Episode 61: Live Coaching: Transitioning to Motherhood (Motherhood Series No. 4)
/We are down to the last installment of the Motherhood Series. I hope you have felt seen and held during this month. If you have some takeaways, please do share it with me by replying to this email. I would love to hear from you!
To end this series we have a live coaching call with one of my Balancing U Community members. She is a first-time mom to a baby born in August last year, and she will share with us her vulnerable journey to motherhood during a pandemic. I hope you will hold a kind and compassionate, loving space as you listen to her story. The transition to motherhood is a very tender time, and even if you made that transition years ago, I am confident that there will be peace & companionship in this episode for you. And if things resonate with you in this podcast, I hope you know that you're not alone, and that you'll reach out and let me know.
TRIGGER WARNING: My guest for this episode shared that at some point in her life, she wanted to inflict self-harm. I just wanted to give you a heads up if in case that's uncomfortable for you.
If you are not in my Balancing U Community yet, I would like to invite you to join us. I created my membership, BalancingU, because I wanted parents to have a one-stop shop for getting their parenting, relationship, & inner work questions answered. It's a space where you can get wrap-around, compassionate support and guidance as you do the important work of conscious parenting. Here are some links where you can check out what is in the membership. (It's a robust resource, but also never overwhelming!)
www.laurafroyen.com/membership
Please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions. I'm looking forward to supporting you even more.
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! This is Dr. Laura Froyen, in with the balance parent podcast, and on this episode we're doing one on one coaching sessions with a member of my balancing you community, my membership and we're gonna be talking pretty vulnerably about the transition to parenthood.
So you're getting to listen in on a parent's vulnerable journey and I hope that you will hold kind and compassionate, loving space and if things resonate in this podcast, I hope you know that you're not alone. So here we go. Hi Devon, how is it going? How are you doing? Why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey, your family, and how I can support you today?
Devon: Well thank you for having me and might I just say I didn't know that someone could do I contact through a zoom call, You're amazing. She's really looking at me. So I am a new mom. First-time mom to a baby born in August of this year. Well, last year, I guess now because we finally left. What was funny, we left her behind.
It doesn't feel any different to me up, but so my son, Quinn was born in august, kind of dead center to the pandemic unfolding. I have a wonderful supportive husband. We generally have a pretty good community around us. We live in the town that he grew up in. I came here in high school, left after high school and ended up coming back. But so we transitioned into parenthood together in august. It's interesting because I think in and of itself it sort of brought up a lot of stuff for my own lived experiences growing up in that nothing was like so bad that I think anyone would have flagged it.
But it was bad enough that it or hard enough challenging enough for me that I caused me a lot of harm. And so even just identifying that harm and honoring that harm was hard because I was like, but it wasn't like, it wasn't bad. I didn't have to be hospitalized. My kid didn't end up in the nick. You like, what am I complaining about her? Why is it so hard for me? And also because really the only person I spent time with for the first month my son was here was my husband and he is just a rock.
So he transitioned and like you know, he was ready to hang out and watch the Yankees and you know eat a sandwich and I was like eat a sandwich. What's time to eat a sandwich? There's a baby here. Like, I can't even brush my teeth. What do you mean eat a sandwich? So, yeah, I spent the first couple of months really spinning, luckily for me, I am fairly well in the loop about mental health. And so I knew within two weeks of postpartum that I was probably dealing with a Ramada post-perry part of mood disorder and sought help immediately.
Laura: I'm so glad.
Devon: Yeah, it's amazing how hard and how bad it is. Even if you get help immediately. Like, that's the narrative I heard was like, oh, seek help. Like, that's the answer. If you realize you're having a problem, seek help, it will get better. No, it's not. Yeah, it's not. No, it's not like I need a root canal and once you take care of my tooth, I'll have no pain anymore. Like it's time. So I'm just really glad that I figured it out fast. I did. I went into my pregnancy with all the right support. I stayed on my medication because I have general anxiety.
I added a therapist who specializes in peripartum stuff. She was going through her own stuff because of the pandemic, she totally dropped the ball with me and right before I went into labor, like cause me a lot of harm and that was that. So, you know, I think it was just sort of like the perfect coming together of events that caused me to get dropped in a lot of ways and so now I'm seven months postpartum, a couple of little like very reasonable new mom challenges. Like we were kind of chatting about earlier latch issues.
You know, my milk supply wasn't great because I ended up needing to sleep at night more than I needed to breastfeed and so you know my supply has sort of stayed steady and low but enough to work with supplementing my son has reflux that has always caused problems. But he's just such a sweet little thing that the works he does is like just wine all day when he's having a really hard, he doesn't even really cry that much, he's just lovely.
But that did not make mattresses mattress since I never really know how you pronounce the word, the process of becoming a mom. it doesn't matter, I don't know, I used to think because resources supports all of that is the narrative of how to stave off a lot of the hardship and some people just flow into it somehow or just really good at masking and so you just really don't see how challenging their experiences.
But I just found even if you like, I just kept telling myself but I did everything right, like I did everything right, I did what I was supposed to do, why did this happen anyway and figured out really quickly. It doesn't matter like stuff just happens sometimes stuff just happens. So here we are. I'm seven months out, I am luckily getting support, have really great treatment team. The medication is helping time has helped, A lot of skills have helped mindfulness, has helped finding your podcast. It was a big game-changer because it felt like finding some community amidst a sea of isolation but it's a lot to unpack and I'm still sort of unpacking.
I had a traumatic delivery, the postpartum healing postpartum in a pandemic. Like the normalcy doesn't like there is no normal. I mean the new normal of motherhood is one level, but then there's the like okay but I still have been taking my kid to the grocery store like he's never been in a store before.
Laura: No new motherhood is such an isolating lonely time in our culture anyway. And it's not supposed to be right. So I really think your experience is not a typical because human babies and human mothers are meant to give birth in community with each other. There are biological systems are designed in this way.
This is one of the reasons why are cycles sync up as women is so that we're giving birth near the same time so we can share care of our baby as we can get the support that we need. And we're supposed to give birth in communities where there are other mothers who are ahead of us, you know where we have aunties and grandmothers who can help us figure out who we are as moms.
How we do this thing and so to give birth in a pandemic where you are isolated and I know lots of people have gone through that transition now and it's different and it's lonely and I guess I just wanted to take a second to normalize that for you and let you know that you're not alone in, I don't know. And having had that very lonely and isolated experience right now, how have you gone about figuring out how to find community? Like how are you doing in that sense? The isolated sense right now.
Devon: I ended up having to really pull back quite a bit in that department. So like at first there's some app like someone really tried, someone tried to do everyone a solid and say, here's an app. It will help you find mom friends, here you go. And so really early on, I was like, all right, I'm gonna get this happen. So download it and it was basically, you know, like a dating app, but for mom, but for me, yeah, totally.
But I realized almost immediately that they're all, I was getting flooded by mom's pathologizing their babies just flooded with my kid is crying about this thing. My kid has a new growth in this part of their head, has anyone noticed the hair is not growing in in the right way I kids cry sounds a little pitchy my, like it was just a sea of, I mean ranging from things that I would have flagged to two things that I never even would have thought to flag and I was like, oh my gosh.
Laura: That's not good for someone with anxiety.
Devon: No, or someone who's feeling completely isolated to go from nothing to everything all at once. Um and you know, it was all new moms that we're connecting because we're all sort of like, you search out the age range and sort of time of birth that you had. So we're all sort of like, what are we doing? What are we doing? I don't know what I'm doing. Do you know what you're doing?
No, you don't, Okay. So I was like, okay, no, that's not it. So then I started reaching out to moms who have walked this path before. Family members, friends. And really quickly I realized two things. One I felt and I still love all of these people tremendously and there's no part of me that doesn't question that they did the best they could. Like everyone just did the best that they could and everyone's best is completely depleted right now.
So one thing I realized is that because of the pandemic, because of the challenges that each individual has been experiencing, there just really isn't band with for another person suffering like another person struggle and I wasn't prepared to go through the hardest window of my life in the middle of like, I I didn't, I just wasn't thinking my pregnancy was tough, I figured it was going to be cake once I had the kid, I love, like, I love children and I was like, this would be great. I wasn't ready for that.
And so one like, there just wasn't any extra room, There was only like, I'm trying to survive myself so I can't offer you anything. I'm in survival mode or two. I got a lot of, it's funny, it's something I've experienced in my career, but I hadn't really experienced it as an individual human yet and I guess motherhood was the space to do this. It was a lot of like, yeah, I get it. Like I also experienced something hard or scary or whatever, but like you just have to suck it up. You just have to like it's just part of the deal. Like you just have to be really anxious or you have to be really scared.
Laura: Welcome to motherhood.
Devon: Yeah, like this is just what it is.
Laura: Yeah.
Devon: I was like, this is weird, so everyone's just okay with us. Like we're all just onboard with feeling this scared in this awful and this confused all the time. Like.
Laura: That's not okay. No, we're not on board with that here. No, we're not.
Devon: Yeah, so, and I've always sort of been that way I've always sort of blocked in the face of injustice and that felt unjust to me that we're being asked to bear the emotional, mental, physical labor of bringing new humans into the world and keeping humanity afloat. Like there should be some ease involved, not all ease, like lots of challenge but also some needs some joy.
So it should just be as complicated as being human is in general and it wasn't getting that to the extreme of people being like straight-up completely not responding, like asking me like going out there and asked me how are you doing? And then me being like oh so I went to my six-week appointment and when I walked into the midwife's office, I hadn't interacted with them in person since my birth and since it was traumatic.I wasn't expecting this, but I walked in and I went to the back to go pee in the cup and I just started crying in the bathroom and I was like oh I think that this really hurt me.
I think this whole process really hurt me and they tried really hard to help me and they have good intentions but I think I still got hurt and I don't think that they can hear that right now because they're really struggling in this pandemic. And so I walked out and I got like I finished my appointment and I held it together, I just kept crying, but because they couldn't tell my mask was on and I got in my car and I started to drive to run an errand before going home, I was just like wow, it would be like super nice to just drive my car off the road right now, it would be super nice to just crash my car.
And I was like, I don't think that I want to die, but I do think that I don't want to have to be in this state anymore. And I think if I could just get a break for like a couple of weeks, like if I hurt myself enough to be hospitalized for a couple of weeks and could just sleep, could just breathe, maybe it would get better.
Laura: Devon. I think that the hospitalized fantasy is a fantasy that mothers have, that hardly ever gets talked about, but I think many, many mothers, my own mother told me that there were times that she fantasized during my childhood about getting just sick enough to land in the hospital for a few days.
Devon: Which like that just to me now and it points to how much support are we lacking that the fantasy isn't like going on a blissful vacation with our loved ones or like eating a really amazing meal prepared by someone's really interesting and talented at cooking it. Can I just get myself injured or sick enough to go to a hospital? Like I don't like the hospital, the hospital is not a fun place to be, but I was just craving to be taken care of rather than to have to just keep ripping off layers and myself to care for because I was so functional before having a baby.
I was so confident, I'm so good at my job, I'm such a hard worker, I'm such a good adult and then like I had a baby and I felt, I truly, like, I kept trying to explain to people, I was like, I don't think this is normal, what are you feeling? It feels like I'm dying all the time. Like it feels like my body thinks it's being attacked and I'm going to die imminently all the time. I feel that sort of pressure to escape at a level of you're going to die if you stay right here and I swear to God, like telling any kind of story like that, they're just straight-up would be no text response. Like, the question would be asked would be valued to me like, how are you doing?
Because I think we know enough to know we're supposed to check on each other, we're supposed to talk about new moms. But if you say what you actually feel, if you say, we're actually experiencing, People are like, Oh God, uh it's people, I love, its people who left me, they just didn't know what to do with that. They truly did not know. And I wasn't even looking for them to fix that. I wasn't like, please call 911 for me, or please call my husband and strategize how to get me care. I was doing all of that. I had it, but I also was suffering and I just needed that to be witnessed and that wasn't happening. It just wasn't happening.
Laura: I think people are really uncomfortable when we're honest in that way. Probably because they've never given themselves permission to be radically honest with themselves, even just acknowledging and allowing the struggle, the uncomfortableness. Yeah, okay, so then let's ask you the vulnerable question, how are you doing right now? What are you struggling with right now? How can I support you?
Devon: Well, so I just transition back to work. That was a big trigger point. This is like next level of vulnerability. I don't know why it's interesting because I'll talk about a lot of hard things pretty openly, but so I have a lot of inner child stuff going on from challenges from when I was really little. Mostly I'm a highly sensitive person and so I get overstimulated very easily and I take things very personally and I'm very empathetic, so I'm usually fairly good at functioning despite like I've learned very, pretty impressively how to navigate the world in this way by sort of like layering my internal world and experience from how I'm presenting and it worked for a long time.
And then I always describe it as like having my baby just cracked me open and I can't hold the things in like it literally did because he came out with his elbow out and so he quite literally cracked me open, but he like emotionally, you know, they're not kidding when they say like the little person in you and I was listening to some of the stuff that you were saying about yourself being in the room when your kid is going through something like the version of you, that was that age is there with you. So I was like, okay, no, but I'm feeling better. My medication's working, I'm going to go back to work, it's going to be fine. I spent two days straight cleaning my house organizing, getting myself ready, hanging out with my kid, felt fine.
It's like I got this looking forward to the break from caretaking, looking forward to being an adult. All of that is true, It's still true. And then I woke up in the middle of the night, the night that I was getting ready, like the night before I started work again and I'm working from home, I'm in my house, I'm near my kid. I woke up in the middle of and I, and I was being, and this is the thing that's happened to me about three or four times in my adult life and like, other people won't, like, I've mentioned it to other people that I'm close with and they've been like sort of like, I don't have to say that, which is really funny to me because you know, you can talk about your stitching healing after you give birth.
And people are like, oh yeah, it sucks, like here's what I recommend for healing, but if you're like, oh yeah, adult bed, what is there? Like, we can't just say that, don't say that out loud, That's so embarrassing. And the first time it happened to me, I was dating my husband, we were dating and it was very embarrassing. Now, it's just sort of like I honestly, it was an immediate like, oh no, like, oh no, what's going on with me that is making me feel this level of sort of like dysregulated.
Laura: Dysregulation that Yeah.
Devon: Yeah, totally. Because I didn't catch it, I thought I was doing okay. I thought it was fine and within three days like I was throwing temper tantrums like a five-year-old and I cried the whole weekend. So I'm very lucky. I have a wonderful therapist who does great work and my husband is still patient because he doesn't get this at all. He can't release this even a little bit who just have supported and stuff, but there's like two things happening, right, which is like figuring out how to sort of parent myself, support myself, make space for all of this when the space was not cultivated, it's not cultivated culturally for us.
But I kept trying to seek it out for seven months. I've been seeking out that network, that support system and it's like combing for a needle in a haystack because no one has the bandwidth and it's hard to find people who want to be radically open and supportive of each other. Not like, hey girl, how's your day truly? Like I can tell you the thing that's really weighing on my heart and I can say it in the way I really need that, not there, that sounds cute.
And that I think just keeps re-traumatizing me back to my initial experience of entering motherhood because I will never forget, like I was standing in my backyard, I was on the phone with my therapist. She was explaining to me because it's like how does anyone do this? How do you survive this? How do you go on to have another kid? And she's like, okay, it's all about building up, you know, like a support system, we just have to build the scaffolding, we just have to scaffold. And I was like what does that mean?
And she's like, we just, you know, we have to identify the resources and the supports and the people. And I was like, yeah, I did that and it all fell out from underneath me, the stuff that I needed it. I was like it wasn't there, it was gone. And she was like, yeah, okay, you're right. Like this situation that you just would be the pandemic. It did everyone scaffolding just got yanked because the way that we do things got yanked.
Laura: And it highlighted how weak the scaffolding actually was, to begin with.
Devon: Super weak and I don't want that anymore. And I'm hoping right that this is sort of that window that got left. Yeah. Rough rude awakening. I just kept being like, babe, I didn't realize how much I had unresolved, I didn't realize how much I was still in there but now I sort of like have no interest in settling like going through you right for you crashing and burning and really feel it sort of akin to you know like a death experience and talking about the grief of this experience like that explaining another thing I was realizing the other day was describing going out into the world, I had to go drop something off at FedEx the other day.
I was in and out and I saw a bunch of people waiting for in line at the fish market for fish just like normally in mass. But they were normal. They were talking and I started to boxes like how are you buying fish right now? Like my world is not the same. I can't be any more like I don't know who I am anymore. And it's not fair.
And the thing that gets said to me is like, wow, that sounds a lot like people who suddenly lose someone who like spontaneous death and grief, your world is completely changed forever and nobody else notices. Like everything else is normal, but you're different. And I don't know if other moms go through this because I haven't been able to access them.
Laura: Yes. I think that the transition to parenthood absolutely should be viewed as a grieving process. That there is a small death associated with the death of who you were and of course who you were still, you, you're still, there's still those parts of you, but you will never be the same. You'll never be the same. Devon that you were before you had your child. None of us will ever be the same people that we were before this pandemic happened. You've had a series of small deaths in your life.
Devon: Yeah. Yeah. Which is funny because I keep coming back well and this is it's interesting that this is the thing that they can be emotional. So right at the beginning of the pandemic, I'm just going to.
Laura: It's okay.
Devon: Yeah, breathe, stay in the feeling of it.
Laura: sit there for just a second. It's okay because your body is very wise. It knows what it needs to cry and tears are healing.
Devon: Yeah.
Laura: It's okay.
Devon: And the breath, the rest makes a breath is maybe my best friend these days.
Laura: Grant just a little bit of space. Little. Mhm. Yeah, because that breath never goes.
Devon: That's the best scaffold of all time that I've found in parenting. It's just that breath/
Laura: I think that what I'm hearing, what I feel called to tell you right now is that you have everything within you. I know that you've been working on finding outside sources of support, but I want to help you build that scaffolding within you two. I think we have it within us.
Devon: I think that's where I get left now because like where my thinking just went was right at the beginning of the pandemic. I had this like we'll call the mentor. I had this friend to no one understood friendship. I've always sort of made friends in unique spaces and so I worked out, I worked at a fish fry on the water by the water for a few years between undergrad and grad school and I worked for a manager was just this absolute work in human, like he just was nothing like anyone else.
And he was the most in the moment. True to himself. Human, I've ever met. It must have been so hard to be married to him. It must've been so hard to be, you know, a child of his for a variety of reasons, but to get to be a friend who found him and who found guidance and mentorship from him was so meaningful and was so impactful in my life. And so and so my friend George was in his mid-sixties when I met him and I was in my mid-twenties. And so I'm sure like a lot of people were suspected like what is what is happening here, because this man was just so wonderful to me in each of my sisters. And so we like really, really reconnected about a year before the pandemic started when I figured out that he was sick and he had lost a ton of weight and he just didn't seem, he just didn't seem like himself.
So he got me through when I was in my mid-twenties, he got me through some really, really hard confusing experiences, just like sort of laughing with me and being like, oh Devon, Devon Devon, Like, I mean he called me demon because he thought it was funny to make fun of me in a way that because I was always so afraid of being a good person and being kind and being right and coming off right, and he just found every way to poke at me to get me to free myself. And I sort of like knew that coming into parenting that he was going to be hugely important to me. And it's sort of in the way we used to do things where we did have mentorship and ushering ourselves into like adolescence into coming into adulthood.
I just saw him as sort of like a parenting mentor or someone who was going to help guide my spirit into this practice and I thought he had more time. So he passed away in February and it was like right before the pandemic hit and it was right when I started to feel better. So I didn't get to see him before he passed away because I had been so sick for my pregnancy and I keep coming back to him. It's interesting though, what they say about people sort of living on in you because I keep coming back to him. He keeps showing back up and in funny moments, but I'm really struggling. I'll just like hear his voice just making fun of me. I mean like you're overcomplicating this for yourself, like you know better, you know how to do this, you got this, you know how strong you're, you're fine. And it's so, so, so helpful.
But I think I didn't realize sort of like those gems in your life. If you've only ever found them outside of you, you don't realize when something like this happens to you and you can't access them, how desperate you'll become to find just that handful. And I kind of like in my head, I'm seeing your sweet little Children carrying around their press because they have such precious little things. You're always sharing those precious little things that they've come up with to love. So it's like the spaghetti squash, like those valuable things in your life. And if they're all external, like it's not like they were things for me. It wasn't like I love a handbag or my car, it was a handful of humans.
But realizing that this was the most significant shift of my life and the most significant trauma of my life all at the same time and then all that is gone. That's why I was looking everywhere else. I was looking everywhere else because I just I'm so tired of feeling scared and I'm so tired of feeling overwhelmed and they have always helped guide me. And where are we teaching people how to find them inside of themselves?
Laura: We're not, No, we're not. I mean that's what I hope I'm doing. You are but okay, so I love that you have cultivated a little internal, what was his name? George?
Devon: George.
Laura: George. You have a little internal George to guide you at times to come come out and I feel curious to if you have spent any time looking within to find your internal wise, compassion itself or voice or we have all of us, within us have a core self who is infinitely wise and infinitely compassionate. And most of the time that self is not running the show, most of the time we have another little part that's running in the show, the part that has learned that certain parts of ourselves and we're not safe out in the world.
So we got to keep these parts put away, we've got to put up this front, We have to wear this mask and these circumstances and this one in these other circumstances, right? So we're often our true selves are not running the show. Have you spent any time looking within and finding, you know, your inner wise parent?
Devon: Yeah, So my therapeutic relationship, we call this a bus, she calls, she refers to as a bus, Let me talk about my boss all the time and he was driving my bus and I've said a couple of times, I'm like, oh man, I just, I feel like there's too many people on my bus. Like we're talking about like a double-decker with like an upstairs that you can go sit on the top of the bus because there's just so many different parts of me that love to come out and try and take over.
And the, like the idea that there is this only this one why is adult? It just, it doesn't feel like enough because there's so many other parts of me that caused me to like just get off the track and one part can't sort of like keep them all in their seats or encourage them always take another to sit down. But I do see glimpses of like, maybe I need at least a diet. Like maybe I need at least a couple. Like to me is that sit upfront. That like one is sort of like monitoring the needs of the children in the back and the other one's actually driving um because it's just it's a lot to manage.
I think the barrier for me and accessing that is I don't have a lot of self-trust and I believe you all day and I will tell any other person I meet like yes there is a wise you and like you are infinitely valuable and like if there is a god it's like in each of us and we just have to bring it out all of that and yet when it comes to me on the exception, yeah and when it comes to me I just need someone else to validate it. Like I just need someone else to say like yeah, you know you're on the right record. No, that's not quite it and I've never figured out how to do it differently.
Laura: how to derive that from within.
Devon: Yeah. You trust that especially with anxiety, right? Because the anxiety says no, no, no, no, don't trust that. Because the second you start to feel safe, the second you start to trust the world, that trust your ability in the world, something bad is gonna happen.
Laura: Yeah, the rug will be pulled out from under.
Devon: Yeah.
Laura: And there's also this I think a very constant pressure for very many parents and I think you're part of this group that if I could just find the right way to do that, everything will be ok. Oh man. So okay. You know, I like the bus analogy. One analogy that I like to invite people into one visualization is a kindergarten classroom at circle time where you are the teacher and you're sitting down and there's all these little personalities, all these people who want to be in charge and sometimes there's assistant teachers in the classroom too.
So I really like that. Like I think George could be a very helpful assistant teacher, you know, the part of you but can channel George a little bit. And I think, you know, so there often are the parts of ourselves that we are working with trying to figure out what their stories are, what they've given to us. Oftentimes they can get really concerned about our leadership, they can get really concerned that we're not going to be a good leader because in the past we haven't felt safe. We've been hurt in the past.
And so sometimes bringing in partnership, like having them come, hey, come over here, I have a question for you. This little part of us is having trouble. You know, and I know you used to handle it this way. What would you do now? Okay. And how has that worked out for us? And how would we feel about handling it this other way? Can I consult with you? Were almost like consulting with these parts?
So, you know, I'm a warm kind of fuzzy person. So the kindergarten classroom analogy works really well for me. But for some other people who are more kind of like business-minded, like the idea of a boardroom where you're the CEO you've got your board and you've got your, you know, your board of investors.
You've got other people who bring really valuable stuff. I mean, ultimately you're going to make the decisions, but you've got to hear what people's perspectives do either of those analogies. Feel comfortable to you. Are you still like your bus?
Devon: It's no, I actually the bus wasn't mine. The bus was hers and I used it. But I think in doing this actually did the thing that we set out to do, which was helped me sort of arrive closer to myself, which it sort of feels like Goldilocks is like, well I did for a little while work. I supported a student in a kindergarten classroom and you could not pay me to go back to being a kindergarten classroom regularly. So if I had to live my life in a kindergarten classroom, I think I would be just overwhelmed and a boardroom, right?
Like I have no buy into capitalism again with like that model just not pretty like, but as you're talking, I'm like, okay, so where did we meet in the middle or like where do I land? And I was just thinking back to sort of like being in a safe space, being in my home, like I grew up in a large, large family, so I'm one of five kids and my parents did not have a lot of good leadership skills in managing that many kids who are all really highly sensitive, high anxiety, all of that.
And so we were, it was sort of chaotic and what it would feel like to have a really centered, really capable leaders have stepped in to help all of us get regulated and get on board and figure out what our work was, what our boundaries, where, what our role, all of that. I was like, oh I can see like a cozy little little home with a whole bunch of Children in it and just no idea what to do with themselves and what it would feel like to have a leader step in a real solid parent adult step in and sort of handle things like, okay, that feels good.
Laura: Yeah. Okay. So then in the moment, then when you're feeling overwhelmed with your baby where you feel like, I don't know what he's trying to tell me and I feel like I'm failing him. What do you think it would be like in that moment? Kind of go inside and find yourself in that home? Do you have a sense of what that would be like?
Devon: It's a very interesting question. So I would imagine any practice, right? That gives me that gap. That pause between my experience, the reaction right, prevents me from projecting onto him because that's so hard not to do all day. His tears immediately equate to loneliness for me because that's what crying was for me as a kid was.
I had to do it by myself and I often spend a lot of hours alone crying and so distance and loneliness and feelings are all sort of melded and so that gap gets really narrow when he's having a feeling because I've sort of connected. This pause is taking a minute to sort of process myself. That's leaving him alone in his sadness and leaving a child alone in their sadness is so unkind. It's your big is your biggest fear as a parent that you will abandon, leave him alone in the sadness that he will feel like he can't show those parts of himself to you.
Devon: Absolutely biggest fear, I always say like I just want him to be happy, which is not true because I want him to be a human and humans not just happy. They're all the things. The biggest fear is that he will not feel seen and supported when, when he's hurting, not because I am, I'm not trying my best. I know my parents tried their best. They both tried their best. They're very good intended, hardworking people and they didn't know how to do it for me and I don't know how to do it for him.
Laura: Is that true? Do you not know how to do it for him?
Devon: I think I'm gonna change the language of that and say I don't know how to do it for him yet.
Laura: Mm Maybe I'm figuring out how to do it for him?
Devon: Everyone kept telling me like oh you won't know what the what the hunger cry is right away but eventually you'll figure it out. And I was like how do you ever figure it out? They can't tell you you'll never figure it out. But today I heard him crying, he's with one of his grandma's and I heard him crying and I was like, oh it's past his eating window, I bet he's hungry and I ran down and I got him food right away. You can stop crying immediately. Like part of me just knew he was hungry. So I now have evidence figuring it to believe that I could figure out when he needs to have that support.
Laura: What is the story that you would be telling yourself if you know there's a day when he's crying and you can't figure out what he needs and he's just crying or fussing. What is the story you tell yourself? Like what meaning does it hold for you?
Devon: I think. I don't know that I've sort of narrated the meaning yet. I know that it immediately floods me with like the dizzy, heart racing shakiness of like panic and like in the way that I feel like I would respond if I turned around and I saw him like falling off of a countertop. Yeah. That like, oh no, I have to grab my baby.
Like I have to, I can't let him fall and I don't, you know, we talk a lot about helicopter parenting and some version when it comes to legitimate, figuring out how to do a thing physically, But I don't want to be an emotional helicopter. I don't want to be the person just like you're incapable of handling your own feelings. So I have to do it for you or my body don't have them.
Laura: Yeah, of course.
Devon: My body doesn't know that yet because I wanted that and I didn't know how to ask for it and I'm afraid he won't know how to ask for it. And so I need to be watching him all the time and not missing it.
Laura: If I miss his cues, it will mean fulfilling the blanket. If I miss his cues, it will mean?
Devon: that his needs will get mad and it will hurt him and it will hurt our relationship.
Laura: if his needs aren't met. What does that say about me as a mom?
Devon: I was gonna say, I'm not doing it right. But I know that there is no right way.
Laura: No, no, no, but we're not. We're not going to judge what your automatic thoughts are there. There they are there. Right. I'm not doing it. Right? What does it mean if I'm not doing it right?
Devon: I'm worried that he won't be all right.
Laura: He won't be All right. Yeah. So we're constructing the narrative, right? We're constructing the story. So sometimes when are you know, when we have a a trigger, that's what you're talking about, getting flooded your something some old narrative is being triggered, some fear, some deeply rooted fear about your worthiness or their safety and what's not always their physical safety, right?
So you're talking about their emotional safety. It sounds like for you, one of the biggest traumas of your childhood was your own emotional safety. Feeling alone in your feelings was traumatizing for you and you don't want to pass that trauma onto your kid. You desperately want to shield and protect them from that trauma.
Devon: Yeah,
Laura: Yeah. And you just want to know am I doing this right? If I, you know, kind of I just want to know he's going to feel safe, he just want to know he's going to feel seen and heard.
Devon: Yeah.
Laura: Yeah. And if he doesn't, what will it mean?
Devon: I think I don't know which is a very scary and uncomfortable place for me to be and I don't like not knowing. But I also think, and I say this all the time to my husband is like, I just like, I'm always like, God, I hope he's like you, I hope he's like you. I hope he's like you. I just don't want him to be like me.
Laura: There it is. Yeah. What will it mean if he's like you.
Devon: it'll be really hard for him. I don't want that for him.
Laura: You don't want it to be hard for him. He wants his path to be a little bit easier than you're a suspect. Yeah.
Devon: And because mine was hard, even though people tried so hard to do the right thing, they worked so hard. Mine was hard anyway, repeatedly. That's my story. Like everyone did their best and it wasn't enough for me and you know, like that I don't that's not good enough for me with mine. Like, I just love him too much for that to be his story.
Laura: I want him to have what he needs to let me sit with ever just a second. People tried so hard with me and it was never enough. Does that mean that you are too hard? Like what conclusion have you come to about yourself in that narrative? People tried so hard, They did the best that they could and it was still so hard for me. That must mean that I am?
Devon: like, I think language that's coming into my mind is inherently flawed, but like, so is everybody in a non-sort of pejorative sense, but I think.
Laura: there's something wrong with me.
Devon: Yeah. And what it is about, like, it's so nuanced because what it is is that there's something wrong with me that like, other people tried really hard, did their best and it still wasn't fixable.
Laura: I'm so inherently broken but I'm unfixable and it terrifies me to think that that might also be true of my son. I can't have that be my son's reality.
Devon: Yeah. I don't I don't want that for him.
Laura: When you look at your son, could that ever possibly be true? Like really? Like is it possible when you look at him? Was he born broken?
Devon: No.
Laura: no. Is it true that he could ever be inherently too much or too hard?
Devon: No, it could. And I know that about him?
Laura: We're just talking about him right now.
Devon: So I'm worried that he won't know that about him
Laura: because you know that you can know that about someone else but not know. What about yourself? What is blocking you from believing that to be true of yourself? That same truth. And we just found for him what's keeping you from believing it about yourself?
Devon: I think myself, because I will just keep looking for external feedback that I didn't write that. I've done enough that I'm likable enough for acceptable and quiet enough because I'm chatty or emotional at the right level because I'm sensitive and if anyone inevitably tells me no, not right for me immediately, I'm like, oh well I did it wrong again. Instead of telling myself, okay, I wasn't the right fit for them or it wasn't what they wanted. But that doesn't mean I'm not.
Laura: right for me, right? And it's not even I did it wrong. It's that I'm wrong.
Devon: Yeah.
Laura: So you're getting at the heart of your internal working model of yourself. Do you know that phrase? The internal working model?
Devon: Yeah.
Laura: That's what's built an attachment relationship. And as we're growing up, we do get our sense of self and who we are and our love ability and are worth from those interactions. And you learned early on that I have intense needs that no one around me can meet at this point in time, and it is terrifying to be a child who is entrusted to caregivers who can't meet their needs.
And so there is no other option for a child, Like no other conclusion that they could possibly come to in those scenarios, then there must be something wrong with me, I need to change myself so that I can be more easy to care for, because if we can't think that our caregivers are incompetent, it's too dangerous to think that that conclusion is too dangerous for little ones to come to. So then what do we do? How do we not pass that narrative that internal working model onto our kids? Right? How do we make sure that they know that they're never too much or that if we can't perfectly meet their needs, that there's not some inherent flaw in them, right? Is this your big fear?
Devon: Like that, that phrase that you just said, the idea that my son could have a sense that if I am unable to meet his needs, it has nothing to do with him because zero to do with him, that he can feel confident that like I missed it. Or like it's complicated or mommy has was or whatever, whatever it is, that doesn't make him internalize.
It has something to do with him, not shouldn't have to need that, or shouldn't be needing that the freedom that I would give me as a mom to just be with my kid and to not worry so much. Like I just felt joy about a future where I don't think that I'm just like, oh no, he knows, he knows it has nothing to do with him. He knows that kid knows he knows.
Laura: How do you think kids can get that message?
Devon: I'm very verbal. So I would obviously verbalize it. I imagine that there's some ways to model, like even if it's something as simple as like okay, like, you know, it really gets my goat that we give, you know, like toddlers such a, you know, like 2, 3-year-olds such a bad rap for feeling a lot of feelings and being kind of all over the place.
And the idea that like this new narrative that's coming up of just holding space for big feelings is very appealing to me, just being like, okay, hi, I see you come here. Like I got you like, let me wrap my arms around you and be here with you and we'll figure it out together. But I'm also, I'm someone who has learned that I'm seeing in your community.
Like I keep saying in your community that it feels so particular to your specific situation, I don't want to limit myself to thinking like okay, all I need to do is be capable of giving my kid a hog and saying, I see you like how do I feel into what makes Quinn know that it's not him, that he exactly what he is, is what I need, what he needs, what is right, like how do I feel into that?
Laura: You trust him to show you exactly what he needs and you ask him, what do you need in this moment? You communicate to him hey buddy, there's gonna be times when I get it wrong and I am going to rely on you to let me know when that happened. So I can figure out exactly what you need in this moment.
And I might not always be able to meet every one of those needs. But when I can't, I promise you we're going to work together to figure out how to get that need met of yours because you're never going to be alone in that even if it can't come from me and it might not, there will be times when your kids will go through things that we don't know, we're not equipped to help them with. But I guarantee they won't be, Your child will not be left alone in his room to deal with it on his own. You will advocate, you will help him, you'll find exactly what it is that he needs.
Devon: Do you? I think if you know that your highness person that you struggled to get your needs met and that you'll probably always have high levels of need for support. Being seen, whatever it is, How do you know that you are up to that task?
Because I would hate to lie to him. I would hate to say like we'll figure it out and we'll meet that need. And like I got like is that just down to a daily practice of cultivating that sense of I can do this, I can do this. I'm going to get up tomorrow and I'm going to figure it out again tomorrow because my kid is worth it.
Laura: Yeah. Yeah. I mean and it's you know, part of this, all of this, like you cannot give what you do not have, right? So we, we hear this as moms all the time. You cannot give what you do not have. And you cannot teach your child to have self-compassion. You cannot teach your child to have unwavering self-acceptance.
You cannot teach your child to have an unconditional positive regard for themselves. If you don't have those things for yourself, it always starts with you. It always starts from within that deep in our knowledge of I was never too much. Yeah, I had people in my caregivers who didn't know how to help me. But that was not my problem. I the world wasn't my world wasn't ready for me. You know, this was having that conversation and this is the thing, this is where brain science comes in your brain for how is it? Okay to ask how old you are?
Devon: Of course, thank you for not knowing. It's fun to be sort of like, you know, like a mystery. 35.
Laura: 35. Okay, so for the past 34 a half years, your brain has been wired like neurons have been firing in a habitual pattern and the reason why you can't believe it to be true of yourself is because your brains never fired in that way before and it feels awkward and uncomfortable and it feels like a lie right now that I could be worthy of compassion and respect exactly as I am, that there's nothing wrong with me. I've never been inherently flawed.
'm not inherently flawed and I'm not broken. Now, that thought feels untrue, simply because it's you've never thought it before or you haven't thought it with enough consistency to make it feel comfortable in your brain and it feels unbelievable. And so part of this too though is having you can't jump from, you know, I'm inherently flawed to I'm exactly how I, you know exactly what I need to be like.
That's a big jump, a big leap, but you have to kind of walk up a ladder up a staircase from, you know, you can't just jump from the bottom stair all the way to the top stair, right, so you gotta work your way up to like, I'm figuring out how to accept myself. I'm learning that there are parts of me that I've cut off. You start to lower their, I'm learning that there are parts of me that I'm worried about, there's parts of me that I got the idea, we're not okay, and I'm learning how to be okay with those parts, just gentle little reframes and that's how you start.
Like the analogy, I like we have these neural grooves, I don't know if you've ever seen a comic of a person in their office, like pacing around in a circle and they have they've worn, they pay so much that they've worn a…
Devon: Dread
Laura: Dread, like a trench into the floor. So you've been treading, you've been have you have this neural groove, and, you know, as soon as you start thinking something different, you start varying your path and it gets shallower and shallower, but every time you get close to a thought that's close to that one, you get sucked down into it. And so part of this work is saying hope so, I just thought that, yeah, we used to think that now we're thinking this, you know, but that's the kind of the clinical way of doing this.
But oftentimes what it really comes down to is, you know, he's baby is crying, your that panic comes up, that panic of I cannot doom him to a life of feeling broken and not enough. And then in that moment you offer yourself compassion, wisdom, kindness and you say the very things that were never said to you as a child and you say them to yourself when you were a kid. What did you need to hear in those moments? What did you need to? You know.
Devon: I don't even it's funny because I always thought that the language part was the piece that was missing. But so this behavior pattern that I had was to get into some form of conflict, which is funny because now I do conflict for a living. I get into some form of conflict and because connection was so crucial to me, I would immediately get flooded with feeling and start to cry. And that often caused an anger or discomfort reaction in my home.
And so I would run up to my room and I would shut the door and I would sit. I just remember like my body will forever be in that felt sense of leaning back against that door, holding it shut as sort of like uh okay, you can't get to me. But this other part of me underneath was going, oh please, someone come and try to open the store. Someone come try and like, you know, like I know my poor parents, I didn't know, I know that they didn't know and I know that they thought that they would say the wrong thing or make it worse or like they couldn't they didn't get that in their own life.
So they also had doors that were shot that weren't being open. But I honestly don't even know if anyone even had to say anything. I honestly think if someone had just tried to open the door and come in and not when I tried to push away and say like no, no, no, I want to be alone, be like okay, I hear you. I'm just going to sit down on the other side of the door down and wait until you're ready to be with someone.
Like some amount of bearing witness being present. That was all I needed and like that would have been enough. And so it's funny to me that the thought never occurred to me that just like sitting with Quinn while he's feeling a feeling like that's enough. It's probably enough.
Laura: Yeah, that's beautiful. It's enough. You're enough. Less is often more. Have you ever done a little bit of a like an inner child-like moment there where you've come and been the one who taps on the door and says to be hard, can I come in?
Devon: No, I haven't. And I wonder why that that never occurred to me because I've tried other things, but I haven't done that before. I have sort of seen her sitting in a similar position just in an empty space. And every time I see that I go over and I picked her up and I hold her every single time. It's my natural inclination just to walk over and pick her up and hold her.
Laura: Yeah, I would at the door and the next time, you know, we're wrapping up here. But I would just, you know, when we have these moments of just kind of the imagery of it inviting yourself to hold that imagery and then allow your older self you currently because here's the thing, all of those times where our needs weren't met as Children, we're parents now we can do that for ourselves and our inner Children don't know that it's not happening in the moment.
They don't know, this is all happening, you know, in the there living kind of in the unconscious brain where there is no timeline, it's a loop. It's all concurrent. They don't know. And so this is what re parenting is. So in that moment where, you know, little Devon is braced against the wall, closing everybody, help adjust, praying, thinking like if someone just opened the door right now that I know they loved me. That's the sense I got there that I had.
No, I'm not too much that they can handle me. And then along comes beautiful kind loving to heaven and taps on the door and says, we are I know you're hurting. Can I come in and play it out in your mind? No, don't talk to me, okay, I hear you. I'm just going to sit right here. I'm just gonna be right here. Let me know when you're ready.
Yeah and these I mean so everybody listening, we all have these moments where we were parented in a way where we felt not seen not heard, not valued, not and you know, understood in our home and we can do that for ourselves now. And when we do that though, here's the thing is that you know Devon there will become a time when your son is older and he has some big feelings and he runs off and he storms off and he slams the door and he shuts it and it's going to take everything you can to not pull it open and force yourself upon him in that moment. It's coming, it will be there before you know it because it'll be too with all of its big feelings and they'll be three even bigger feelings, it's going to be beautiful and in that moment because you will have done this work where your little one is not panicked behind that door, wondering, is anybody going to come?
Is anyone going to love me that fear of yours? Of making sure your son knows without a shadow of a doubt, that will never be too much, that he is not broken, that he's whole and wonderful and loved exactly as he is. You'll be able to go into that moment with conscious awareness. Your little one little Devon will be inside freaking out thinking like go to him, you've got to let him know and you'll be able to say yes honey. I know I'm right here with you. I've got I've got this, okay, I've got this, you're safe, he's safe.
He's not in your home, that's not happening to him right now. You know, that's not happening to him right now. That's not what's going to happen. And I'm going to trust him to tell me what he needs. So I'm going to go in and if he says he wants to be alone, I'm going to let him be alone and I'm going to stay right close. I'm going to make sure he knows I'm right here with him. I'm going to trust him because he's not you and I've got you you're well taken care of and he's well taken care of too. And we're all going to be okay. Yeah, okay.
Devon: I'm gonna stay here. I'll just sit here nodding yeah as you were talking or sort of seeing this new vision because postpartum just makes your vision so fearful all the time where I'm just like sitting with him while he's playing and instead of the constant like is he okay? Is he healthy? Is he happy? Is he comfortable? Is he getting enough shifted two? What is he now? What is he learning now about himself?
I wonder if he's deciding on a new path for himself or like it was this learning space, this idea that instead of me always looking for the problem or the deficit in him, it's looking for the opportunity for him to keep growing and learning new things because I'm also able to keep learning and crying and new is a new invitation. So like even that like that's I don't generally get to have.
Laura: I mean those moments to where you get to sit and watch them play and nothing's wrong, allow yourself to have that. This is another piece that we didn't, I feel like we didn't get to and we have to wrap up, but when our identity our enough nous is all wrapped up in how we do, it feels like we've hung every single thing on this one thing we put all of our eggs into, If I can do this mothering thing, right, then I'm going to be okay. And there's work to do probably to uncouple some of those things because they're, you know, the reality is this is an uncomfortable reality that there are kids will have work to do.
They will come out of our childhood with misunderstandings, miscommunications between us, and work to do despite our best efforts and intentions. It's there, that's the reality. And luckily our kids are growing up with people who wear that's modeled for them, where they will see us taking parenting classes, they'll see us working with the parenting coach, they'll see us doing that in our work, they'll see us going to therapy and they'll know like, oh well this is part of being a mom, that's part of being a dad, you know, this is the reality is is that I've got stuff to work on and I know how to do that because I've seen it my whole life growing up, it won't be the big thing, even though they'll have work to do, it won't be the big thing, the work won't be scary because they'll know that's just part of being a grown-up.
Devon: It'll just be like Russian.
Laura: Yeah, this is just what we do, we do it because that's what we do.
Laura: Yeah, we take care of our minds, we take care of our body, is we take care of our relationships.
Devon: Yeah, that's a good new goal, I'll go there.
Laura: Yeah, I mean this is the thing, you know, like we can't double rapper kids, they will, their stuff will happen that they will have ups and downs and what's beautiful about it though is that we will develop a relationships that is resilient, that can handle those ups and downs, you know, and we always get to grow and change and learn.
Devon: And if the relationship is resilient, there'll be room for that.
Laura: There will be so much room for it. It's expansive. Okay, well Devon I really appreciate you being so open and honest with us all. I really, really appreciate it.
Devon: I really appreciate the opportunity to do this. I knew when you mentioned it to me that it would be beneficial and that you just something about your work speaks to me and speaks to my parenting in a way that's beneficial and you gotta fight for those nuggets where you find them. Don't take no for an answer, just go get it.
Laura: Yeah, I so agree. Well, it's been just a pure joy to have you here with us. Thank you.
Devon: Thank you, appreciate it.
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.