Your Motherhood is Only as Powerful as Your Personhood - Revisit

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Hey, it's Brooke at Goodinside, a quick note before we get started. This week, we're bringing back one of the most beloved episodes in our catalog.

Your motherhood is only as powerful as your personhood.

A conversation between Dr. Becky and poet and author Cleowade, and we're doing it right now for a reason. If you ever had a hard night with your baby and caught yourself thinking, I'm doing this wrong, or why does this feel so hard when everyone else seems fine?

You already know that the problem isn't really the hard moment. It's the story that follows it.

“That quiet voice that turns a rough night”

into a verdict about who you are as a parent. So we built a brand new podcast around that exact experience. It's called rattled, because it's for those moments when new parenthood shakes you. Every episode, we go into the honest, disorienting,

often beautiful mess of new parenthood. Because sometimes you just need to hear someone else name the thing you're feeling. Alongside the podcast, we're opening up something much bigger, a whole new home for the baby years inside the Goodinside app.

Sleep support, lactation expertise, workshops, tools, all of it designed around one core belief that a parent who feels held can hold their baby. That when you feel sturdy, everything else gets easier. Which is why today's episode still hits the way it does,

because Cleo Wade said it perfectly. Your motherhood is only as powerful as your personhood. She and Dr. Becky go deep on what it actually feels like to lose yourself in the baby stage and what the path back looks like.

Subscribe to rattled by Goodinside, link is in the showdowns, and share it with new parents to be in your life. And now, Dr. Becky and Cleo Wade. In your recent book, "Remember Love,"

which is so exciting, you really focus on recovery, and you talk about really kind of reclaiming yourself. Let's start with that. Well, as I was writing in this book, I kind of, in a way that was very different

than any other kind of way I approached writing before, is I really felt like, okay, I kind of tried to please myself back to moments in my life where I felt that I was stumbling around in the dark, looking for a light and realized I had to turn it on

with myself. And I tried to figure out how to follow those breadcrumbs and remember that no matter how faint that kind of like feels it is still there. There's this one page that actually started out

as a joke, really, where I write about how there's the old motel six commercial that's like, will leave the light on for you. But that actually in some of my toughest moments whether it was really contemplating repacing my life.

You know, when I found that my life was moving at a pace where I couldn't find or access freedom and joy, even though I was attaining a lot of exterior goals. And so when I felt that I lost track of myself or I felt that I couldn't feel like myself in moments

of whether that was postpartum depression or high-high key anxiety, I'd kind of hear that voice will leave the light on for you.

And I really kind of would always think,

how did I, you know, the light has been left on in there somewhere for me. And so much of this book is how I journeyed back and finding it whether it was through hearing somebody say something like the two words

remember love that I'd heard and then using those as an anchor to kind of change my thinking around things.

“And as you know, because I think you teach this so well”

is that all change starts with your inner dialogue. The first change you make is the new thought you take. That's so powerful. I wanna ask you more about that, but I don't wanna zoom too far past something you said.

And you said something, then you also said postpartum depression. You didn't say these things totally connected. So I just wanna see if I got it right. You talked about the loss of freedom and joy while you were seemingly ticking off

maybe various accomplishments.

even said postpartum was so much of the experience

of becoming a mom for the first time

is like it does feel like an accomplishment. Like a lot of people did this. I had this baby I'm supposed to do this. This is like a milestone in my life. This is a huge developmental leap for me.

I'm an adult in a different way. And yet, having a baby in terms of freedom and joy in those early days, I mean, are not there. - And here's the thing. Gratitude that comes from a place of guilt is not gratitude.

So you talk about this in a great way and your TED talk when you're saying, you're joking about your son and you're saying like, and if you could just be grateful for this, but when gratitude is attached to guilt,

it's not gratitude at something else. And so what happens in postpartum depression is every time you're trying to get to gratitude, you're doing it from a place of guilt. - Can you dive into that?

- Yeah, you say, I can't, I should be grateful. I mean, I have a baby, I have a this, I have a that, I mean, whether maybe it's healthy, I'm healthy, I'm, and so you think that you're trying to get out of postpartum depression,

but you're actually because it's, you're reaching from gratitude from guilt.

You always out of deficit, you can never get above ground.

And so the thing is, is that gratitude is only ever attached to the actual present moment in no stories. And that's what makes it spiritual, that's what makes it magical,

however you want to look at it, that's what makes it that thing that's very, very, very present. And that's why, you know, as you know, most shrinks like to say,

if you're thinking about the past, you know, you're depressed, if you're worried about the future, you're anxious, but if you're in the moment your present because in the present is where we access gratitude, it has no stories, it actually is just that,

like, the sun still came up, the sun comes up, I'm okay, I can be okay, I believe Ocanus is possible, there's gratitude there. Where did the guilt come from, postpartum?

“I think the guilt comes from you want it what you have,”

why isn't that making you feel, you know, the way you feel is wrong, right? Then in that shame that's guilt, and then they're kind of greeted, if you're so happy, you have your baby, why aren't you feeling like yourself?

And I think also, you know, the hard part is that everyone tells you a baby changes everything and I think we don't know how to kind of wrap our heads around how much motherhood changes you and that changes just hard.

And it's funny, I was just saying this to a friend, it's like, the act of change is easy. The feelings of a company change are so difficult. So, you know, writing your signature is easy. The feelings that come with signing your divorce papers

are impossible. You could even go so far to say that the labor, the childbirth, which is not easy, but it's actually easier that change of the baby coming into the world is easier than the feelings

that a company having a child.

“And so I think that there's a lot that, you know,”

the feelings that come with the change that happens when you go into parenthood, I think that's something where there's not quite enough space held for us to live in their contradictions and complications.

We kind of think we should have a much narrower range of feelings. So we don't even have spaces for it, right? We don't even have a space to say, you know, we're kind of, that's opening up more and more. But, I mean, we barely have a space to say like,

what we actually do when we're breastfeeding, you know, you and I talked about that with our friends of like, I'd be like, you know, whatever one was like, yeah, I breastfed for 10 months, but nobody told me they were supplementing.

And I kept being like, when I had no milk, I'd be like, how are they doing this? Like, some is coming out, but there's not enough to sustain this kid and like, what the hell?

Yes, we all deserve our privacy. Yes, we should all walk the line between privacy

“and secrecy and offering help to each other, I think.”

But the stories we tell each other actually really impact the range of feelings we believe we should have. - Right, I mean, anytime someone says to me, I'm struggling as a new mom, how were the early days for you?

The first thing I say is it's so damn hard

and so start there, start with like the honesty, like start with like, a friend had texted me earlier today telling me something that was really hard she was going through and she was like, I'm crushed, but I'm okay and I said, actually just start with,

Because the honest moment of I'm not okay

“is actually the only way to get to okayness.”

Like you just can't skip the step. You just prolong the ability to land in okayness. - I'm thinking about my answer when people said what were the early days like it said completely unenjoyable. - Yeah, so they were like, for me, for me.

And I think some people actually go back and forth between enjoyable and unenjoyable. But I definitely was kind of in the group of like the baby stages, I don't know what I'd say, it's not for me, it's not my favorite, it's not where I thrive.

I didn't love it, you know, I really, really didn't. And yeah, every time I tell someone that and now I go to some telling everyone who listens. - Yeah, the baby stage was unenjoyable for me. I'm not even having on it.

- Period. - Period. - Right, hopefully that means at least one more person saying, oh, like I guess this isn't okay way to experience the stage and it doesn't mean this is the type of parent I am.

This is not the way I'm gonna always feel about my child.

This doesn't mean anything about me or my kid or our connection. It means like you said actually in this moment, this moment is unenjoyable and there happened to be a lot of these moments for the stage. - And between the sleep draft provision and the hormones

and everything else you don't feel like yourself and there was real pain and there was for me. There was real pain in feeling like, I wish my kid could get to know the real me. Like, and I wrote and remember love, you know,

it's, I thought I knew how to love myself. But I knew I knew how to love myself when I felt like myself. It's really hard to love a stranger especially when change has turned you into the stranger. And so for me, I was using the tools

to keep the person I knew how to love, maintained, like that was the self care toolkit I was using and I didn't realize that I would have to radically change how I was supported, how I gave myself grace to the thought patterning I had around productivity.

And so many things in order to actually give myself care when I didn't feel like myself. - You're so talented in using words to describe very, very complex. And somebody's like nonverbal experiences that we have.

So I know there's a lot of people listening who are experiencing, have experienced postpartum depression. - How would you describe what that felt like or what it was experienced like by you? Because I think your words they do.

They just have so much power to help people, you know, feel understood.

- Well, I think first and foremost,

I'd say that no matter what my experience is like, yours is unique to you. And I think that really loving yourself in a way that allows for you to witness how you feel at any given moment without judging it

is how you can understand what you're going through and ask for the right help for what you're going through. And so, you know, I hate to kind of generalize the feeling of postpartum.

“But I can say that I think postpartum depression”

is not so dissimilar than other types of depression or periods of depressive waves where you really do feel that how you are in relationship with yourself and those around you is just off.

And you're wondering why things that usually either bring you joy or bring you ease, do not. And you feel very disconnected from the things that make you feel like yourself and light you up.

And I think we all have those kind of little sparkly things where we could be, you know, it's like the thing that makes you laugh out of nowhere or the thing that kind of is that like, you know, triggers whatever that built in happiness.

I do feel that we all have and have access to kind of lights up. I think it's just a lot harder for those things to light up and it's really hard to hear anyone rationally tell you why you shouldn't feel that way.

“So I think that one of the ways I think we know we,”

is it kind of a surefire sign we could use a little support or help is if we feel a little triggered by somebody saying, this might help. And if we feel like the idea of help feels almost like an affront to what we're going through,

that's to me how I always know that I'm like,

I need support. I need a shift because someone's offering it me a tool and it's pissing me off and like that's just why would that be something that's pissing me off?

There's such a powerful nuance there.

I think that's a really important reflection because if it's from the right person, who you really feel like really does love you and has your best interest, there's something about the lifting out

of this kind of emotional state you're in that makes you angry, right? And I think the nuance is we all need to hear from people and we need to say to ourselves, I'm allowed to feel this way, my feelings are real,

my feelings are real, my feelings are valid, I'm not making this up, I believe myself. And, right, that's on one side, that like validation. And, yeah, it could be a good idea to get some tools and skills, not because my feelings aren't real

but because this is not a great way to feel and then on an ending days. - And also because the people in your life who love you no matter how much they love you, they don't see the invisible churning inside of you

“and I think that's what creates the anger.”

So I think you have this part of you that's churning to like get out of this and you're treading in water and you're like, I don't wanna feel this way, it doesn't feel good, I don't feel good, I don't feel like myself,

this isn't working, nothing's work, when does it lift, how does it lift, how does this, like how do I think again, when will I laugh really hard again, when will I identify with anything other than tired? Do you know?

And so I think that there's no one sees that in your head and in your heart, all day long, those thoughts are on a loop and they just rumble inside of you. And it's a pretty, I feel like kind of violent feeling 'cause they're just churning and churning.

So that's why I think we get triggered by someone saying, would you like to try this? Or maybe you should try talking to your therapist twice a week instead of once, you're like, 'cause in your head, you're like, aren't I doing enough?

You have no idea because they do, they have no idea

“because I do feel that our bodies do desperately”

want to get out of the funks we get in. I feel that spiritually, you know? So how did you get out? So, you know, I had this real, why I called the book "Remember Love"

is I told the story in the beginning of I'm in the bathtub. And at the height of my postpartum depression

with Memphis, my first daughter.

And I'm trying to do the things you do when you're sad, which are like, what would make you feel better? I'm like, I'm gonna get in the bathtub, the bathtub makes me feel better. I'm gonna put on a podcast and put on Tara Brock.

Tara Brock makes me feel better. But I'm still kind of in this fog, right? And so I'm like kind of going through the motions because what I at least know is, you don't feel good to do the things

that make you feel better. And I actually have even seen in my life that you can fake it till you make it a little bit with that. It doesn't heal, like you're not gonna listen to one, podcast or personate heal, everything.

But if you do the things that help enough, you see results, I find. So I'm in the tub and I can't, I'm kind of listening, I'm kind of not and then I hear her say, "Remember Love."

And it was as if someone yanks me from the fog, not the depression, but from the fog, and put me in almost as bubble of clarity, where I could clearly like understand that like it was time for me to start figuring it out.

And those words, remember Love, it was two words

“and that's what I needed because what I wasn't doing”

was remembering Love and how I spoke to myself every day. Because every day I only identified what I felt was wrong.

And I would never do that to a friend.

And I realized that for myself, it was always like, "Why can't you think? "Why can't you move faster? "Why can't you get that doll done today? "Why are you spending enough time with your kid?

"Why aren't you able to get it together "to look cute at dinner?" Like, why don't you want it? And it was really toxic. And so I got an opposed to it known

and I wrote the words, "Please, remember Love on it "because even saying, "Please was the first kind of stuff "of kindness I needed." And once I could really identify that first and foremost, I like was not remembering Love within.

All of a sudden, I felt that I could access and really use the tools. I could slow down, I could ask for extra help. You know, I didn't end up having to or choosing to have medication to help me,

but I know so many people that that has helped, but I could just start actually giving self care to this new person. And I wasn't trying to, like, tell her she was wrong. I wasn't trying to shame her, I wasn't trying to,

and I could actually say, "Okay, what do you need? "How can I give it to you in a loving way?" (gentle music) - I recently traveled to Switzerland for work

really shaped the whole trip. It overlooked the mountain tops, and there was this sweet little porch where I could sit in the morning and drink my coffee.

If you were following me during that time on Instagram, you saw me post from that exact location.

Also, there was just this incredible coffee machine

that somehow made my morning routine feel intact, even across the ocean. And I was also just able to get sunshine before a full day of conversations. All those quiet moments in the morning, they grounded me.

Oh, and this touch I just loved was, I got three bars of Swiss chocolate left by my host, and I can confirm they were all gone by the end of my three days day. When I travel, I don't just wanna place to sleep.

I wanna place to land, a living room where I can decompress in a space where I can do bedtime over FaceTime and feel at home when I'm away from home. That's why I booked homes on Airbnb. It helped me find places that feel grounding,

not just convenient, because when where you stay, feels good, everything else feels a little better too. One thing I noticed with parents all the time, and honestly with myself too,

is how often we all just feel depleted. I mean, parenting asks a lot of us for making decisions all day navigating big feelings and keeping everything moving. It's training.

I wanna tell you something I do, that both helps me stay hydrated,

“but honestly also feels like a form of self-care.”

I always have an element, drink mix in my bag.

Instead of just carrying snacks for my kids, I go to this when it's 3 p.m. 4 p.m. 8 a.m. and I'm tired and it's something for me that helps me feel taken care of and honestly makes me feel better.

Element is a zero sugar electrolyte drink mix that helps support hydration without the sugar and artificial ingredients you'll find in so many sports drinks. It is truly part of my daily routine

and it makes a difference. If you wanna try it, Element is offering a free 8-count sample pack of their most popular flavors with any purchase. Just go to drinkeliment.com/goodinside.

(gentle music) - To me, I always say this about Montreux and I love them for kids too. It's like they take moments that are so big where you're anxiety and thoughts they just expand

and expand and expand and it gives you something so simple and small to repeat. There's like a mastery to it, right? So it really, that's like a boundary around these, like really overwhelming feelings.

- We have to for no other reason, it's a go-to to redirect and we need those.

- Yes, we should not think that our mind is always going

to work in our benefit.

“I think that we are unbelievably absorbent beings”

and anyone who lives with children sees that. You see that all of a sudden your daughter moves her shoulder in a way you do or you know and you never taught them to do that or ask them to do that. And so I think when you realize that we are absorbing

in a world that we haven't even quite figured out how to like create this world that allows us to love ourselves of ease. So as we are moving in a world and absorbing that, our minds are like seeing a billboard

seeing a person on social media seeing this and it is triggering things in our brain to kind of think and go and move in a certain way. And a mantra is an anchor, it will yank you from that. And you can actually have discipline around a mantra

to as we said in the beginning like make the first change by choosing the next thought. And so it's, I don't think there's anything that does that better than a mantra. I just don't, I totally agree.

No, you said this question like, what do I need? Can I give myself what I need? I would love you to give some examples because I know some, you're like, I don't know what I need. Like how I just don't know what I need.

It can feel so big and pressuring but like how did you walk yourself through that? You can first start with the basics of what does anybody need? What does blanket kind of look like? Like what does like, you know,

my kid is running and falls and scrapes her knee. What does she need? Like she does not need someone to say, just get up and walk it off. Like they do not need that.

And you'd be surprised how often we're doing that to ourselves. And so I think to say, if you can't, if you don't quite know what's the exact need

“or what you think you should even be allowed to need.”

You know, one of the things I really talk about a lot in this book and I think the part of the book that's called Worthy Rebellions is there's like, there's a poem in it that says you call yourself the glue but while you hold it all together who is holding you.

And in that so much of that is that we find pride and being needless. I need nothing while aren't I great? Aren't I lovable?

everyone should be allowed to need something, especially me because you're saying it to yourself. So you say everyone should, what are mine, what would anyone need? And so any single person needs to be affirmed

that their experience is worthy of tenderness time and attention. Every single person needs that I don't care what you're going through, whether you're a trauma or hard time as a two or a 10, you need that.

And so start there. - Also, I find a lot of people start a self-care routine through getting themselves water to drink in the morning. And again, I think there's something like, what do I need?

I don't know, everybody needs water, everybody needs hydration, right? And it seems kind of random or very simple, but it's actually really not because you're just getting in a habit of treating yourself

“as if you need to give yourself things, right?”

And if you can start that with water or a mantra, it actually doesn't really matter which you start 'cause you're just starting practice. Sunlight, there's a part of the book where I talk about how I just, I don't know, but I know enough to give myself

cool water on my face, sunlight on my back for a minute, putting my feet in the earth. I think that there are these things and so much of kind of what I felt that also really helped me during my postpartum

was kind of just this remembering or reconnecting to think some times we just build so many things with our hands and we're making so many man-made things that we really forget that our nature is so much more akin to the natural world that it is to like any algorithm

or computer or anything else. And so I really do feel that we are built to break and repair and kind of bloom and then we are seasonal and the feelings that come through us are seasonal and we do have these icy winters and things do melt

and it freaking rains and it rains and it rains and then something beautiful happens. It's the best sunset you've ever seen in your life. Like, and that is the nature of our lives

and I really felt that one of the first things I really did

during well I was like, what do I need and I was like, I need to go on a walk. And every day no matter what I went on a walk and I didn't, you know, I kind of put music on but put everything else on airplane mode

and I just noticed around me. I just said like, I just need to like, I wanna notice why, what every tree is doing in my neighborhood and that actually helped me so much because there would be days where I'd go in a walk

and I'd see a tree that was holding a brown leaf and a blossoming flower at the same time and the leaf was about to fall and the flower was just coming in and they were both hanging there at the same time.

And I just thought, this is us, like this is who we are and I felt that I'm so deeply

“and that's why nature is such a heavy theme of this book”

because the book is about repair and recovery. - Yeah. - You know, I just brought back to my early days after having a baby and I had to go in a walk around like four or four thirty every afternoon

because if I didn't, like that's like when it was, I had all my kids kind of in the fall

so like it was always like getting dark around them

and if I was inside my house and then like the darkness literally was coming, it felt like this like heaviness and this dread of the night time 'cause that movement just like,

and I think that's something, I don't think I realized it exactly at the time but that's something I needed. It wasn't so sophisticated. It was walking like three blocks outside of my apartment

going to get something walking back home, fresh air, seeing people like literally experiencing motion in my body and so I just think,

“for everyone listening, like I think we hear,”

especially as women, like what do I need? Ah, I don't know, my goodness and like we should have something really flowery or like really, really complex, like, or it's a spa day, right?

Or it's a spa day, it's actually interesting. Both of us, like, you know, it's talking kindly to yourself maybe it's water but like movement and like it wasn't like, it was just a little bit of movement was human movement or kind of building in these times

where your personhood is at the center and so I think that a lot of the time when you live in a family unit, the other roles are not at the center and I remember one of my early mantras

and motherhood was your motherhood

is only as powerful as your personhood.

And I think when you go on that walk or, you know, for me, it's so funny, say 430 because my kids are still so small and so still every day at 430, I have to take a shower because I have to have a minute to myself

because they're both, you know,

I have a three and a half into your world. So they're both at that age where it takes packing forever and they torture you every step of the way like, you know, and that's just all they're into is just torturing you until they're down.

And so it's for me, I'm like, I just need that moment but because it's like I'm in the shower and I take a long shower and, and then again, it's probably something to do. Like, you know, you're probably like, I just need fresh air

and I'm like, I just need some water, like on my body and like I just, and I even bring like a bottle of water in the shower with me, I drink water, I have a shower, I just have that reset before I just go into like the meal

and will you eat this and know you won't eat this? And like, will you do this? Okay, if you can wear this princess makeup and like, and it's so torturing us. - Yeah, well, I think by four, we're all like out of gas

in our car, but like the journey is just beginning of being here. - Being here. - Right? And so, yes, like any, you have to fully refuel.

“Like, or you have to at least partially refuel, right?”

'Cause those moments when we don't, when our kid complains about dinner and then they don't take the bath or they splash water and it's no longer fun. You're just like, I'm gonna have to clean up this whole thing

and then you explode. So not because you're some horrible human who hates their child, that's it's like, what does the human body do? When you literally have nothing else to give

and you're in a position where you have to give and exude patients and all the things like, the body implodes, that's just what happens. - It breaks down. And that's okay.

- But I think also we have to just figure out how to allow for our, I think it's maybe like there's something around, allowing for there to be breaks that help you avoid the breakdown.

And they think that we just don't really live in, you know, this culture of giving ourselves kind of even these micro moments, like the five minutes, actually, to like, even if you are so stressed

and you can't take the shower, you can't go on the walk. There's probably the five minutes where you can kind of walk yourself in your kind of pantry or in your, in the bathroom and just say like,

I'm just gonna take five minutes to just have like be kind to myself and sit down, have some water and not talk to anyone and just because I just, I'm going to get myself this reset.

And I think you'd be surprised like most people are like, there's no way that can help. But like disrupting the like kind of flow when the flow starts to get a little too intense, I think always helps.

How could it not? 100%. For me, it like is sitting down on a couch when my kids are calling me and this is one of my favorite lines. I'm not available right now.

I'm spending a few moments being still and that's really important to me. And like they've learned over time and like they used to protest, it was that. Is that as good as all the other things?

No, but sometimes it was two minutes of like stillness on the couch and not moving and completing, it did shift what happened next. Well, and guess what? As these absorbent beings,

“I have to say that the only way that they will ever”

value stillness is by having seen a parent give space in place in the house to stillness. I remember being on tour once and someone saying to me,

I never saw my mom sit down a day in her life.

She said she worked all day when she got home. She made our clothes and she cooked and she did. So she's like the idea of self care is like, makes me sad to think about 'cause it's so far from like, she's like, when people ask me to get there,

I'm almost angry. Like, how would I know how to get to self care? How could I ever put myself on my front burner? I always joke, I'm like, a woman has never heard those words. Like, I'm just on my front burner right now.

Like, no one has ever mentioned the burners unless they're on the back burner. And she was like, but I never saw it. And I said, you know, the greatest gift you could give to your own daughter now is to show her

because you're struggle in finding places to give yourself care, care being a moment of stillness, a moment to self, a moment of reflection. And the world that doesn't try to give us any space to reflect or contemplate because we have constant distraction

in the palm of our hands.

“The only way we can give that to our kids is to model it.”

It's the only way we can never tell them,

have stillness, have care, give yourself care, take time to yourself if they never saw their parent do it. Just doesn't work. And I think it's hard because most parents struggle with, like, how do I really distinguish claiming things

for myself in a way to children understand the power of claiming things like time for yourself and rejecting your kids. A friend of mine said that to me once.

I never let my kids, especially at this age,

be the people who determine what actually happened in a situation as far as an emotion, like rejection, goes or true, true sadness. So like when my kids are mad that I go away or upset when I leave for work,

like I could be like, I've got to go, you know, do this thing for two hours for work. And if my three-year-old is like in hysterics, like I know that's not the saddest she's ever been, I actually know that you can't regulate disappointment.

And I also know that children, you know, can't be the people who determine that they were rejected. We have to like really help them and teach them what these words actually mean. They were really long span of time.

“But I think we always want to tie a bow on it”

in the moment with kids where you're like, actually rejection is something you teach kids for like 20 years to truly understand rejection. Yeah, and I, you know, it's on channel,

never even thought about it as like rejection.

Like when I hear like, how do you take care of yourself and cope with your kids feeling rejected? I guess it's just not the framework I would use. I would say, and it goes back to, you know, you called out if part of your book that was one of my favorites,

about the, you know, the glue. And how, you know, if I think about a glue container, which is what so many of us are for our kids, there's no capacity to have a glue container without the container, right?

Then it's just glue spilled all over. And so I guess when I think about taking care of myself and self love and self care, and how my kids might feel about it, I'm teaching them that boundaries are a part

of every form of love. There's no relationship where love exists. That boundaries between those two people aren't also, you know, an existence. Well, I'm surprised that you haven't had someone come

to you around the rejection piece. And maybe that's a word that's not often used in it, but to me, the idea of mom guilt, yes, can only exist because you're, we're trying to avoid rejection.

Like because somehow the rejection is just in there to you in some way, right? So it's like, everyone has that, like, I just laughed, I got on the plane, and I'm just feeling like the mom guilt

of like not being there for bedtime or whatever.

“And to me, somehow, I think that the mom guilt”

is just somehow in relationship to you, having this idea that you are somehow rejecting your kid. - Yeah, I agree. - I got this feeling rejected.

- Yes, and I guess the boundaries are always the solve

for everything. - Right, exactly. - Because those are my kids' feelings. - Right. - Yeah, yeah. - Everyone has feelings when you set a boundary. - Yeah. - Everyone does.

Okay, I want to kind of end by asking you for everyone who's listening here, who I think might be wondering, yeah, I don't have a practice of self-love. I don't have a practice of self-care.

If that's true, probably also, they're thinking I haven't had that modeled for me. What's the first step that's small enough that I might think I can do that? - Someone recently asked me what was the thing I noticed

the most about or changed me in my writing since I had kids. And I told them that when you really live with kids, it's so clear that love is your birthright. My children really love who they are and they don't believe that anything is wrong with them.

And they certainly celebrate every part of who they are. And so when you see that from holding that person in their first breath, that is the clearest thing to me about having a child is that loving yourself is your first breath.

And how do we return there

“because there's just a lot of junk that kind of gets in the way?”

So I think that first and foremost, my love belongs to me through it all that my most fragile when I feel the most kind of in my power doesn't matter. Like it belongs to me and I know that for sure.

And then I think when you're feeling disconnected from it, you at least like that is when I joke about the motel six, I'll leave the light on for you. That is the light on that's for you. Is that you know you're loved belongs to you.

And then you can start trying to question how do I get there? And self care is really that practice of how do I get there? I once wrote this thing that said, if self love says I love you, self care says prove it. And it's kind of this way that we say like,

well, if I was in a relationship with anybody else, how would I show them what would I do to make it clear that I love them? I, you know, I attend to them. I really deeply consider them.

I'd really see and notice who they were when they changed. And remember, love I wrote, you know, it's simple every time you change, get to know yourself again. That is an act of love, that is an act of care.

The idea of this episode is that the hard moment isn't the problem.

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