Episode 59: Finding Your Purpose & Identity as a Parent with Ashley Lyon
/For this week's episode in The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to talk about transitioning to parenthood and how in shifting to becoming a parent, our identity changes quite a lot. To help me with this important conversation, I brought in a friend and colleague, Ashley Lyon.
She is a DONA-certified postpartum doula, a yoga teacher, and the founder of Bloom Mama. Becoming a mom changed her life and it began her self-discovery journey. She realized that there is a major lack of resources and places of community for new moms so she used everything that she has learned to create the Bloom Mama Platform where she can help other moms who desire personal development just as much as they desire to grow as a mom.
Here is an overview of what we talked about:
Expectations on what the transition to motherhood looks like
Some challenges with new moms making themselves a priority
Shame and guilt that comes with being a new mom
Finding our identity as a mom and as a parent
Follow her on Instagram @ashleylyon___ and don't forget to visit her website www.bloommamadoula.com for more resources.
She also has a group program coming out on the first of June! If you want to have an energetic reset as a Mom:
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts, and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello everybody, welcome to this next episode of the Balance Parent Podcast. I'm so happy to have you here with me today and we're going to be talking about a topic that is really important to me and I think it's one that most parents have experienced. We're going to be talking about the transition to parenthood and how in moving and shifting into becoming a parent, our identity shifts quite a lot. And so to help me with this conversation.
I'm having a friend and colleague on who is going to help us understand how we can transition into parenthood become firmly rooted in our new identity and clarify our purpose and our passions so that we can live kind of full fulfilling lives all in the midst of doing this parenting thing. So please welcome to the show, Ashley Lyon, she's a coach for new moms who are struggling to figure out who they are in the midst of this new parenting journey that they're on. Hi Ashley, thanks for coming.
Ashley: Yeah, Thank you for having me.
Laura: Well? For sure. Yes, please tell us just a little bit more about who you are and what you do and then we'll jump right in.
Ashley: Yeah, so again, my name's Ashley Lion and I coach new moms so they can kind of find clarity around their purpose after they have a child. So a little about me, I had my son three years ago and I struggled a lot, I had postpartum depression and anxiety and I really felt like I was just going in motions and not really feeling inspiration or I was just kind of doing what I should be doing and just doing the steps of motherhood and about a year and a half into my motherhood journey.
I was kind of driving one day and I kind of just snapped in my head, it was just like, oh my gosh, I cannot keep living like this, I can't just feel dull inside, I can't have no passion and I can't feel like I didn't feel like I had a personal identity, I felt like I was a mom and that's all I was doing. So that kind of transitioned me into talking to other moms and I realized that has happened to many moms, so they have really struggled with, you know, mental health, even if it wasn't as extreme as postpartum depression or anxiety, it was something like the hormone changes made them not feel like themselves.
So I kind of just started this journey of rediscovering myself, I went and got Ricky done, which I would recommend for moms. And I found out that all of my chakras were very slow or completely closed off and that just kind of sparked something in me that I just, that's how I felt. I felt like I had no energy physically or spiritually.
Laura: I totally resonate with what you're saying, that you know, that kind of going through the motions, doing all the things but not being fully present. And I don't know about for you, our listeners. But for me, motherhood was something I was really looking forward to from the time I was a child myself, I wanted to be a mom and then to move into parent, I didn't have it be really different than what I thought it was going to be.
You know, really just a lot more grind and a lot less joy then I really thought it was going to be. And so I think lots of us have experience exactly what we're talking about here. And so it sounds to me like you started figuring it out, figuring out what do I need to do to feel better in this?
Ashley: Yeah. So I kind of, just at that point I felt so lost that I was just like, okay, you know, I'm just going to start making baby steps, I'm just going to trust the signs that are coming to me, trust my intuition and just start moving forward, start doing something. So I actually went on a retreat, a little weekend retreat and there was a coach there and she had us do some journaling exercises and I just randomly wrote down like look up postpartum doula. So I did and I felt that was a sign and I got my doula certification.
I learned so much about the physical aspects of becoming an emotional aspects of becoming a mom and it just all made sense that this is the path I need to start taking to helping moms really stop feeling so alone when they have those thoughts of like, oh my gosh, I thought I was just supposed to be in love, I thought this was going to be natural and it's just not a lot of times. So I just really started taking baby steps and following any signs that I needed to do.
Laura: That's awesome. I feel like most people don't know this about me, but I was a postpartum doula for a couple of years.
Ashley: I don't think I even knew that.
Laura: it's not a part of my, I didn't do it for very long, it was something that I did right after I left academia and I got certified and did you know worked with a couple of families and I realized as I was working with the family is what I was really doing was parent coaching, like that's what I was doing and so that I just stopped doing the postpartum apart and just kept doing the coaching part.
Ashley: that's kind of where I am too, I am so grateful for you know, getting my certification, I learned so much but it kind of just made me realize that a lot of times women lose their identity along the way. So I want to help with that.
Laura: Can we talk a little bit about what we mean by that? Because I know that when I became a mom, the word that's captures how I felt was untethered, like I just felt like I was not no longer connected or grounded in anything that who I was before was gone and I wasn't really sure who I am now. I knew like I'm this mom person and like and solely responsible in this huge, amazing way for a human. But what does that really mean? And you talk about identity and all transitions, all life transitions carry with them? An identity shift.
Ashley: Yeah.
Laura: But the transition to motherhood, there's very little support from making navigating that identity shape.
Ashley: I totally agree. So your DNA changes after you have a baby, it physically changes your hormones change. You have all these physical things happening in your body and you also have the pressure of a human is just relying on you 24/7.
Laura: I just want to toss in here too. And so these identities and transitions that we're talking about are not just for families who have birth to, a child, who have been through the physical change of giving birth too. There's lots of different ways a child can come into a family and anyway, a child comes into a family can mark a huge transition in a parent's life.
Laura: Yeah. And even when talking about the hormones, there are studies that, you know, that look at women who had a surrogate women who didn't give birth, or even men who are adopting Children and they actually have hormone changes to and their oxytocin, you know, like that the same thing that happens to a mom when she gives birth, that happens to other parents to even if they didn't physically give birth.
So it definitely is like everyone, yeah, through these identity changes when they have a child, we're bring a child into their home. But a major thing I think with identity is that a lot of people don't talk about is the grief that comes with bringing Children into their house. There is a whole process of grieving your old life, not knowing what your new life is, but just being sad about not being able to go to brunch with you know your girlfriends at a whim.
Laura: there is a never being alone again. That was like this is the thing that I had to grieve so much as a new mom that I will never be alone again.
Ashley: Yeah, you literally have to knock, lock the doors and even when you do that, you probably have kids knocking and banging.
Laura: or even there at school or at a friend's house. They're still in my mind and in my heart, you know.
Ashley: Yeah. So there's a hole through this identity shift. There's a whole grieving process. But you also have value shifts. Your values aren't the same. I think this is the first thing you need to look at when you are feeling that kind of doll feeling of not knowing, not being who you used to be and not knowing who you are now is kind of taking a deep dive and learning about your values again. So this means do I value my confidence? All those little values that you might not even know that you need you kind of need to take a second and do a deep dive and figure it out.
Laura: So not to put you on the spot here right now. But are there any for listeners if listener wanted to do a little bit of journaling on this topic, are there some questions that you might ask yourself or think on?
Ashley: Yeah, I think a major thing to think about is writing a few things, writing down what before baby let you up. So what really inspired you and let you up before baby. And then what inspires you now and then kind of looking at that and then also what you're good at. So what inspires you? What used to inspire you and what you're good at and kind of meshing those together to figure out what you need to do and kind of brainstorming ideas of looking at this list of things that I love and that inspire me and what I can do now that incorporate those, you can kind of form this new identity that comes from your old self, your new self and just inspiration in life.
Laura: Great, thank you for that. What other think parts of kind of as you move forward and construct this new identity? What are some of the challenges that mom's face?
Ashley: Yeah, So I work with the chakra system my lot in my program. And so there when you have a baby, I find that there's a ton of blocks, so there's a ton of energetic blocks in your system. So for example, the throat chakra moms so often look on the internet or look to somebody else for answers. Especially now. So which is totally useless thing and a bad thing. That's you listeners. You're here. Yeah. But I mean comparison, I guess.
Laura: No, I don't really, I totally I'm just joking. I hope my listeners another I'm just messing around a little bit. Yeah, but there is there's this intense fear in new motherhood and honestly, that's my kids age. It doesn't go away. This sense of am I doing it right? How do I figure out if I'm doing it right? Let me look at all of these options. Look at all of these other examples of how other people are doing it and judge whether I'm doing it right myself. It's a constant yeah, in self reflection to be apparent in this modern age. But go ahead. Sorry.
Ashley: Yeah. Yeah. So I think that also puts a block in your throat chakra because you aren't using your own voice, your own intuition. Obviously medically like look for experts, but I always love to help moms practice following their own intuition about things getting quiet and kind of seeing what it feels like to do one thing or another and then follow your gut. So yeah, I kind of forget what question.
Laura: Let's talk a little bit about intuition. Let's follow our intuition here. But this is something I've been talking about with some friends and in some of my community is quite a lot lately. The this idea that what does it mean to follow your intuition and how especially as women, you know, you and I are both identify as women, but especially as women, we have been conditioned to not listen to our intuition our whole lives growing up and now suddenly we're moms and we're supposed to magically know how to tune in and listen.
So like that's a given. I think that that's just patriarchy, patriarchy does not want women listening to themselves because we're incredibly wise and powerful when we do your scary, you know, and so we've spent our lives learning to tune out our internal messages in queues and prioritize those of others. And so now as a mom, you're inviting us to get quiet to slow down and turn within. How how do we do that?
How do we start to trust ourselves again when we've always hard growing up, you know, you really want that kiss from grandma, you know, you need to eat more broccoli, you're not full, you know, we just this constant barrage of don't listen to yourself and now we need to listen to ourselves. How do we learn to do?
Ashley: Well, It isn't overnight and it does take practice, but it has, I think personally and my journey and from some clients I've helped, it takes journaling, it takes actually stopping in, tuning in within and learning your values, learning actually what you want and not, you know, hearing something from your mother in law and just going with it.
So I guess it also takes a lot of courage. A lot of times women do have intuition they just might not listen to it, you know, So I think it takes a lot of courage to do that to actually and boundaries a lot of is coming up right now, so I'm just like, no go there. Yeah, courage definitely because you have to stand up for yourself and what you believe, especially with your, your new life in your Children and like I said.
Setting boundaries, so not allowing other people to make your decisions and when somebody tells you to do something to taking a second and being like what I do this on my own or am I just doing it because I should do it? You know? So really, I guess how you would learn is you just have to notice you have to realize this is not making me feel good, this is not what I want to do and then just trust that.
Laura: Yeah, there's almost like a little tingly sense, you know that sometimes when I talk to parents, I'm like you've got a little bit of a spidey sense and you just need to start tuning into it. Just listen to it just a little bit just on even small things, the more you do, you'll be more and more open to its wisdom and to what it's saying to you and yeah, I mean so when you're saying this, it is courageous but in order to be able to do this well, what I'm hearing you say is that you have to be really, really clear on your values, on your priorities, on what you want, your motherhood to look like.
What you you know, the priorities and goals and values you have for your family and for your Children as they age and having that clarity. You allow you to be firmly rooted and grounded and make decisions that are conscious as opposed to decisions that are kind of swayed by outside.
Ashley: Exactly. And really also make decisions for yourself and your own individual life. Because I think that is a lot of times that moms do feel or why moms do feel disconnected is because they are only focusing on their parenting in their relationship life. So making sure you have clear values and wants and needs personally to is so important to help moms feel like themselves again.
Laura: Oh my gosh! Yes, Ashley, Yes, this is at the very core of even just why I named the podcast, what I named it because we so often we focus on parenting, we focus on relationships. But what about the person who is the constant in all of those places to be well balanced. We have to have a good focus on ourselves too.
Ashley: And also not even to mention, I just think it's so crazy how a person is expected to have a baby go on maternity leave, your whole life changes and then go back to work and be the same person and enjoy the same things.
Laura: Like nothing happened. I know, nothing happens.
Ashley: So like that, I think also brings up, I think having a child brings up this huge transitional phase, that it's a huge opportunity to really figure out what you want to do in life. And a lot of people are scared to do to make shifts because they have a new baby, financially, all of the, you know, going down into your root chakra, all of the really grounding things that you need to do and have when you have a newborn. But they also parents figure out that, oh my gosh, this isn't really what likes me up anymore. It's not aligned with my core values anymore. So, what do I do now, You know?
Laura: Oh, my gosh, Yes, Yeah. And it's funny, you know, we're kind of talking about new moms, but I went through a very similar transitional period as I became a mom of two as well. So, you know, this transition and I think it's important to recognize too that oftentimes new parenthood is sandwiched between other transitions.
So often times people are becoming new parents pretty soon after they become a couple become a married, a wife or husband or they've made job changes. So my second child came into our family right after my husband and I had graduated from grad school, gotten really intense stressful jobs in academia and I had a car accident kind of all within one calendar year. It's a lot of transitions. And as I came out on the other side, like I did not care about hardly anything that I cared about before other than my family.
Ashley: Yeah
Laura: And loving talking about parenting and child development. Those were the two constants and that's what led me to quit my job as a professor. I just couldn't get excited about my work anymore. And I was like, this is not, I can't do this. And so luckily I was in a position.
Ashley: Yeah, exactly. But that's, I think coaches are so important because they help you realize that well usually you kind of know if you're going to hire a coach, you kind of know there's like a something missing, there's work to do, I have to do and then you hire a coach and then you figure out, you know, the steps you need to take in order to live the life that you want to live because doing it alone. It's almost, and having a young child is almost, you know, it's just like you're just paused.
Laura: It's not natural. Like that's not what it supposed to happen for new families. New families are not supposed to be alone. You know, I think about my dear cousin who's like a sister to me transitioned into parenthood during this pandemic and she has not been able to be mothered in the way that I wanted to mother her.
You know, like at all, we're not supposed to do this alone. And you know, normally holistically and evolutionarily speaking, we would become mothers within a family context where we're all in tight knit groups of sisters and cousins and aunts and grandma is all together and the transition I think would have been quite a bit smoother for most of us had we had that.
Ashley: 100% yeah,
Laura: it's our birthright to have those things. And so just it's the fact is that now we live in a world where we have to be pay for it and that village sense and that's part of what coaching can be sometimes as part of calling in your village.
Ashley: Exactly, I love that.
Laura: Okay, so actually I feel like this was a really fun conversation. Is there just any last little nuggets that you for new moms or dads, parents who are listening to this and I really still struggling and feeling like they can't catch their breath and they don't know who they are and they don't just feels so there's no end in sight. Do you have anything for them?
Ashley: Yes. So take any step? One little step towards yourself, whether that is doing the journaling exercises that we said, which is figuring out what you want before figuring out what like you up now and then figuring out things to incorporate that into your life, start making tiny steps and then also if there are no signs or if any type of like inspiration around you, take it and go with it, this doesn't have to be a huge, like I quit my 9 to 5 job in a week, you know, it could be like getting your yoga certification or you know like taking a class that really makes you excited, just start really incorporating the things that light you up and help you feel inspired and happy. So yeah, I think that is just something that people are just in the thick of it, can do, just start incorporating things daily that really make you enjoy life more.
Laura: Yeah. Yeah, wonderful. And I just want, I just had that your life is not a waiting room, you know, this is this is it, this is it right now, there's no reason why you can't find moments of joy and pleasure and enjoyment in the midst of a very hard time. It is hard, you know, new parenthood is hard but there's space An opportunity for pause and stillness and joy and fun all in there too.
Ashley: 100%. yeah. You just have to find that balance. You have to that has to be a that can be one of your values having balance within your life. So definitely important.
Laura: Beautiful, thank you so much Ashley, this was a really great conversation. Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for supporting moms this way, I wish I had had someone in my life and at that point in time I didn't have to kind of create it from scratch, you know, from scratch for myself. So really.
Ashley: Use the tools that are given to you
Laura: As their support there. You're not alone. Beautiful. Thank you Ashley so much.
Ashley: Thank you so much.
Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review. That really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from.
And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out and definitely go follow me on Instagram @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes, look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family and plus, I share a lot of other really great resources there too.
All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this.