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The Motherhood Skill We’re Not Taught: Mindfulness & Presence with Dia Ralyea · Motherhood Uncut

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Motherhood Uncut podcast, where we talk honestly about the reality of motherhood.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Kate Kripke.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: This is a space for mothers to feel seen, heard, and understood, especially those navigating the intersection of raising young kids while also maintaining passions, purpose, and work outside of motherhood.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: And it's called Uncut because we do not hold back here.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Through expert conversations, personal stories, practical tools, and honest reflection, we explore what it means to care for ourselves, stay connected to our kids, and remember that we can feel hard things and still be okay.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad you're here.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: There are so many skills we're told we need to learn when we become mothers.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: How to get our babies to sleep, how to feed them, how to set boundaries, how to handle tantrums, how to manage all the logistics of raising a family.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: But there's another skill that most of us were never really taught, and that skill is mindfulness.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: And if that word immediately makes you think you need to sit on a meditation cushion for 30 minutes every morning, this conversation is for you.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: My guest today is Dea Ralya, a psychotherapist, certified mindfulness instructor, longtime mindfulness and yoga practitioner, mother of five adult children, and two grandchildren and also a friend.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Dea and I have known each other for many years, and she was actually one of the first people who opened my eyes to mindfulness and meditation.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: What I've always appreciated about Dea is that she makes this work feel incredibly accessible.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: We talked today about why mindfulness can be especially hard for mothers who are used to thinking ahead, solving problems, and taking care of everyone else.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: We talk about why mindfulness doesn't mean enjoying motherhood all the time, why so many of us have learned to fear or avoid uncomfortable feelings, and what happens when we begin making room for our own needs and the full range of our children's emotions.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: And before we finish, Dea gives us some very simple ways to start practicing mindfulness in the middle of our actual lives.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: You do not need an hour.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: You don't even need five minutes.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: You can start with 30 seconds.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: This episode is a keeper.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: So let's begin.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: The women I work with are deeply thoughtful, capable, ambitious mothers who care tremendously about their children and also about the work, passions, relationships, and purpose they hold outside of motherhood.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: But motherhood has a way of asking things of us that many of us were never prepared for.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: The uncertainty, the lack of control, the intensity of loving someone this much.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: And so somewhere along the way, anxiety, guilt, overwhelm, and the constant need to figure things out can start pulling us away from the life that's actually happening right in front of us.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: The Con Connection Experience is my 12-week program designed to help you change that.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: Together we work on building your capacity to stay present and connected, even when things feel uncertain, uncomfortable, or different from what you expected.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: So you can respond to your kids, to your life and to yourself in ways that actually reflect the woman and mother you want to be.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: If you're hearing this and thinking, I want that, then I'd love to talk with you.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: You can book a call with me using the link in the show notes.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: We will talk about what's feeling hard for you right now, what you want to be different, and whether the calm connection experience might be the right next step for you.
4:07
unknown: Thank you for having me.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: So I actually want to start for our listeners um with the experience I will keep coming back to over and over and over about you, Dea.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: You and I both live in Boulder, Colorado.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh you have more children than I do, and they're older than mine are, but we have raised families here in Boulder.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: Um and the first time I really ever sat down with you was that time that we had coffee.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And it was, um, I mean, I'm not kidding.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: It must have been like 15 years ago or something.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: And I can't even remember why I asked to have coffee with you.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: I think I must have had some, I don't remember what it was, but you sat down and you were like fucking glowing.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you remember this, but I looked at you and I was like, what is happening?
5:05
SPEAKER_00: And you were like, oh, I just finished this yoga meditation class with our dear friend and colleague, Patricia Gipple.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I want that.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: And that really did start me on my path of my own journey around spirituality and mindfulness and breath.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: And anyway.
5:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you dove right in, as I recall.
5:33
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's what I know about you is a diver right inner.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm a diver right inner.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: But I feel so grateful because it wasn't sometimes we think we need to learn from people by having them give us all the answers.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: And really, what I've always loved about you, I think you do this in your teaching.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: I think you do this with your clients as a therapist, but you don't, I think you model.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: I don't think you over-teach and over-talk.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: I think you model.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: And that's really awesome.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: So thank you for a little choked up by that because I see that as a very high compliment.
6:11
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: You're welcome.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: You're welcome.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: So, Dea, um, where shall we start?
6:18
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'll start by just asking you to define some things for us.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm curious to know how might you define mindfulness?
6:28
SPEAKER_00: Let's start there.
6:30
SPEAKER_02: I love this topic.
6:34
SPEAKER_02: Mindfulness is simply connecting to yourself so that you can connect to the world around you.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: That makes me want to choke up.
6:45
SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: So I think it's important, yeah, to pause there for a second because it's actually that simple.
6:55
SPEAKER_02: And when we understand what our basic needs are as human beings, what we know from all the science, and then just anecdotally doing the work that we do, is that we as humans need to feel seen, we need to feel connected to, we need to feel validated.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: And we as adults always have to start with ourselves.
7:17
SPEAKER_02: Always.
7:19
SPEAKER_02: And so if we begin by connecting to ourselves, that is a mindful moment.
7:25
SPEAKER_02: It's also quite healing.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: I want to get back to that fine, that last thing you just said about it being healing.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Cause I think there's so much there.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: But before we do that, I want to recognize that this is actually not what we're taught about good motherhood, quote unquote, quotes around this idea of good moms.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: This is not what we're taught is required to be a quote unquote good mom, right?
7:52
SPEAKER_00: We're taught about all the doing things and all the caring, taking care of our kids.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, there's a lot of logistics and there's a lot of care that goes into raising children.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: But from your perspective, both as a therapist and a meditation teacher, um why why is this practice and mindfulness?
8:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say the word, I don't like it, but I'm gonna say it anyway.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: Good mothering.
8:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:27
SPEAKER_02: Well, let's just say it's um practical and present mothering, so that it doesn't really have a judgment, but it's actually just work.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: Let's just say it works.
8:37
SPEAKER_02: Great.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: Um the reason mindful mothering works is because when we are connected to ourselves, when I wake up in the morning and I know what I woke up with and I can identify it, and I maybe could even tend to it, then what starts to happen is I also can become aware of and I have a lot more capacity for what's happening around me.
9:10
SPEAKER_02: That is the only way I see it working from my own experience, my personal experience, and anecdotally as I watch people in the world.
9:20
SPEAKER_02: We have a model where we are judged on how much, as you said, we do, and we do for others.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: It's really a setup for martyrdom, to be honest.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: It comes from, you know, we don't have to go into it, but it's a historical, right?
9:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:35
SPEAKER_02: Women are expected to serve, and that's actually our value.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: And so we get that, whether it's, you know, subconscious or whether it's just overtly told to us.
9:45
SPEAKER_02: And so as mothers, we get this idea that if we are doing all the things for our kids, if we're covering all the bases, if we're reading all the books, oh, God bless you, you know, like then we've got it made.
10:00
SPEAKER_02: And then we can apply all this knowledge to these people that we are serving.
10:07
SPEAKER_02: There's something that's missing in that because as we're applying it, we forget actually the applier.
10:14
SPEAKER_02: And the applier is everything.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: That actually is the thing.
10:19
SPEAKER_02: And I would say that if you never read a parenting book in your life, you're gonna be just fine if you're coming back to this.
10:28
SPEAKER_02: The parenting book is about the skills, it's about the doing thing that you do once you are connected.
10:37
SPEAKER_02: But if you're not connected, your kids are not feeling that.
10:40
SPEAKER_02: And they can see, they can actually see what it is you're giving them versus based on who you are, versus the skill that you're appointed.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: I love the way you just described that.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: It's so it's you're making it so clear.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: Um I wanna I have like two questions that came from that, what you said, but I first want to acknowledge something, which is that and I said this was one thing I wanted to address with you.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: You you really have just said that mindfulness is a process of accurate perception.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Right?
11:17
SPEAKER_00: We can't actually relate to the moment as the moment is, if we're not in the moment, if we are spun out and distracted, if we're ruminating about the past, if I'm, you know, trying to think about how I want things to be the different than they are.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: If I'm if I'm in that place in my mind, literally, I can't actually be in the moment as it is and actually know what's happening.
11:45
SPEAKER_02: I think that's true.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: So I think I want to take that to my next question.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm curious to know what you have found and maybe even from your life.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, let's pause for a moment.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you tell our listeners how many children you have?
11:57
SPEAKER_02: I have five children, ages 21 to 41.
12:01
SPEAKER_02: They're all just beautiful beings.
12:04
SPEAKER_02: And why don't you tell our audience?
12:06
SPEAKER_02: They're adults.
12:07
SPEAKER_02: It's amazing.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, not only do you have five children, but you also have a couple something else.
12:14
SPEAKER_02: Well, so so I have two grandkids.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: Is that what you're exactly?
12:20
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
12:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't have a child.
12:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's pretty cool.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: It's very cool.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: So people, some people will be listening and not watching, but um, I as I said to you last time, you're the most gorgeous young-looking grandmother I've ever met.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: So um kudos, kudos to you and your growing family.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so my question for you, whether you want to ask the answer this in whatever hat you want to answer it in, is why do you think that presence is so hard for moms?
12:48
SPEAKER_00: Like if we're saying we can't be, we can't accurately perceive what's happening in the moment if we're if we're distracted and not mindful and not present, why do you think presence is so hard for so many mothers?
13:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a great question.
13:02
SPEAKER_02: I think that um we are not taught that um that what's alive in the present moment is actually a gift.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: And I think what we are taught is that we either have to be figuring out the future so that we can move on to the next thing, as you said earlier.
13:22
SPEAKER_02: And that is really this it's kind of this push culture that we live in, honestly.
13:27
SPEAKER_02: It's like it's like I'm just trying to prove myself all the time.
13:31
SPEAKER_02: Um, or we're trying to figure out what happened in that conversation yesterday, or you know, whatever.
13:37
SPEAKER_02: We're we're always trying to posture ourselves.
13:40
SPEAKER_02: And you know, we don't we don't have enough time to go into all the detail about why that is, but what I'll say, you know, when when when there's this concept of of being in the present moment, there's this people are like, what are you even talking about?
13:55
SPEAKER_02: And and what I like to do is just to bring it down to like a practical practice of being in the present moment and just sort of see what's there for you.
14:04
SPEAKER_02: And so usually that means getting in your body because your head is usually not in the present moment.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: Your body and your heart or your emotions are in the present moment.
14:13
SPEAKER_02: And when you get into your body or your heart, what you start to actually notice is there's feeling, like I feel sensation and I feel emotion.
14:25
SPEAKER_02: And then I actually have judgment about some of that.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: Some of that I don't find actually that preferential.
14:32
SPEAKER_02: Or I would say it's not my preferred experience because maybe I have body pain, or maybe I have a certain feeling about my partner or my children that I don't think is a good feeling.
14:45
SPEAKER_02: I'm putting that in air quotes, and um that's uncomfortable to be honest.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I wanna, I kind of want to pause here for a moment because I I think you're tapping into something that at least in my experience and my work is the challenge, which is that it's not that it's not just not preferential, it's that our nervous system has been trained to fear it.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, all our conditioning, all our perceived ideas that we were raised with, for so many of us, and I think especially for a lot of our listeners, we've been taught that discomfort means there's a problem we have to solve and fix.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: So when we feel that thing in our body, so maybe it's a turning of my belly or tightening of my jaw, like the physical sensation, or maybe it's the emotion of discontent or sadness or disappointment or worry or whatever, anything that is not in the category of happy, right?
15:52
SPEAKER_00: Many of us were trained or taught directly or indirectly to assume that that was bad.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: So then we automatically, our nervous system will do the thing our nervous system is meant to do and get us into a place so we we're not there.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: We don't stay with it.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: So it's almost even it's it's that physiological, right?
16:11
SPEAKER_00: It's a nervous system thing.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Would you agree with that?
16:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, totally.
16:15
SPEAKER_02: I think our nervous system is trained for threat.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: And most of us feel that like anything uncomfortable is threatening.
16:22
SPEAKER_02: And of course, that's what our caregivers have taught us, and that's what we continue to teach our children.
16:26
SPEAKER_02: So we give them an iPad when they're upset instead of sitting with them and asking them where it hurts.
16:32
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, there's I'm gonna say there's hundreds of ways into the present moment.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: You only have to find the one that's accessible to you.
16:42
SPEAKER_02: And this is why I believe in mindfulness more meditation is, you know, this thing that like is really hard for people to approach.
16:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's really honestly just one form of mindfulness.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: And mindfulness is this big umbrella of just how we approach ourselves.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: And so your job is just to find your way in to get closer to yourself.
17:01
SPEAKER_02: And it might be through physical sensation.
17:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm never gonna recommend that you start by the most, you know, 10 out of 10 painful experience, right?
17:10
SPEAKER_02: Let's not just go in and feel the trauma right away.
17:12
SPEAKER_02: Let's actually just start with like what your big toe feels like right now.
17:16
SPEAKER_02: Let's start with what it feels like to take a deep breath in.
17:19
SPEAKER_02: Let's start with what it feels like to look at like your child or your pet or you know anything that you love and notice what um what moves through your torso area energetically.
17:31
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's a really great place to start.
17:34
SPEAKER_02: I agree with you that most of us don't want to go there because we also think we're gonna find pain.
17:39
SPEAKER_02: And the truth is we are.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: Um, and full disclosure, you're talking to a Buddhist practitioner here who, you know, we tend to talk a lot about suffering, which is actually why I was drawn to Buddhism.
17:50
SPEAKER_02: It was a relief to me that somebody was admitting that we also have pain.
17:56
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: We have pain, everybody.
18:00
SPEAKER_02: It's part of the human experience.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, and I am also often talking about how our job as parents, as mothers, is not to prevent our children from feeling their own pain, which is very counterintuitive for a lot of people.
18:17
SPEAKER_02: I think it is, but I think what we want to start leaning into, and we can do this in theory, but we can also do this in practice, is that pain holds a lot of wisdom and it holds a lot of empowerment.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: So when we take away or try to, we can't truly take it away, but when we try to cover up or take away our children's pain, we are disempowering them actually.
18:43
SPEAKER_02: And that is really unfortunate.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: Now, I'm not suggesting that you let your kid get run over by a car, but what I am suggesting is that you let them fall down and then you let them feel what a scrape to knee feels like.
18:56
SPEAKER_02: Or later on, a broken heart, or later on, you know, like losing all their money to something, right?
19:04
SPEAKER_00: Like I suggest in my community, it's you let your child feel disappointment when you say no, or sad when you go to work.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: Right?
19:21
SPEAKER_00: So it's even these really subtle, very normal human emotions that I think many of us in motherhood can feel like we're causing harm when we allow our children to feel disappointed or sad.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: That is such a setup.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: I I can feel almost constricted as you say that, because when I imagine parenting from that standpoint, I just imagine being sort of imprisoned in this, like, it's not gonna work because you're gonna just keep trying to make that figure that out, and that is you're never gonna find it.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: And then what?
19:54
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna feel terrible because you've set yourself up for an impossible task.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: So, so that like that's a side effect.
20:03
SPEAKER_02: But I would say the main reason is that we want our children, and here's one way of looking at it, we want our children to feel the rainbow of emotions that are available.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: And my belief system is that if you can't feel the harder emotions, then you're also not gonna feel the easier emotions.
20:20
SPEAKER_02: It's like a spigot that you either turn on or off.
20:23
SPEAKER_02: You either turn off and you numb out, and you teach your children to numb out or blame somebody else or get it self-aggressive, right?
20:31
SPEAKER_02: Those are our, those are our coping strategies essentially.
20:34
SPEAKER_02: You turn it all off, or you turn the whole goddamn thing on and you just get courageous to like, I'm gonna feel sad, I'm gonna feel pain, I'm gonna feel uh heartbreak, I'm gonna feel like I'm gonna feel all the things.
20:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm also gonna feel joy, and I'm probably gonna feel it more intensely for the balance of the pain that I have felt.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: It is just the way it works.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: I actually think you just tapped into something that is pretty universal.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: Um certainly was the case for me when my babies were little and so many people I've talked to, which is this idea of I'm just not enjoying motherhood.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm not enjoying it, I'm not feeling as much joy as I wanted, I'm not having as many moments of like laughter or peacefulness.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: And pretty quickly, we can see that these are also the women who are resisting any whisper of discomfort.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me be really clear.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: They wouldn't describe it that way.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: But as our friend and teacher Patricia Gipple has often said, think feeling and feel feeling are two different things.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: So these might be women who are caught up in a lot of thinking about how they're feeling, you know, thinking about feeling anxious or disappointed or whatever that thing is, and not really feeling it.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: But it almost always comes with the territory that when I talk to someone who's saying she's not.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Feeling very much joy, she's also not letting herself feel those other feelings that just come with the territory.
22:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know what I mean by that?
22:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's scary.
22:11
SPEAKER_02: I think it's very scary, and especially if no one's actually ever modeled that for you.
22:18
SPEAKER_02: That you know it's okay to feel disappointed in your motherhood experience.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: Like let's talk about that for a minute.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: Because I think there are some myths, and maybe this will lead you to tell us some other myths you've heard from your students or in your teaching or people you know.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: But I think there's a myth that if I'm being present with my child, if I'm engaging in what might be called conscious motherhood, that I'm enjoying it all the time, that I'm loving it, that it always feels good.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: So let's dive into that.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: Because you and I both know that is not the case.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: Oh my God.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: I hope everybody knows it's not the case, whether they're willing to admit it or not.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: You know, like what are we calling this if we're not calling it like a rich, full experience?
23:10
SPEAKER_02: And also, motherhood is requiring that we grow, and there's no way we're gonna grow unless we're uncomfortable, right?
23:17
SPEAKER_02: So this is this is this is just required, is a required part of the territory.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: And and um I I like to say sometimes that there's like there's pain, there's just there's just pain that you can't control.
23:32
SPEAKER_02: And that might be the pain of like, boy, this is just unsatisfying.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: And then there's the pain of the judgment that we put on top of it.
23:41
SPEAKER_02: Now, that one we actually can do something about it being unsatisfying or it just being a hard experience, like the circumstances, let's say we have a sick child, or or we, you know, we can go into all the all the circumstances that we can't control.
23:55
SPEAKER_02: And it's really a bummer.
23:57
SPEAKER_02: It is hard to get up for that day after day after day.
24:01
SPEAKER_02: And then we judge ourselves because we're not having a good time, we're not showing up rosy, we're not, we don't want to do it.
24:09
SPEAKER_02: Some days we don't want to get out of bed and we don't want to face it.
24:12
SPEAKER_02: So that's okay too.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: But when we judge that, when we make that wrong, holy heck are we suffering.
24:21
SPEAKER_02: And the truth is like it's going to suck.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: Just like a lot of the time.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: Just like everything else, that's also rewarding.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:33
unknown: Yeah.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you and I talk about this here, we we've had similar conversations before.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: It it it sounds so obvious.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: And I do think there are a lot of people that assume that if they're again, quotes around the statement, doing all the right things, that they should be feeling good, that they should love the things that they're creating, that people should be happy, that they should adore motherhood.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: And there's all it's like this all or nothing black or white thinking that doesn't allow for the nuanced reality of being human.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: And I just again, I want to sort of differentiate between how obvious it can sound when you say it out loud like that, right?
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Like who's supposed to enjoy trying to put a crying resistant child into the bathtub or bed?
25:37
SPEAKER_00: Like that is just not enjoyable.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: I don't care how much you love your child.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: That that bedtime routine is not going to be enjoyable.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's obvious as we say it, but I do think there can be this layer of self-criticism for a lot of women when they realize that they hate bedtime.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: They they hate this time that is, you know, quote unquote supposed to be all cozy and adorable and aggressive.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: It's aggressive to yourself, yeah.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: And the herein lies the practice.
26:07
SPEAKER_02: So we can say change your mind, but we can also say step into it.
26:11
SPEAKER_02: And and what I might say around that is if I were to check in with myself and say, wow, I can feel my heart racing just thinking about the bedtime routine tonight.
26:21
SPEAKER_02: I can feel the anxiety start to rise inside of me.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: There's the wisdom.
26:26
SPEAKER_02: I'm willing to look at it and it's really painful.
26:29
SPEAKER_02: Now, not only am I aware of it, but I'm naming it, I'm acknowledging it.
26:33
SPEAKER_02: And then I'm gonna ask myself, what do you need?
26:37
SPEAKER_02: Do you need to like listen to one of Kate's podcasts before you head into like bedtime or right after you put the kid to bed, right?
26:46
SPEAKER_02: Just to soothe you?
26:48
SPEAKER_02: Do you need to go for a walk?
26:49
SPEAKER_02: Do you need to ask a friend or a partner to come over and maybe alternate nights with you so that you can have a break?
26:55
SPEAKER_02: What do you need?
26:57
SPEAKER_02: See, we'll never get at this if we don't actually look at how painful this is.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: We'll never get to a softening of the pain if we don't look at it directly.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: What do you say to the mother who hears that and says, Yeah, but I shouldn't have these needs.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: I should be able to do it without those things.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: What do you say to her?
27:22
SPEAKER_02: Well, mother or not, I hear this a lot.
27:24
SPEAKER_02: And I think sadly, somebody taught you that you didn't get to have needs.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: And so this is a great time to learn that you have needs because you know who else has needs?
27:33
SPEAKER_02: Your kid.
27:35
SPEAKER_02: And we actually want to teach your kid that it's okay to have needs, but if you're not honoring your needs, you are most definitely not honoring their needs.
27:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: Because you constrict and you shut your needs down, but then you get resentful and it leaks out in some way, right?
27:52
SPEAKER_02: The way you speak, the way you handle your child, the way you treat yourself, which directly affects them.
27:59
SPEAKER_02: And then you don't let them actually have that full need that they want because you are teaching them you don't have the space for it, which frankly you don't.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: And I and and I, I mean, obviously, we're not going to get into all this today, but I do think that's a really important place to start, right?
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Is is because I not everyone who listens to this podcast will have sat with a therapist like you who helps them understand this part.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: But I I think we need to start with this question, what was I taught about my own needs or what was modeled to me?
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Because to your point, I think one of the things that propels us, especially, you know, high or overachievers, to keep being one step ahead is this idea that we have so much to do, right?
28:54
SPEAKER_00: That we have to keep taking care of business for everybody else.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: And inside of that is going to be this belief that our needs don't matter.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: And you and I both know I've tried, it doesn't work.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: Trying to parent my children from an empty tank does not work.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: It does not work.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: But then slowing down and practicing some of the things that you've told us, and you will continue to tell us that we can actually do in the moment requires us first to open up to the possibility that we do have needs and that our needs matter.
29:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, somebody might have told you, or even I think most of the time, and in in in most, I would say, upbringings, we're not actually told outright that we don't get to have those needs, but we're really told subtly.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: And but I would say that we're all born with them.
29:45
SPEAKER_02: We're born with a full set of needs, and we actually never stop having those needs.
29:50
SPEAKER_02: We just learn these like very contorted ways to sort of shove them down and make different shapes out of ourselves, you know, shut ourselves down, um, and develop these strategies for getting by without these needs.
30:04
SPEAKER_02: But the truth is like we've always had them.
30:07
SPEAKER_02: And what I like to say to adults is like, even you, like, just like your child, you have needs and they can be as fundamental as your children's needs.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: They can be so basic just to be felt or held, you know, just to be fed, to be cared for in lots of different ways.
30:25
SPEAKER_02: And if you're not getting, and if you're not admitting those and you're not getting them met, you're really missing something.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: You're really, really missing out on your own care.
30:35
SPEAKER_02: And and what I hear in the back of my own young mother head is, but I don't have time for that.
30:41
SPEAKER_02: Yes, that's right.
30:42
SPEAKER_02: Like, who's gonna step in and do that for me?
30:46
SPEAKER_02: And what I want to say is that most of us have more agency over our lives than we realize.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: That unless we're in prison or in like extreme poverty, we actually have a lot more choice about sort of what we're doing, like whether it's like the lifestyle that we're living or you know, so on and so on.
31:06
SPEAKER_02: All every little thing is a choice as to where we put our attention.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: And if we begin to prioritize ourselves, we're back to mindfulness and connection.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: If we begin to prioritize ourselves, we something else has to give.
31:21
SPEAKER_02: And it's not gonna be like we're not gonna walk away and leave our child alone in the house, but it might be I start ordering groceries online instead of spending that time.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: And in that time, I sit at home where I move with my children in a way that feels really mindful to me, like I feel connected to myself.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: And that to me is worth the whatever charge that Whole Foods charges you.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: I've I've been giving a lot of thought.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of the women that I work with are are ambitious in pursuing some sort of a career, right?
31:59
SPEAKER_00: So this question comes up a lot in my community.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: Can I do it all?
32:04
SPEAKER_00: Can women do it all?
32:06
SPEAKER_00: And I've thought a lot about how that's the wrong question to be asking.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: Right.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: That the question, and that's the mom you're describing.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: I have to do it all.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: I have to not only, you know, do all these other things that I need to do, and now I have to add my own self-care, but I also have to do the cooking and the cleaning and the shopping and the whatever.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: I have to do it all.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: And we've all been in the situation or know people who are just get caught up in, well, no one's gonna do it as well as I do, so I might as well do it all myself.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: The question I think you're addressing here, and really maybe this is at the heart of mindfulness and mindfulness practice, is it possible to be it all?
32:50
SPEAKER_00: Is it possible to be inspired and motivated and committed to things outside of motherhood and be a devoted, loving, caring, committed mother.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: And of course, we also want to add the other things that are important to us in our lives.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: Be healthy in my body, be in, you know, relationships that matter to me.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's at the heart of mindfulness, because if we're not being mindful, if we're not slowing down and being present with the moment, and I will tell our listeners that you're gonna give us just a couple of other ways to access that before we wrap up today, or we'll summarize what you've already said.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: But if if we're trying to do everything, we actually miss the moment of being.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
33:47
SPEAKER_02: So I think you're right.
33:48
SPEAKER_02: It's the wrong question to ask, can I do it all?
33:51
SPEAKER_02: Can I be it all even?
33:53
SPEAKER_02: I think you know what I would say is possible is that you can be fully yourself.
34:00
SPEAKER_02: And what that means is when you really prioritize staying connected to yourself, when that actually, when you for whatever reason, whether you listen to this podcast and you go, well, I just have a gut hit that like that's a good idea.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: It's a good idea to probably be more connected to myself or however it is that you access it.
34:22
SPEAKER_02: When you can prioritize being connected to yourself, what starts to happen is you move through the phases of your life and through and through the moving world around you, including the people in them, with a lot more purpose and a lot more grace.
34:39
SPEAKER_02: And so it doesn't mean that like in this time, it might mean in this moment of time, what matters to me is that I go back to school and I get an education so that I can get my career off the ground.
34:51
SPEAKER_02: That to me is is is rising as a higher priority.
34:55
SPEAKER_02: Um, and then underneath that, perhaps I'm looking at my teenage kids and I'm, you know, like really sitting down with them.
35:04
SPEAKER_02: But then a whole lot of other things have to go to the wayside, right?
35:07
SPEAKER_02: Like I no longer host dinner parties, I don't decorate for the holidays.
35:10
SPEAKER_02: Like there's a lot of other things because and because I'm connected to myself, I can let go of some of that self-judgment because I'm so committed to what is my highest priority.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: In another given time, it might be something totally different that is your priority.
35:26
SPEAKER_02: But if you're not connected to yourself, then you are always getting that input from outside of you and not inside of you.
35:34
SPEAKER_02: And that is that question of can we do it all?
35:37
SPEAKER_02: Society's like, you can have a bank account and buy a house, you can have your own credit card.
35:42
SPEAKER_02: You know, it has not been that long since we had our own credit cards.
35:45
SPEAKER_02: It's so funny.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: I know it's crazy.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: There's it's crazy.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: I know.
35:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, you can be physically fit and sexy, right?
35:53
SPEAKER_02: Like you can, you can also have a career and you can raise your kids and be totally attuned to them.
36:01
SPEAKER_02: Well, that no one person actually, I don't think, could actually do all of that, to be honest.
36:08
SPEAKER_02: So now we're already behind, you know, we're already behind because we think that there's some race that we have to get toward in order to be enough.
36:19
SPEAKER_02: But if we are checking in with ourselves, we already are enough.
36:23
SPEAKER_02: And that's actually a whole nother podcast, but we're already enough.
36:27
SPEAKER_02: We're not trying to prove anything, and we're connecting to what feels inspiring to us right now.
36:34
SPEAKER_02: And it might be I want to spend more time with my kids.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: How am I gonna make that work financially?
36:40
SPEAKER_02: Well, I might have to talk to my partner about that, or I might have to, you know, take out a second mortgage, or you know, I don't know, I don't know what I'm gonna have to give up, but I just want to be at home at least half the time so I can be with around my kids and be present with them.
36:56
SPEAKER_02: That's great.
36:57
SPEAKER_02: It might be the opposite, and that's okay too.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: That's what I think I meant by asking by my from where I sit my perspective being we can be all that we want to be when we look at the being part separate from what am I actually doing, right?
37:22
SPEAKER_00: If I can really tune in to your point and be like, well, who who do I want to be?
37:27
SPEAKER_00: How do I want to feel?
37:28
SPEAKER_00: How do I wanna, how do I want to engage with the world around me?
37:35
SPEAKER_00: Right?
37:35
SPEAKER_00: I I can be, and I happen to believe this about anybody, successful professionally and deeply connected to my children at the same time.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: Now, what that looks like and what's required for that will likely need to change for me to have the experience of being both those things, right?
37:57
SPEAKER_00: Because to your point, we got two hands and two eyes and two ears and one body, right?
38:03
SPEAKER_02: So we can't sleep a certain amount of hours.
38:07
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: But to have the human experience of feeling inside my body that I'm enough in one or more place at the same time is very possible.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: But we just have to be rethinking and probably getting a lot of support to get out of the trap of what that's supposed to look like.
38:31
SPEAKER_02: I have never had to be more creative than I've had to be as a parent.
38:36
SPEAKER_02: I really think.
38:38
SPEAKER_02: Well, like, and I'm thinking about, I mean, when my kids were young, yes.
38:42
SPEAKER_02: And when I went back to grad school, you know, I had three kids in the house, and I was in my 40s, and I did not have a lot of support from my partner in doing this really big endeavor.
38:56
SPEAKER_02: Like, and I also had one child that had a lot of learning disabilities.
38:59
SPEAKER_02: And so there was incredible, he was going to two different schools, and there's just an incredible amount of logistical demands on me.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: Um, getting creative meant exactly what I was saying before, where I actually started realizing like, I'm gonna drop this, I'm gonna drop this, I'm gonna drop this, I'm gonna drop this, I'm gonna put a note on my home office door that says, mom's in session, don't come in.
39:21
SPEAKER_02: Like if the door's shut, don't come in, right?
39:23
SPEAKER_02: Like she's writing papers and you know, like she's concentrating.
39:28
SPEAKER_02: And and I we ate a Chipotle like three nights a week, you know.
39:32
SPEAKER_02: I can't go back there because of that.
39:37
SPEAKER_02: But you know, it was creative, it was creative enough, you know, because what had to be prioritized for me was my schooling and then my kids, and that was enough.
39:50
SPEAKER_02: Like, I remember, like, you know, the house just got kind of like grody, and and that is not me, but that's what had to happen, and that to me was just a creative way of making what really mattered happen.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, you didn't allow the groati house to define you or say something fixed about you, other than that, you're prioritizing what is most important to you in the moment.
40:22
SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm human that I come from a world of perfectionism.
40:25
SPEAKER_02: That was one of my strategies.
40:27
SPEAKER_02: And so it was a constant battle.
40:30
SPEAKER_02: But but that, you know, the practice for me was like opening that hall closet and seeing like three years of coats that had not been like sorted through and didn't even fit the people that lived in the house.
40:42
SPEAKER_02: And to kind of go, oh my god, you're you know, you're not very good at this, and then go, wait a minute, right?
40:52
SPEAKER_02: And so there's the challenge that provides the opportunity for growth.
40:57
SPEAKER_02: You know, wait a minute, you're about ready to get a degree and start your career in a field that like you're so inspired to start.
41:06
SPEAKER_02: Like this is remember, this is more important to you.
41:10
SPEAKER_02: You'll get to the coats, you'll get there, but right now, this is what you're doing.
41:16
SPEAKER_02: Remember.
41:16
SPEAKER_02: And that was so helpful for me to have those moments where I had to pause myself.
41:21
SPEAKER_02: So I don't, I really don't want the listeners to think that like I was like, yes, I can let go.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, I mean, I it no, and I think you just said something about you that is important for us for our listeners to know.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: Same for me, which is that there's a there's a relearning of something that many of us to have to do when we're raised towards the desire or need for perfection, right?
41:51
SPEAKER_00: When we have to sort of be willing to step outside of that.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: And that is not a flip a switch that just flips.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: That is a whole process.
42:01
SPEAKER_02: Pretty painful.
42:02
SPEAKER_02: And this is this is going back to like what you're saying about the striving to make things look right or make things look good or do the next thing or accomplish something, you know, all of those are just sophisticated self-aggressive strategies.
42:17
SPEAKER_02: They're really trying to control our environment so that we can prove that we're okay.
42:23
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
42:24
SPEAKER_02: And I think that like part of the mindfulness journey is that at some point, as we start to practice every single day, that we are important.
42:37
SPEAKER_02: Like that's essentially what we're saying to ourselves.
42:40
SPEAKER_02: When we pause and we place our hand on our chest and we close our eyes, we make contact, we are saying, I value you.
42:48
SPEAKER_02: And when we start to do that, what starts to happen over time is that we start to believe it.
42:54
SPEAKER_02: And that's what allows us to start to let go of some of these insidious aggressive strategies that we hold so tightly as the substitute for our enoughness.
43:08
SPEAKER_02: They are not our enoughness.
43:11
SPEAKER_02: They will never satisfy that need to prove something.
43:14
SPEAKER_02: They never will, which is why we keep pushing.
43:17
SPEAKER_02: But what will is actually going right to the source, showing up for ourselves, and starting to believe that that we matter and that we are crafting this life.
43:31
SPEAKER_02: And that's what that's one of the beautiful um, you know, beautiful chaos of having a mindfulness practice over time.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: So before we wrap up, let's let's stay here for a minute.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'd love for you to kind of talk to the person who's listening, that has heard of mindfulness and meditation, because it is.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Everywhere, you know, it is everywhere on social media, it's now being taught in big corporate organizations, right?
44:06
SPEAKER_00: It's just in a foreign concept to most of us now.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: But if you could talk to the person who's listening, who's like, yeah, I understand that and I want that and it makes sense to me, but I literally don't know where to start.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: Like it feels too big.
44:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
44:23
SPEAKER_00: Can you speak to her for a few minutes?
44:25
SPEAKER_00: I will.
44:26
SPEAKER_02: I'm so happy to.
44:27
SPEAKER_02: This is one of my favorite things is making mindfulness accessible.
44:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:31
SPEAKER_02: So one of my best, greatest, I loved her so much, teacher Lee Ray, said to me, just sit down on the floor with your small kids.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: Just sit down on the floor.
44:42
SPEAKER_02: Stop trying to make something happen.
44:44
SPEAKER_02: Sit down and in a in an act of surrender, just begin to breathe.
44:49
SPEAKER_02: You don't even have to close your eyes.
44:51
SPEAKER_02: Begin to breathe and notice what it feels like to have one or two or three people, small people, moving around you, interacting with you.
45:02
SPEAKER_02: What does that feel like?
45:04
SPEAKER_02: What does it feel like in your body?
45:06
SPEAKER_02: Just start with your body.
45:08
SPEAKER_02: What does it feel like?
45:10
SPEAKER_02: Breathe into your body.
45:12
SPEAKER_02: What does it feel like to take a full breath?
45:16
SPEAKER_02: Now, there's so many ways to do this.
45:21
SPEAKER_02: Like if you can just sit down on your floor in a moment and do that, like you can start to imagine that like you can do mindfulness and stillness, you can do mindfulness in movement.
45:33
SPEAKER_02: What I would say is the most important is that you are bringing the awareness, which we usually think of in our brain, down below our head.
45:45
SPEAKER_02: So just think of a general rule as like we're not being mindful in our thoughts, we're being mindful in our body, and we're being mindful in our emotions.
45:56
SPEAKER_02: So anything below the neck counts as a mindful experience.
46:01
SPEAKER_02: So bring your awareness to those parts of your body.
46:06
SPEAKER_02: And if it's hard to kind of get there, just put your hands on your body and feel your hands, feel the weight of your hands.
46:13
SPEAKER_02: Put a child on your lap and feel the weight of them on your lap.
46:17
SPEAKER_02: So that's number one is get in your body.
46:21
SPEAKER_02: Number two is do it every day.
46:26
SPEAKER_02: And if it's only 30 seconds, that counts.
46:38
SPEAKER_02: You probably do it probably even two or three times a day.
46:42
SPEAKER_02: And we spend like two minutes brushing our teeth.
46:45
SPEAKER_02: So just like this is what I want you to think of.
46:47
SPEAKER_02: And I actually, so every day, every day, every day, every day, that's what creates a habit.
46:52
SPEAKER_02: And over time, if you can trust that, you will actually crave it.
46:58
SPEAKER_02: You will actually think, how could I live without this?
47:01
SPEAKER_02: Think of it as your mindfulness hygiene, your sanity hygiene that you're coming back to yourself.
47:09
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: So one is get in your body.
47:13
SPEAKER_02: Two is do it every day, even for tiny, tiny little bits.
47:19
SPEAKER_02: And the third one is what I would call just this like sprinkle of fairy dust, of self-compassion.
47:26
SPEAKER_02: Bring attitude of love to what you find here.
47:35
SPEAKER_02: Breathe in and breathe out.
47:37
SPEAKER_02: Take your hand if it's on your chest and rub it in a little circle and give yourself a little love.
47:43
SPEAKER_02: Give yourself a little pat.
47:45
SPEAKER_02: Feel your own presence.
47:47
SPEAKER_02: Perhaps create a little smile on your face.
47:50
SPEAKER_02: Imagine what it would be like if someone in your life approached you every day and looked you right in the eyes and put their hand right on your heart and said, I love you.
48:08
SPEAKER_02: That is what our systems need.
48:11
SPEAKER_02: We need it more almost as much as our breath.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: And it's what we have craved.
48:19
SPEAKER_02: And some of us have had caregivers that were capable of doing that on a very regular basis, and some of us have not.
48:25
SPEAKER_02: And in all the ways that we have either missed that or received that, we have crafted this way of being with ourselves.
48:33
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of that is not that functional, which is why we're having such a difficult time when life gets hard and there's really nothing harder than mothering.
48:41
SPEAKER_02: So the walls are coming in when you have small children.
48:45
SPEAKER_02: It really does feel that way.
48:47
SPEAKER_02: And what I think it's asking you to do instead of do more, it's asking you to actually set it down and get closer to yourself and give yourself the mothering that you crave.
49:00
SPEAKER_02: And when you give it to yourself, it just starts to flow out of you and you can give it to your child.
49:06
SPEAKER_02: And that's ultimately what all of humanity needs.
49:13
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: I hope that some of our listeners rewind and just listen to that final however many minutes that was over and over again.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: So helpful and useful.
49:27
SPEAKER_00: And I can like feel it in my body as you're talking about it.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: That part about it really is what we need.
49:32
SPEAKER_00: All of us.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: In um, yeah.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: Dia.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: If anyone is listening to this and they're like, dang, I want to learn more about Dia Ralia, where can they find you?
49:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they can find me at my website.
49:48
SPEAKER_02: It's just my name, D-I-A-R-A-L-Y-E-A.
49:52
SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, I I see clients individually.
49:57
SPEAKER_02: I also teach mindfulness groups here and there.
49:59
SPEAKER_02: So sometimes you can find me doing that.
50:02
SPEAKER_02: But you just just reach out.
50:03
SPEAKER_02: I will I will either bring you in or I'll direct you in the right place.
50:08
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
50:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:09
SPEAKER_00: I um really do want people to know where to find you.
50:13
SPEAKER_00: I think it takes um sometimes the resources out there that many of us might go to to learn more of this can feel really intimidating, can can feel too big.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: And I I think what you're reminding us today is that it doesn't have to be intimidating and too big.
50:33
SPEAKER_00: And I also really do think, I mean, I'll come full circle here, I think you are one of those people who doesn't just teach by knowledge, you teach by the way you move through the world.
50:44
SPEAKER_00: And I and I think you're a great example for people who have been raised to move through the world one way, and then who have really done the practice and the work to learn how to move through it in a different way as a deeply devoted mother and professional and community member and all of those things.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, so thanks for being here with us today.
51:08
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for reproaching that, Kate.
51:10
SPEAKER_02: I've really enjoyed talking to you.
51:16
SPEAKER_00: All right, listeners, if you found this episode helpful in any way, or if there's someone in your life who you think might benefit from hearing it, I would be so grateful if you take just a moment to subscribe, rate, review, or share this episode with a friend.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: Of course, it does feel good to know this podcast is resonating with you.
51:35
SPEAKER_00: But honestly, the bigger reason I ask is because the more subscriptions and ratings and reviews the podcast receives, the more accessible it becomes to mothers who may really need this kind of support and conversation.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: And as we all know, motherhood was never meant to be done alone.
51:51
SPEAKER_00: But it really does take a village to raise a mom to so thank you for helping us grow this community one conversation at a time.