Mama’s Mental Health

If you're feeling a little stressed about Lockdown 2.0 this week, you're in the right place. This week my sister-in-law Bethany Vaughn and I are breaking down our top 10 tips for making lockdown easier and more fun. 

Stay safe and well, and above all - sane! 

Feeling stressed? Uncertain about the future? Anxious to know how everything is going to turn out? You're not alone! 

You're also in the right place. The last few years of my life have gradually desensitized me to uncertainty, so I'm sharing a few things I've learned along the way. 

Hang in there, and hop on over to Instagram @mamasmentalhealthshow for more discussion.

Who are you? What makes you tick? What are your unique gifts, and what drives you crazy?

Today, I’m talking with Sandra Etherington, a certifed Family Type Practitioner, owner of familypersonalites.com, and host of the Family Personalities podcast. Sandra and I talk about her mental health journey and how learning about your personality type (and your kids’) can help you strengthen your strengths and understand your own personal potential pitfalls.

Sandra helps families figure out their personality types, so they can tailor their parenting and their relationships to each unique individual in the family. If that sounds helpful and interesting to you, you can find Sandra at familypersonalites.com.

If you’re interested in reading a little bit more about cognitive functions, Personality Hacker has a great explainer here.

Jill Freestone, Certified Life Coach and mindfulness practitioner joins us today to talk about what she has learned even more deeply during this year. We have all experienced a new level of adversity during 2020 navigating our first global pandemic, and Jill is no exception.

Hi there ladies! It has obviously been a while since we last had a chat, but here we are, back again to talk about all things motherhood and mental health! I’m *so happy* to bring you Season 2 of the podcast. The last time we spoke, I interviewed Dr. Michelle Cassarella of Mental Wellness Mamas, and she’s back again today to talk about how all our lives have changed in the last few months and what challenges we might have encountered along the way. As you listen, I think you’ll feel seen and come away with a few ideas that will help you in your everyday life.

We chat about burnout, overwhelm, decision fatigue, anxiety, division of labor at home, making peace with the new normal, and how you are so much stronger than you might think.

At the end of the episode, Michelle mentions a group coaching program starting in her Facebook group. The starting date has been changed to Monday October 19th, so you still have time! Hurry to the link below to join the Facebook group and grab your spot. 

Here’s how you can find Dr. Cassarella:

Website

Facebook Group

Instagram

Featured on Forbes.com

I am chatting today with Michelle Casarella of Mental Wellness Mamas. She is a psychologist in New York, and she helps mamas all over the world prepare not just for the birth or breastfeeding, but for establishing a healthy new life as a mom.

I love what Michelle is doing, and I wish I had found her years ago when I was going through that transition.

Here’s what we cover:

what led Michelle on this journey

why it’s so important to prepare for the postpartum time period with regards to our mental health

what is matrescence, and what does it mean for every mom, not only the ones who suffer from postpartum mental illness?

what expectations we should drop as we become mothers

You can find Michelle at www.mentalwellnessmamas.com and you can access her Postpartum Plan here. Michelle has offered $50 off her program when you mention the podcast. I think this program is a fantastic investment in your well being as a mom and would make a perfect baby shower gift (or group gift!) for a friend or loved one.

This summer has taken me on a wild ride, and my podcasting time has really disappeared. But I'm back today to give you an update, share some thoughts about impostor syndrome, and to tell you about some books I've read and enjoyed recently.

Here are the links to the books:

Boundaries with Kids

Come As You Are

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Joyful

Hope you're having a great summer, and maybe, just maybe, I'll be back next week with a new episode! ;)

Hey, if you have found this show helpful, please consider sharing it! I would love to reach more women with hope and help for mental wellbeing in motherhood.

Today’s episode has to do with baby sleep, which I know can become quite the controversial topic in mom circles. Let it be known that I am not *anti* anything. I am *pro* finding what works for you and your baby. My personal experience, and one that I share with Carly, was that I expected to approach sleep through sleep training. It really didn’t work for me and my babies, and I was left feeling like there was something wrong with me, rather than thinking that the method was wrong for us. If what you are doing is working for you and your baby, that is awesome! And if you feel like you’re floundering, you are not alone! Carly has so many pearls of wisdom to share with us, so listen up, and enjoy our conversation.

Here's where you can find Carly all around the web:

The Beyond Sleep Training Project

The Beyond Sleep Training Project Facebook Page

The Beyond Sleep Training Project Facebook Group (63,000+ members as of July 2019)

The Beyond Sleep Training Project on Instagram

I loved my chat with Kira Malone, of Mama Manifest. She is so wise and thoughtful in the way she approaches life and motherhood and her personal healing path. She is a maternal wellness coach, and she has so much to share in helping other mamas.

During our discussion, we covered a whole lot! In Kira’s words:

The beginnings of my healing journey in motherhood and my big surrender moment that launched the work I do today

What prompted my Instagram post “all mothers are worthy of enjoying motherhood.”

What “postpartum” actually means

How I found the strength to lead myself thru a year long holistic healing from my personal rock bottom to really feeling good and embodied in my role as mother.

How physical depletion sets mamas up for maternal mental health concerns

Why I ditched caffeine and alcohol (temporarily)

How our culture promotes judgement between mothers (hint: we are all just trying hard to figure out what the heck is normal in a culture that doesn’t talk about things)

How I supports mothers in rebuilding their energy after babies and finding embodiment postpartum using functional nutrition, Ayurveda and energy healing

And so much more!

You can find Kira at www.mamamanifest.com or on Instagram at www.instagram.com/mamamanifest and you can get her free printable Lunar Energy Flow at www.mamamanifest.com/lunarenergy. 

This episode is brought to you by Matt Crain - the sole sponsor of this podcast! He pays for it all and takes care of the kids while I'm busy making it, so I thought in honor of Father's Day in the US, it was only fair to let him put in his two cents! 

I ask him some never-before-discussed questions like

"What did you think was going on with me?" and

"Did you think that was the real me, and I had just fooled you up to that point?"

We laugh a lot as we think back to those days, and we get serious as we discuss what to say, what not to say, signs to look out for, and what we wish we could tell our younger selves. 

This is an episode to share with your partners and open up a dialogue about postpartum mood disorders. We hope it will be a resource to help you as you try to fight mental illness as a team, rather than fighting each other. 

Links we refer to: 

For Dads: What to Do, What Not to Do When Your Wife has PPD via Psychology Today

In your heart of hearts, do you sometimes long for the days of doing whatever you pleased, thinking your own thoughts in peace, not calming tantrums and wiping up messes, and leaving the house five minutes after the idea strikes? Us too!

Today, Michelle Mansfield joins me for a girlfriend-style chat about missing your life before baby. She shares so many relatable insights, and helps us to mindfully process the losses we experience at the same time we are adding our greatest joys to the mix. 

But we don't stop there! We talk about: 

You can find more from Michelle at www.instagram.com/happy_family_project or at http://michellemansfieldhealth.com/.

As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences! Join us on instagram at www.instagram.com/mamasmentalhealthshow or at www.mamasmentalhealth.com. 

Today, we are talking about Mindfulness and I’ve invited Jill Freestone to tell us about her experiences with mental illness, chronic physical illness, and mindfulness.

Jill is a Life Coach trained and certified through The Life Coach School. She also has an Elementary Education degree from BYU, music minor, and 24 years as a piano and flute teacher. Jill’s battles with anxiety, depression and chronic health problems led her to massive research, to take many courses and therapy, giving her the tools to heal and thrive.

Because of this, she is passionate about sharing these tools. Mindfulness meditation, anxiety, depression, emotional regulation and family communication about mental wellness are her favorite topics. Her goal is to help moms manage their own mental health so they can help their children manage theirs.

Let me just start by defining mindfulness so you know exactly what we are talking about. mindful.org says that “Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.” It’s something we all have the capacity to do, but that ability can sometimes get lost in the busyness of our lives, and there are specific ways to cultivate this skill and to retrain our brains to be mindful. We can practice mindfulness by practicing meditation while "seated, walking, standing, and moving (it’s also possible lying down but often leads to sleep); short pauses we insert into everyday life; and merging meditation practice with other activities, like yoga or sports" (source).

This focus on the present moment tends to quiet down the parts of our brain that ruminate on regrets about the past or worries about the future, and as we practice mindfulness, there is neuropsychology research that shows that we are actually changing the shape of our brains - adding grey matter to the hippocampus where memory and learning centres are, and shrinking the amygdala, which we’ve discussed is like the fire alarm of the brain always alerting us that something is wrong (source).

I have dabbled in meditation and I’ve been amazed by the research about it’s benefits, but I haven’t ever really kept up a steady practice, and that’s why I invited Jill here today.  When Jill learned about meditation, she was desperate for change, and she dove in, completely immersed herself in it, as you’ll hear in the episode, and she says that Mindfulness Meditation literally saved her life. I think you’ll find Jill to be a super comforting and calming voice to listen to, and I hope you love hearing her story as much as I did! 

Show Notes: 

Jill's Mindfulness Resources

You can find Jill at www.jillfreestone.com or at www.instagram.com/jillfreestonecoaching

Today's episode is a bit different - I'm sharing about a recent experience and issuing a simple challenge. 

What inspires you, and how are you going to incorporate more of it into your life? Find me at instagram.com/mamasmentalhealthshow, at our website www.mamasmentalhealth.com, or email me at hello@mamasmentalhealth.com. 

Do you wear your perfectionism as a badge of honor? Most of us do, but it's not doing us any favors! I'll share some information about perfectionism and how it affects our physical and mental health, then I'll share three things I've learned over the years that helped me become less of a perfectionist. 

Here are some links I referenced in the show:

Overcast - my favorite podcast app

How Perfectionism Affects Your (Mental) Health - Medical News Today

The Pros and Cons of Perfectionism, According to Research - Harvard Business Review

The Alarming New Research on Perfectionism - The Cut, New York Magazine

Perfectionism Is The Enemy Of Everything - Forbes

Perfectionism Among Young People Significantly Increased Since 1980s, Study Finds - American Psychological Association

Full transcript of this episode available at www.mamasmentalhealth.com

This is my Masterclass on Anxiety. I share what it is, how it happens in your brain, when to call your doctor, and three strategies for dealing with anxious thoughts. 

Here are a few resources I mention in the episode: 

My info about our brains came from the book The 10 Best-Ever Anxiety Management Techniques: Understanding How Your Brain Makes You Anxious and What You Can Do to Change It by Margaret Wehrenberg.

A good list of books about anxiety from Develop Good Habits.

The clinical definition of panic attacks from Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Myth vs. Reality: What does a panic attack feel like?

Are you super knowledgeable about your diagnosis or another mental health adjacent subject? I'd love to feature your Masterclass! Get in touch with me here: hello@mamasmentalhealth.com

Don't forget to share the show on social media or leave us a review for a chance to win the book Good Moms have Scary Thoughts by Karen Kleiman! (not sponsored)

Do you ever feel like you need someone to tell you what to do when you have a hard day? Guess what? You can be that person by creating a checklist of things to do when you're not feeling your best. 

Today, I'm talking about how this idea came to me and how I have found it helpful, and then I break it down and tell you my personal checklists for when I have a down day or an anxiety day. 

Here are some links that I reference in the show: 

Playlists on Spotify

Christian Songs for Mom

feel your feelings

upbeat encouraging

Kalms Tablets 

L-Theanine

Yoga with Adriene

A great beginners practice

A soothing practice specifically for anxiety

What does your personal checklist look like? Leave a comment at www.mamasmentalhealth.com, send me an email at hello@mamasmentalhealth.com, or find me on Instagram @mamasmentalhealthshow.

My inner child is screaming, “Ta-da! I made a thing!” I can’t believe I’ve made it through all the little technical hoops, and I actually have a podcast! Woo hoo!

Now down to business…..

In this episode you’ll hear a little about me and my motherhood journey over the years, encountering depression and anxiety along the way, the podcast episode that clued me in that maybe I hadn’t gotten better like I thought I had, and how I’m doing these days.

Then I’ll explain all about why I’m choosing to eliminate multitasking from my life (as much as a mom of four can), and it’s making me happier!

Here are the links I referenced in the show:

Exploring Hope and Healing for Postpartum Depression - Sorta Awesome

Wandering mind not a happy mind - The Harvard Gazette

When Multitasking Makes You Happy and When It Doesn’t - Harvard Business Review

Track Your Happiness - app for iOS

Listen in for chats about motherhood and mental health, where we tackle serious subjects but don't take ourselves too seriously.