Episode 218: Letting Go of Perfectionism in Parenting with Sanah Kotadia
/Welcome to another episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast! In this episode, we’ll explore the complex journey of motherhood and identity—especially for those of us who identify as perfectionists and people pleasers. To help navigate this important conversation, I am joined by Sanah Kotadia, a licensed professional counselor who specializes in working with moms as they transition into their new identities while parenting.
Here’s a summary of what we discussed:
How parenting, especially for mothers, becomes a journey of self-growth
Redefining parenting success by personal values rather than societal expectations
How parental success depends on the parent’s behavior, not children's actions or judgments
The relationship between people-pleasing, perfectionism, and the struggle to share the mental and emotional load in partnerships
Breaking generational cycles of perfectionism and people-pleasing through modeling and open conversations
If you found Sanah’s insights valuable, don’t forget to check out her website balancedmindstherapy.com and follow her on Instagram @balancedmindtherapy.
Remember, your worth as a parent isn’t measured by perfection but by the love, effort, and presence you bring to your family.
I would love to hear from you! If you have any questions you’d like to have answered on the podcast or any takeaways or wins you’d like to share you can leave me a message here: https://www.speakpipe.com/laurafroyenphd
A crucial part of being a parent of complex kiddos is finding community and support. If you are looking for an opportunity to connect with me IN PERSON, I’d love to invite you to my upcoming retreat for caregivers. I’ll send out more information soon, but you can check it out here if you’re interested! I’d love to get to spend a couple days really connecting with you and supporting you in this stage of your parenting journey! Head here to learn more! www.laurafroyen.com/retreat
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 Doctor Laura Froyen, and on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to be exploring, motherhood, identity, particularly for those of us who identify as perfectionists, people pleasers, all those little things, those little voices that get in the way of us being fully and authentically ourselves in our parenting. And, and showing up as our best selves, as parents and partners as we raise our kiddos. So to help me with this conversation, I have just a gorgeous human being, who I'm so excited to introduce you to. Her name is, sorry. Her name is Sanah Kotadia. She is a licensed professional counselor and she specializes in working with moms who are in that place of shifting their identity and learning, to become the, I don't know, the most full expression of who they are while they're parenting. So Sanah, thank you so much for being with us. Will you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
Sanah: Yeah, thanks for having me, Laura. This is so sweet. Yeah, so I am, I don't know. I don't know if I consider myself a new mom. I guess I'm a new-ish mom now. My daughter just turned one, and I found, so before I was a mom, I was working specifically with women struggling with perfectionism. People pleasing and poor boundaries, this is like a wonderful trifecta that so many of us struggle with. And then once I became a mom, I took a I took a short maternity leave and when I decided to come back to work and start posting again on my social media, I found that I wasn't really showing up as my authentic self anymore because the only thing that was really on my mind was motherhood, and I found that so many accounts that I was following, at least on social media was what they were either talking about just like it was a little bit of fear mongering that I would see a lot on social media of like just wait until or I'm so unhappy or lonely and I wanted to then shift my presence online to a space for mothers that, is almost like a voice for them where, hey, there is a spectrum of feelings we can feel in motherhood, and we can acknowledge that all are just as valid, right? We can feel lonely and isolated and the mental load, but we can also feel joy and excitement and pride in being a mom. So then I decided to start working with moms who are struggling with this new identity and postpartum along with what they were already dealing with, with perfectionism and people pleasing and now carrying that into motherhood and especially within their partnerships and marriages learning how to voice that, oh my gosh, like, I need help and needing help is not a sign of weakness for so many of us.
Laura: So, I wanted to tell you, so I have found it comforting to think of myself as a new mom almost constantly because at every age that, you know, your kiddos reach, you've, I like, I've never parented a 12-year-old before. That's how old my oldest is, so I'm definitely a new mom, like a new 12-year-old mom, you know, so like being able to think of myself as always learning, always new, always fresh, has helped me be a little bit more kind to myself, as opposed to that voice of like, gosh, I've been doing this for 12 years. I should know what I'm doing right now. But like, I haven't been parenting a baby for 12 years, you know, like, I like she grew up along the way too, you know, and so did I. We're all different. Anyway, that has been helpful for me.
Sanah: I love that because I'm going through that mindset realization as we speak because we're traveling for the holidays, we don't live in the same state as our family, so neither my family nor my in-laws. And so we've kind of been hopping from parent to parent homes. And while we were here, Visiting our families, my daughter started to walk and we were, which is so sweet and so exciting and we were so proud of her, but also we're like, crap, what are we going to do when we go back and it's just us. So we actually ended up extending our trip here with our parents because we were like, we don't know what to do when we get home with a walking baby now.
Laura: When they start moving.
Sanah: Yeah. Nothing's like childproof. We live in the center of a city. We don't have a backyard, like it's it's, it's a different world. And so I love, I love the way you just described that and it makes me feel so validated and recognizing that every season with our babies are so different. First, it's like, oh my gosh, like I have a baby and then it's like, oh, when are they gonna sleep through the night? Then it's, oh, they're sitting, then they're crawling, and then they're school aged, and then, you know, middle, whatever it is, you know, it just kind of goes on. And, every year there's, you know, the literal four seasons of the first time they get sick, the first summer break, at the first spring break, you know, whatever else it may be, it's just a constant. You know, as cliche as it sounds, a constant roller coaster of experiences and kind of like what I said earlier, many of them are filled with so many highs, but along with it, just like everything else in life, there's, there's challenges that come with it as well. And I really, and I absolutely feel so blessed and honored to be working in a field where I know I'm doing my best to help. What you said earlier, you described moms as vulnerable, right? Moms are so vulnerable and they're all we want as moms is to be the best mom there ever was. And majority of the time, I mean, every single day of our kids' lives, like, we are the best mom for them, but we know like there's so much judgment and criticism that we can feel towards ourselves. And I find that whenever I work with moms, and I don't know if you feel this way too, but many times when I'm working with moms and talking to them in session, I'm kind of healing myself to go.
Laura: Oh my gosh.
Sanah: I'm like, I listen to yourself.
Laura: Yes, there, you know, there's a, there's a huge blessing in getting to walk alongside families as they learn new skills and heal from their own upbringing, because it keeps it top of mind for you, like it is. Impossible to be compassionate and empathetic and vulnerable for your client and not be that way for yourself, you know, in order for it to be authentic, you have, you have to walk the walk, and, you know, that you are telling your clients to be walking, you know, and so, yes, a constant invitation to your own self growth. I mean, that's what motherhood is too, right? You said something a little bit ago that I wanted to, to circle back and kind of ask you a little bit about, because as you're describing in this kind of this wanting to be the best that we can be, right? And this, I think, is especially heightened for those parents who brought perfectionism and brought people pleasing as a part of themselves into their parenting. I think it gets heightened. I just feel a little curious about where you see, especially for, for women, for mothers, where you see that perfectionism, that pressure coming from, like, how, how is it that that is such a familiar story to so many of us who are listening.
Sanah: Yeah, so, so many of us, so, okay, so here's what I've learned. I feel like our generation is the first generation of girls or women that were given the opportunity to, quote unquote, have it all, right? So our mother's generation really didn't have that opportunity as a whole to, have, to, to be Professionals, or to make their education count. A lot of them got to, but that was like a last minute opportunity. It wasn't from when they were much younger, from grade school, where they were told, you got to get a college degree, you gotta be a professional. You cannot rely on your husband or your partner to make the money. You have to, kind of do it all. And you can do it all, right? So we are the first generation who were told and were advocated for as women and as girls that you can be equal to your male peer. If not equal, you can do more. I believe in you. So then we do it, right? We're like, I'm gonna make my mom and dad proud. I'm going to do well in school. I'm gonna get good grades. I'm gonna do extracurriculars. I'm gonna go to a great university. I'm gonna get a degree and I'm gonna make so much money. And then it's like, wait a minute, now it's time to like have a baby and no one in, you know, the, you know, the 30, 20, however many years, free motherhood has told us that, hey, one of your values or goals could be that you could be a mother. It was, it, it's instead, it's told to us that like, no.
You can actually do it all, and you will be able to do it all. So then when motherhood comes, we recognize, well, even pre-motherhood when yours to, to potentially be a mom comes, then many of us struggle with this idea of like, do I wanna be a mom, right? And so I personally remember thinking when we were trying to have our daughter, like, do I even want to be a mom? or do I want to be a mom because I should be a mom. You know, I remember really going back and forth in that. And many times when I would ask myself that question, I didn't really have an answer. And it was just more like, I think I want to be a mom. And I mean, now I'm glad I'm a mom, but no one really prepared us for this. So then we get pregnant, then we have this baby and we recognize and realize that there is no sense of success, like it's objective. Exactly. It's so subjective. And so this whole time we've been told that this is the way you get this trophy. This is the way you get this trophy. This is the way you get this trophy. And now motherhood comes and there's no sense of validity. that makes external validation in a formulaic form. We cannot get an A plus from anybody. We cannot get a raise from anybody. We cannot get a promotion from anybody, right? It has to be from within. And that's so hard.
Laura: It's so hard, you know, so you were speaking directly to the thing. That made me leave social media and go all in on having this podcast be the primary way I have conversations with my audience, because I feel like the, you know, the 15 seconds of attention that we get on an Instagram reel is not enough to give any form of kind of internal guidance on that, that inner compass, that inner knowing. That inner validation. It's still very externally focused. And people come looking for parenting accounts or motherhood accounts, looking for the answer, looking for that formula. If I do X, Y, and Z, then I will have a kid who loves me, who's emotionally intelligent, who is respectful, you know, of people, you know, of the people in their life. He was a good community member, all the determinants of success. They look different for different people, but they do. They come looking for and there are wonderful accounts out there that give you that information, right? So like big little feelings is a great one for the toddler ages, Doctor Becky. They give great information. That's that formula, but I think it's just engaging in the same. Topic like it's just it it so I'm not I'm not being critical of anybody else, but I'm just saying that it is, it's just further. I don't know what the word is. It's just confirming that there is a formula that will equal success, and I don't think that that's true when it comes to motherhood and it sounds like you relate to that. It sounds like you agree.
Sanah: Oh yeah, 100%. I mean, I work with moms all the time. I am a mom. I have friends that are moms and different, different houses, same story, right? Where we're all trying and it's really hard to unlearn that mindset of asking ourselves, how can I succeed at motherhood? And what the goal here is to reframe and instead of asking that question of how can I succeed as, as a mother, is to ask the question of, am I enjoying motherhood? Am I able to be present with my child? Am I able to understand my needs during the season? So we have to kind of break down this giant in order to get the answer to the giant question of am I succeeding in motherhood, asking ourselves those you know, quote unquote tinier, more scaffolded questions and those questions are, oh, go ahead, go ahead.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. No, I just want to pull them out for our listeners. These are great questions to jot down, pause while you're listening, and journal, right? So if you're out for a walk, sit down on a bench and think about these things. That's how I listen to podcasts. I don't know about you, but I love journaling questions in the midst of podcasting. So what you're asking us to do is let's start breaking down what does when we say we want to be successful as moms or as parents, what do we actually mean? What are, let's define success for ourselves as opposed to what the world has told us it should be. And then let's break down those parts of it. So if I were to answer that question. I would say, a part of being successful is that I have authentic connections with my kids, that I know who they are and I'm able to accept them for who they are, that I have, I have a full life outside of, like that I'm showing them a full human, not just a person who is only their mom, that I have a full life, that I enjoy. My time, you know, my time as a mother overall, you know, so like writing those things down and then like how do we know we're doing those things, you know, so spending a little time journaling on those markers of success and reclaiming the word success for ourselves. We love that. Thank you, Sanna. I'm sorry I interrupted you.
Sanah: No. I'm so glad you did because I think our, I think mothers in general need that push, right? Like, you know, success is not determined by your child's milestone, like timeline. It's not determined by their grades. It's not, it's not determined. By these external timelines that others have created or objectives that others have created, it's determined by your narrative. My gosh, it's determined by your listeners ' works.
Laura: Zoom really loved what Sanah just said and gave us fireworks. But yes, I mean, let's even pull that out. So there is a great quote, and I'm blanking on who it's from, but that, you know, success in parenting is not determined by your child's behavior. It's determined by your behavior. So successful parents are respectful, conscious, aware, intentional, compassionate with themselves and their kids, regardless of what the kids are doing, right? So we're so stressed out that when our, you know, toddler is losing it over not being able to have an LOL doll. In target, we think we're being judged for their behavior and there might be individuals who are thinking things. I don't, I don't, I have never spoken to another parent who is thinking anything other than compassionate thoughts when they're viewing that. I've never, I've never heard any other parent like ever tell me that they thought anything other than something compassionate about a parent who's obviously in the midst of a meltdown with a kiddo, but that that it's our behavior that is actually the marker of of success, as opposed to our kids' behavior.
Sanah: Yeah, because that our behavior determines or let me say this, the pattern of our behaviors determine what learned behaviors they're going to take into adulthood, right? Because those are things that our generation struggles with from our parents, that we've taken on some learned. Behaviors that we're not proud of, and they are probably not. Our parents are probably not proud of that either, but they were doing the best that they could at the time, right? You know, I come from an immigrant family. My family immigrated from India, and that is just like a layer of its own of what kind of struggles and challenges that brought upon, right? Like so many.
Laura: There's just the pressure on your generation too. The pressures on your generation to be successful in the eyes of the family.
Sanah: Yeah, make the immigration like worth it, right? Like I, you know, I shared earlier before our podcast started that I used to be a teacher and I remember my dad having a really tough time with it because he was like, I didn't come here to America, so my daughter could be a teacher and we had a lot of back and forth, um, because that's just not respected in the Indian culture, right? And so,, and, and so I had to really rebel. I want to be a teacher. I don't even know if that's called rebelling, but that's the only word I can think of because we had to have so many back and forths about it, you know, and then finally we came, our midpoint was he would continue to pay for my undergrad. as long as I went to grad school, like that those are the types of, yeah.
Laura: Oh my gosh, I relate so hard to that. I just think you put me in mind of a TV show that my girls and I have been enjoying watching together. Is it Cake on Netflix? I don't know if you've seen that show.
Sanah: Oh yeah. Yes. Yes, yeah.
Laura: Phenomenal show, lots of fun. My 12 and 9-year-old love it. But on the last episode of the holiday special that we were watching, we're recording this right before christmas, and the winter holidays, but on the last episode of the holiday special, several of the, the cake artists were talking about how skeptical their parents were of this as a career and how much their success on the show, validated their chosen career and allowed their parents to finally be proud of them. And I was just noticing that kind of out loud for my, for my girls as we were watching. I was like, gosh, it's interesting to see these grownups be so invested in making their parents proud and how hard that must be to think that your parents aren't proud of you. And my daughters were like, we know we can do whatever we want, Mom, like they're just rolling their eyes at me without even like you telling them like, Mom, we know you'll be proud of us as long as we are kind and loving to ourselves and others, you know, like.
Sanah: That's so sweet, right? So this is going back to finding measurable outcomes for success. It's like, I can only imagine how proud you were at, you know, even if you weren't with you and if you were just like giggling along with them, that's such a memorable moment, I'm sure as a mom for you where it's like, my daughters truly believe me that I love them and I'm proud of them just, just for being here, just for being themselves. And that's so tough for the moms that were like us, right? For us to give ourselves that sort of validation because the majority of our generation didn't get that growing up. Majority of our generation, especially women, were told, no, you have to do more because I couldn't do it. There's this new opportunity for women as a whole. My generation didn't get it. Your generation got it. You have to make use of it. And as, you know, the good girls we were, we did, right? We became professionals, we went to school, we got the grades, we got, you know, married, we decided to be moms, and now, you know, one of my, somebody I know just had a baby.
Couple of weeks ago and they were having such a tough time with it and they came and they were like, why didn't anybody tell me that it was going to be this hard? Why didn't anybody tell me? And my response to that was I think there's this fine line of If we were to tell moms post delivery, this is what it's going to be like. There's a lot, it sounds like fear mongering, and it sounds like we're not trying to support them, instead of like, hey, this is just the reality of what it is and the type of conversations we need to learn and practice to have within our marriage. Because it doesn't align post or pre-baby because we are so used to just figuring it out on our own. We're so used to the people pleasing in marriage of like, oh no, I got it. Like we're cute. Like, you know, I got dinner, or, you know, I'll fold the laundry. He can, you know, watch football or basketball or whatever. Whereas postpartum, it's just It, it, it hits you like a wall of res, right? Where it's like, I, I literally cannot, and what does this say about my worth and value and what does it say about forever, and it can feel so lonely and scary.
Laura: Yeah, it really can. I so, so agree with you. I'm thinking too about the fact that you brought up earlier that we are this first generation. That has grown up knowing that we can have it all. And I think, you know, the, the having it all myth in and of itself is its own problem, because, yes, of course, we have all the responsibilities out in the world and the responsibilities at home. I don't know about you, but I saw my mom working full time and doing almost all of the home care and childcare tasks. I mean, gosh, even now, my mom tells me how impressed her friends are that if she goes out of town, she doesn't have to leave meals for my dad, you know, which I know, like brings sadness to me, not just for her friends, but for the men too. Like, can you imagine thinking of yourself as so incapable that you can't feed yourself for a few days if your wife's out of town? I don't know.
But then, I think that we are grappling. I think that this generation of women is grappling with that second shift, you know, that we've been talking about since the 70s and 80s, the second shift that moms, um, working moms come home to do. But I think we are grappling with it. As partners with our, with our men, with our with our husbands in a, in a way that's different, at least that's been my experience with my own husband. Yeah, but I, I would love to talk a little bit about how cause I, I feel like by now everyone knows what the mental load is, you know, and the emotional labor that moms take on, right? But I would And I have podcast episodes that’s great books out there on the kind of conversations to have with your partner about this. If you have a reluctant partner, the book that I recommend for men to read is called This Is How Your Marriage Ends. Love that. I don't know if you've read that book, Sanah.
The guy who wrote it had a viral blog post about how his wife divorced him over leaving a glass in the sink. Anyway, good book, great for men to read because it engages humor and lowers defensiveness. Yes, yeah. It's a good one. I like fair play too, obviously. I, but also, Fed Up is a very, if you're in an angry place, Fed Up is a good book to read too. My husband and I did a book club on Fed Up, which was fun. Yeah, we like to have book clubs together sometimes. Anyway, gosh, where was I going? Sorry, my brain was bouncing, but the, I mean, I do think that like my my mom didn't even know she could have conversations, right, with her husband about it. And the fact is, like, my dad did change our diapers. He was much more involved than the average dad in the, in the 80s.
And so she's always just considered herself lucky, you know. And so she sees my husband in the way that he is with our family is and he's, she's like, gosh, you've got it made, you know, you And, and at the same time, even with a totally conscious person, I'm, I still carry a lot more of, of the load, and we have ongoing conversations about it, you know? Anyway, so my question that I was gonna ask you was, you were talking a little bit about how perfectionism and pleasing people is tied to not being able to ask for help. And I feel very curious about how you see three things. People pleasing perfectionism, not being able to ask for help, and then this balance, this sharing of the load with a partner. And the conflict that arises, the dissatisfaction in the marriage that arises, how you see them all related.
Sanah: Yeah, yeah, before I answer that question, I want to actually go back to what you said, where you were saying how your mom thought of herself as just a, a lucky one, right? You will not believe how many times I hear that even today in my sessions where moms will be like, I feel so lucky that my husband is able to X, Y, and Z.
Laura: And I feel so guilty for complaining because my, I know my husband is, you know, better than most.
Sanah: Yes. Or even using the word help, right? Oh my gosh, I'm so thankful my husband was able to help with taking care of the baby and my husband was able to help with the, oh, can you hear me? Did it freeze? Oh no.
Laura: Oh yeah, you are frozen. I'm gonna go ahead and chat with you.
Sanah: Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I lost the internet. How far did I get? I don't remember.
Laura: You were saying that you have clients who say like I'm so lucky, you know, I'm lucky or like or the word help, you know.
Sanah: Yes, yes. okay. Even the word help, right? They, they're constantly like, I'm so glad my husband was able to help me take care of the baby. I'm so glad my husband helped me with the, with the dishes. And I have to kind of check it with them and be like, hey, do you think you would say that? About yourself, or do you think your husband would say that about you? You know, where, again, that helps, the lucky mindset is like this hierarchy of like, I don't deserve this, or I'm so glad that I'm able to get this, that I can't take it for granted.
Laura: Like, yeah, and it conveys who owns, who carries the underlying responsibility. Right, because if someone is helping someone else, then they are taking a load off of someone that is, is there, is that other person's carry by default.
Sanah: Exactly. So in, in with a lot of our sessions, there has to be this constant reminding and unlearning of this is y'all's family, this is y'all's house, this is y'all's baby, your kids, and not yours. This was not, you know, a job promotion that you got, and this is not a project that you're leading. This is y'all's life that y'all created together. And these are reminders I have to give myself to, you know, as I say it out loud, because sometimes I struggle because I get, I, you know, quote unquote, to get to work from home. I get, I quote unquote, get to spend all this time with my baby. My husband, quote unquote, has to drive an hour and back to and from work. Someday. I'm like, you're lucky to get that. You get 2 hours alone by yourself to listen to a podcast. What exactly. And I'm just like constantly following his location, like, where are you now? Where are you now by the time 5 o'clock hits. And so going back to the question that you asked of how all of this relates to perfectionism, I kind of want to go through some of the symptoms or, you know, red flags of perfectionism.
So, you know, it's this setting these high unrealistic standards for ourselves, and there's also types of perfectionists where you're setting those same high unrealistic standards for others as well because Find that they're an extension of you, they, they, they represent you. So if they can't get things done in a specific way, what does that say internally about you that you chose these people as partners, as friends, and even as family members. There's this constant extreme self-criticism, and guilt of not meeting those standards as well, and perfectionism, there are these, there are three fears that it stems from. So fear of failure, fear of rejection, and fear of abandonment. And all that is related a little bit more to our attachment styles, which is created, you know, at a very, very young age. There's also this pattern of procrastination.
So it's, it's, I know you mentioned you have ADHD and, with ADHD, the procrastination comes from this lack of awareness of like time passing. A lot of my ADHD clients are like, oh my gosh, like it's been two hours and I'm doing this one thing, or, you know, whereas with perfectionists who don't have ADHD, it's that, that, that thought of completing the task or the goal is looming in their mind. But it's that again, that fear of making mistakes, fear of failure, that pushes them to wait till the very end to get something going. There's also this like all or nothing thinking of if everything doesn't go the exact perfect way that I need it to go, it's a failure. What does that say about me? What does that say about my worth? What does that say about how others will view me, right? And then Again, there's this pattern of having a tough time delegating and asking for help. Because, again, what does that say about who I am as a person if I can't do it all on my own?
Laura: Right. Or if I delegate it and then it's not done right, the right way, because there is a right way and that's my way. Yeah, yes, yeah. You, I mean, gosh, you, it's kind of, I felt called out in a lovely way on all like all the things you were saying. Because well, I do have ADHD, I have both forms of procrastination that work together, right? Because I have perfectionism, the high achieving piece of it, and then I also need the time pressure in order to be motivated enough to do something. And so like my whole college and grad school career until I wrote my dissertation, we're all all-nighters writing papers. Like the dissertation was the first thing. I was like, I can't survive that. I can't write, you know, a 100 page document in one night. So I'll have to, you know, and by that point, my advisor knew me and gave me deadlines. But yes, yeah. Oh gosh. And I mean, I remember the first time I hosted a family event after my second child was born. We hosted thanksgiving and I just had oh my gosh, just an, like, so she was probably 6 months old. My oldest had just turned 3.
Everyone had a meltdown, including me. And my ultimate meltdown was because no one listened to me about where people were supposed to sit at the table. And my uncle, who is a wine connoisseur, did not get the special wine glass I had gotten for him, right? And I mean, and that was just a recipe of me wanting to show that I could do it all, that I could have a beautifully prepared meal with well-behaved kids and just the right setting. And it was a reflection of, you know, where I was in a mental health place. This was right after I quit my job as a professor, to focus on recovering from a car accident. Man, I was in a very vulnerable place as a new mom, as a, a new, like, newly trying to figure out, okay who am I if I'm not a professor, this thing that I worked for, you know, 13 years to be. And it all came to a head that thanksgiving. and I have a lot of compassion for that young mom, you know, that, so that was 9 years ago, almost 10 years ago, and man, that was, I feel I have a lot of compassion for her. She was in a hard place.
Sanah: Yeah, that's something I actually ask a lot of my clients to do is learn how to give themselves compassion, right? And many high achieving moms who struggle with people pleasing and perfectionism, like, our mind is just like, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And the only way I find that they're allowed is that they allow them and are forced to slow down. I don't if you mentioned this earlier is writing, right? They are forced to slow down what they're thinking, what's on their to do list, the mental load of it all when they're writing, and when they write, when they journal, you know, every time I tell my client's journal, there's always eye rolls and I'm constantly rolling at my own journaling at times.
Laura: I get rolls too from everyone, but something different happens when you're physically writing. I'm not talking, voicing yourself or typing. I have to physically write. And we're not just lying sweet listeners, like there's like brain research. It works differently in the brain.
Sanah: 100%, right? And I am constantly avoiding my own journaling time, but there's always my my husband can tell when I haven't journaled in like 2 or 3 days. He's like, do I, do we, do we need to set some time apart? Like, have you journaled and majority of the time he's right, where I'm like, I haven't. I need to do it. And that is the that is one of the only ways I find that moms, high achieving moms specifically are able to be nice to themselves when they're able to write down whatever's on their mind, whatever they're afraid of, whatever they're worried about, whatever they're being mean to themselves about, whatever they are. Yeah, just stressed about overall. And then when they see it in writing, they automatically get a new perspective on distance, right?
Laura: You can just get a little bit of emotional distance from it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, so I, I, when I'm working with a new client or, you know, in any of my courses, we always start with self-compassion. I think it's the most important skill parents can have. And it is, it's a skill. It's not a tool, it's a muscle that you have to exercise, right? Learning how to be compassionate with yourself. Yes, and, I mean, so getting that distance or finding the version of yourself that is easiest to be kind to, whether that's a A picture of you when you were your child's age, um, you know, starting with the low hanging fruits, you know, of like, what is the easiest time in my life where I can be compassionate towards myself. You know, when we look back at our mistakes, it's easy to be hard on ourselves, because that's, especially for these perfectionist, perfectionistic people pleasing, high achieving people that we're talking about. And that's how we got stuff done, right? Like it was very effective being hard on ourselves, right? You know, like that's how, you know, we learn, like this is how you become successful, right? And Some of what you're asking us to do is to redefine what success means, and maybe it means not getting it perfect, but being kind to ourselves in the midst of our imperfection. Maybe that will be a success.
Sanah: And I think it's so important and essential for kids to see the value of imperfection. Kids see us make mistakes, to repair, to learn, to grow, so that they have these just they're, they're able to indirectly practice through us. They have models, formulas, right? Going back to the formula, right? And, and the safety and, opportunity to recognize and, validate themselves for their imperfections and recognize that like somebody as, just Important to them as their own mother and father can be still my mom and my dad and be imperfect and still give me unconditional love, and I can still give them unconditional love. Exactly. Yeah, which is something our generation didn't get, right?
Laura: Like I mean, I think, I think our parents, I think I do think our parents, most of us had parents who gave us Their best approximation of unconditional love, for sure.
Sanah: Because they were leaps ahead of their own parents, you know.
Laura: I know, you know, we talk so much about generational change and, you know, it ends with us and most of the time change within families occurs across generations, not just in one generation, you know, change is incremental, it grows and it builds and you know, there's only so much work we can do in our lifetime, and there's a part of it that is legacy for future generations to, to continue to work through. One thing you said there that I just wanted to kind of hold up to is, you know, so I have so many of my folks who are in my membership or who work with me one on one. who become so afraid when they see signs of perfectionism or signs of people pleasing in their kids. They feel guilty and afraid that they've done that to them, that they gave that to them. What would you say to those moms who are afraid of that and are and don't want their kids to be burdened with the same things they've been burdened with.
Sanah: Yeah, well, something to remember is like the more we're afraid of something, our gut instinct is going to be to avoid it and look the other way, right? And that's not what we want to do. We don't want to be afraid of it. We want to unlearn and relearn and practice something different, right? And the best way to do that is one, by showing them and and you practicing, so showing by modeling, right, teaching by modeling. Yes. And the second thing that I can think of is having these consistent conversations about these topics, right? Remind them that, so say, you know, they're an athlete, they, they lose a game, they're really bombed talking that with them that hey, this doesn't change how good of a soccer player you are. This doesn't change how proud I am of you. This doesn't change your worth and value. And in the moment, it can all sound so cheesy, and they may be rolling their eyes and they may want to get up, but they're processing.
So a lot of times what a lot of kids aren't able to, stop themselves from pleasing people and perfectionism because they aren't given verbiage for it, right? So giving them verbiage of what it means to still be proud of yourself? What does it mean to be resilient? What does it mean to make mistakes? What does it mean To like yourself versus love yourself? Because they're two different things, right? To show them, again, showing them yourself within your marriage, with other siblings, with your friends, with your own life, what that means. I think a lot of times we forget the power of modeling for them. Instead, again, We're going for that teacher mindset and that authority mindset of, let, let me, let me just make you do it. When they see what we're doing and not doing. So I think, again, the first step is asking yourself, are you modeling the behaviors and the mindset that you want them to have?
Laura: Yeah, yeah. Gosh, I can tell you a story, on this very topic. Over the weekend, I was reading in bed like early in the morning. That's one of the times where I find peace, and I was reading on my Kindle and I noticed that there were a couple books on there that were in the Spanish language. And while I speak Spanish, I don't read in Spanish very often, and they were not books I had purchased. Which tells me someone else purchased them, right? And my husband had lost his Kindle a few months back, and I just assumed that he went through the steps to mark it as lost and disconnect it from our Amazon account, but he had not. And so, like when we got up that day, I was taking care of that. I asked him, you know, had you done that?
And he was like, oh, no, I didn't. And he was being really hard on himself, you know, talking to himself in a way he would never speak to a friend, never speak to me ever., never to our kids. And my, my 9-year-old was there and she goes, dad, it sounds like you're having a hard time being kind to yourself. I don't like anyone talking about my dad that way. You know, and I mean, it, those are things that she's heard me say over and over, you know, to them, to, you know, I like when sometimes when he's, you know, saying things that are harsh to himself, I will say like, don't talk about my husband that way, you know, you know, and, but it was so lovely to hear that coming from her that, like, and, and for him to be able to say, you're right, I am having a hard time being kind to myself. My, you know, the voice that I speak to myself in is important, and that's hard for me sometimes. You know, just like, just even that. Like it, you know. Can you imagine a conversation like that happening in your home growing up?
Sanah: Literally no.
Laura: Literally never, right? Like, right? Isn't that I just can't, these kids are so. are so lucky and they don't even know it, which is good. It's good that they don't know how lucky they are.
Sanah: Yeah, and I mean,I have, I have to celebrate you in this moment because this is not, this is not the environment that's ongoing in all homes, even in this generation. Yeah, yeah you are doing the hard work.
Laura: All of our listeners are, right, like, oh my gosh. Are we so lucky? Oh my gosh, are we so lucky though that we get to peek into families who are doing this really hard work and walk alongside them, right?
Sanah: Yeah, because again, kind of how I started the session or this, this recording with you was, I feel so blessed because it's, it's, I feel like chosen in that way, that that I get to learn about these moms that are just all they want is to be loving and nice and kind, and that's why they're seeking therapy, you know, that's all that's all they want, which is, which is that's so sweet and so selfless and so like mom like like only moms do that, you know, it's it's so sweet.
Laura: So, one thing that I feel like I really took from our conversation together that ties into what you just said is that from so many of these moms who just want to be good moms, just want to be good and kind and compassionate with their kids. What I've learned from you and, and what I know to be true in my own experience is that if that's what we want, the work that is starting with ourselves, right? The work is, you know, if we want to show up authentically on the outside with our kids in that way, we have to start by showing up on the inside with ourselves that way, right?
Sanah: Yeah, definitely. And our kids will see through it one way or the other.
Laura: If it's, it's They'll know, kids, kids can spot inauthenticity a mile away. They're very good at that. Yeah.
Sanah: And just like what we tell our kids, like, just, just try, right? We just want you to try, you know, I say that to my moms too where I'm like, just try it. Trying it, not exactly. And you don't need to perfect it. You just need to try it. Yes.
Laura: Oh, thank you so much. You know, I firmly believe that teachers come into our lives when we need them most. My guess is somebody listening today is hearing what you have to say and is getting the poke to think that you're perhaps their teacher. I'm curious if you can share where people can find you and connect with you and learn alongside you.
Sanah: Yeah, that's so sweet. Yes, yeah, I'm pretty active on Instagram. It's just @balancedmindstherapy and then my website is balancedmindstherapy.com.
Laura: Beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing with us today and for what you put out into the world.
Sanah: Thank you. This was so fun.
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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 to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!