of fight or flight. When we hear that, I think sometimes we automatically label it as being bad. And there's nuance to this as there's nuance to everything when it comes to our nervous system and our software. Being in a fight or flight state is not always bad, okay? Sometimes being in a fight or flight state, being mobilized is exactly what we need to make certain actions and step towards certain things, right? The challenge is when we are in fight or flight and don't know how to come out of it or don't feel safe coming out of it. So for me, as a high achiever, I have spent more of my life in a fight or flight state than I have not. So unfortunately, my system believes, and the best way I could explain this is as human beings, we know that we need food and water to survive, right? As human beings, we need food and water to survive. My software knows that it needs fight or flight to survive. Why? Because that's where it spent most of its time in my life. My system has adapted. My system was built. My system has lived. My system has succeeded. My system has done a lot of amazing things in a state of fight or flight. So fight or flight is my food and water, okay? It is what my system knows to be safe. It's what my system is most comfortable with. My system also is very prone to another state of our nervous system, another state of our software, and that's shutdown, or what I like to call dysregulated exhaustion. Because for me, in the past, shutdown would always come when I was in fight or flight for like, way longer than I was ever meant to be, the inevitable shutdown would happen. The inevitable, I literally can't get off the couch. I literally can't even take care of myself. I lose days. All I want to do is scroll. I just have no motivation, right? And that would last for however long. And then I would jump right back into fight or flight. I would just get this like burst of energy and we are back. We are back. So what you need to know about me and my software is that I tend to fall within those two states. Now, there are many states of the nervous system, but for the point of this episode, I want you to know that I fall between those two states. Those are my normal. Those are my food and water that my system has been used to for my entire life, okay? A lot of you guys may feel similarly when you hear this, like, wow, that kind of sounds like me. Maybe you don't like to slow down. Maybe the idea of taking a day off feels like a big, Full body, no, right? Some of you guys might be listening to this and be like, I definitely relate, okay? There's nothing wrong with that, okay? There's nothing wrong with that. It's an opportunity. But why was this a problem when postpartum and motherhood happened? Well, as the story goes, you have a baby and that baby and that transition and becoming a mom will force you, it will force you to slow down in ways that you do not wanna slow down. I had so much resistance early, early on postpartum. Why? Not because I was stubborn, not because I was doing something wrong, but because my system interpreted the change of pace. My system, my software interpreted the change of our day-to-day. My system and my software interpreted the lack of tangible change. wins and success and accolades that I was used to, the reduced output of work, my system was thrown into that and suddenly my system and my software believed that it was being starved. It was no longer getting the food and the water, the fight or flight or the shutdown that it was used to. It was in a completely different state. Now, let me tell you, when that happens, even though on the surface I knew that I should be fine, Even though I'm sitting here on the couch, I'm snuggling a little baby. She's a couple weeks old. What's the problem, right? She's two months old. What's the problem? Logically, I can see that there's no threat. I can see that. But what I experienced was a feeling of absolute chaos, a feeling of I feel under attack. I don't feel safe. I don't like this. I want to crawl out of my skin. How many times do you guys that also identify with being like high achievers? I don't like to rest. I don't like to slow down. And then when you try and challenge yourself to do that, you feel the discomfort that comes from that, right? That's what I felt. But like 10X, because my system did not understand why I wasn't giving it the food and the water, the states that it was used to anymore. It was jarring. It was jarring. And unfortunately, I had to take a reactive approach to this. Now, it was doable, but it's also taken me 15, 16 months to even explain it. Postpartum was hard. Postpartum was probably harder than it ever needed to be because I had not done any of the necessary work to start showing my software that a change of state, a change of programming was okay. One of the things that I talk about a lot, I talk about it with any client conversation that I coach one-on-one. I talk about it all of the time, all of the time in HBA. I talk about it in any of my programs, any of my mini programs. But one of the things that I always talk about is when we look at improving our our ability to slow down, improving our ability to manage stress and overwhelm. The majority of our stress and overwhelm stems from the fact that our system, our software is experiencing something that it's not used to experiencing or that it's resisting. which is why we feel, I feel overwhelmed. I feel stressed out. I feel irritable. All of that comes up from this internal software that we have. And then we experience it on the surface. We experience it in the form of our thoughts and our emotions that we describe with language. One of the things I always tell the people that come into my programs and the clients that I work with is when it comes to our software, if we shift from being reactive to what it's doing, and how it's shutting down or how it's freaking out. Or, oh my gosh, I'm stressed out, I need to manage it. If we shift from being reactive to proactive, everything will change and things will get easier. And here's what I mean. If I would have heard this episode that I'm recording now before I had my child, I would have been able to do so many different things during that pregnancy that truly prepped my software for the change of pace, the change of to-dos, the change of my day-to-day. Because here's the thing about being a high achiever. It's not just that we book our schedules. It's not that we fill our calendars. It's not that we try and do a lot of epic shit. It's that we have an internal cadence. We have a tempo. I have this like, it's like a metronome that goes back and forth. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. It is a tempo that I feel internally from my software that I follow. And it feels good to follow. It feels safe to follow. It feels like if I follow that and I stay on pace and I stay in motion, I will be safe. Had I known that all of that would change and had I been given all of the effective and appropriate tools to actually teach my software that it is okay to survive and exist in a different tempo at a different pace, maybe my postpartum experience would have been different. Slightly different. I still think it would have been hard, but maybe it would have been a little bit different. Maybe I wouldn't have spent so much time wondering why it felt like I had to straight up survive every day when all I was doing was sitting on the floor showing my daughter high contrast images. Why did that feel so life-threatening to me? It didn't, but my system didn't recognize, didn't understand why why it was not getting the fight or flight, the do, do, do, or the absolute shutdown, do nothing that it was used to. Our software, our systems doesn't have eyes, doesn't have ears, it senses. And it does this by what we're around, the input that we receive. And these are the little things that truly would have completely changed how I experienced postpartum. And Now, where I'm at now, these are the things that allow me to be a more regulated working mom because I can understand. I have the awareness. I'm able to notice when I'm in the middle of the week trying to be a mom, trying to work, and I start to feel, again, it's this feeling of like, I don't know what is wrong, but something is fucking wrong, right? You guys feel it. Sometimes we don't have words for the discomfort that we're feeling. We just know that it doesn't feel good. How many times does that happen? But now I have the ability to be so aware of why that's happening, where it's coming from, and more than that, what I need to get back to a state of my software that feels safe, that doesn't feel like it's under attack just because my child threw a piece of bread on the floor, right? Like, I know I'm not the only working mom that identifies as a high achiever that struggles with this. That feeling of, I don't wanna slow down. I wanna be able to work. Why can't I work? Why am I being pulled from work? But wait, no, I love being here in this moment. I love being a mom. And we just keep like, it's this weird game of tug of war that we play with ourselves. And it feels miserable. And when we're really in the pits of the struggle, it's flavored with guilt and shame. Well, there must be something wrong with me. I must not be as focused on my career. I don't even know why I try. I'm a failure. I'm not good enough. People won't see me as valuable. Or it's flavored with, oh my gosh, I'm a terrible mom. What is wrong with me that I can't just like, why do I just not want to be a stay-at-home mom? Whether, you know, financially you have to work or not. Like those feelings of like, why can't I feel content? Why do I still have like, why, why, why, why? And we make it mean something about us. And we feel this like guilt and this shame. If we just realized, if we had the awareness, if we understood our software, if we knew exactly what our software needed to feel safe, if we had the right tools, if we knew exactly what was necessary to take a proactive approach to training your software to believe and fully embody that a different pace, a different tempo, something completely different than the go, go, go, the do, do, do, or the do, do, do so much that you can't do anything, Something completely different than both of those is safe. Wouldn't you have a much better time? Wouldn't you feel way less guilt and shame? Wouldn't you be more present in the moments? Wouldn't it be easier to look back on photos and not wonder why you don't fucking remember any of it? Sure, the postpartum brain fog, but I know for me, there's a lot of my postpartum experience that I don't remember because I was truly trying to survive a state of my software that I had done no work in trying to experience before I had my child. Why am I uploading this episode? When I know a lot of you guys that are listening probably are already moms and have children. One, I'll get to that in a second. Two, there's a small segment of the population that probably listens to this that doesn't have children yet, but that want to. And if this is resonating for you, I want to invite you Any of my programs. If you don't want to work with me one-on-one, if that doesn't make sense, fine. No worries. I don't like to work with a lot of people one-on-one. It's not good for my nervous system. But that's why I made HBA. And every single one of my mini programs outside of HBA tackle this exact thing. I want to invite you, if this resonates at all and you don't have children yet, come into my world and any of my programs and let me show you what I mean. Let me show you what I mean, okay? Now, if you're a mom... and you've already gone through postpartum, you're like, well, this makes sense. But what do I do now? What I want to say to you is this, the guilt and the shame, the difference in the awareness, the muscle of awareness, the muscle of noticing that you can build, that is something that you should always work on. Why? Because if you can minimize the amount of time that you are modeling dysregulation, if you can minimize the amount of time that you're modeling a software that feels chaotic to your children, guess what that does to their software? Everything that I'm about to say is not meant to make you fearful. I'm not trying to make you afraid. I'm not trying to like scare you into doing any of my programs, but I'm gonna be very honest with you. If you don't know this already, The state of your software directly impacts the development of the software of your children. For any of you that grew up and didn't know how to handle your emotions, that's because your software never learned it from the softwares that were the authority figures in your life. That is a fact. That is a fact. If you are someone that is completely unaware of the states of your software, you are someone that struggles with the being pulled a million directions. If you're someone that struggles with self-sabotage, You procrastinate. You have lots of coping mechanisms that you don't always love. You get really overstimulated and then you feel really bad about it. If you're someone that can't shut your mind off, if you're someone that snaps, there's nothing wrong with you. But you're unfamiliar. You don't have a deep and connected relationship with your software. You don't know. You just don't know. No one taught you. I don't blame you. But when you can build that muscle of awareness and start to notice exactly what your software is doing, why it's doing it, and what it needs instead. Tools. This is where when people talk about regulating, this is what they mean. Everybody's software needs something completely different to regulate. That's the beauty of learning it. That's the beauty of learning how to connect back to the thing that is driving every sensation, emotion, and thought, and feeling, and belief, and everything that you have. It comes from your nervous system. It comes from your software. That's the beauty of learning it. It gives you what all of us as high achieving working moms want. It gives you more control. And more than that, it allows you to model a software to your children that then teaches their software to grow up and know exactly what they need to repair their and work through the overwhelm and the stress and the dysregulation that they experience. Why? Because you modeled it to them. You modeled what it looks like to get overwhelmed and know exactly what your software needs to come back into a state of connectivity, and regulation. Instead, a lot of us are modeling, we get overwhelmed and we do what? We shut down, we snap, we scroll our phones, we eat, we drink wine, we procrastinate, we do every single coping mechanism under the sun. We're modeling that to our children. They are going to grow up and guess what? Do the same thing, which is why most of you as adult women now have coping habits that guess what? Were modeled to you by someone else. If we want to talk about breaking, generational patterns, I don't like to call them curses because I like to look at everything as glass half full. I have an opportunity. I have an opportunity to model to myself. I have an opportunity to model to my daughter. I have an opportunity to model to every single person in my family, no matter how old or how young they are in comparison to me. If we want to talk about breaking generational patterns, it starts with understanding deeply the wiring and the programming of your software and understanding how to take a proactive approach to training your software to be fully safe and embodied in every single state that exists for it. I talked about two, fight or flight, the classic, I wanna do, do, do, I wanna accomplish, I wanna work, work, work, work, work, my productivity, my everything is tied to my work. And I talked about shutdown. There are so many more states that you guys are completely unaware of, but you find yourself stuck in. A freeze response, unable to do anything physically, but your mind won't shut off. A play response, being fully connected and present with your children. Those moments where they're laughing and you notice yourself belly laughing too. But would it feel safe for you to spend a whole day in that state with them and forget everything else? If the answer's no, it's because your software hasn't learned that it's safe to be in any of these other states. And there are things that you can do. And these things that you can do are so simple. They're so simple. One of the most rebellious things you can do in the world that we live in is nervous system work, is working on your software. Why? Because we live in a society and we live in a lifestyle that is designed to keep us stuck. It is truly an act of rebellion to learn on an intimate level what your software does, how it responds, where it struggles, where it feels resistance, and allow yourself, give yourself the opportunity to step towards a different feeling. This is the episode I wish I would have heard from someone when I was pregnant. This is the episode I've been stewing on how to explain because it was just a feeling I had and I didn't know how to articulate it yet. But it's something that I think people need to hear. It's something that I'm so incredibly passionate about in all of my programs. It is the work. It is the bread and butter of what we do in HBA. It is. It is the foundation of every single mini program outside of HBA. It is literally what I do in every conversation I have, in every training that I record, and in every call that I lead with clients that come into my world. It's learning. your software, learning, building the muscle of awareness and noticing, and more than that, knowing what you need to do to always be in a proactive space of making sure your software knows that it is safe to step towards these things that you say that you want. Well, I want to slow down with work, but you don't because it doesn't feel safe. Well, I want to really push for this goal, but you don't because it doesn't feel safe and you sabotage it. Man, well, I want to take the vacation, but you don't because it doesn't feel safe to slow down the internal pace that you have. Well, I want to actually have kids and not focus so much on my career, but you won't because you don't know a you without your career and without a resume that is stacked with Lord knows what. Everything that you are doing or not doing but want to do comes from the programming in your software. It is the most powerful, the most rewarding work that you can do. to learn that. That's what I have. Bye