0:00
Our infants and our babies borrow our nervous systems from us, so that attachment is going to be based on a sense of fear, a sense of instability. And one of the things that can happen, like in the dynamic I was talking about, is my mom create, unintentionally, to your point, she adored me. She wanted to be a good mom. Created a situation where I was responsible for her sense of well being versus her being responsible for my sense of well being when I was an infant and a child. And I want to say that. I want to put a caveat on that when I see responsible for we cannot control how our children feel, but we can create what we call a safe container, a safe home base for our children.
0:43
Welcome to The Family dialogs podcast in a culture that celebrates perfection and demands more from mothers than ever before, what does it really mean to thrive rather than survive in her early motherhood today, we ask, is it possible to reinvent what it means to be a supermom in a way that honors our mental health vulnerability and authenticity to guide us in this discussion, we're delighted to be speaking with Kate Kripke. She is a licensed clinical social worker, perinatal mental health counselor, and author of this amazing book reinventing supermom support, encouragement and strategies for mothers who feel lost. Welcome to our podcast, Kate.
1:31
I am really, really happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me,
1:35
and I'm so happy to have you too, because, as I was telling you before we started recording the word supermom is a big trigger for me, but we will get into that later on in the conversation. One of the reasons I wanted to speak with you is that I realize you know anecdotally that so many women struggle with transitioning from maiden to motherhood, especially if they are high achievers, like what they anticipated would happen, even as early as the birth. They might have wanted a natural birth and ended up getting a C section and how that kind of mess with them, they expected motherhood to be flowing in a way that they can still do everything that they did before, and then they get the shock and how they adjust to that might be quite challenging. So you are also a high achieving woman, and I am curious to find out, before we get into the meat of the matter, why you decided to work with high achieving women to help them to adjust to motherhood?
2:45
Yeah, so there's a little there's sort of two ways to answer this question. The first way to answer this question is to kind of go way back in time. I was raised by two high achieving parents. My mother and I were very close. She passed away nine years ago, I should mention from a stress related cause, and what was modeled to me as a young child was not just perseverance and determination, two words, which I really honor, but perseverance and determination at the cost of health and well being right? So one of the things I think about when I think about this definition high achiever, it's great to have big goals. It is great to want to achieve big things. I think striving for excellence is an amazing concept and desire when we do not know how to be okay unless we're achieving these big, huge things, that's where the problem shows up. So we'll talk about that when we talk about this term supermom. But what I learned as a young age was that unless I was perfect and doing well and behaving a certain way and making everybody happy. There was something wrong with me, and I suffered from really pretty debilitating anxiety and panic
4:08
as a child. And I'm assuming your mom, it wasn't an intentional thing. Maybe perhaps you just saw her achieving so much. Because I think one of the things parents don't realize who are highly successful, even if you don't directly communicate it to your children, they might think, Oh, my God, my parents are high achievers, so I also need to be higher, high achieving person, and if I don't make it to that level, then something is wrong with me.
4:37
Yeah, I love the way you're asking this question, because I think it's really important to note there are certainly many, many, many women out there who are raised in families where there was abuse and trauma and obvious trauma, right? I mean, that exists. There are also many of us who are raised in families where that is not an active part of our up. Upbringing, right? My mother adored me. I adored my mother. We were very close. I admired her. I sort of wanted to be her. To your point, right? My parents also never put outward pressure on me. For the most part, they never said, you have to get an A or else like that was not how I was raised. But to your point, our young children are watching us. It does not really matter what we say. It matters what we do and how we do it. So that's something else we'll talk about. When we talk about the supermom idea. It's the energy with which we do things our kids breathe in, the emotional energy that we breathe out. And you can replace that word energy with whatever word you want to use. But it was modeled to me. My mom never sat still, ever, ever, ever. She told me, actually, this is a real it really interesting. We had, again, a very close relationship. But she told me at the last time I drove her to the airport before she died, she said to me, Kate, I have been running for class president every day of my life. Wow, and I don't know about you, but when I like, I can feel stress and tension in my body when I hear her say that. And what was really interesting and important to know is I think she won class president every day of her life, right? People adored her. So from the outside, she was living the life everyone wanted, and on the inside, she was falling apart. And I think, go on with your question, when I My daughters are now 19 and 16, and when my 19 year old was born, I suffered from really, really significant postpartum anxiety. That's my specialty. Now I'm really interested, I think a lot of high achieving when we can talk about why high achieving women are at risk for developing postpartum anxiety, but it's, there's a there's a very big overlap, and I realized that a big part of what was motivating the symptoms in the way that I was sort of responding or reacting To motherhood was my need to do everything right, and I really struggled. And when my second daughter was born, my kids are about two years apart, I realized that I was projecting all of that anxiety onto my kids. And I was like, I this is no longer okay with me. I refuse to unintentionally. Of course, like most of our anxiety and motherhood comes from deep love, right? Wanting to protect our children, but I just was unwilling to kind of put the burden of my anxiety onto my girls, so I needed to figure out a way to move through that quickly.
7:32
Yeah, I'm happy you shared that, because I think so many of us, especially when we have the first child, we whether or not it's communicated directly to us, we feel the need to want to really be this perfect parent with this well behaving child that everybody loves and you when you're not experiencing that, especially if you have a child with a temperament that might fall apart really easily and go into crime mode and so on, and you're trying your best to soothe them, and it's not working, and so on. You might think, Okay, I am not a good parent. I'm not a good mom, because I am not doing it right. But it's really the need for perfection that you have an image in your head about what a perfect mom should be, and you're trying to aim at that instead of really working with who you are as an individual and also your child, who your child is. You might have an idea that my child needs to be, hate, need to behave in the next sort of way, and if not, then something is wrong, right?
8:40
So you just spoke to something that I realized after my mom passed away, and I did a lot of kind of deep diving, and of course, I'd been, I mean, I've been doing this work with new moms for over 20 years, but I I saw motherhood in my role as daughter very differently. After my mom passed away, one of the things that you just described is our tendency to judge whether or not we're being good moms on our child's behavior, if my child is not behaving the way I think they should, and that could be sleeping and eating a certain way, or emotions or right. If my child is not behaving the way I think they should, then that means I'm a bad mom, that I've done something wrong. So our sense of well being is dependent on our child's behavior. What that does is puts really unhelpful and debilitating amount of pressure on our child, for our for our well being, we are expecting our child to be a certain way so that we can feel a certain way. And what I realized is that throughout my childhood with my mom, I felt like I needed to make her feel like a good mom, my mom, my mom, was a full time working mom. Mom, and so we had a relationship where she was gone, and then when she was with me, she would like overcompensate, right, which many of your listeners, I'm sure can relate to, but I felt a need to make sure she believed she was a good mom. So the burden of responsibility was backwards in our relationship, and I think that happens for many of us when we again base our sense of self, our sense of good enough, our sense of okayness, our sense of worthiness, on whether or not our children are acting the way we want them to. That's pretty dangerous, actually, when it comes to attachment, right?
10:39
Yes, and you said it's pretty dangerous in what way, in case, parents might be wondering,
10:44
yes, so a secure attachment. This is a term those of us who work in maternal and infant and child mental health use a lot. A secure attachment really means there's a relationship being built in the primary attachment that a child has with a caregiver, and in this case, I'm talking about a mother. But of course, there are many different ways of family systems, right? But we'll use the word mom for right now. That attachment, when attachment is secure, that means that that infant, toddler, child feels safe in the context of that relationship, which means that they feel safe to feel whatever they're feeling. They feel safe to be whoever they are. They don't need to perform. They can just relax and let go. And it's like the image we have in our head when we imagine the perfect motherhood with a child that, you know, a baby that's in our arms, that sort of relaxed when they're with us, or a toddler that feels scared and comes to us and we you know that secure attachment actually is required for healthy infant and child development, physical health, mental health, social health, learning, a lot of development, brain development is really based on what that attachment was like with a parent, if that parent, if that mother is suffering from anxiety, depression, you know, some kind of mental health challenge where they are feeling a lack of nervous system stability. Our infants and our babies borrow our nervous systems from us, so that attachment is going to be based on a sense of fear, a sense of instability. And one of the things that can happen, like in the dynamic I was talking about, is my mom create, unintentionally, to your point, she adored me. She wanted to be a good mom. Created a situation where she I was responsible for her sense of well being, versus her being responsible for my sense of well being when I was an infant and a child. And I want to say that, I want to put a caveat on that when I see responsible for we cannot control how our children feel, but we can create what we call a safe container, a safe home base for our children. That's a lot of words, but does that make sense to you when I explain that?
13:00
Yes, yes, yes. It makes sense to me as well. Maybe listeners who are not aware of the attachment theory and so on, maybe you can elaborate a little bit more about what the safe container is, in case they're wondering, what exactly do you mean by that?
13:15
Great. Well, then I'm just going to dive right into this idea of supermom. Can I do that? Because it really okay.
13:22
Go ahead. I mean, you can define what the supermom is and go right into it.
13:27
Yeah, yeah, sure. So I'm going to make the assumption that all of your listeners want to be good moms. I have never actually met a woman who does not want to be a good mother. We have, especially in our western culture and society, an idea, an achievement based idea of what a good motherhood is. We think, well, a good motherhood does all these things. We think of it in that mindset, that achievement brain mindset, what do I need to do to be a good mother, right? So we think about the sleep, the comforting, or the feeding, the breastfeeding, the sleeping, the sleep training, providing the context for learning. So the toys and the games and the birthday parties and the schools we send our kids to. I mean, we get kind of, especially as high achievers, very achievement focused in how we imagine ourselves showing up as mothers. What our children need most from us from the moment they are born, is a sense of belonging they need to feel. And again, I'm going to use adult words here. I want us all to remember that infants and children are not actually thinking like us, because they don't have fully framed, fully formed brains yet, right? So they're not thinking in this language, but they they need a sense of feeling seen, heard and. Understood. I think we can all if we all pause and we think about, when do we feel the most safe in our own bodies? When do we feel the most grounded in our own bodies? When do we feel the most free to breathe deeply? It's when we are in the context of relationships where we feel truly seen, heard and understood absolutely that when we feel seen, heard and understood as humans, if we want to get back into the neuroscience of this, our parasympathetic nervous system turns on, that's rest and digest when we are in a state of disconnection with other people when we're not feeling seen, heard and understood, our sympathetic nervous system turns on, fight, flight or freeze. We learn, we grow. We all it, both inside our bodies and our physiology as well as our brain development happens when we're in a rest and digest state. Okay? So as parents, we want the relationship we're forming with our children to be those relationships where our children feel seen, heard and understood. Again. It's a nerve. We can take that from the language and just think about nervous systems, where they feel safe to rest. That's a secure attachment, by the way. It does not mean forming a secure attachment with our infants and our children that we can't get angry. It does not mean we have to be Zen mamas. It does not mean we have to feel good all the time. We are human beings, right?
16:40
So we're aiming for majority of the time, yeah,
16:43
we're aiming for the capacity to come back to that steady place. So when we're activated, can we tell the difference between a real and perceived threat, so they can come back to baseline? What I hear from a lot of my mom's that I work with is that they are feeling chronically stressed, anxious, unsure, agitated, sometimes there's a lot of rage, right? They're living in a state of fight, flight or freeze
17:12
before you continue. Are these mothers first time mothers, or they have multiple children? What are you seeing?
17:18
I don't know that it actually makes much of a difference. I think that what makes a difference, and I know I'm kind of kind of moving, kind of ebb and flowing through our topic and our questions. So I hope that we're linear enough for your for you and your listeners to follow along. But many high achievers come into motherhood using what I call their achievement brain for success. The supermom is the one who's doing everything right all the time, doing doing everything right all the time. So that supermom is really looking at I know that I'm doing everything I need to do when my house is clean, when my baby sleeps, when they're developing, at the exact my milestones that, like the doctor says my baby should right, that my that people are looking at me. And to your point, for that you said earlier, looking at me and saying, Oh my god. How are you doing it all? You, how are you doing it all? There's this idea that supermom is about doing you're
18:18
bringing me down memory lane, because, as I was sharing with you before we started to record, I have three sons. So my eldest is 19, and part of his life, I was a single mom, and I was doing my PhD. I had two three part time jobs as research assistant and so on. And people would have always asked, Oh, my God, you're such a supermom. How are you doing it? And I hated the word supermom because I was so overwhelmed all the time. I think I was in a five flight mode all the time, or mostly freeze. I think I just froze a lot until I figured out that running. So I started to run as a way of trying to relax myself, clear my head and all of that. But yes, the need, I think, also, people who use the term to other moms don't realize how I think dangerous it is, because you don't know how that mom is feeling or thinking. When I heard it, I usually smile and I say politely, no, I'm not, but that's okay. Or, yeah, yeah, I'm managing. But inside, I was like, Oh God, I'm so overwhelmed. I'm so stressed. But then, as you said earlier, I didn't really want people to know either, so I tried to figure it out and kept it within my close group of friends. And it was a lot. It was really overwhelming. So I think you speaking today for mothers who are going through what I went through, to realize you don't. Have to be supermom. And if somebody wants to slap the name onto you, you can say, No, I'm not. I'm doing the best I can, instead of trying to absorb it as part of your identity.
20:10
Well, yeah, I'd like to again, redefine, you know, the term the name of my book is reinventing supermom, because I actually think who doesn't want to be supermom? I mean, I think there's an alluring it's like, when people say, Oh my gosh, you are supermom. How are you doing? It's like, there's a part of you that's thinking, you do not see what I see behind closed doors, the bathroom, exactly. And so there's a little bit of an imposter syndrome that can come up and at the same time, like there's a part of us that thrives and feeds off other people's positive reflections of us. So it's like we want people to see us as supermom, but then the moment they say that to us, where this imposter thing comes up and we almost feel worse. So I want us to sort of redefine this idea of what it means to be super, like, we're all moms. We can't we don't have to debate the word mom, the part of that word that's mom, yeah, I'm a mom. But what does it mean to be super? Superheroes save the day all the time, right? They are focused on making sure everybody else is okay all the time. And they have these like superhuman powers, like, if we really think of this like superhero term, they have these superhuman powers, right? They they defy human nature, and they can do all of these things and and somehow they do it without getting hurt, right? Just as strong as they Okay, we are human beings. I mothers are not superheroes. They're humans, right? And I think what we want to redefine here, back to this question about secure attachment, is, what do I need to do as a mother, to take care of myself in service of the people and the work and this projects that I care most about. So the problem that happens with this idea of us high achievers, that we just go, go, go, achieve, achieve, achieve, do, do, do is we end up depleted. We end up overwhelmed. Many of us might even end up burnt out. And that term burnout actually is a clinical term. Once we've hit burnout, we are sick, right? There's nothing left to give. And we, kind of, many of us, who are high achievers. We're not taught at a young age, several important things. Number one, that the feelings always make sense. Many of us high achievers. A lot of our achievement, our kind of go, go, go. Attitude, comes from fear, a fear of not being good enough, a fear of not being worthy. And that, in many ways, that fear has propelled us to push hard and do more, and kind of beat ourselves up when we're not doing well enough, but it comes at a cost, and what we know from the research and the science is that we actually hold ourselves back. We we maybe have done amazing things, but when we do it from fear, we're actually not reaching our potential, because that fight, flight or freeze mindset or nervous system response, is an action, and that that nervous system response hold us, holds us back, right? So we are. Many of us not taught that feelings are okay. Does that resonate for you?
23:33
Nothing. Yes, it's relatable. Yes, I understand.
23:37
Yes, yeah, so there is no motherhood without lots of emotional discomfort.
23:44
But hold on, Kate, there are lots of people who, I guess, just go back to how you were parented, too, because there are lots of people who are now confronted with that, but they were raised in a household where certain emotions are just not allowed. They're not acceptable, and now they see their baby, or their child with those emotions, and they are triggered by it. That's right. How do they work that out?
24:12
That's right. So this is the root of the quote, unquote problem here, okay? And this is where the high achiever, the need to be supermom, causes challenges and problems, because in that moment, my baby is crying, and they think, I have to do something to get my baby to not feel what they're feeling, to not be crying, and the unintended result of that is that our baby or child does not feel seen, heard and understood, because the message is how you feel is a problem. 99% of the time, there is no problem when our baby is crying. Now our baby's diaper might be wet or they might need to be fed. There are things we do need. To do as mothers and parents, right? We can't deny that. But the trigger is not I need to feed my baby. The trigger is my baby is crying. They're feeling distressed, and that, in and of itself, is not okay, and that's a problem, and now I'm scared, because my baby is feeling something.
25:16
And how does a mother get over that, though? Because it's might be stemming from childhood again. Okay, so there's something wrong, even though it's natural for a child to cry, pent up energy, tired, hungry, whatever, but they can't face it, so they do everything to divert and instead of just allowing the child to have that feeling, how? How do mothers get
25:41
over that great question. So let's start by defining mental health and well being okay, because these are probably the same mothers who have some misunderstanding about what mental health is. Mental health does not mean we're feeling good all the time. Mental health means that we're willing to feel all the feelings that my emotional response in my body. What is an emotion? Emotion is chemicals that are being released by my brain into my body that creates a cascade of physiological responses, right? And often especially in motherhood or in adulthood or infants that are not necessarily having these same kind of thoughts. Our emotions are triggered by thoughts. What am I thinking? My baby is crying. That is bad. I feel anxious, right? Does that make sense? It's not the fact that the baby's the crying that's making me feel anxious. It's what I'm telling myself about my baby crying. Does that make sense? Yes, yeah. So we want to understand that mental health for our infants, our toddlers, our children, adults. Means that I am feeling in my body, my emotions are a response to what's happening externally. If I am, if someone says they're going to call me back and they don't call me back, I'm going to feel disappointed, right? If I'm in a moment of uncertainty and unpredictability, I'm gonna feel anxious. I'm hardwired. My brain is hardwired to feel anxious in moments of uncertainty and unpredictability, by the way, which motherhood is complete with, right? Yes, absolutely. If someone does something that feels unjust, I'm going to feel angry, right? So when my emotions match what's happening externally, I'm healthy. The second part of mental health and well being is that I have healthy coping skills to move from unpleasant emotions back to more pleasant ones. Because it's not healthy mentally healthy to get stuck in emotions of like, anger, fear, disappointment, whatnot, because life moves right, we tend to as adults, we and as humans, we carry the memories with us even after things are over, right. So we want to have those healthy coping skills. So I want to start with that, because I think that is an important thing for us to remember that, quote, unquote, just because my child is feeling sad or angry or disappointed or scared does not mean that there is something bad happening. It means they're they're having a normal human emotional response to something. So we have to start there. And I think many of us come into motherhood, to your point, with this belief that emotions are bad and wrong, and we have to be willing to be wrong about that. We have to be willing to kind of my term I use in my work with moms is poke holes in some of those old fear based beliefs that we bring into motherhood with us. Is it possible that that's not true? Is it possible that it's not true that emotions in and of themselves are bad and wrong and suggest that something bad is happening? As you
28:53
were speaking, I was also thinking, you know, as high achievers, there's this whole thing of control that you're able to just control all aspects of your life. You have your structure. You have your systems. And when babies come and little children come, that system and that process goes out of the door. So for those mom who moms who are struggling, feeling triggered by their children's their babies emotions, I would even say more so toddlers. So once they get into that phase where they realize they have autonomy and they're more resistant, and they have the meltdowns and the Tantrums many mothers, or even fathers listening, are so triggered by that and they want it to stop immediately, especially if it's in public. How do they move change their mindset to say, there's nothing wrong with me as a parent, everything is okay. My child is just going through the emotion. Emotional, high, pent up energy, and I just have to be present, validate their feelings and sit with them until they get through. Remain calm myself so they can mirror our calmness. But how do they change that mindset? If, oh, my God, here goes again. Can you quickly be quiet? Stop it. There's nothing to cry for. And you know, there are so many other phrases that you might hear.
30:21
Yeah, it seems it's easier said than done. I think is part of what you're saying. It's like, this is great in concept, but what does it look like in real life? Exactly. So this, this example that you're giving is a really perfect example. If we could slow down, almost like we're slowing down a movie right into slow motion, really, what's happening in that moment is a toddler starts tantruming, which we all know toddlers do, by the way, a little developmental information for us. Around age two or three, a toddler's brain has developed to the point where that kiddo begins to realize that they are a separate being from their parents until about age two or three, they actually believe they're the same person, like they don't have the development in the brain to see themselves as separate. That is that they begin to, you know, the term is, differentiate, but they begin to, I want to do it. No, you do it. Me. No, you right. It's that kind of crazy making that we see in our kids, where they want to be little babies, but then they want to be adults, and they ask questions and why, and they want something and they're impulsive. Okay, that's toddler land. Okay, so the tantrum makes sense from a brain development perspective, but if we slow down this movie, example is as if we're watching a movie, what is happening is that the toddler is feeling big feelings and doing the only thing that toddler knows how to do to release the energy of those emotions. They get loud, they use their voice, they use their body. They do not have any other healthy coping skills at that point, because they haven't learned them yet, right? And a toddler what emotions are, are literally energy in our body, and we have to release it. That's why starting to run felt good for you. You were able to release the energy, right? So that tantrum itself is actually functioning when we okay. So the kiddo is feeling big feelings, they're tantruming, we suddenly start feeling big feelings in response to our child's big feelings. And we think, I know I can't feel this. I do not want to feel what I'm feeling. So then we put the responsibility of how we feel onto our child. You need to stop what you're doing, so I don't have to feel what I'm feeling. This is actually what's happening in that moment. So now we've done that thing which I just described to you a few minutes ago, about putting the responsibility on my child for how I am feeling as an adult, which is too much responsibility on a child.
32:55
Yes, it is. And quite and quite literally unfair.
32:58
Yeah, exactly. So I say that because one of the things that motivates a different way of being in those moments is actually understanding what's happening. Because I'm quite certain that none of your listeners want to put that kind of responsibility on their child from an intellectual place, none of us want to make a small child responsible for how I an adult am moving through the world and feeling and behaving, right? But that is what's happening in that moment.
33:30
And okay, go ahead. No, ask your question. No. So I wanted to ask, like in that moment, tips for parents who are super sensitive to the tantrum and the emotion to regulate themselves, because we all know from the research that if you as a parent can really be calm and present for the child, they can get over that tantrum faster, but if you are pent up, the tantrum will last longer. So how do you as an adult say, okay, yes, I know this is developmentally appropriate, and yet my heart is racing. I'm getting impatient. I'm about to lose it myself. How do I get to the point of relaxing myself so I can mirror that calmness to help my child to be calm as well.
34:23
I'm going to teach you and your listeners something called the three C's, okay, because this is the answer to your question, and there are some little, little tips or tricks or important things to remember along the journey of the three C's, okay? The 3c are something that I teach to help us move from unpleasant emotions, let's say an activated nervous system to more pleasant emotions. Let's say a grounded nervous system. And you just said something that's really important circles right back to how we started our conversation today. It doesn't really matter what I do. In motherhood, what matters is that energy or the nervous system with which I'm doing that thing right? So I can quote, unquote, do all the right things and still feel not the way I want to feel in motherhood, or still have my child not sleep or throw tantrums or whatnot, right? But, but the way we do it matters, because our little people borrow our nervous systems. Okay, so the first C in the 3c is curiosity, and for those of us who are raised in families or cultures or communities or systems that led us to believe that emotions were a problem, that we should never feel bad things, this is going to be tricky. So I invite those people to go back and see if there's room for the possibility that what they believe about emotions is not actually fact, right? Is it possible that emotions, feeling uncomfortable, emotions does not mean there's something bad happening? Okay? The first C is curiosity. What am I actually feeling in my body. My most of us go right to I need to change what's happening, but we have to slow down. What am I feeling? My my toddler's throwing a tantrum in the grocery store. My chest is tight, my jaw is clenched. I feel like I can't breathe. We have to start there. We have to actually lean into the emotion, right? The next part of that question might be, what emotion might I attach to those feelings? I'm really angry and I'm actually terrified that someone's gonna think I'm a bad mom.
36:32
Yeah, feeling fear of your child,
36:36
and maybe I'm feeling embarrassed, yes, right? That's the first C curiosity. What am I feeling? That's where we begin to take responsibility for our own experience. Second C is compassion. High achievers are notoriously hard on themselves. What's wrong with you? Do better. Don't feel that. Just feel this. Yeah, you're not
36:56
in Yes, yeah, because I can relate. And the whole thought of I have had, sometimes I am guilty of not having enough compassion for myself, and I will say to myself, get up, get going, keep moving, not not with a compassionate part, just not being patient and loving enough to myself, is just get up and go, and even though you're going, I think you're moving slower because the baggage of the emotions not being dealt with still sits there.
37:32
Well, let's go back to what I said a few moments ago about moments of connection, when we feel seen, heard and understood. And what nervous system, what part of our nervous system gets activated? Parasympathetic, rest and digest versus disconnection, not feeling seen, heard and understood, fight, flight or freeze, turns on so self compassion, by definition, is the act of meeting ourselves where we are connecting with ourselves in the moment. When we do that, our nervous system starts to settle. So you were asking, how do we go from active nervous system down to grounded nervous system so that we actually have the influence on our tantruming child that we want to have? Well, this is one way to do it, right? So and many of us cringe out a little bit with this idea of self compassion.
38:23
Is there a phrase that you can say or okay, I'm I am human, this too shall pass. Is there something that you found in the research literature that if we say that to ourselves, in our mind or out loud, can really help us to get back into that calm state?
38:43
Absolutely, I Kate Kripke, I'm in the grocery store. My toddler is throwing a tantrum. By the way, what's the definition of mental health that my emotions are matching what's happening externally, right? So for me to just feel Zen and calm and cheerful when my toddler slowly, tantrum is not a version of mental health that does not make any sense, right? So my toddler's tantruming, I pause. I'm like, Oh, I am feeling I'm starting to sweat. I am I am not. I'm feeling all activated. I'm beginning to feel really irritated and angry self compassion, of course, I feel that way.
39:24
So it's accept, it's the acknowledgement of your feelings.
39:27
Yeah, exactly, yeah. Of course I feel I am anxious.
39:31
I am angry. You're naming the feelings. The more when you name it, you can tame it,
39:37
exactly, right? And self compassion is a willingness to give ourselves permission to feel the normal human response to what is happening in that moment and again, for someone who believes that feeling angry or irritated or anxious is bad, this is going to be a hard step, because we have to go back and kind of poke holes in the belief. Right? Because in order for me to give myself permission to offer myself self compassion, I have to understand that feeling angry and irritated and embarrassed and anxious in this moment is not a problem. The feelings are never the problem. They always make sense. So the second C in the 3c is self compassion. Yes, I don't know about you, but I'm going through this in a made up version, and I already feel better in my body, yeah, yeah, yeah. My nervous system has already shifted just a little bit. My kid is still tantruming. I don't want them to be tantruming. I really would prefer if they were doing exactly what I told them to do. I'm still uncomfortable that the other people in the aisle are looking at me, but I feel a little more grounded because I'm like, Yeah, my emotions make so much sense right now. Of course they do. Yeah. Okay, now we can get to the third C, which is where most people start, whether they're aware of it or not. The third C is choice. How do I want to feel? I don't want to feel embarrassed and angry and agitated and scared and ashamed, and remember, in the first version, we are trying to get our child to act or behave or feel differently so I don't have to feel those things. But we're reclaiming our agency in the three C's. We're asking ourselves, How do I want to feel right now? I actually want to feel I mean, in that example, how would you want to feel in that example with your kid throwing a tantrum, how would you want to feel
41:31
in that moment? I would want to feel compassion for my child, that maybe I was out on the road too long with them, and they're just overwhelmed and tired, and from the that compassion, I would also want to feel patience, to say, Hey, this is normal. They are not as old as I am, to really handle this stressful moment and it's okay,
41:59
beautiful, many people would probably also want to feel confident and capable, right? Like, you know that when Mark kids are throwing a tantrum and we're in the first version we looked at like, we don't know what to do, and we feel like, Ah, okay, so beautiful, compassionate, patient, confident, capable, okay, we know where we're going now, and we're going to take personal responsibility for that. We're actually going to be grown ups in this moment. We're going to be secure parents in this moment. Two questions, what's a thought that I can engage with that's going to help me get closer to compassion, patience, confident and capability? Can you think of one?
42:42
Well, for me, it's this too shall pass, beautiful, this too shall pass, beautiful and just be still, be still, this too shall pass, beautiful.
42:53
Just be still, this too shall pass. You said a moment ago, this is happening because my child is tired. I was out for a long time, right? We may want to remind ourselves the feelings are never the problem, right? These are statements that are going to get us closer to feeling patient and compassionate and capable and confident. It's the opposite of what's wrong. I'm being such a bad parent. I can't do this. Everyone's looking at me, my child, right? All those thoughts are leading to the feelings of anxiety and fear and embarrassment, right? So we try in some different thoughts, and then the other question is, what's one teeny, tiny action step? What's one tiny thing I can do in this moment that's going to also get me closer to compassionate, patient, confident and capable? What comes to mind for you?
43:42
For me, it's the breathing. So breathe in for four seconds and release for six kind of calm my nervous system. So that's the physical thing, and you can do it without being noticed. Just breathe in.
43:58
And you know this? I'm sure this is the same breath. I teach and my work that when our exhale is longer than our inhale, we're sending an immediate message to our brain and our nervous system that there's no real threat here. Our body does not know the difference between real and perceived threat. So at times, the
44:17
short breathing, so hold on, the short breathing is fight, flight, freeze, danger, danger, danger. Okay, so
44:23
the breathing where we're breathing in more oxygen than we're exhaling carbon dioxide, that's when we're in a real threat. We need more oxygen in our body so that we can run or fight that oxygen is literally required to keep ourselves alive. So when we're breathing the other way, where the exhale is longer than the inhale, our brain and nervous system is being triggered, is being reminded, there's nothing to fight or flight from right now there. There's no problem here. Yeah, this is uncomfortable and probably real inconvenient, but there's no threat. There's no crisis in this moment.
44:59
Oh, and I think. Too. It's to help you too, before you go into action to try and solve is to really pause. Pause. Just say, I need to pause. And in the pause you breathe,
45:13
that's right. So the question is, what action steps you can do that breath you just described, you can pause and feel your feet on the floor, right? You might, if I'm looking for feeling compassionate and capable and confident, I might actually get down at my child's level and look them in the eye and sort of touch them in some way. You know? Maybe it's put my hands on their shoulders. Maybe it's put my hand on their little chest, right? I might say something. And we teach this a lot. We hear this a lot in parent coaching, but now this is accessible to us. Maybe before it wasn't, but I might say, Wow, you are really angry right now.
45:50
Name and the feelings, yes, right? And
45:52
again, I know you know the answer, but I'll ask the question so your listeners can pull the answer back up. What do our children need to feel safe and secure?
46:01
They need to have a sense of belonging with with us, and if you're angry and frustrated and overwhelmed, that communicates to them that they are the problem, and that's where the big disconnection comes in. And they might start suppressing their emotions, withdrawing, or might externalize it even more, and it becomes even more explosive. If I don't belong, then I'm just going to burn down the whole house. Everybody is going to feel my pain, while others might just keep that in, right?
46:33
That's right. So they need to feel seen, heard and understood. So when I say to my toddler, you are so angry right now, because I said you couldn't have the cookie. That is a step in helping them feel seen, heard and understood. That is something that a lot of parent coaches teach to reflect back what they're feeling. But if I say that from a place of anger and irritation, it doesn't do the same. Nope. That's why we have to do the first 2c before we go into problem solving. Okay, I want to feel okay, but now my nervous system is grounded enough to be able to say that in a way, I'm down at their level. I'm not saying Stop yelling. You know, don't be mad. You can't have the cookie. I'm just trying to keep you healthy or whatever. We say when we're like, Ah, right, we're actually, yeah, of course, the kid wants the cookie. What kid doesn't want a cookie? His emotions make sense? Yes, right?
47:28
And he doesn't want the words to express exactly what he's feeling. So the tears are the form of expression.
47:36
So now I have gotten my nervous system down to a place where my child can borrow that nervous system from me, and it may not happen instantaneously, but we will begin to see shifts in our child's nervous system when we do this. They might do that breath, where they go, that double inhale before an exhale is a it's showing us a release in nervous system activity, right? They may lean in a little bit. They may sniffle, they may all these things that we their body. May go from being tense to sort of the movements in their body might slow down now that child is much more likely to stop tantruming. Yes, this is secure attachment,
48:15
and I want you to emphasize too that it's not just for toddlerhood, because some parents say, you know, middle childhood was a breeze, but good grief, the teenage years, I don't know what I'm doing. You know, they might feel that then they're having these explosive arguments with their teenagers, and doors are being slammed, and they're like, I don't know. I think I'm losing my child. I don't know what to do. So these techniques are not just for when you have toddlers, but it's for the whole spectrum from birth to 18
48:47
100% as I said when we started, I have two teenage daughters. One of the reasons that I went into this field of work is because, and I originally, by the way, thought I wanted to be a adolescent therapist. I thought I wanted to work with teens because I saw, you know, I had a hard time. I had so much anxiety and panic as a teen and I and of course, the kids aren't the ones that wanted to be in my office. The parents wanted to be in my office. The mothers wanted to be in my office,
49:14
and where to fix my kid exactly and when
49:18
I helped them understand how to take agency pack of their own nervous system so they could show up in the ways we're describing their kids did better, right? So, yeah, I've got these two teenage daughters, and again, the emotions are never the problem. So when my child comes in and she's explosive because whatever happened, and, you know, maybe it's that she didn't get the grade she wanted. Maybe it's because she, I mean, now we have technology, so maybe it's because she saw on Snapchat that all her friends were hanging out. No one invited her or whatever. I have to do this exact same 3c the exact same thing, because what my daughter needs for me in that moment is to have a safe place to land and to under. It's okay that she feels what she feels. Yes, it all makes sense. And when she is a gives herself permission to feel what she feels. By the way, a lot of us think that if we give ourselves permission to feel what we're feel, the feeling is never going to go away. It's just going to get bigger. But the neuroscience is the opposite. Yeah, an emotion will come and go if we give it permission within 90 seconds, 90 seconds. Now what happens is, we often fuel the emotion back with
50:27
the thoughts, right?
50:30
So we could do another whole podcast on how to work with, you know, problematic thinking. But it is important to answer your question, yes, of course, secure attachment starts in the beginning and goes for the rest of our life as parents, and so we have to take agency, responsibility, ownership, for our own nervous systems, our own emotional lives, so that we can show up as those secure parents. Now my definition of supermom is that it's not about what we do. It's not about getting everything right all the time. Is that not about never making any mistakes? In fact, secure attachment requires mistakes, because it's the mistake and coming back and repairing that's like cement in the relationship, right? But to come back and repair, we have to be willing to feel big feelings, because anytime we're vulnerable and say, I messed up, I'm sorry, we are going to feel something.
51:21
Does this all make sense? Is it coming full circle? It makes sense. I'm just thinking that there are so many parents, whether mother or fathers, who were taught as children, that they feel in certain big feelings, the ugly ones are not appropriate and are not approved. And so it's the working on ourselves to disentangle all of that and to start accepting our own feelings, and not doom scrolling on the phone and on social media or whatever, but actually to sit with it, with our feelings, and name our feelings so that we can tame it. I think that's a shift that many parents will have to make because I'm just reflecting. So I'm Jamaican by birth, and, you know, growing up in a strong Christian traditional family, yeah, you know, seen are not heard. Sometimes the emotions are kept on a lid. You have to behave a certain way. It takes a lot to start feeling because you're also afraid of if I start feeling it. Then what you know, that uncomfortableness in your body, then what's the next step for you? So I think a lot of parents might struggle with really sitting with their own feelings before they can start supporting their children.
52:42
May I share one more template with you that I think will be helpful for your listeners, and I want to and this will be quick, but I want to honor with you something you said, like none of this work is about criticizing or beating up or throwing our parents and our religion or our cultures or our communities under the bus, right? I think it's really important that we do this work with a lot of compassion and respect. And to your point, there are a lot of cultures and communities that are preparing us for the opposite of what I'm talking about here, exactly. So. So I want to invite the both, and here the respect for culture, community, religious faith, whatever those are, and say there can be some problems that come with this when it comes to mental health and well being. I also just want to put a plug in for boundaries and discipline. We're not saying those are important too. So we're not saying it's okay with when we have feelings for us to hurt other people or right? So we've got that in place as well. What I want us all to remember is that the results of our life, how we're feeling in our life, how we would describe our life to someone else, are actually a direct result of the beliefs that we hold about ourselves and the world around us. So our deepest beliefs that we have as adults, which again, are formed when we're young, and many of them are unconscious. We're not even aware that we have them, those beliefs form the kind of lead to the kind of thoughts we have, especially in stressful moments. Those thoughts trigger certain emotions. Those emotions motivate certain behavior, that behavior, when it's repeated over time, becomes habits, and those habits lead to the results of our life, right? Our choices lead to what our life looks like. So in order to change how our life is going like, if I am someone listening to your podcast and I'm feeling overwhelmed, I'm behind on things, I've got conflict in some relationships I'm fighting with my partner. I'm, you know, my child is X, Y or Z. We want to actually not just look about what can you do differently? But what are the beliefs that you're bringing in to parenthood with you? Well, some of the beliefs are, I have to take care of everybody else, and my needs and wants should not matter. Yeah. The beliefs, yes, right? The beliefs are, are, if I don't do it, no one else will, right? So everything is my response. But maybe the belief is, I have to do everything perfectly. I can't make mistakes. Maybe the beliefs are any uncomfortable emotion is a problem. So to your listeners that you're talking to right now, I want to really invite compassion, because jumping right into what we described just described, if someone's aware of having those beliefs, is going to be almost impossible. So we have to start there, and we have to look at the beliefs that we bring into parenthood with us, and begin to challenge them a bit and say those things may have been true when we were young, given the culture we were raised in, or the parents or the system, but they actually may not be. Fact, they may not be 100% true. And when we can poke holes in those beliefs, we have room for these other processes that we just talked about.
55:51
We have been talking about emotions a lot. One thing that I'm curious to hear your perspective on, as I mentioned in the beginning, so many women struggle with transitioning from maiden to motherhood. They feel the urge to go back to maiden because motherhood is just too much for them. What advice do you have for listeners who are in that spot like I never anticipated? Motherhood would would would be like this. I wish I was single and childless again. I have to keep that thought to myself, because then it would be shameful for people to hear that that is how I feel, and there's a struggle with the transition from maiden to motherhood. What do you say to listeners who are in that position right now?
56:39
I say, of course, you feel that way. Makes perfect sense. I'm always going to start there. I'm going to say there is nothing wrong with you that makes perfect sense. What that mother is saying is, I don't like the way I feel, and I do not know what to do with these feelings. I want to go back to feeling the way I felt before, so we're back to emotions again. We really are. One of the reasons going from maiden to motherhood is so hard for so many women, especially high performing type a high achieving women, is because of the immense amount of uncertainty and unpredictability. There's so much we cannot control. And you said a few moments ago, we like to be in control. We like things to be organized. We like to, you know, many of us think in all or nothing more rigid ways. We like to. We like to be prepared. We like to. We have our systems.
57:31
We have our systems that works really well.
57:35
And many of us have developed those symptoms systems so we don't have to feel the uncomfortable emotions, exactly. And here comes this little human and all of that is blown up, right? That's why we start with of course, you feel that way, that motherhood has so many moments of beauty and love and inspiration and excitement and awe, but it also has so many moments of disappointment and heartbreak and frustration and anger and fear and sadness, you get all of it, or you get none
58:07
of it. Yeah, I'm so happy you said that, because I again. You know, it's really hard for a lot of women when they are so used to their systems that are no longer working, and now they have to face their emotions. There's one group too that I want to ask you about, and I know it's going to come back to emotions, those who fear losing themselves in motherhood, so they might not want to emotionally invest too much or taking too much time off from work, you know, to be with their child because they fear they're going to lose themselves in motherhood. Or they've seen other women who in their lives, who are older, who have lost themselves in motherhood, and they don't want that for their own experience. What would you say to those mothers?
59:00
This is a particular sweet spot for me. It's a lot of this is a lot of the work I do with women. I want to kind of initiate the answer by saying there are so many myths about what it means to be good moms, right? And you just highlighted two of them. One of them is, if I'm feeling great as a mom, that means I'm a good mom. Okay, so that's the first mom. Oh, I'm I'm not feeling so great. I'm feeling really disappointed, and I'm grieving my life before I became a mother, and I'm sad and I'm angry, and therefore, I must not be a good mom, because I'm supposed to feel, supposed to be the happiest time in my life, okay, right? The other myth is good moms want to spend all their time with their kids. Good moms sacrifice themselves. Yeah. Okay, so when we come into motherhood with these beliefs, so now we're back to belief, thought, feeling, action result, right when we come back and we think that those beliefs are facts, we're setting that cascade of dominoes into. A result that is not the result that we want, right? So again, if I look at my definition, which really is based on a lot of the research around health and well being and relationships and attachment and child development, I know that what makes a quote, unquote, good mom? I don't love that term, but I'll say, use it anyway. What makes a successful mom? What makes a loving, connected, compassionate, good mom is a mom who feels good about herself, who is successful for yourself, absolutely, who is doing what she needs to do, to feel filled up, to feel joyful, to feel purposeful, to feel alive, to feel energetic. She brings that version of her to motherhood, when we just, when we separate from that, when we tell ourselves we can't have that, we're actually doing our children the biggest disservice
1:00:53
you're teaching them to not to love themselves, not to take care of themselves, right? That's right, that I give everything to everybody and whatever is left for me, then that's just for me. So they're looking at you and seeing how you take care of yourself, and they're not seeing okay. I know my mom, once a month may check into a hotel for two days just to relax and come back so I she feels healthy. She's not burnt out and overwhelmed. That's how I saw my mom taking care of herself. When I'm overwhelmed, I too can take a break. It's okay to take a break instead of keep going and trotting along, even though you're feeling like you're falling apart.
1:01:36
Yeah, it's not only just okay, it's required, right? Because, again, if we go back to what it means to be a securely attached parent, it means I have the resources, the internal resources, to ground myself when I'm feeling activated, when we're depleted. We can't do that. We have no energy to do that thing we were talking about. We take care of ourselves in service of our children. We're also modeling something for our kids, right? I mean, how amazing for our children to be raised by a mother who does purposeful work or passions or activities outside of motherhood, who fills herself up so that she can give to them like that, modeling, in fact. Yeah, go ahead.
1:02:21
That cog that brought right back brought us right back to the question of losing yourself in motherhood. Because if you're doing intentionally doing activities outside of motherhood that nourishes you, then the chance of you losing yourself and your identity in motherhood is less.
1:02:39
And it's not almost like back to this idea of I needed my child to feel a certain way, so I feel like a good mom. Having this is, this is in the data as well. I mean, gosh, this has been sort of researched. The literature all speaks to this. But having a purpose outside of motherhood is very important for our children. It is a big burden for our child to have our only purpose in life that child. It's too much responsibility for our child. So being able to engage in things that fill us up, that we love, that are important for us outside of motherhood or parenthood, it's either, I mean, we could talk about this, tends to be harder for women to give themselves permission for that than men. So the stereotypes about self sacrificing, but doing that is actually taking burden off of our child for our sense of meaning in life. If that child is our only sense of purpose and meaning, that is a lot of responsibility for that child to hold
1:03:39
Yes, and that's where you have your perfectionist tendencies coming up because you want your child to behave a certain way. I want to ask you, like, you know, it's really hard for mothers to be vulnerable because you want everybody to think that you're doing good and so on. And so they might keep it to themselves, so people in their environment, whether it's their partner, siblings, friends. How can they create that community around the mother to help her to feel vulnerable, to say, hey, I really need a break this afternoon. Can you stay with my kids so I can go to the spa or even just for a walk in the mall, and, you know, just have a meal by myself without a child tugging at me. What can the community do to really support mothers?
1:04:28
Yes, and we are not meant to mother alone. It's really important to remember that, like our individualistic again, tends to be more of a western society culture narrative. Expect that I should be able to do this by myself. And if you go just back to the start of time and cultures all over the world, mothers were mothering in community. So to your point, right? We need community in mothering. I will say that doing the thing you're asking about requires this other process that we've already talked about. Out, because I'm not going to let myself be vulnerable if I think uncomfortable emotions are bad, right? Brene Brown, who many of us have watched over the years and studied, talks a lot about how vulnerability breeds connection. Again, going in circles here, connection settles our nervous system. Okay? So what we're saying here is, in order to have a grounded nervous system, we need connection. In order for connection, we require vulnerability. In order for vulnerability, we need to understand that the emotions are never the problem. Okay, so I would say a couple of things. Number one, I think it's harder to initiate the community that you're describing than to join one. So I would really suggest that your listeners do a little due diligence to see where those committees might already exist. There is an amazing nonprofit organization out there called Postpartum Support International. Postpartum.net is the website for that all over the world. Postpartum Support International has free and low fee support communities for new mothers, especially, it's mostly a new mother community. Someone could go on their website and just put in their location in the world and look for, you know, coordinators that could help them find those communities. That's a great way to do that. You know, lots of churches or community centers might have, you know, groups for moms, I would, I would really suggest that is going to be easier than saying I'm going to start a community myself as a starting point. Does that make sense?
1:06:34
Yes, yes. Because you're already, you know, responsible for small children, and just getting into the rhythm of that might be quite challenging as we wrap up this conversation. What is the one piece of advice that you give to all listeners to remember as they walk this path of motherhood?
1:06:55
Yeah, I mean, I'm going to sound like a broken record here, and I'll just give a couple of catchphrases. Number one, the feelings are never the problem yours or your child's Never, never. They always make sense. Number two, if you want to be a quote, unquote, super mom, and we could call it a super mom, like a superhero, or we could say a super mom, right, that path to that is about tending to your own health and well being first. And it can feel so counterproductive. It can feel so counterintuitive, especially when our little humans need us. Of course they do. So I would say, you know, pick one or two things that you could do for yourself that you know again, there's sort of a list of things that we know that our brains require for resilience, and I'll just name those out, and your listeners can write them down. It's sleep, nutrition, exercise or movement, social connection, mindfulness or breath, breathing, work, time and nature. Nature, play is another one right, doing things that you just feel pleasure for, and hydration, keeping yourself hydrated. They could pick one or two of those things and just commit to giving themselves permission to meet that need and that, in and of itself, is going to get them on that path of being more resilient to the stress of motherhood
1:08:24
and those that you listed, if parents really focus on it, it doesn't require a lot of time, yeah, doesn't require a lot of money and so on. So it's not the excuse I don't have the money, I don't have the time. It's going for a walk, you know, just three steps, right? Or if you have to go lock yourself in the bathroom while the kids are buying just just to do your breath work, so you can be in the headspace to come out, to really connect with your children. And you know those tips that you listed, too? I think it's so important for partners to also step in when they see the mothers looking overwhelmed to say, you know, I think you need to do your nature walk thing, or do you want to go for a run? I can, I can handle this while you're away for 30 minutes. Just to also be aware, because sometimes, as mothers, we don't see we it takes a longer time for us to really notice. Okay, I'm going on E now, and I just need to get this done. I just need to get this done. But if other people are around us, can say, Hey, you look you look a bit tired. You do? You want to take 30 minutes to yourself or something that can really help the mothers too?
1:09:32
Right? Yeah. I mean us high achievers. We do not like to ask or receive help. We want to do things ourselves. So I want to just mention that motherhood is the all time equalizer. We all experience the same feelings in motherhood and I and again, I think for me, you're going back to your community question. It's always been helpful for me to remember that I'm just inherently a part of a giant community because I'm a mother, right? And. Not only are we not supposed to do it alone, but we literally, physically can't do it alone. So being willing to ask for and receive help in service of all the other mothers out there like, let's please all do that together. Let's all give ourselves permission to ask for and receive help, because we all, we're we all need it.
1:10:17
Yes, yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for the conversation. I wanted to ask you about anxiety and so on. But you know what? You know, things always go the way they should, I think. And I think a lot of moms, especially with the thought process of needing to be right, needing to be perfect, they have to start to detangle those and become curious. And once they become curious, to have the self compassion and then to make the choice, not just when your child is overwhelmed or having a tantrum or back talking or not listening to you, but really, I think mothers should, or parents in general, to start thinking, how was I raised? What emotions were not allowed in my household, and how is that showing up now as I interact with my child, and what do I need to change? How do I need to change my mindset to be more compassionate with myself? Because I think high, as you mentioned, high achieving women, it's really hard for us to be self compassionate. We are like, Okay, that didn't work. Get over it, put on your big girl panties and get going. There is no you know, but to really learn self compassion, I think, is the one of the major themes I hear you were saying self compassion, understanding, knowing the emotions, naming the emotions so that you can tame them as well, yeah, and
1:11:39
that that is the recipe to reduce anxiety. Everything you just
1:11:46
said, Okay, so we talked about anxiety in the general and came right back to it. Okay, that
1:11:51
that's it for my someone who grew up with huge amount of anxiety for so much of my life, that roadmap you just gave your listeners, is what has made it so that I literally do not live I mean, I have moments of anxiety. Who doesn't, but I do not live with chronic anxiety anymore. Yeah, and it was because of the roadmap you just shared.
1:12:14
And yes. And so that idea that you had about motherhood is to really think, is that really, Is that realistic? Is for my family, for who I am as a person, and maybe I need to change that and not look at our neighbors and our friends and thinking they have it together. I need to get it together too. They're probably falling apart, but they just mask it better than you, right? So it's a really focus on healing yourself. Understand your nervous system, how to heal your nervous system, how to soothe your nervous system, so you can show up for your children, no matter where they are on the developmental spectrum, whether they're in early childhood, middle childhood or teenage years. Yeah, what
1:12:59
you just said, another way of saying what you just said, is that's high achiever. Achievers think about what should I be doing, what do I need to do? And the question we need to be asking ourselves is, how do I want to feel? And what are the thoughts or the little, teeny, tiny action steps, not the big mountains we want to climb, the little things that we can do that get us closer to that feeling that can be our anchor. Yes.
1:13:22
Thank you so much. I think all the mothers listening, and even those who are not mothers, maybe partners and siblings can have definitely learned from this, and they might even try themselves, even if they don't have children, the importance of naming your emotions, regulating your nervous system and so on. So for all the parents listening, mothers in particular, who might be interested in working with you and following your work, where they where can they find you on social media, your website, if you have a specific program that you want to share with our listeners,
1:13:56
thank you for asking. So I have a pretty engaged and active Instagram feed at Kate Crickey, and that is really the source of most of my free content. I give a lot of free content over there. I love meeting people, so if your listeners want to come and just introduce themselves to me over there, I'm I'm always available for chit chatting over there. My website is as Kate kripke.com I created a 12 week program called the calm connection accelerator that's really designed for this mom that we've been talking about today, the high achieving, high performing, perhaps more type a go getter, Doer mom who is struggling with anxiety and overwhelm and guilt and motherhood. And I bring to that program, you know, over 20 years of clinical work and my own experience as a mom, and if someone is interested in learning more about that program, they can either find me on on so a social media, Instagram or my website, and there's a tab that talks more about that program on my website
1:14:56
as well. Thank you so much. So all the parents who are interested in working with you. You, they can definitely reach out, and as we close our talk, curiosity, self compassion and making the choice to tame your nervous system. Thank you so much, Kate for joining us.
1:15:12
Oh, I am so happy to have been with you. Taniesha, thank you. You.
