Understanding Rupture in Mother-Daughter Relationships: Gina's Journey through the Estrangement Energy Cycle

Would it surprise you to know that 1 in 12 people is estranged from at least one family member (Agllias, 2016)? With estrangement on the rise, further exploration is needed to best understand the complexities that contribute to making estrangement possible in families. As a mental health professional, I first wrote about estrangement and adult daughters in 2020, asking my therapist colleagues if they too were seeing a pattern in women who were contemplating estrangement from a parent in their clinical work. From that blog, I felt called to take a deeper dive into the cycle of events that can lead to mother-daughter estrangement, a cycle I came to call Estrangement Energy.

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There are various stages a daughter may work through in individual therapy as she explores her relationship with her mother. Let’s take Gina* as one example. Gina sought out therapy for processing her divorce, expressing interest in grief and loss work as well as reporting feelings of depression and failure when attempting to meet her children’s needs. As Gina moved towards deeper work on her relationships, she began to question why she allowed multiple people in her life to exert power and control over her. She discovered that the start of this relational pattern resided with her mother.

Cycle of Abuse

Gina engaged in a personal narrative that helped her to recognize her mother’s behaviors as physically and verbally abusive. She had learned to cope with her mother’s volatile mood swings by reading her body language, voice, and mannerisms to best determine if she should engage her mom or go hide in her room until the emotional storm blew over.

Questioning

Having made the connection between an unpredictable and oftentimes unsafe childhood and her honed skill of reading others’ moods, Gina uncovered suppressed feelings of anger and outrage at her mother’s behavior. She began to question her current relationship with her mother and the long term effects it was having on her mental health.

Relationship Rupture

Gina wanted to talk to her mother further about her childhood and the impact on her life, yet every time she attempted to share her memories and feelings about events, her mother told Gina she was exaggerating and remembered things wrong.

Estrangement

Feeling devastated and minimized, Gina determined that she needed some distance from her mother. She started by reducing the amount of time she spent with her, claiming her work and her daughters kept her busy, which were partly true.

Grief and Loss

As the contact between Gina and her mother dwindled, Gina felt a mix of sadness and relief. On one hand, she felt she had more time and energy to give to people in her life who valued and appreciated her. But on the other hand, Gina was grieving the loss of the mother she wanted and needed—one who could respect her and love her unconditionally.

Discovering Sense of Self

Amidst her grief, Gina found herself seeking new experiences that left her feeling vibrant and alive.

Deeper Work

As Gina began to discover herself and her identity without mom, she found she still struggled with the idea of dating and intimate partner relationships. Her latest therapeutic goal was to address underlying fears of intimacy and connectedness, which resulted in uncovering negative core beliefs of being unworthy, unlovable, and not enough.

Redefining Self-Worth

Gina’s therapeutic journey left her feeling stronger and more present that she had in the past. She celebrated having stability at work and solid relationships with her friends. Gina took her role as a mother seriously, wanting something completely different for her daughters than what she’d had with her own mother.

Each client’s story is unique, and yet Gina’s story is one inspired by multiple clients seeking therapy at a critical point in their relationships with their mothers. Estrangement is a challenging and emotional choice that oftentimes leads to an adult daughter seeking therapy for additional support. Whether her goal is reconciliation with mother or full estrangement, having a solid clinical understanding of the estrangement process and stages, as well as tools you can introduce to support your client along their journey, can help the therapy space remain a safe space to do this deep and difficult work.

For more on how to support your clients with their estrangement journey, check out Understanding Ruptured Mother-Daughter Relationships: Guiding the Adult Daughter’s Healing Journey through the Estrangement Energy Cycle launching July 1, 2023 and access all our clinical tools available for download at estrangementenergycycle.com.

Handling the Hate Mail

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You’ve put yourself out there by creating something innovative, passionate, and new. You’ve shut down the naysayers to launch it and are hopeful of its success. It’s a part of you. It’s your baby. Then the hate mail comes in.

It could be a negative comment on your Youtube channel or on your latest blog post. Perhaps it’s a poor review of your book or a google review on your business page. Or maybe it’s a blunt and hostile email landing in your inbox. Wherever it lands, it stings. Like a slap to the face, you aren’t expecting it. It plants a seed of doubt in your mind, causing you to question what you’ve created—or worse—to question your own self-worth.

Unfortunately I speak from experience. As a serial entrepreneur, I know that the more things I put out into the world, the more it increases the risk of folks critiquing me as a person as well as the projects I launch. The first negative review hurts. The first hate mail that attacks one’s character hurts even more. So what can we do about it? How can we cope with the anonymous words that have been weaponized against us? How do we protect ourselves from the folks who want to criticize us from afar? After all, Brene Brown points out that they aren’t in the arena with us, so why do their voices sound so loud? I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I feel compelled to talk about this phenomenon of being cut down by folks cloaked in anonymity, knowing that other creatives and leaders who put themselves out there are experiencing the same thing.

How can we handle the hate mail?

Here are some things that might help:

 1)    Get Some Distance

As the virtual slap to the face hits, it can serve you to physically or emotionally move away from the negativity to get your bearings. Is it worth taking a walk? Distracting yourself with another task? Working off the emotional response with conscious movement? Stepping away from what you are doing to ground yourself?

2)    Seek Support

You don’t have to go through this experience alone. Who can you reach out to that understands what it’s like? Who can offer reassurance, compassion, and kind words in the face of unexpected ugliness? Who can speak to the quality or value of the thing(s) you’ve created? Who believes in your vision?

3)    Reignite Your Passion

The anonymous negativity can cast a shadow on all things that bring you joy if you let it. How can you revisit your vision and return to the passion of your project? Is it healing to talk about it with others who can appreciate your efforts? Can you share it with an audience who would be excited about it? Can you return to the experience of crafting your offering and what made you excited to launch it in the first place?

4)    Reject That Shit

No one wants to hold onto hate mail. What can you do to consciously reject it and send it on it’s way? Is it about cleansing yourself or your space of that negativity? Is it about deleting the email, reporting the post, or setting boundaries on reading comments? Can you visualize repelling the negativity it represents, sending it farther away from you?

5)    Find the Funny

Sometimes the critique isn’t even personal. Maybe they say your creation is boring or that no one cares. Of course the irony is that they read it or watched it or landed on your offering in some way themselves. So how can you find the funny in the painful experience? Is it reading it in a funny voice? Having a witty rebuttal like a celebrity reading hateful reviews on video? If you can’t find the funny in the criticism itself, can you engage in something lighthearted and funny to help you return to your emotional baseline?

6)    Set Social Media Boundaries

There’s a reason folks in the spotlight say they don’t read their reviews. It hurts. What boundaries can you have in place to limit your perusal of comments if it’s more hurtful than helpful?

There is a difference between constructive criticism and hate mail. I choose to believe it says more about them than it does about us. I know that personally, I need to develop a thicker skin against negative remarks in order to continue creating things that I enjoy. To keep the vision and goal of helping others at the forefront of my mind. To continue to operate within my values of integrity, growth, and leadership. Although I wouldn’t wish the experience of hate mail on anyone, I hope that these ideas can prepare you for if and when it happens in your experience as a creative entrepreneur.

The haters are going to hate. Keep going.

Essentials for Course Creation

As you explore a possible secondary income stream of offering courses and course creation, perhaps you are feeling overwhelmed by what you might need to create professional content people would want to purchase. Thankfully, you don’t need a whole elaborate set-up to create quality content, instead consider a few items that make a big difference in delivering a course you can feel proud to launch within your community!

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1.     Light Ring

There is a reason this lands as the number one thing I suggest to colleagues who want to create courses. Having full lighting on your face supports trust in your audience and conveys professionalism. Additionally, people respond best to video content in courses so ensuring they see your face clearly can support participation and full engagement in your content and what you have to share!

2.     Laptop Stand

Looking down isn’t exactly flattering. Wanting to avoid a double-chin in one thing, but cutting off your airway or straining your neck by holding your head in this position for hours a day isn’t recommended either.

3.     Ear Buds or Microphone

Although a stand-alone microphone is the tool of choice for folks who do a lot of interviews or podcasts, the built-in mic of ear buds is sufficient to cutting down outside noise while allowing your voice to come through clearly. Be careful with corded headphones if you talk with your hands or wear collared shirts, the cord can rub against your clothing which would create a sound that is picked up and recorded on the microphone. We know now that people can be forgiving of a grainy picture, but they are much less forgiving of terrible audio.

4.     Video Recording Software

How would you like to record your content? Do you prefer using your phone on a tripod? Or your laptop with Zoom or another meeting software? Either way, you have plenty of inexpensive options for capturing your content before you gear up to do some editing!

Still have questions about creating your online course? Check out our course on creating courses or book a consultation for momentum on your project!

Your Self Publish Starter Kit

Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash

Have you had the goal to write a book but don’t know where to start? Here is a quick framework of some natural steps that can help you on your journey from passion to book outline to written book and published author status!

1.     Engage a Course or Book on Publishing

I recommend folks read the book “Published” from some ideas of how to market their book. We’ve also created a course on book writing for fellow professionals called “Professional and Published” which has been accessed by almost 900 people since it’s launch!

2.     Work with a Book Coach

Book coaches can help you move from passion or idea to a concrete process for writing the book itself. They can help you narrow down your audience, focus on your gift, and they can even help edit the book as you begin writing if that’s something you want within their professional support services! One Book Coach we’ve connected with recently is Amy Collette of Unleash Your Inner Author, who focuses on mental health and self-help book authors.

3.     Hire a Book Editor

Of all the things to invest in on your book writing journey, you’ll want to prioritize funds for a book editor to format your paperback and Kindle versions for your launch. It saves a ton of time to work with someone who can do the formatting quickly and easily, helping your final product look professional for folks who purchase your published book. You can find book editors on Upwork.com. Our go-to professional for almost all five of our published books has been Kevin Turner of 789 Book Layout.

4.     Finalize Amazon Keywords

This is a critical step to making sure your ideal audience finds your book among several million books listed online. We enjoy working with Richard Wolf of Wolf Design and Publishing for this service. This company also offers book cover design, best-seller campaigns and more to help your book get noticed!

5.     Complete Market Research

Have you done your research on what books are already out there? What makes your book stand apart? What are the price points you are seeing for similar books?

6.     Write Your Book

Do you struggle with carving out time for the actual writing of your book? Thankfully there are resources out there to help! Locally, The Process Denver is a workspace dedicated to focused work time in effective time blocks to make progress on your project. They also have a writing workshop called “Writers Blok” for folks with goals specific to writing!

7.     Publish Your Book

Complete the steps to self-publish online and viola, your book is officially out there! Once your book is published, you can track sales, numbers of pages read, and customer reviews easily through your author portal. Lastly, don’t forget to periodically check that your book isn’t being plagiarized online. You can read about my own journey of having my best-seller stolen online in my blog here.

My Experience with Mommy Sundowners

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My spouse had shared several months in advance that he had two business trips to attend in February. As a planner, I always appreciate the advanced notice, and had them on the calendar with a handful of ideas of how to manage single parenting in his absence. After spending some time with my parents, I found myself driving our daughter home as the sun was setting, glancing back to watch her napping peacefully in the back seat. Imagine my surprise when I was hit with a sudden and intense wave of anxiety. As I felt a choking sensation in my throat and tears come to my eyes, I attempted to remain curious as to why anxiety was showing up in that moment. It became clear that I was anticipating being by myself for the dinner and bedtime routines, neither of which scare me, and yet I couldn’t shake this dread that I wasn’t going to be able to handle it. That I was isolated. That it would be more difficult than usual. That my daughter was going to lose it. That I had to make it through.

The anxiety’s appearance as the sun was setting made me think of Sundowners. Sundowners traditionally talks about a behavioral shift in a person with dementia that occurs when the sun sets and darkness falls, including increased irritability, restlessness, and confusion. When you read about Sundowners, it emphasizes the importance of a routine, plenty of activity during daylight hours, and addressing body needs like hunger and thirst. As a mom, I recognize the importance of all of these suggestions in raising an infant, as well as the positive impact these things can have on a tired, stressed out mama too!

As I sat with the anxiety further, I was able to pinpoint a familiarity to it. It was the same feeling of isolation I felt while nursing in the early morning hours of my daughter’s first three months of life. There was anticipation of her struggling to fall asleep at bedtime, and my responsibility to be attentive to her needs as a first-time mother who was also trying to get some sleep herself. I can recall that the 4am feeding felt the most lonely and heavy of all the nighttime feeds, with some self-talk showing up about surviving to 5am and the sun rising soon after that to make things feel more manageable and breathable again.

This realization, combined with the anxiety of my spouse traveling for several nights, helped me better understand the waves of anxiety and dread that had arrived. After all, the last time my spouse traveled, I was left at home with a sick baby while being sick myself. Talk about challenging! It began to make sense that I was feeling anxious, the more I sat with the thoughts and sensations that came with it.

The question then was, what as I going to do to make the anxiety more manageable? I knew I would stick to the routines my spouse and I had put in place for our daughter, including dinner, playtime, and bedtime rituals that make both of us feel comfortable and relaxed. I also knew my parents and sister were both a phone call away, and would extend an invitation for a possible sleepover if I needed one with the baby at my side. Lastly, I knew I had the structure of work to break up the day, allowing me to ground myself in familiar tasks that weren’t related to parenting, all of which could help me remain in my body with the feelings of overwhelm.  

Additionally, I also challenged myself to recognize the positive moments throughout the day with my daughter, bolstering my mood and reassuring myself that things were going to turn out okay. By allowing myself these micro moments of gratitude, I felt a reduction in the anxiety and a bit more space to breathe.

I know I can’t be the only new mother to feel an intense mood shift when nighttime arrives. Whether we call it Mommy Sundowners or not, I know there is an anxiety that creeps into the evening hours when resources and coping skills are more limited. One of my best coping skills is going outside and walking, which of course isn’t an option in the wee hours of the morning. My hope is that by sharing my experience, other moms will feel seen and reassured that they are not alone. It’s important that we have a diverse list of coping skills to choose from, while still honoring that new mom nerves are an expected and natural part of this life-changing journey.

The Spoon Theory and It’s Application to Energy, Workaholism, and Burnout

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You may have heard of Christine Miserandino’s The Spoon Theory. She was attempting to explain how chronic illness limits a person’s abilities and energy, including the experience that she must remain mindful of her spoons to not feel depleted or suffer as the result. It’s a concept that resonates with so many people, even when we apply it to cancer treatment, workaholism, and burnout, as I have with certain clients over the years.

As a skier, my spouse would say it’s the concept of leaving a little left in the tank. You can’t give it all on the mountain and be on “empty” when trying to drive yourself home safely.

A client recently described it as social coins and introversion or extroversion. Introverts spend coins when being in social situations and replenish their coins when home recharging alone. Extroverts feel their coins being spent at home until they are around other people, thus regaining more coins. Similar to The Spoon Theory, when the coins are gone, the person must pursue a shift to protect their remaining energy.

This protection of energy is what makes The Spoon Theory so effective in it’s application to different life experiences. As my client goes through her weekly cancer treatment, she has learned to ask herself how many spoons she has left and what she wants them to be used for at the end of the day. If she starts with 12 spoons but is feeling the toll of the chemotherapy on her body and mind, she could very easily find herself with 1-2 spoons left by 4pm. Then she has to make the decision of how to use them, such as a spoon to eat dinner or a spoon to pick up around the house. What really stuck for her was the question of what happens when you run out of spoons? In her case, she was trying to borrow spoons from the next day, finding herself even more depleted and sick as a result. Each choice and action comes at a cost.

So how does The Spoon Theory apply to workaholism? Many clients over the years have heard me talk about their energy pies. They have a pie and that is all the energy they have. There is no more pie. Each thing they pursue or have on their plate is represented as a slice of pie. The number of slices and how big or small they are, are constantly changing based on what’s going on in the person’s life. For example, perhaps they are recovering from an illness, which has taken a significant slice of their pie over the last week. Or they are focusing on taking a big test in their career, resulting in a large chunk. What’s important to recognize is how the remaining things in their life then result in a smaller piece of pie. A workaholic focused on a big project is allocating a huge slice and is wondering why their relationships aren’t going so well. It could be the result of having their relationships having little to no slice of the pie. There is no energy left for them in how the workaholic is currently allocating their slices. Therapeutically, this concept has served as an important and simple visual for anyone who is frustrated by their lack of energy or progress, by being able to see how their energy pie slices are showing up (purposefully or organically) and by noticing which ones are largest versus some that may be small or completely absent.

As for burnout, we can now imagine an even smaller amount of spoons at the start of each day, or a bigger portion of the pie being consumed by burnout, which leaves little energy left for anything else. When we begin the process of burnout recovery, it’s the small but mighty shifts that we can celebrate where the focus becomes regaining and diversifying our pie slices in the goal of work-life balance, or protecting our spoons from being used up too quickly as the byproduct of burnout.

How can social coins, an empty gas tank, the energy pie, or The Spoon Theory help you in your goals for 2023? Taking inventory of your daily quantities can be a powerful place to start!  

Mommy Mayo Must-Haves for 9-12 Month Olds

Check out the full series of Mommy Wants Mayonnaise: Navigating Tricky Communication and Mental Health in Motherhood here.

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Hi readers! This is the last of the Mommy Wants Mayonnaise series, at least for now as I prepare for other fun projects in 2023! I wanted to feature toys that grow with baby, making them feel that much more worthwhile to invest in knowing they will be used for many more months of exploration and play! I hope these items can benefit you as much as they have our family.

#1 Jolly Jumper

#2 Skip Hop Baby Activity Center

#3 Sit to Stand Toy

#4 Fisher Price Giant Activity Book

#5 Looikoos Musical Instruments Set

1. Jolly Jumper-The perfect fit for an active infant, we love how this jumper can be moved around both inside and outside since it’s a free standing frame. As baby grows, it can also be made into a fort with the purchase of a canvas tent cover!

2. Skip Hop Baby Activity Center-As popular choice, it encourages independent play and standing! After they age out of the middle seat, the tray can be inserted into the top for continued play and coloring as baby grows!

3. Sit to Stand Toy-a favorite in our household, we have enjoyed watching baby girl learn to stand and walk. She will be pushing this around the living room in no time!

4. Fisher Price Giant Activity Book-A fun Christmas find, we love how this moves from a flat interactive book to a sitting and standing toy for many more months of play!

5. Looikoos Musical Instruments Set-A thoughtful holiday gift from Auntie, this toy is eco-friendly, free of excess paints/colors, and encourages exploration of music outside of baby girl’s favorite music classes!

Navigating Entrepreneurial Burnout

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Burnout is an experience that doesn’t discriminate. It can happen to anyone, which is why 75% of working Americans report they’ve experienced symptoms of burnout while in the workforce (MHA and FlexJobs, July 2020). It’s one aspect that pushes people into entrepreneurship, amidst a desire for control, pursuing passions, and an enticing vision of working for ourselves.

Yet what happens when we feel burnt out as an entrepreneur? When there’s no quitting a job to pursue our own goals and dreams? When setting our own schedule actually means working more than a 9-5? When the hustle and grind culture remains, this time labeled as entrepreneurial spirit because we feel compelled to think and dream about our business 24/7 to see it grow. Does this sound like you? I can definitely relate and so can my clients. I share that I’ve experienced professional burnout 1.5 times, and it’s a reason other professionals have begun exploring their entrepreneurial burnout in working with me.

Entrepreneurship is celebrated because of the possibilities it presents, but it’s also hard. Perhaps you recall the graph that claimed to depict the day-to-day life of an entrepreneur. It was an image full of ups and downs that went viral because of how relatable it was. From this interpretation, we can assume that for every success, there are long nights, high anxiety, fluctuating uncertainty, and gobs of self-doubt. Experience stress for too long and we find ourselves in entrepreneurial burnout.

So how do we keep a flow to work and life that prevents entrepreneurial burnout from happening? I like the word ‘flow’ because the word ‘balance’ implies equal parts work and homelife, which might not feel realistic. Instead, professionals are redefining expectations of work-life balance as work-life flow. For example, perhaps you are launching a new program or product for six weeks and live very much in work, followed by a scheduled break with time away to reconnect with family, thus re-entering the homelife space. Maybe you immerse yourself in entrepreneurial projects from 8am-12pm then attend to family needs the rest of the day. How would your work-life flow show?

Knowing that work-life flow is one piece of a complex puzzle, here are some other tools that can help you address burnout as an entrepreneur. Want the worksheets to make these tasks easier? Grab your free download of our 22 skills for busy professionals at Perfectioneur.com

1.     Craft your ideal schedule

Have you ever sat down to explore your ideal schedule? What would it be if you weren’t subjecting yourself to the hustle or grind culture of being your own boss? Would you have Fridays off? Be done for dinner each night? Take two weeks off at the holidays to visit family? By crafting your ideal schedule and seeing it on paper, it becomes more real. How does it compare to your current schedule? What’s one step you can take to be closer to your ideal schedule?

2.     Identify tasks to delegate or remove

This is a difficult ask for lots of entrepreneurs who self-identify as control freaks or disclose that their business is their baby. And yet freeing up our creative time by delegating tasks we don’t enjoy can make bigger change happen that much more quickly! Want to identify which tasks to delegate first? Grabbing our worksheet to walk through ranking daily and monthly tasks for enjoyment can be a great place to start!

3.     Revisit your Top Ten Priorities

That’s right, as a former workaholic, I’m a fan of having ten goals or priorities at a time! As you explore your current status within entrepreneurial burnout, where are you in your progress with your goals? Are you feeling far from achieving them, which could speak to the burnout itself? Are your goals forgotten or on the backburner, which is contributing to your feelings of being adrift or unfocused? Do you need to revise your top ten priorities to include health and wellness to recover from current burnout symptoms?

By no means are these the only strategies to fight entrepreneurial burnout. After all, burnout is complex for many in the workplace, whether they work for others or for themselves. I also want to honor the possibility that some entrepreneurs will read this and decide to work for someone else to regain the structure they crave and to experience a more clear separation of work and home. I see you. Of course that is an option. Regardless of what you decide to do in your own career journey, my hope is that we can continue to talk about the many strategies of burnout prevention and recovery so that we don’t lose people or their passions to a cultural norm of workaholism and exhaustion.

Mommy Wants Mayonnaise: Homeowner Edition

Check out the full series of Mommy Wants Mayonnaise: Navigating Tricky Communication and Mental Health in Motherhood here.

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Hi readers!

It’s hard to believe that in addition to becoming parents, we became first-time homeowners too! We quickly learned that it’s not uncommon for couples to learn that they are expecting and want to have a home or more space for their newborn. In our case, we were looking to buy a home before we learned we were pregnant, which only sped up the process! It’s been quite a journey and we feel very fortunate to have a home to grow into for years to come. In celebration of our first full year as homeowners, I wanted to share some favorites that have made our new house feel more like a home (and are great housewarming gifts ideas too)!

#1 Bathroom Organizer

#2 Air Purifier

#3 Cushy Door Closer

#4 Room Darkening Curtain Rod

#5 Wyze Rechargable Night Lights

#6 Wall-Mounted Drying Rack

#7 Bare Sheets

1. Bathroom Organizer- I can’t tell you how many people have complimented me on this simple, affordable, unobtrusive organizer for a half bathroom. Especially useful when you have a pedestal sink with no storage! Easy to assemble, it fits nicely into small spaces to store cleaners, toilet paper and other items you want handy yet out of sight.

2. Air purifier- A gift from loving family members who wanted us to have the cleanest air possible for our newborn, this air purifier gently moves and cleans the air and serves as an easy white-noise-machine while baby continues to sleep in our room.

3. Cushy Door Closer- I didn’t know these awesome things existed until we received one as a gift. Created to prevent slamming doors with sleeping babies in mind, it’s other purpose in our home is to allow us to kick open the garage door with our foot when our hands are full of baby or groceries coming from the car!

4. Room Darkening Curtain Rod- A game changer for folks who don’t sleep well with any kind of light coming through, these simple, modern curtain rods do the trick of preventing extra light from sneaking through the sides of your curtains, which makes daytime naps all the more easy for you and baby.

5. Wyze Rechargeable Night Lights- slim and sleek, these blend in with the baseboards while lighting your way in hallways or areas where you wouldn’t want full light that could wake others up. Essential for a new home where you are still learning the lay of the land in a half-awake state!

6. Wall-Mounted Laundry Drying Rack- Every household in my family has one! It helps us stay organized and is easy to use right in the laundry room without taking up a ton of space. This was one of my first purchases in our new house! It serves as an upgrade from laundry drying racks that are big and bulky.

7. Bare Sheets- Affordable and luxurious! My favorite part? They wash and dry so well that they don’t easily wrinkle coming out of the dryer– a must for a busy parent who finds themselves letting these sheets sit in the dryer a little longer to attend to baby’s needs first.

Mommy Wants Mayonnaise: Vulnerability was My Word for 2022

Check out the full series of Mommy Wants Mayonnaise: Navigating Tricky Communication and Mental Health in Motherhood here.

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Hi Readers!

My word for 2022 was vulnerability. It’s a word I’d chosen thoughtfully, knowing it has been pivotal to my professional growth as a public speaker and trainer since 2019 and could be embraced even more so in my current goals. I also anticipated that it would come into play as a new mother in 2022, but could not even begin to imagine how much it would be a part of my life for my daughter’s first 10 months of life! I expected vulnerability to show up in a shifting identity (it did). I predicted that vulnerability would be a part of my experience when asking for help (it was). I was surprised at the vulnerability of naming to my spouse and family members how I wanted to change up my work ethic to be with her as much as possible (it has). 

Yet where vulnerability really showed up in full force was when my daughter got her first cold right before Thanksgiving. Parents share how hard it is to see their young child not feeling well. The lethargy, the fussiness, the clinginess, and the disruption to sleep. I honestly felt like I could handle those things when it was just a head cold, but then she got RSV the week immediately after, with no real respite in between. To make matters worse, I got sick right alongside her. After all, what parent is going to withhold affection or closeness when their baby is sick? I couldn’t bear the thought of staying away from her knowing that proximity and cuddles were helping her, in addition to regularly breastfeeding for food and comfort. So I wasn’t truly surprised to get symptoms alongside her, it was really just the matter of a perfect storm. 

I felt exposed and uncertain, truly vulnerable in response to two weeks of not feeling at 100% functional. Adding to the vulnerability, in addition to both my daughter and I getting sick, my sister, mom, and niece all got symptoms of RSV too. What an impact that had on our lives! I have been lucky to have parents who enjoy watching their granddaughters so my sister and I can work our own businesses. So in a matter of one day confirmed by the pediatrician, we were all pivoting to be more isolated from one another, resulting in a loss of childcare, social support, and reassurance in the face of vulnerability as a first-time parent of a sick baby. 

To make matters worse, my spouse was scheduled to be out of town traveling for four days, which arrived just as the RSV symptoms were making themselves known in my daughter’s body and my own. I had plenty of pity parties in my spouse’s absence as I attempted to give myself permission to rest and care for our baby, canceling a day of work and restricting us to our house for a long, four day weekend. On the bright side, I hadn’t actually confirmed any social plans that weekend so it was really easy to stay home. And yet the isolation made the vulnerability that much stronger. Was I doing this right? Was I doing enough? What if we didn’t get better by the next work week? What do I do about childcare if my parents aren’t on the mend? What will I tell my clients? Under some understandable stress, I had to embrace the vulnerability of not having all the answers–or solutions–figured out yet. It forced me to live in the moment and focus on rest and fluids for baby girl and myself as the top priority, with the next week remaining a giant question mark.

In the meantime, I recognize my experience as a first-time parent isn’t unique. There are plenty of parents who are stressed, overwhelmed, or devastated when their babies get sick. Here were a couple things that helped us battle RSV amidst so many other families this time of year.

#1 Top Loading Humidifier

#2 Lolleez Organic Sore Throat Soothing Pops

Zarbee’s Baby Soothing Chest Rub

#4 Hooded Towel

My spouse returned from his trip and I sat down to write this blog, knowing that the writing itself would be another way to process all that had happened. But we weren’t done yet. Not much later, my spouse indicated something was going on and he was worried he was contagious. Enter Week 3 of illness and vulnerability. My spouse had to keep his distance from myself and the baby as he got out of the window of contagion, and yet this time, I didn’t feel as alone. He was home, he tried to help where he could, and I knew that our daughter and I were almost through our symptoms, which made it that much more manageable. I am grateful to say we are all around 99% back to ourselves now and see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Curious what my word is for 2023? STREAMLINE. For lots of reasons! Until then, vulnerability has decided to show me it’s next level and I’m hopeful we are all stronger for it.

1. Humidifier–This top loading humidifier is a nightly blessing in our household where humidity is low and dry noses are frequent. With the congestion, coughing, and goopy nose and eyes of RSV, the humidifier became even more important every night!

2. Lolleez Organic Sore Throat Soothing Pops-my sister dropped these off in wanting to make sure my milk supply wasn’t negatively impacted by menthol in some cough drops. These taste like jam and still do the trick to soothe sore throats and reduce coughing!

3. Zarbee’s Soothing Chest Rub- nostalgic to those of us raised on Vicks Vapor Rub, here’s a safe and soothing baby version for congestion!

4. Hooded Towels- A favorite of mine to give at baby showers, the hooded towel helps when you are challenged to juggle a wet baby (by yourself) when navigating in and out of the tub or shower!