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A Live Coaching Session: When Everything Changes at Once · Motherhood Uncut

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_05: Welcome to the Motherhood Uncut podcast, where we talk honestly about the reality of motherhood.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_05: I'm your host, Kate Kripke.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_05: 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, a purpose, and work outside of motherhood.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_05: And it's called Uncut because we do not hold back here.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_05: 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_05: I'm so glad you're here.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_05: What happens when the very things you experienced as a child become the things you are most afraid of repeating as a mother?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_05: In today's episode, I'm sharing a live coaching call with Melissa, a mother of two young boys who is wrestling with that very question.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_05: As Melissa navigates challenges in her relationship with her own mom, she begins to notice how those experiences are shaping the way she sees herself as a parent today.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_05: Together, we explore the fears, beliefs, and patterns that can emerge when we're trying so hard to get motherhood right.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_05: If you've ever worried about making mistakes, wondered whether you're doing enough, or carried fears about how your own childhood might affect your parenting, I think you're gonna find pieces of yourself in this conversation.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_05: I hope you enjoy the episode.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_05: Hey, so if you're listening to this podcast and finding yourself thinking, yes, this is exactly how I feel, I want you to know that you don't have to navigate the season alone.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_05: The women I work with are often deeply thoughtful, capable, ambitious mothers who care tremendously about their children and also about the work, passions, and purpose they hold outside of motherhood.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_05: But somewhere along the way, anxiety, guilt, overwhelm, and pressure begin pulling them out of the present moment and away from the experience they long to be having.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_05: The Calm Connection Accelerator is my 12-week experience designed to help mothers move from survival mode into greater calm, confidence, steadiness, and connection, both with themselves and with their children.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_05: If that resonates with you, I'd love to invite you to book a call with me.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_05: We'll talk through what's feeling hardest right now, what you most want for yourself and your family, and whether the Calm Connection Accelerator feels like the right next step for you.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_05: You can find more information and the link to book a call in the show notes.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_05: Okie dokies.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_05: So Melissa, thanks for being here.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_05: Can you start by just letting me know, letting us know what your situation is, how old your kids are, what you do for work, how much you work.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_05: Just kind of give us a little bit of an overview on you.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got two boys who are five and eight and started working with you when my youngest was shortly after he was born.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: So known you for a long time and been through many seasons, it feels like since then.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my youngest was COVID baby, and so that was obviously uh so different from my first and so in interesting in so many different ways.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he's five and he just started kindergarten.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so we've been going through some really interesting transitions this last year.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've worked throughout both of them.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: I had pretty generous maternity leaves with both of them, um, but was back at work with my youngest since the time he was six months old.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I work full-time in um a uh high-tech sales job.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've gone through a couple of iterations of that in the last couple of years, which has been very, very interesting and great and not great at times and um and great, but um so I work from home, which is great.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we had an au pair since um we had our our youngest.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: So for the last five years, and then our biggest transition, uh, sort of in parenting more recently, was that we had our last au pair who departed in October this last year.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so have made that transition with you know, two working parents and two young kiddos and no family nearby.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_05: So that's the Yeah, and you know, when you were just talking about that, you said we started working together right after your second was born, but it was actually after your first was born because there was a period in the earlier, and just for our listeners to remind everyone, I worked as a traditional psychotherapist for many, many years.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_05: And in the last three years, I've shifted over to this coaching program that I created.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_05: And and you were working with me way back in the day when I was providing more traditional psychotherapy, and you've been through some of my other more, more kind of up-to-date coaching programs as well.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_05: But um, when your first was born, we were doing more traditional work.
• 5:38
  unknown: Yeah.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_05: And it's really interesting just to sort of set the stage for this, because I remember you were really struggling with deciding whether or not you and your husband were with whether or not to have a second child.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh boy, yes.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_05: So so much has happened since then.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_05: So tell me how I can be helpful today.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um, as you said, we started, I think, with a lot of the challenges, I think, of just transitioning into motherhood.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a lot there in terms of sort of, I think, unpacking the trauma really that I showed up with and then knowing how to carry that into how I wanted to mother.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then my second comes along.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_05: You're up up right, right?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_05: You're you're close to your mom, but just sort of relational trauma and some of those things that we talked about that you were came into motherhood with some pretty deep beliefs about yourself and motherhood and what a good mom is and all of that stuff.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very much.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then um, you know, by the time my second came along, I feel felt like I had made a lot of work, but then that was the COVID era.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a whole new set of challenges and a very different place with my partner that we had come to in a really positive way from our work together.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so, and so it was interesting because over that period is when I did some of your sort of lightweight coaching programs, and that was a really, really wonderful thread to carry through and really interesting to see how I could apply our one-to-one work in that setting.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that has carried me really so, so far, and I feel like has been um something that has kept me really, really grounded.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I feel like in the last year or so, I went through some really big career um shifts that were actually initially felt really detrimental and then turned up being incredibly positive.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me about what you mean about that.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_05: How did they turn out to be positive?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, I felt like, gosh, it was in 2023.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: So my youngest was three then.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like I was just sort of coming out of the clear and getting back into my work.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: But that was sort of the beginning in the tech world of a lot of turmoil that's still going.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was a very, very toxic year with companies just doing massive layoffs, my company being one of them.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it was also like a rolling thing.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so it wasn't only a harsh environment, but there was so much uncertainty and so many people acting um um out of fear, really, right?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Day to day, day in, day out, driving really abnormal behavior.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: So um it kind of forced me out of my job then, which was really devastating.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I kind of had a target on my back, and fair or not fair, that's just how it panned out.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was hard not to take personally.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_05: Of course.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I stepped out and I was already actively interviewing and had that um in place.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then literally the day after my last day, my first mentor, um, I got a call and somebody said, like, we can't find him.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I just knew.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: And long story short, he passed away.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I was kind of, I was actually on the phone once the police got in and found him.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so those two things together were devastating.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when I say he was, he wasn't only my mentor, he officiated my wedding.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: My father passed away when I worked for him, so he was really like a second father.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so it was crushing.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I it gave me a sort of strength um to lift my head up in that and and move forward, I felt, like with um just a lot of integrity.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like I resessed that just a quick question about that.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_05: I just have a lot of questions.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_05: So it's really interesting, right?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_05: When when we go through change, which of course is what we go through when we become moms, and you you had all these skills, all these tools as you went into the passing of your mentor.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but not everyone would lift their head up and use this as this tragedy as a way to move forward with integrity.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_05: So, what do you think it was for you, Melissa, that allowed you to do that versus kind of you know, curling up in a ball?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_05: Because it would have been totally valid for you to have curled up in a ball.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_05: So, what do you think it was that that motivated you in the direction you went in?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, not to be um a cliche, but it was no doubtly the work that we had done around, I think grounding myself and knowing who I was.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think seeing myself through the lens to know like that it kind of felt like all of these losses that I had.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, um, I've gone through a lot of grief with just personal losses and in my family.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I felt like through our work, until then, I had looked at those as making me less than.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And after working together, it helped me shift that view of myself to what a gift I've been given.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: As horrible as all of these things have been, this has prepared me.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is nothing compared to that.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And what I have control over is how I go forward in this world, not how that person might have seen me, not the choice that was the choices that I was presented with.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: I have an option to either, you know, curl up in a ball and feel really sorry for myself, or say, this has nothing to do with me.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't a personal attack.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And if I can maintain my integrity and hold on to my value, it will all, you know, flush out as it's supposed to.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Which it sounds like it did.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it did.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I had a great experience at that company, although they were going through a lot of turmoil as well.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it's just a it's it's a tough space to be in.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then just over a year ago, my former company in a different capacity reached out and they said, it's time to come back and we'll make it, you know, worth your while.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, am I crazy?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Am I glutton for punishment?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I went for it and it's been really, really amazing how that whole aspect has played out.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_05: Talk to me about what feels amazing about this new work situation for you.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_05: What makes it work for you there?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, I've got the right, I think, leadership, the right team in place, also the right role that just feels like it plays to my strengths.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I realized was the, I think it was um, you know, sometimes we end up in roles that feel good, but when we're really looking at how they serve us, they're not necessarily serving us.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I and that's how I kind of reflect on that is it felt so personal.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: It felt like, again, I was maybe not achieving what I wanted to, but really things were misaligned.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_05: Awesome.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_05: So you're in this position at work that is working for you.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_05: You you muddled through, of course, the the the tragic loss of your mentor, which again, I'm sorry to hear about that.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_05: I actually we actually, it's funny, we touch bathed very briefly around this time.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_05: I'm remembering now.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_05: So um, so so I remember that time for you.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_05: And you've ended up in this job that you really like, you're working full-time.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_05: Two kiddos, so five and eight, which is a lot, isn't it?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_05: A full-time working mama with two active boys.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's there's been a lot of positives there.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, definitely not without stressors throughout.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And a big theme, I think, in my career has been how do I, I feel like I'm at a point where my career is thriving, but always at the line of being mindful of burnout.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like I've either reached or been at that cusp of burnout kind of every year.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a really hard line to tow.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: But the other thing was um, I think that sticks out and I think it's probably relevant to other people.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you've got all these things going on, you're figuring out your rhythm.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um in October, our au pair left.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we're like, okay, we shift.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: I that same week, I head out to our massive work conference.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you're not sleeping, you're just go, go, go.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Come back from that.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I get a call that says, Um, your mom, and you know, my mom has really had a lot of health issues.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: My mom calls, she can barely talk.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: She says, I'm going to the hospital.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: I've got double pneumonia.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and she's grasping for air.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: And about a week later, I got a call on a Saturday from a doctor, and he said, long story short, um, I don't think she's going to make it through the night.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so I hopped on a plane, go out there, not knowing if she was going to make it.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I got out there and you know, stayed the night with her in the hospital.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And she slowly started um turning around.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, she's she's got congestive heart failure and COPD.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: She's got a lot of really serious medical conditions at this point.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_04: How old is she?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um 64.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_04: Quite young.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: But struggled um with uh obesity for morbid obesity for most of her life and due to her own, you know, really, really intense trauma.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um so while I was out there, um, you know, we were able to have some of the first day or so she couldn't talk at all.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then she came too, and we ended up having these really hard conversations around logistics, you know, like basically making me one of four.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really the only one who has a a relationship with her.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: My brother passed away, and my two sisters are pretty estranged from her.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm her, you know, she assigned me as her power of attorney.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um, if you've ever been through that experience, you know, just oh I have.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was heavy, yeah.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I come back from that, and she's she's still trucking along.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: So this was October.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is October.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: So not that long ago.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: No, just a few months ago.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so she's home and she's doing okay.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would not, I would say though, like she's not, she's having a hard time like really coming back from this.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um so this I bring up because this is definitely it, I think what it was the most ungrounded I felt in a long time.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things I think we've talked about in our work is feeling the feelings, right?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so the whole time, like, okay, I'm gonna feel, I'm gonna get uncomfortable.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and but man, it felt really hard, of course, to move through the world.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it and it really shook me up in terms of okay, what's you know, even though I've been through these losses, like how I think with with young children especially, how it's it becomes so hard when you're going through your grief, but you're all you carry the responsibility for your own children, and then you're also caring for your parent, you know.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_05: There's so many things here that I just want to pause on.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um, number one is, you know, you're right, we talk a lot about feeling the feelings, and we, you know, we sort of have this mantra, right?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_05: The feelings are never the problem, the feelings are never the problem.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_05: It's resisting them that cause all these problems.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_05: So, but to your point, they can be really uncomfortable.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_05: Really uncomfortable.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_05: And I and I and I do want to acknowledge that you just told, you just told me that you are going through these things, holding this, the, the, I'm gonna use the word burden.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_05: I know that there's so much love in this and complicated love in this, but you know, we're it's your aging parent and you're responsible.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_05: But you're many ways going through it alone because your siblings are not involved in this.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_05: And so it's just a lot to hold big emotion like that.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and you know, what we talk about and we talked about before, and I I can see it even as you're talking about this, Melissa, that you're tethered to this.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, can we feel these big feelings and still trust that we're okay at the same time?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_05: Because the feelings can feel like they're gonna envelop us, right?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_05: The other thing that you just mentioned um is you're going through this and you're feeling these big feelings while you're parenting young kids.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_05: And so there's a logistical question about that.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_05: How the heck do you do that?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_05: What do we call it?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_05: The sandwich generation, is that what we're called?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oreo sandwich.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_05: What pick pick your treat?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_05: So so we're caring for for both sides.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and um we also know that our nervous system impacts our kids, right?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_05: And so we do need to be taking care of ourselves so that we're not sort of unleashing in a very uh disorganized way all of these emotions we feel, right?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_05: So there's that other responsibility, which is how do I take care of myself while I'm taking care of my parents, my mom, and taking care of my kids.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_05: So it's a lot.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_05: One final thing I want to say.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um, my mom passed away, as you know, eight or nine years ago.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_05: I do think there's something extremely disorienting about the idea and then the ultimate loss of our mother.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_05: You know, that is a, you know, you you know from the other side with your boys, you know what it's like being a mother.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_05: But there is there, even if we've had complicated relationships with our mothers, there is still an invisible umbilical cord, right?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_05: It's very disorienting.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_05: So what you're describing just makes so much sense to me.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is a really profound thing to say.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's something uh that struck me is I have a complex relationship with my mom.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm actually in some Ways it has been such a gift in my own motherhood because I think about you and your work a lot.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we talk, you talk about how you know you need to tend to yourself first.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like that falls on a lot of deaf ears.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, yeah, I've got to tend to myself, but really I'm gonna put my kids first.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I feel like the gift that I had in not having as much availability in my mother, because she didn't tend to herself, was seeing the truest form of when your children are the center of your world.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: How actually that like there were if you were to ask me as a child, like, what do you want more than anything?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted my mom to be okay.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think about that all the time.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: If, you know, on a Saturday morning I choose to go to a yoga class or for a run, and it feels like I'm working all week and now I'm choosing another hour to be away from my kids.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: I remind myself of that.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And like, and also my now my kids are at an age where like my eight-year-old, he goes downstairs and writes his own workouts and asks to work out with me.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like you realize, no, when you give to yourself, it's actually a gift back to your kids.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And as backwards of a gift that like in my mom's way, she was trying to give to me.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's the irony.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, like yeah, even as I'm saying that, I was like, but in her mind, she was actually trying to be the most selfless person.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And in that, I kind of lost many parts of her.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I thought that moment was there, like we're not, we don't talk day to day because quite frankly, it's heavy.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: It weighs on my heart.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: And we've talked about how I sort of have a constant grief with my mom, with her inability to really be present in my life.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: She's never seen a home I've lived in.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: She wasn't there at my wedding, or to witness the births of my children, you know, my children.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like she's she's never been literally to a single home of mine, or even when I was in college, because of that.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think a part of me thought, I'll be okay if that happens because she's not so deeply integrated into my life.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that the nature that you talk about, that is so, so true.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it doesn't, it doesn't have to be.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: There is something so indescribable of that connection we have with our mother.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: That really just resonated for me because I I thought I'm so shook and I'm so confused.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: But it's something I think that's just so indescribable for how we're connected to our moms.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean you're confused?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: What are you confused about?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was confused by the enormity of the grief I felt when I thought that was the end.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_05: This is such an example of how easy it is to get caught in that all or nothing thinking, right?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_05: How can both things be true?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_05: How can I have such a separate life from my mother and really be self-sufficient and not really have learned when you were a child, you needed her.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_05: As an adult, you want her.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_05: Like you actually, as a grown adult with your own agency, you don't need her the way you did as a child.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_05: But of course you want her around, but you've created a whole life where she's not around.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_05: And so both things.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_05: I don't need her, and that the enormity to use your word of the idea of her not being on this planet anymore is incredibly disorienting and heartbreaking, right?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_05: Both those things are true.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_04: So are you coming in today?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_04: Do you have a question you're coming in with today specifically?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that I do.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I think it was just perhaps a, you know, I I feel like I've it took me, it felt like a few weeks, a month, maybe more, right?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: To feel like I started sort of leveling out.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, that's something we talk about a lot, is like the work is what helps you stay steady.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so I feel like day in, day out, I'm at a place where I am feeling more steady.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, actually, perhaps there's, I mean, the question maybe is how do we think about when we have a major life shift or trauma?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: How do we think about balancing that and tending to ourselves in that moment while also moving through the world and mothering and working all the things?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_05: What an amazing question that is.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_05: So let me start by asking you a question, Melissa.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_05: If you could wave a magic wand, what would that look like for you?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_05: What do you imagine if you were doing all those things quote unquote well, right?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_05: Which is part of what we're getting at here, right?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_05: Because there's obviously no right answer to your like every person has a different context to which they would answer this question.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_05: But if you were really to imagine that you were living a life where you were finding this thing you're asking about how to find, what would that thing be?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_05: What would this look like for you or feel like is probably a more appropriate question.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's what I'm realizing is that so I lost my brother when I was 18.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was a freshman in college, and um my dad when I was um just out of of school.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think I was 28 and sort of starting my career.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so both of those times, I I would say I because it was just me, right?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't married, I didn't have children, I was living really independently.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: I had this ability to just throw myself into things and allow those distractions to serve me in some way.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't serve me, like I had to do the work at some point.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_05: But distractions do serve a purpose, right?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, uh especially when we don't have the tools to quote unquote do the work in the moment.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: So um I mean I guess now it would be, you know, figuring out, I feel like how to make space for the feelings.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um which in some capacity would be like pressing pause from work for a little bit, finding time, even away from my kids to just I remember when I had like a miscarriage before we had our first, just going for like a nine-mile hike alone and just walking.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: And there was this point where I was like up in the trees on my way back down and coming out of that and thinking, okay, as I exit these trees, like I'm gonna leave some of this grief behind.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, there's I think I maybe just a component of slowing down from all the things to make space for it.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there was grief even in the experience that I had, right?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: But then with it not being sort of that, okay, she's okay now, right?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: So then you were, I was just like thrust right back into it.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe that's part of why I was like, there's never any room for grief.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_05: And to your point, there's never any room for grief if we don't make room for grief.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_05: And many people, probably a lot of people that end up will end up listening to this, certainly probably before you started this work, will think, well, not only do I don't want to make room for grief, but I don't see the purpose of it.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_05: I've got too much to do in my life.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_05: Like feeling the feelings, waste of time.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_05: Like that is not gonna help me.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, I want to acknowledge something, you know, and I and I guess, Melissa, I'm not specifically speaking to you because I think you need to hear this because you're already articulating this, but I it's a reminder to you and and just sort of a template for us to go through.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_05: Many of us who are high-achieving career-driven women, of which you are, right?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_05: You you for for your whole life, you've been like, I am not, I mean, I remember this conversation when we first, I am not gonna suffer the way my mom has suffered.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_05: You were like determined to do life differently than she did.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_05: And you have.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_05: And for a reminder for us, because I think this is gonna come into how you how you end up answering your question, many of us who are high achievers, go-getters, who do amazing things, what what propels us through life is the fear that we will be something else, a fear that we will not be okay, a fear that we will not be enough, right?
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_05: And it seems sort of counterintuitive because, you know, we're out there proving to the world and ourselves that we are okay and we are enough.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_05: But a lot of us, a lot of us who are high achievers are moving through life to get away from something we're deeply fearful of.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_05: The reason that's important to state here is two things.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_05: Number one, if that's the case, we will also move through life with an activated nervous system that's pretty chronically activated if we're not paying attention, right?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_05: Because fear, uh, you know, by design, turns up our nervous system response, our sympathetic nervous system response.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_05: Now, that may not look like we're freaking out all the time, but it's under the surface, right?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_05: We oftentimes I'll talk to people who are like, I think you've even said this, right?
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I don't have anxiety, right?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_05: And then of course, it's it's not that you quote unquote have or don't have anxiety.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_05: You may not have a clinical diagnosis of anxiety, but when I start asking you the questions, you're like, oh, oh yeah, oh yeah, I feel tight and tense in my body a lot of the time.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah, I'm constantly moving and afraid to sit still.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah, I'm not sleeping well at night, right?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_05: Whatever those things are, right?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_05: So what you have learned to do and what you're coming to this period of almost like chronic grief, right?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_05: We we don't know when your mom is gonna pass away.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_05: So there's so much uncertainty and unpredictability here.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_05: You're coming to this knowing that making room to slow down and feel is important.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_05: So you're already way ahead because many people not only are they like don't see the value of feeling and emotion, but they approach these hard situations from that same achievement brain.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_05: I have to fix, problem solve, and plan my way through this.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_05: Which is like what we do when we don't want to feel the feelings.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_05: Does that resonate for you?
• 34:14
  unknown: Yeah.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 34:15
  unknown: Very much.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_05: So, so you know that if you're gonna move through this transition of life, this period of deep uncertainty and unpredictability as it applies to your mom and your kids, because they're also motherhood is just like so uncertain, unpredictable.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_05: You're gonna need to find a way to allow yourself to the cheesy term, but is to meet yourself where you are versus expecting yourself to be somewhere else.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_05: So on one moment, that mean might mean that you're not thinking about your mom as all at all.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_05: You're like living life, you're thriving in your job, as you said.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_05: You've got these two great kids, you're parenting, you may not think of her at all, which is totally fine.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_05: And then you may have another moment where all you can think about is her, and you're having a hard time focusing on a task at work or with your kids, which is also totally fine.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_05: Because as much as we'd like to control our emotions, we actually can't, especially grief.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_05: It comes and goes when we least expect it.
• 35:18
  unknown: Yeah.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_05: So the question for you becomes okay, what do you need to do to make sure that you are um, well, the the what would you need to believe was true about yourself?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_05: That's always the question, right?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_05: That would make it possible for you to move through this period of time with more flexibility and fluidity, more able to quote unquote go with the flow, which many of us type a women don't think of ourselves at.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_05: But what would you need to believe was true about yourself, Melissa, in order to move through this period of time more willing to ebb and flow through the context of whatever's happening for you in each moment of each day?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_05: Does that question make sense?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_05: Do you have an answer?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think that in some ways the whole experience was not not a gift, but um there was some beauty that came out of it.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: And an opportunity, perhaps.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there was an amazing opportunity.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: We you know, there was a couple times I sat down with my mom and I realized like there's things on my heart that I want her to know, like how I've seen her as a mother that I've never said to her, and I had that opportunity.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: And and I was I the I could feel the words, and I was so uncomfortable initially.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: As you were saying them, just getting to the point of saying them.
• 37:04
  unknown: Yeah.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then once I said them, that felt like a huge relief.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: It was a weird, weird feeling.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's because like generationally, like there was we didn't feel feelings as much, you know, like it was we weren't, you know, like the kind of family that sat down and talked about grief and talked about how much we loved each other.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not just us, like pretty well across the board, it felt like.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but also I think just a lot of uh my fears around figuring all of that out alone.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was this beautiful opportunity where my husband stepped up and was like, I've I've got you.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you received that.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: I received it.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I really I think saw and accepted, no, I'm not, I'm not alone.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm this might look different, and the fact that I don't have a family who shows up, but I have my own family that I've created, and the same thing with um, you know, my friends.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so there were, I think, some beliefs there that that um situation helped debunk and um put at ease for sure.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the other thing that's haunted me in the past that I'm realizing like I'm I am more okay with is, and I remember having this even when my oldest was a baby.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, how am I gonna talk to my kids about this?
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: How am I gonna make this okay in their world?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: This being um my mom, you know, like I don't want them to hold the same level of grief or complexity, maybe.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um so and part of that I think is just allowing them into my grief and not safeguarding it.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_05: What is when you say that, what does that mean to you?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_05: Letting them into your grief and not safeguarding it.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: I can remember a few times in my childhood where my mom never openly cried.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember a couple of times her being very upset and her going to her room and locking it.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that was how I interpreted grief.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was behind a closed door.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it was coming from a place of love and protection.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I've realized when I cry, especially with my oldest, who's incredibly empathetic and always has been.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: He just has a very, he feels very deeply.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I realize like that's such a gift.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, I don't have to close the door.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: He wants to feel with me.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if we actually feel it together, it's a beautiful thing.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we're we don't stay there.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's just a moment.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_05: Gosh, I'm so struck by the different messaging, right?
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_05: So your mom, if she's feeling some kind of distress and and and she goes into her door and she locks the door, what's the message she's sending you about emotional discomfort?
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_05: Like she it's not okay.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_05: It's like it's dangerous, it's bad, it's not okay.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_05: Which of course is what we worked with in the beginning of our work.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_05: Is like, wait a second, can we poke holes in that?
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_05: Can we, is that a fact or can we, is that just something you learned?
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_05: And are you open to opening up to the possibility that that's not true of what you were?
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_05: And now you're raising these boys.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_05: I just got the chills.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, I I've known you long enough to like be able to picture you with them, right?
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_05: So you so you're now raising these boys where you're sending them a very different message about emotion, right?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_05: That it's okay, that it's safe to feel, that you're not alone, that you'll get through it together.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_05: It's such a different message to send to your kids than you were taught.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, it's striking me, just like I mean, you're like you're painting a perfect picture here.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_05: So, so when for much of your life you were, you know, uh achieving, doing things, almost performing, right?
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_05: It was almost like a pressured performance to be fit and to get the right job and to get the accolades and right, right?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, we've all many of us can relate to that feeling.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_05: I certainly can.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_05: So, and it was fueled by fear, right?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_05: Which sometimes can sound like a question like, what if I end up like my mom?
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_05: What if I'm not enough to achieve whatever?
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_05: What if I'm actually really not okay?
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_05: And all of those fear-based beliefs and thoughts motivated you to just freaking go for it in life and make something of yourself.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_05: Really, what you're describing now, and I can hear it in your tone as you're talking about the last few months, is you're coming through this new place of life, this new chapter, so much uncertainty and unpredictability from the beliefs that you just said to us.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_05: I am actually okay.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_05: I am actually loved and not alone.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_05: I am enough, right?
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_05: It's a very different core feeling to come to something like this from that very different place.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_05: Did does that resonate for you?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_05: So, so just out of curiosity, because I think this is what I was getting at, Melissa, what does I am okay mean to you?
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_05: What does it mean to be okay?
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think how do I have to describe this?
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is realizing that the feelings are not the like actuality.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like the feelings can exist while my body is perfectly fine.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think I mean we do there was some heavy work on that as there was a counting session.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, there was.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like a parrot a little bit, but it has been my anchor in all of these ups and downs.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean, you'll laugh at this.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is the post-it on my um test.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: This will pass.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm okay, center on the good.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think this has been up here since 2023 or 2022.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: It sits on my computer.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the thing I come back to.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the last couple months there were moments where I didn't.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Feel okay, and I would see that and be like, oh, this will pass because I am okay.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm not the one sitting in the hospital.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm okay.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's okay to feel good in moments, even when I'm feeling bad with this overarching thing.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_05: I think you just said it in a nutshell that you can have the experience, I don't feel okay, and still trust that you are okay.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_05: One is a feeling.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_05: That's that, that's that ability to observe, right?
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_05: So you're not tangled up in the feelings or the thoughts, right?
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_05: That you can observe, oh, I'm I really don't feel okay right now, which is whatever, fill in the blank.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_05: You're grieving, you're having some big emotion.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe we can even say that about ourselves when we don't feel well physically, which by the way, grief can turn into a lot of physical discomfort as well.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_05: And you just know that inherently you are okay.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_05: And that, Melissa, that is the life raft or anchor or whatever metaphor you want to come up with.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_05: That is your anchor and your life raft.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_05: And then the question becomes okay, so if you know in the depths of your soul, every cell in your body, you don't know why you know, you just know that you're inherently okay, right?
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_05: And you have this wave of, we can call it trauma, we can call it grief or loss, we can call it deep uncertainty and unpredictability when it comes to your mom and how long she'll be on this planet for, right?
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_05: Now the question that you're asking is how do I actually do this?
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_05: How do I move through this where I'm still participating in my life?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_05: I'm still engaging in the career that I love and that I'm thriving in.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_05: I'm still mothering my boys, which I love and I'm really committed to.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_05: I'm still engaging in my marriage and whatever else.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_05: You could add whatever other pockets there are.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_05: The question is, how do I allow for this is a better word, while still engaging in my life?
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_05: And so, you know, the next question for you, there's no right answer, is okay, well, how do you do that?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_05: What does that look like?
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_05: What are the different tiny baby steps?
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_05: Because I think it's important to remember that too, right?
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_05: We we think we need to, there has to be something big to hold on to, right?
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_05: That feels like the waves are so big.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_05: We need something big to hold on to.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_05: And really, that might, you know, when we come into something like this with a belief that I'm not okay, we can be knocked over so fast.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_05: That's not what you're coming in with.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_05: You know you're okay.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_05: So, what do you need to do?
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_05: What are the teeny tiny things that you need to do to ride through this period of such uncertainty and unpredictability and big emotion?
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think the little things become the big things, you know, is what I'm realizing.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like even in the last couple of weeks, I remember that with the holidays and work and all the things, there was a couple of weeks where I was not able to get into yoga and I wasn't able to maybe go for like my longer walks.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember there was one point where it was New Year's Eve, and I had a friend who the day before texted, she was having get together.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: She said, Okay, I need everybody to plan a dish around a country, and then we're gonna have a theme and a drink at a different hour.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, What?
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have time for this.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: I have a job and I'm stressed.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like unhealthily upset about it, right?
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then I and then I went to yoga, which I hadn't done in weeks, and I was about halfway through the class, and I was like, okay, that's not really a normal response.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yes, maybe that's a little annoying, but being that agitated is a sign that I'm not taking enough space.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_04: Beautiful.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, same thing.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like at work recently, I had an interaction with a customer who they were unhappy, and I mean, turned into them screaming at me and hanging up on me.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I was raging pissed.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just seeing red.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like my hair was on fire.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: I called my boss and I was dissolved into tears and I was so angry.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went into that evening, just still so mad and not getting over it.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized, you know, I just need to phone a friend.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so I asked my husband to put the kids to bed.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized in this moment, I was like, I'm gonna go for a walk and I'm gonna call a friend because I need a friend right now.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: And my friend initially was like, Oh, I'm going to bed.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: And but then she said something like, Do you need me?
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was, and there was this moment when she said, Do you need me?
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, no, I don't need you.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: I want you, but I don't want to have to ask for you or feel like I need you.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: But we have enough of a relationship, like she picked up on that, and so she started calling me, and I realized that that's one of the things too, is that I need to be comfortable asking a friend to lean in and receive it, right?
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: Receive it because once I talk to her, then I let the day go.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_05: So you're talking about your non-pharmaceutical prescriptions for mental health, right?
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_05: The non-pharmas is what we call it.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_05: And you're and and it really is, I mean, that is what you're talking about, right?
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_05: Those non-pharmas become uh a life raft, right?
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_05: And we have them so that really they're just to remind you, it's sleep, nutrition, exercise, or movement, right?
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um, uh, hydration, time and nature, mindfulness or breath, and social support and play, right?
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_05: Those eight things are on our non-pharma list because all the research tells us that our brain needs those things to be resilient to stress.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_05: So when we're going through, when we're entering a period of time where this external stress is heightened, like this time for you, we have to pay attention to these non-pharmaceutical prescriptions.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_05: Now, people are taking medicine too, fine.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_05: But really, we want to build the capacity for that groundedness you talked about in the beginning from the inside.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_05: And if we're not taking care of our brain, we're gonna be really depleted and then less resilient to when you know the boss says this thing or something quote unquote little happens.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_05: That's when we lose our shit.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_05: So that you're painting a beautiful picture because you feel all tense and tight, and then you do something off that pharma list, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, that thing that no longer feels like the end of the world to me because you've built your resilience.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_05: And that for you, I think, is really important right now.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_05: And to remind you, Melissa, I I know you know this, but it's the little things.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_05: It's not go to the gym for an hour, it's go for a 10-minute walk, right?
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_05: It's not go away for a weekend with a friend.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, the social connection part might just be, you know, sending a text, or it might even be just like looking, gazing at the checkout person at the grocery store into their eyes.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_05: Like we're talking about these things that actually do something to our brain.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_05: Therefore, our brain health.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_05: Social connection settles our nervous system.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_05: So it's the teeny tiny things that we can forget to even notice around us.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_05: Time in nature.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_05: You're walking to your car and walking around all the time.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_05: You're out in nature all the time.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_05: You don't need to go for an hour-long walk to use the prescription of nature to tend to your brain so that you're more resilient.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_05: Mental health requires two things.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, I of both of what you are doing.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_05: Number one is that our emotional experience matches what's happening externally.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_05: Your mom, her health is very vulnerable.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_05: It's unpredictable, it's uncertain.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_05: You went through these other stressors in your life.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_05: It makes sense that you would be feeling all of the feelings: sadness, frustration, anger, fear, disappointment, all those emotions make sense, right?
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_05: You lost your job.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_05: Of course, you're feeling sadness and anger about that and fear.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_05: Of course you are.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_05: So, mental health, like to answer, just to say what the answer to your question is not, if you were doing this well, the answer is, oh, I would feel good all the time.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_05: That's not the answer.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_05: When we're mentally well, we're actually feeling all the feelings because they make sense.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_05: The second part to mental health, uh, mental health and well-being is that we have healthy coping strategies to move from those more unpleasant emotions back to more pleasant ones.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_05: That's the yoga, that's the walk, that's the calling the friend.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_05: Right, that's the putting on the music while you're cooking dinner.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_05: You know, we call that play, right?
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_05: The drinking the water, the make sure you're putting good, nutritious food in your body, making sure that you're getting to bed at a certain appropriate time versus binge watching Netflix until midnight.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, all these things, they are the answer to your question.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's so true.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like sometimes when we're in it, we're waiting for some profound thing.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: But it's funny because reading it back, it's like the profoundness is in all of the little things and the practice of doing them and sticking with them when you're in the thick of it.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I think it's worth saying again that if we have some like core, core, core, core belief about ourselves that we're not okay, what's the point of doing those things?
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_05: Trying to do those things from that belief system or not enough will will feel so hard.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_05: They'll feel so effortful.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_05: We'll be like forcing ourselves to do them and we'll do them for three days and then we'll stop.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_05: But doing them from the place you're describing right now, where actually you're coming at the situation from that deep sense of I am okay.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_05: Taking care of yourself is the next obvious thing to do.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_05: Doesn't mean, of course, it might be a little logistical things, but it it it you just describe this to us to me.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_05: It's like it just it it like you just do the thing.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_05: So what's your takeaway from this conversation, Melissa?
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: My takeaway is I will be okay.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: I actually have, you know, I've done the work to prepare me for all of the phases, and that doesn't mean that I'm like how do I say though that I'm prepared for the unpreparedness.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, beautiful.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not worried about you one bit.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: But this was helpful.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's always just it's such a great way to reflect on the toolkit we've built together and how it continues to serve me.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: Is because even as I was talking, I was like, ah, like there's so many great reminders whenever we talk about like, ah, here's here's how you pull that in, here's how you practice it.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_05: That's right.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_05: And you do it, right?
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_05: You're so committed to your health and well-being in service of your boys and your marriage.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, you do it.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_05: There's meaning and purpose behind the doing of those things.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm just, I adore you.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_05: I love getting to land with you today.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, I'm grateful that you came in with this question and um I'm glad it was helpful.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: Super helpful.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: This this felt like the the peace that I was kind of craving to uh uh continue moving forward with all of this.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I really thank you.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: I adore you and um really excited for all the work that you can continue continue to do.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you, thank you.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_05: 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.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_05: Of course, it does feel good to know this podcast is resonating with you, but honestly, the bigger reason I ask is because the more subscriptions, ratings, and reviews the podcast receives, the more accessible it becomes to mothers who may really need this kind of support and conversation.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_05: And as we all know, motherhood was never meant to be done alone.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_05: It really does take a village to raise a mom too.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_05: So thank you for helping us grow this community, one conversation at a time.