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Heal Yourself Podcast
A podcast diving into all aspects of healing; from the latest in functional medicine, to nurturing your relationship with yourself, and even transforming your money story, we're here to empower you with the knowledge and tools to create lasting change.
Heal Yourself Podcast
Episode 36: How Motherhood Can Be Your Greatest Teacher
Motherhood affects us all – whether we're mothers, have mothers, or are nurturing in other ways. Today's episode dives deep into the transformative power of the maternal connection, exploring what science now reveals about the profound physical and psychological changes that occur during pregnancy and beyond.
Did you know the postpartum period actually lasts five years? Or that a mother's brain undergoes structural changes after birth, heightening her intuitive connection to her child?
We explore how our earliest relationship with our mothers shapes our entire lives, influencing our self-perception, relationship patterns, and nervous system regulation. Whether your maternal relationship was nurturing or challenging, understanding these influences provides powerful opportunities for healing.
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Welcome to the Heal Yourself Podcast, where we dive deep into all things healing. I'm Denise, a speech and language pathologist and a self-love coach for adults and teens.
Speaker 2:And I'm Kira, a traditional naturopath and functional nutritionist, and we're here to guide you through the transformative process of healing your body, mind and soul From the latest in functional medicine, of healing your body, mind and soul, from the latest in functional medicine to nurturing your relationship with yourself, healing trauma and even transforming your money story.
Speaker 1:we're here to empower you with the knowledge and tools to create lasting change.
Speaker 2:So, whether you're looking to heal physically, emotionally or spiritually, join us as we explore the many paths to wholeness and wellness. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Heal Yourself Podcast, and today you have Denise and I talking about motherhood.
Speaker 1:I know it's the day after Mother's Day, but right, that's all right, you know, it's still relevant.
Speaker 2:It is relevant because motherhood is motherhood. So what postpartum means, you know. So, if you know, but we're gonna get into the spiritual. So if you're like, oh, I'm not a mom, this episode isn't relevant to me, it still is like, as we start talking, it's still going to be relevant because you have a mom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, the physical, it may not have affected you if you did not birth, but the spiritual part will be relevant when we're taught, Cause I mean, there are step mothers, there are surrogate mothers, there are mothers who adopted, adopted mothers, step mother so many types, even for mothers. You know, like I send text messages to my friends who are not mothers of humans but they're mothers of their fur babies and honestly, that takes like work.
Speaker 2:So gotta still keep them alive. Well, let's start with the clinical, and I want to keep this brief, but I think it's important because so many go through pregnancy not having done some things that they should be considering. So when we look at other countries, they actually do like detoxes before even trying to get pregnant, just to prep the womb, and here in the States I feel like we don't. It's just not a common thing, right? It's like, oh, I'm going to just try to get pregnant, and then women struggle to get pregnant because of so many various things. Or they get pregnant and then they realize down the line like wait a minute, I passed down any heavy metals, any nutrient deficiencies, like all of this stuff, and so I think it's important to have the conversation of what does it look like to prep to become a mother?
Speaker 1:And I mean, I think that can vary from person to person. Denise, I'm curious when you said, like okay, second, after my second baby, you know, after my daughter was born. However, though, I did know that I needed, because I was such an unhealthy person Like I didn't eat vegetables, I didn't eat enough food, I didn't eat enough nutrients, eat enough food. I didn't eat enough nutrients. So, when I was pregnant, I started researching more and, kind of, like you know, eating a little bit more of the nutrients that my baby needs. But it was just me, like I, yeah, I was pregnant. What my first baby? I was pregnant in 2005, but yeah, there was not, not really, and I think, like 2005, I don't think like how holistic health was, like, how big. I think it's way bigger now. Oh, it is for sure. Like you know, when you and I were pregnant, I feel it was just there's just so much information out there. Now there's more research, yeah, but I didn't know. How about you, Did you know?
Speaker 2:Um, yes and no. I mean, I was finishing my nutrition degree so I knew enough to like, oh, I'm going to eat these things, I'm going to take these types of supplements, but I really didn't consider heavy metal detoxes, I didn't even. You know like. I saw a midwife and she ran my labs and I was told everything was okay. But I didn't know anything about monitoring nutrient levels because I didn't like. No one told me you really do, as a mother, pass down your nutrient levels, so if you're nutritionally depleted, they're going to get that. You pass down the majority of your microbiome. There's a little bit from dad, but it's mostly from mom, because you're hanging out in the womb for nine months.
Speaker 2:So, I did not spend the time to optimize certain things, I was just eating, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I ate a little bit more than I was eating, but yeah, no, I did not know any of that and I didn't know anything about you know what pregnancy and birth and postpartum you know, and I mean yesterday I saw a post by you know the holistic psychologist. I was like, oh my gosh, like crazy. Yeah, like you can you know, like babies recognize, like you, when your brain, your brain actually alters after your baby's born or during the pregnancy, stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we don't, and that's the thing. We just take it for granted. It's like, oh, there's this miracle, but we don't. We don't really do anything with it. It's like, okay, really cool, but again we've got to prep. But then look at the after effects. Again, something no one ever told me was that the postpartum period was five years. I just took my prenatal vitamins, I think, until he was born and I finished them out, so maybe several months after. Maybe I took them while I was nursing, I don't remember. But I certainly didn't continue to monitor anything for five years. And you are still super depleted between nutrients and sleep hormones, like all the things.
Speaker 1:And then some people have, like you know, babies are really close in age, so you know they're like, so talk to us a little bit. I mean you know more with that clinical side about, like you know, the depletion and the nervous system and all the jazz that we just need to understand. And also, you know, appreciate our bodies. For I feel like immediately, like what you get six weeks and you jump in back to work and the bustle and it's like your body didn't even recover and and then, and then sometimes like people really dismiss the postpartum. You know like, oh, you know what's wrong with you, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And and you feel pressure, maybe I don't know. I mean, I think that I mean talk to us about all the beautiful.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm so from a clinical perspective. I want to say first, like, do not shame yourself or go into feeling guilty if you didn't do this stuff, because I didn't either. You know like I learned about this because I studied functional medicine after he was born, and so it is what it is. You did the best you could.
Speaker 2:If you are currently pregnant, or if you're like, oh my gosh, I'm still postpartum, then start paying attention to your nutrient levels. Do an HTMA, which is a hair tissue mineral analysis. Do some blood labs to monitor nutrient levels to get those up. That way you are eating what you and your baby need, or adding in some supplements for those nutrients if you cannot eat enough. And working on things like gut health. And then goodness knows the stress and there's a lot that comes with having a baby and we're going to we're going to spend this a little bit because we are going to start talking about the spiritual lens of having a baby, but there's a lot that comes with it, like if you were a mother. You know what we're saying by this, because it's a whole different ballgame, like your life completely changes, not just because you have a child, but it does. It changes something in your brain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, yes, and I feel that I mean it's not like, if you want to think about it, it's not easy to grow being right. I understand that we take it for granted because the body doing everything behind the scenes and we're not like you're not worrying about it and you go into the ultrasound and checking, I get that, the ultrasound and checking, I get that. But it's also like there is a big, big burden on the body that definitely needs to be addressed. You know, with nutrients and we're going to talk about the spiritual side, but I, you know, like, I want to say like your brain does alter and I am going to just like find one thing that I've and then you can look it up. It's by the holistic psychologist on Instagram and but I really love this that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, her brain has struck. This is not from me, I'm just reading right, like the mom, the mother, after giving birth. Her brain has structural changes after giving birth, making her more sensitive to her child's emotional state and more intuitively connected to them when they're in danger. Mother's intuition is a scientific fact. So I mean, I'm glad that the research has improved right now and we have so much knowledge, you know, at this moment, moment. But also I, I wish I knew all this information, because I would have more.
Speaker 2:You know, I would have taken it easy on my body and I've just been into like cleaning and yeah, let me get back to work and I pulled a freaking muscle after five days after I came home, when my daughter was born, because I was, I think I was just throwing the the trash in the trash and I had a c-section.
Speaker 1:I was throwing that and I pulled a muscle and I was miserable for freaking two weeks. Not need to, you know, do like a whole situation, but I feel that you just get so pressured, yeah, um, however, I feel like the shift is happening. You know, like more new moms are just also more aware.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and paying attention, and that's the thing too, when you're tapping into the intuition, that does take more nutrients, so, um, so, I mean I could talk about that all day, but I know we want to. We want to go a little bit deeper. We don't want to make this about, like, what do you do to optimize your health for pregnancy or postpartum? We want to really make it about motherhood, because we all have mothers and, like Denise said, maybe there's also a step-mom or an adopted mom. Like we have mothers and that's usually the first person that we come in. Okay, that is the first person we come in contact with, even if you're taken away, right, if you're adopted, you're in your mother's womb for nine months. Think about everything you're absorbing. So I mentioned that you can absorb nutrients and the microbiome, but you can also be sitting in a cortisol bath. You're absorbing their stress, you're absorbing their nervous system. Like there's so much that comes from mom that you need to know to better understand yourself.
Speaker 1:Okay, yes, and that's, you know, important to think about.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and let's talk about okay so childhood and going back to our moms. This can be a painful conversation.
Speaker 1:It could be a painful conversation, but it doesn't have to be a painful conversation, it doesn't have to be, but I mean painful, because I think excuse me, you can realize some patterns.
Speaker 2:So like, even for me, I felt like my childhood was good, like I couldn't complain Right, I didn't have abusive parents, they stayed married. But as I dug into some of what motherhood really looked like and what we absorb, I started to recognize patterns of like oh my gosh, I understand why I never feel like I'm good enough, because I had these unmet needs in childhood. She wasn't fully emotionally available, she was stuck in survival mode and I can guarantee she never resolved trauma from her own life. Now I'm not saying that to fault my mother and I don't want anyone to do that, but to recognize yeah, how did that show up in my life now?
Speaker 1:Right, and what can you do to change it? Right? So, yes, recognizing the pattern, but not blaming. And no parents, I mean. And even in the shittiest situations, kira, even if people have gone through the abuse or through abandonment or whatever, it's also important to understand that holding the grudge doesn't help anybody, right? So what happens is our parents did what they can do with the tools that they knew and they had, right, we have different tools, we have different things.
Speaker 1:However, I love what you're saying is recognizing those patterns. Right, it did. I mean to me, it required me the remodel and living with my parents for a year to understand, like, wait a minute. A minute, some of the emotions, some of the things that I say, some of the patterns that I do, is being reflected in front of coming from me. And it took me a minute. And this is when we kind of go back to the episodes where we always say dig through the messiness, because when I was digging through the messiness, and every time I would say wait a minute, those are not my emotions, you know, those are not my thoughts, those are not this, and this is how you also start reparenting yourself in order to fulfill those needs, right? So like, for example I'm going to give an example my mom is very OCD, very I'm the old, also the oldest, and very was very, very, very strict on our grades.
Speaker 1:You know, like got to have the good grades and everything. So I really grew up with like, making sure, like this high achiever level, like I always got to be, you know, have the good grades, have the, you know, get the certifications, get the degrees, get the, get all that Right, and I just, but then what did that leave me with? Like that stress, that constant stress, and I keep talking about it and sometimes I am, I feel like I'm a broken record, but like the Mondays would like, oh, my goodness. And I worked so hard to achieve the Mondays I have. Now I have nothing on the schedule other than you know, recording with you or you know. But but I had to reparent this child. I was like I have to tell it's okay, there's no test right now, you're not having to fail, mom is not checking your grades, you're not having to show mom the report card. That's not the best, even though I always had good report cards, but if they were not to her liking, it was gonna be a situation, you know, and then her liking is like a plus plus, you know, and. And then I always remind myself, like, look at you, you turned out amazing, you know.
Speaker 1:And and then, however, um, it does require some reparenting if those that some of the needs, and my and my parents were amazing parents, you know, uh, and but again, like I, they were doing what they knew, what to do in the moment that they were going through and the situations and the experiences. I have to also remember that they were going through a war and they were trying to raise children doing that. So, yes, they were in survival mode. I had to remind myself that my mother was in survival mode, you know, and my dad, like when they were raising us, you know.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine, like you're watching the justice at home and then bombs start, like you know? And my dad, like when they were raising us, you know? Can you imagine like you're watching the justice at home and then bombs start, like you know, dropping, and then you have to leave everything and call people to pick up your children, like, yeah, you know. So, like understanding where they came from, instead of blaming and pointing fingers? That's what I, I have have done and been doing and continue to do, because it never ends. You know, the patterns are sometimes really rooted, so recognizing the patterns and choosing differently. But it's really important not to blame and not to hold the grudges.
Speaker 1:Because, it doesn't serve you, Like there's there is no purpose.
Speaker 2:It purpose, in fact. It's harming you if you're holding on to grudges and blame and, like you said and I think it's so perfect, we hear it all the time but your parents did the best they could with what they had, just like you are currently doing the best you can with what you have. Nobody says I hope to be the shittiest mom in the world. It doesn't work that way. So please let go of any of the blame, but start to look at how did I grow up, like you said, if I was raised in a family where my mom was constantly frantic and thinking about oh my gosh, when's the bomb going to drop? Yes, you're raised in a war environment, so you're already going to be dysregulated, but you're adopting that. That's what you're witnessing. So if our parents are regulated when we grow up, we're going to be regulated. If they hated themselves, we're going to learn to criticize ourselves.
Speaker 1:If they felt left out, we're going to be left out.
Speaker 1:If that constantly you heard, oh, got left out, we're gonna. Yes, if that constantly you heard, oh, the fear of missing out. You know it's um, yeah, it's just. But also I have to also remember that, um, I'm gonna give an example of dr windire talks about it too he's never met his dad.
Speaker 1:His dad abandoned them when they were, when he was a baby and his whole adult life all he was obsessed to meet his dad. He tried to find him and this and this and this and I know he talks about it in one of his books and I don't know. You can always look it up, you know when they're talking about forgiving his dad. And finally he, I think he finally was able to go to his funeral or something. And this is when, um, he just forgave him. And this is a man who's never met his dad. His dad abandoned him.
Speaker 1:Mom had to put them in a foster home for a few years, I think, so she can get herself, um, you know all financially and really hard to get all her boys back, etc. Etc. But he felt the minute he forgave his dad, he and like he's never met him, you know, and he felt that, that freedom, and he talks about it, stuff like that. So you know, like, yes, you and I did not have shitty parents and our parents still in our lives, but we also have to remember, and that there's somebody maybe listening that don't have that right or they didn't have this to the parent or the abandonment or whatever. We're not here to tell you. You know, not to be angry or to get upset, I get it. I get it, but what are those emotions doing? Right?
Speaker 1:so yeah, freedom is just with, with letting go understanding. You know what my parents did, what they. They can do with what they had, but now it's my job. I'm the adult now. Now I can reparent myself. I can show up as the mother that I wanted, even if you had a great mother, but you may have needed something different. Show up with that right. So that's now. It's your turn, right now, to take that responsibility and that's where, instead of holding the grudge and pointing the finger, you're taking back your power and you're re-parenting that child.
Speaker 2:We all need to. I just want to clarify we all need to re-parent ourselves. Even if you had the most amazing mom out there, there are patterns that you adopted that are not serving you, I guarantee it, and, like Denise said, you could have had the worst upbringing and you have a lot more to work through. But we all have some aspects where we need to reparent ourselves and we need to look at what does motherhood mean to us, like whether we're a mom or not, and I actually I want to bring that in. Yes, if you do have kids, okay.
Speaker 2:So now we're talking about motherhood, but if you have a kid, your kids are your mirrors and this can be a really powerful one, because I think our kids can be our spiritual teachers, and I've always said that about my son, who's nine right and not even fully verbal. I can't sit and have a legit conversation with him. He's only partly verbal, but he is my spiritual teacher. He's not a project, and I think sometimes it's easy to look at our kids as like oh, I got to fix this and I got to do this and I got to do that. Oh, they're acting out here, they are our mirrors and they are here to teach us and we can learn from each other.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I really love that. No matter how much you're butting heads with your kid, I remember every time I share with you about something you're constantly telling me or asking me this question what is this teaching you? It's always something that's teaching us, even when your kids trigger you, activate you, when they say something or do something. It's hard to admit that it is. They are your mirror and they are constantly portraying the unconscious part of you. So this is when you're like what does what still needs to be healed? You know why her behavior is a behavior, or his words or her words, or actions or inactions. You know what is that unconscious part in me that still needs to be healed, right? So this is how you know you want to view not just your kids, every relationship in your life as a mirror, but your kids are with you constantly and they do bring out those unconscious parts.
Speaker 2:They do, because then it goes off Well and then it goes back to the mother again. If you grew up with your mother right, you lived in the house with her, whatever it becomes even harder to parent because if there were things that you were lacking that you really felt like gosh. My mother was really emotionally unavailable or she did X Y Z when I was a child and I needed her to show me more love. Now you have a kid and you have a choice. Am I going to repeat these patterns or am I going to push past what feels very uncomfortable and give my child what I didn't have and that takes a lot of effort to say. I'm going to give my child, or my children, what I never had, what was not available to me Exactly.
Speaker 1:And that's how you change generations right, generational curses, traumas, whatever. Or you build up on the generational wealth right and you rebuild, or whatever. But yeah, I always say, like you know the things, I take what I like from you know the culture, or from my upbringing, etc. But I always put my own twist on it. And again, again, motherhood does not come with the manual.
Speaker 2:I've looked for one.
Speaker 1:So even the things that we're saying, you may not agree with, and that's okay, because we're just two people that are sharing an opinion, and it could be something. Your opinion could be something completely different, and that's fine. There's no right or wrong. It's just that we always want to do different. I feel, and that's how I see it, I want to do different and I want to do better for my children. I always tell them as well, you know, don't also carry on the same change, you know? Whatever? Yeah.
Speaker 2:You have to become conscious of those patterns. It goes back to awareness. You and I have said this before Look, look at your life, look at how you show up in the world, look at how your mother showed up in the world and I know we're not talking about dads, but you can throw dad in there, dad in there too, but how did specifically your mom, if you were going to become a mother, how did your mother show up for you? How do you want to show up? And you can break that, and you know we love talking books. Denise always has some good quotes, but I'm just going to say if you are not familiar with Mark Wollins it didn't start with you I highly recommend that because that is looking at family constellations and breaking generational trauma and learning how to forgive if there are significant not even significant. It was still a powerful book for me and there weren't significant issues, but if you have significant issues or trauma from childhood around parents, it can be a really powerful read with all of the activities he has in there.
Speaker 1:Yes, I like the book, I like the exercises. Some of them, I mean, they're involved. You got to dig deep. I get it. That's the beauty of digging deep and that's the thing. There's no I mean again, there's no magic wand, there's no automatic. Things are just going to happen. Everything's going to go away, just you know doing the work and looking within. And it's also about having fun and making a light of it too, and not just constantly. Everything is, you know, trauma, trauma, trauma, you know this, or whatever, like constantly. You know, not just remembering to parent to reparent that child, but also, you know, reminding her or him to to play more and to have fun more and to satisfy those needs, cause there's a lot of people who grew up with parents who were very serious and not allow them to play. They had to grow up way faster than that, you know.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and I I mean, I think for those that are like what the heck do you mean by reparenting, Look at your childhood and look at what you wanted. Like Denise just said it, If you always wanted to be that kid who was out there playing but you couldn't because your parents were strict or whatever rules, then allow yourself that time to play that you didn't get. If you needed time alone because you had a ton of siblings and you felt like your parents were strict and you never got to leave, give yourself the alone time. So look at what you needed in childhood and give yourself that. Now that's what we mean by reparenting and denise.
Speaker 1:You might have additional thoughts around that too, but no, I love it and thank you for you know. I know sometimes we say things and then you know we forget that we've been using these terms for a long time. I love your very simple explanation. Yeah, so, basically, give yourself what you did not get right. And we're not saying like, oh my gosh, if you are deprived of, like you know, the clothes and things, you're going to go and put yourself in debt. This is not what we're saying. Right, the things that we say Don't take everything literally. I know, but like you know, yeah, like look where. And again, I, we keep saying look, you know. We keep saying you know, bring up your awareness. And I, and I really hope that with every episode of this podcast, we are giving you the opportunity to, like, even you know, look a little deeper or think a little deeper or differently. You know, yeah, so, yeah have any questions?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I think it's just the whole episode, just a self-reflection. You know, reflect on your childhood, reflect on you, know how you want to be the mother that you want to show up Right, because, remember, the past is done and over with Right. It's what we do with the present moment that matters. So if you don't want to go because sometimes people say like it's tough to go back and to remember all that we're not asking you to right, so just be moving forward. Who? Who is the mom that you want to show up to be? Who is the mom that you want to? Uh, and you know what, what are the actions, what are the thoughts, what are the words? You know who do you want to be, and then just carry that and, yeah, make the choices in line with that, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, from the clinical perspective, don't, don't ignore yourself. If you are trying to get pregnant, if you're like, oh, I'm about to be a grandma, or you know, my daughter is trying to get pregnant, then have the conversations about nutrient depletion, talk about gut health, talk about toxins none of the sexy stuff. But it's so important because there are so many women that struggle postpartum, not just with depression, but with everything intense fatigue, hormonal issues, because they did not pay attention to that, or the postpartum period. So it's all the things, guys.
Speaker 1:It is. It's everything is related and yeah, and I really love. I mean I wish we listened to this episode when we were pregnant, but I know you know what I mean. Like, I feel that there a lot of yeah it's a topic yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:Then there's more. We can say. So, as always, guys, if you have follow-up questions, we're on instagram, so find us, drop, drop us a DM, let us know specific questions you have. We could potentially turn that into another podcast episode, and Denise has said it in the past, but if you are struggling to master your mind around all of this, we are working on revamping a program, so stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I just want to end with you are doing an amazing job. You're doing what you can with what you have. We really are hopeful and we have faith that we are adding to your toolbox and we truly, truly, truly celebrate you and we want to celebrate you. So if any of the episodes are resonating or you are applying some of the things we are saying and you are noticing a shift or a difference, we would love to hear from you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it All. Right, guys, we'll see on the next episode.
