From Burnout to Empowerment – My Conversation with Alyssa Brade

Shelly: 00:00:00

Welcome, friends, back to another episode of Empower Her Wellness.

Shelly: 00:00:03

My guest today today is Alyssa, and Alyssa is the author of the book, Mommy Needs a Minute, from Burnout to Empowerment.

Shelly: 00:00:12

And when Alyssa first contacted me about being a guest, I thought, no.

Shelly: 00:00:16

You know, the book, is that really for me?

Shelly: 00:00:18

I'm not a mom of young kids anymore.

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My kids are all grown and have grown kids of their own practically.

Shelly: 00:00:24

But she sent me a link.

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And as I started reading, and I thought, wow, this is really applicable to anyone who is experiencing

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some sort of burnout in their lives, whether you're a mom of young children, a caregiver, someone

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who has a lot of responsibilities.

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So I got a lot of great tidbits and information from this book.

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And another thing I really liked about this book is that it's researched, and Alyssa references

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psychologists and other experts in the field to help you lessen the feeling of burnout.

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And it was just a it was just a really great book.

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Alyssa is so down to earth, so much fun to talk to, and I think you're really gonna get a lot out of this episode.

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Before we get started, we have a Facebook group.

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Link is down below in the show notes.

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And also, if you would like to support my endeavor with this podcast, if you get value from

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this episode or any of the other episodes, I encourage you to click the support the podcast

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link down below in the show notes as well. Okay, friends.

Shelly: 00:01:37

On to my conversation with Alyssa. Well, hey, Alyssa. Welcome to the podcast.

Alyssa: 00:01:44

Thank you, Shelley. Thank you so much for having me.

Alyssa: 00:01:46

I'm excited to be here.

Shelly: 00:01:48

Taking time out of your busy day and and full disclosure, this is the second time because apparently

Shelly: 00:01:52

something happened with the audio and the video last time.

Shelly: 00:01:55

So I doubly appreciate Alyssa doing this again with me.

Alyssa: 00:02:00

Oh, no worries. It was a lovely conversation.

Alyssa: 00:02:03

I'm excited to have it again.

Shelly: 00:02:05

So, Alyssa, you're the author of the book, Mommy Needs a Minute from Burnout to Empowerment,

Shelly: 00:02:13

which I read well, listened to actually the most of it.

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And when I first saw the title, I was like, you know, I'm not a mom.

Shelly: 00:02:21

I, you know, don't know if this would really fit with with me personally, but as I started listening

Shelly: 00:02:27

to it, I found out it did.

Shelly: 00:02:29

Because a lot of what you talked about, I think, can pertain to not just moms, but caregivers

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and women in general who are just feeling this, like, overwhelming sense of, I've got so much

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to do, and I don't know how to do it, And who am I?

Shelly: 00:02:43

You know, basic questions in life.

Shelly: 00:02:45

I came across, were you given an an an interview, and I really loved what you said here.

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So I'm gonna read it.

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And I would love to to talk back.

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Because I think this is maybe the reason that you you wrote the book.

Shelly: 00:03:00

You said find yourself again, have goals, hopes, and dreams.

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It doesn't mean you're a bad mom or you don't care about your family.

Shelly: 00:03:08

It means you love them enough not to lose yourself in the process. So I loved that.

Shelly: 00:03:15

So tell us what what you mean when when you said that?

Shelly: 00:03:18

Was that the reason you you wrote the book for for women, moms?

Alyssa: 00:03:23

Yes. I came across a lot of women who after raising children, it's like you give your your everything

Alyssa: 00:03:31

to your kids and your family, and a lot of women, either if they choose to stay home or they

Alyssa: 00:03:36

choose to go to work, whatever you've decided, everything comes second to that goal of being

Alyssa: 00:03:43

a great mom for your kids, a great, a great worker for your boss, and it's really easy to lose

Alyssa: 00:03:51

yourself in that in those roles because there's so many different roles, and it's easy to get

Alyssa: 00:03:56

so swept up in the busyness that you forget to take time to be curious about who you are and

Alyssa: 00:04:02

what you want and if you're making decisions based on what everybody tells you you should want

Alyssa: 00:04:07

or what you actually authentically feel is good for you and your life.

Alyssa: 00:04:12

And I feel like, for me, personally, I was getting to that spot in my life where I was feeling

Alyssa: 00:04:18

very burnt out and overwhelmed and unfulfilled.

Alyssa: 00:04:22

And I'm like, if I'm having these feelings, then there must be something along the way that

Alyssa: 00:04:26

is disconnecting because if I'm authentically living who I am and passionately living my purpose,

Alyssa: 00:04:32

I I shouldn't be feeling so burned out and exhausted and depressed and overwhelmed and just

Alyssa: 00:04:39

kinda over life and lost all the time.

Shelly: 00:04:42

Well, you know, Alyssa, nowadays, we have the Internet that's just gonna give you all the information

Shelly: 00:04:46

you need to know what to do. Right? Yeah.

Shelly: 00:04:50

You talk about that in your book about how we have this overload of information, but it's not necessarily good for us.

Shelly: 00:04:58

So I'd like to talk about that a little bit.

Shelly: 00:05:00

And then also 1 of the things that you referenced in your book was the overload of information

Shelly: 00:05:05

and then also how we don't use our intuition, or we don't know that we we have this intuitive

Shelly: 00:05:12

nature about us, especially when it comes to kiddos and women just caregiving in general.

Shelly: 00:05:18

So does this overload of information, has that kinda tamped down our intuition?

Alyssa: 00:05:28

I feel like human beings are naturally curious, and especially as a young mom, you're not given

Alyssa: 00:05:34

a handbook or even, as an older woman, whatever season of life you're in, if you're thrown into

Alyssa: 00:05:39

that caregiving role, you're often not given a handbook.

Alyssa: 00:05:43

You're given some general guidelines of how to keep said person alive and you hope that you're not screwing it up.

Alyssa: 00:05:49

And so a lot of women go, we we want to be we want to do it right, we want to do a good job,

Alyssa: 00:05:54

we want to raise, or take care of the person we love well.

Alyssa: 00:05:59

And so we go online and we look for all of the answers for every possible question we could have.

Alyssa: 00:06:05

And the problem is that there's so many different articles and opinions and viewpoints, and

Alyssa: 00:06:10

they're all backed by research, and they all are backed by science.

Alyssa: 00:06:13

And, some of them that aren't so much backed by science also have a little bit of the fear factor

Alyssa: 00:06:20

behind them, especially when it comes to topics like vaccinating or, proper ways to discipline your child.

Alyssa: 00:06:27

And what we end up having is this fear stigma that if you don't choose the right method and

Alyssa: 00:06:33

if you don't research it enough, you're going to screw up this huge job that you've been given.

Alyssa: 00:06:38

And I think that in doing that, women become burned out on information.

Alyssa: 00:06:43

We look and we look and we look, and the deeper you go into the rabbit hole, the longer and

Alyssa: 00:06:47

longer it gets because the information never ends, and there's never just 1 conclusive answer

Alyssa: 00:06:52

on how to do it right because the people we're raising are unique individual human beings and

Alyssa: 00:06:57

you are a unique individual human being who not everything is going to fit with who you are

Alyssa: 00:07:03

and not everything's gonna fit with what your child needs.

Alyssa: 00:07:06

So I love that you mentioned that because, yes, I think we get information burnout, and then

Alyssa: 00:07:11

we lose a big part of our intuition because instead of taking time to assess what we know about

Alyssa: 00:07:17

our child, what we know about ourself, what has worked well for us in the past.

Alyssa: 00:07:22

We're so scared of messing it up that instead we're just looking for somebody, anybody to tell

Alyssa: 00:07:26

us that what we're doing is right or wrong so we can change.

Shelly: 00:07:30

Yeah. That's a good point.

Shelly: 00:07:32

And that brings me to a story you tell.

Shelly: 00:07:33

First of all, I love your husband from the book.

Shelly: 00:07:35

I don't know him personally, but I just love him.

Shelly: 00:07:37

So you you tell a story about how you were swaddling 1 of your children, and apparently, he didn't like it.

Shelly: 00:07:45

Your child didn't like it and and wasn't sleeping like you see on these Instagram videos of

Shelly: 00:07:51

I swaddled my child and, you know, she's asleep in 3 seconds.

Shelly: 00:07:54

And so your, your husband comes in and like starts unwrapping the baby and, and then things just change.

Shelly: 00:08:00

And he, you can help me remember, but he said something like he just wants his arms free or

Shelly: 00:08:07

he apparently doesn't like this or something.

Shelly: 00:08:10

So I just thought it was, like, you've had this hair and I remember Alyssa having these moments

Shelly: 00:08:16

with my kids, like, are you too hot? Are you too cold?

Shelly: 00:08:19

Have you had enough to eat? Why are you crying?

Shelly: 00:08:20

You know, just all these things.

Shelly: 00:08:22

And your husband just comes in and like, ah, he wants his arms loose. You know?

Shelly: 00:08:27

So I just thought that was such AAA great story for a couple of reasons.

Shelly: 00:08:31

First of all, he just sort of, like, knew.

Shelly: 00:08:33

Like, apparently, this baby's not happy, so let's unswaddle him.

Alyssa: 00:08:37

And that's what I think is the amazing thing that can be very freeing about not having to follow

Alyssa: 00:08:44

strict strict strategic advice, for absolutely every area of your parenting, especially when

Alyssa: 00:08:49

if you try it, it's not working, having that that confidence in yourself to step back and be like, This isn't working. Why isn't this working?

Alyssa: 00:08:57

And the automatic conclusion isn't that it's my fault it's not working.

Alyssa: 00:09:01

It could just be that this advice might be great for other families and it might not look well

Alyssa: 00:09:05

for us and that's okay.

Alyssa: 00:09:07

It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you or your family And that's something I really

Alyssa: 00:09:10

appreciated and still appreciate about my husband.

Alyssa: 00:09:14

I'm very much like, well, the research says and the book says and this is what we're doing and

Alyssa: 00:09:20

sometimes he'll just he'll just laugh a little bit and be like, well, but babe, it's it's not working.

Alyssa: 00:09:25

So it doesn't matter how great the book is or how much research you've done or how backed up

Alyssa: 00:09:29

of these these things that you're trying to teach are.

Alyssa: 00:09:32

If it's not working for our boys, then then it's it's not worth very much to us, which sounds

Alyssa: 00:09:39

so logical when you say it out loud.

Shelly: 00:09:42

Yeah.

Alyssa: 00:09:42

But as a young mom who is in the throes of sleep deprivation and all all the hormones and feeling

Alyssa: 00:09:48

overwhelmed, it's like, don't tell me that my book is my lifeline. Leave me alone.

Shelly: 00:09:53

Yeah. How how will I know to exist with taking care of my kids if I don't have book or social

Shelly: 00:09:58

media to tell me how to do it? Right?

Shelly: 00:10:00

So I remember my first, my daughter, gosh, she was colicky.

Shelly: 00:10:05

Like, she every every night, I just knew it was coming.

Shelly: 00:10:08

Like, every night for 4 hours, she would just cry and scream, and and I did all the things.

Shelly: 00:10:13

We didn't have Instagram back then or social media. We had Doctor.

Shelly: 00:10:16

Spock and I can't remember the name of his book, but, so I tried everything, Alyssa, with this,

Shelly: 00:10:21

with this kit, everything I was at my wit's end and I was crying and I was tired and I was breastfeeding

Shelly: 00:10:25

and I was, you know, blah blah blah blah.

Shelly: 00:10:29

And, my husband come just comes in.

Shelly: 00:10:31

Her dad takes her, lays her on his chest.

Shelly: 00:10:33

He lays down on the couch and they both fall asleep.

Alyssa: 00:10:36

I'm just like,

Shelly: 00:10:37

how do you do that?

Shelly: 00:10:39

How do you do stomp in the other room?

Shelly: 00:10:41

Like, how do y'all do that?

Shelly: 00:10:43

So, you know, he I think he just sort of knew and he wasn't stressed out and he was really super

Shelly: 00:10:49

chill and had, you know, was just like, she probably is tired of being held and swaddled and

Shelly: 00:10:55

trying to be fed and just leave her alone. You know? Yeah.

Shelly: 00:10:59

So he would just fall asleep.

Shelly: 00:11:00

She'd fall asleep on his chest when he would come in from from work.

Shelly: 00:11:04

How how do we how do we know how to raise our kids or take care of our person if how do what

Shelly: 00:11:10

how do we use our intuition?

Shelly: 00:11:12

What have what have you found to be to be useful for you when you're raising your your little ones?

Alyssa: 00:11:18

Well, I think a big part of it is assessing your own mental health because I do think that,

Alyssa: 00:11:25

especially postpartum, you have a lot of hormonal changes going on and it's really easy to mistake

Alyssa: 00:11:31

intuition with postpartum depression, anxiety, other things that can come from just the sheer

Alyssa: 00:11:39

emotional and physical stress of having a baby and bringing another person into the world.

Alyssa: 00:11:44

So first, I think it's important to assess your own mental health.

Alyssa: 00:11:48

I know that I had really severe postpartum depression with my firstborn and I didn't know that it was postpartum depression.

Alyssa: 00:11:54

It wasn't really talked about.

Alyssa: 00:11:55

I didn't talk about it with anyone because I was so scared of the stigma that I was a terrible

Alyssa: 00:12:00

mom and someone was gonna take my baby away because I was having these feelings.

Alyssa: 00:12:04

But I was so scared that my son was going to die if I put him down, which was a very irrational

Alyssa: 00:12:11

fear, that we just carried him around, my husband and I, 247, around the clock, around our jobs, around everything.

Alyssa: 00:12:18

For the 1st 3 months of his life until my husband was like, okay, this you're okay. He's okay.

Alyssa: 00:12:24

We're gonna we're gonna try and put him down for just 20 minutes for a nap and, so I think it's

Alyssa: 00:12:29

important that was obviously not to an intuition based.

Alyssa: 00:12:32

That was just, a lot of fear.

Alyssa: 00:12:35

And so it's important, I think, to take time to assess your own mental health.

Alyssa: 00:12:39

And then it's important to spend time getting to know your child, and your child will tell you

Alyssa: 00:12:45

so many incredible things, just in small movements and facial expressions and the way they interact

Alyssa: 00:12:52

and react to certain situations.

Alyssa: 00:12:54

I think the problem is that a lot of times we're so busy on our phones googling, and researching

Alyssa: 00:13:00

the best things to do for our kids, the best ways to play, the best foods to feed them, that

Alyssa: 00:13:05

we miss actually getting to know them in those early stages when they are telling us a lot of things.

Shelly: 00:13:11

I like that. You know, it's it's your child's over here going, I need this.

Shelly: 00:13:15

You're like, I'll be quiet.

Shelly: 00:13:16

I gotta let me Google it.

Shelly: 00:13:17

Let me Google and see what you need.

Shelly: 00:13:19

You don't know what you need.

Shelly: 00:13:19

But Google knows what you need.

Shelly: 00:13:22

And I like how you said assessing your mental health and those irrational fears.

Shelly: 00:13:26

Thank you for sharing that, first of all, because I understand how we are judged so harshly

Shelly: 00:13:34

sometimes for having, like, these these thoughts.

Shelly: 00:13:37

I mean, I have I am so glad social media wasn't around when my kids were here, when they were young.

Shelly: 00:13:44

Instead, I I told this this story, and the first time we chatted was I had a my daughter's great

Shelly: 00:13:51

grandmother advice of tying her to a potty chair to learn to train her to because she would

Shelly: 00:13:58

carry her potty chair around, and then she'd sit in it in the living room or the kitchen or wherever.

Shelly: 00:14:02

And she was here this week and I told her that story and she laughed.

Shelly: 00:14:05

But, you know, so I didn't have the internet, but I had, you know, great grandma telling me

Shelly: 00:14:10

how to raise my kiddos.

Shelly: 00:14:11

But, so, yeah, so assessing your mental health, I'm so glad you said that.

Shelly: 00:14:16

And you spoke up to that because if we don't start talking about that, if we and and getting

Shelly: 00:14:22

that out there, I mean, there's always gonna be people who'll be like, you know, you decide

Shelly: 00:14:25

to have that kid is not like having a Goldfish, you just can't give it back and, you know, just

Shelly: 00:14:30

useless, useless crap like that.

Shelly: 00:14:33

You know, but I, when Steve first came home, I had this irrational fear of going to sleep because

Shelly: 00:14:44

I was afraid I'd die in my sleep.

Shelly: 00:14:46

I don't know where that came from.

Shelly: 00:14:49

I've never dealt with that anxiety in my life, but it was this, Alyssa, if I die in my sleep,

Shelly: 00:14:55

who's gonna take care of Steve?

Shelly: 00:14:57

So I I'm glad you said that because for new mamas, for caregivers out there, looking at the

Shelly: 00:15:05

reason the the the thing behind or the reason behind that you're having this fear and how to

Shelly: 00:15:12

help you alleviate that because it is irrational.

Shelly: 00:15:16

I'm not gonna die in my sleep.

Shelly: 00:15:17

There's nothing wrong with me.

Shelly: 00:15:19

Just like, you know, your kiddo is is is fine. You know?

Shelly: 00:15:23

So what did you do to to help with your mental health during during those times?

Shelly: 00:15:30

You talk about how you just ran yourself into the ground.

Shelly: 00:15:34

Like, you literally made yourself sick trying to be all the things.

Alyssa: 00:15:40

I think that a lot of a lot of women, experience this this pull when you have a baby.

Alyssa: 00:15:47

You're a mom, but you were also were somebody before you were a mom.

Alyssa: 00:15:51

And you also have hopes and dreams and aspirations outside of being a mom, but it's hard to balance them all.

Alyssa: 00:15:56

It's hard to know what parts of yourself need to be put on hold for a while or rediscovered

Alyssa: 00:16:01

or reevaluated and what parts need to stay to be an authentic mom and authentic version of yourself.

Alyssa: 00:16:08

And I think what happens a lot of the time is we run ourselves ragged trying to live 2 lives,

Alyssa: 00:16:13

the life we were living before we had our baby and the life we have now with our baby.

Alyssa: 00:16:18

And that's what I was doing.

Alyssa: 00:16:19

I was wasn't planning on having children.

Alyssa: 00:16:22

I had, I was in the middle of completing my master's degree.

Alyssa: 00:16:25

I was very career oriented, ended up getting unexpectedly pregnant after the middle of my master's

Alyssa: 00:16:32

degree, and then unexpectedly pregnant a couple months in the middle of my master's degree,

Alyssa: 00:16:39

and then unexpectedly pregnant a couple months, after my first son was born. Yeah.

Alyssa: 00:16:43

And, yes, it was and it was a lot, and it was a lot of hormone and physical changes as well

Alyssa: 00:16:49

as just social changes of, oh, this is not the degree I was working toward was very high stress,

Alyssa: 00:16:56

very, not geared very well for family life, and I was happy with that because I wasn't planning on having a family.

Alyssa: 00:17:02

And when I have my family, it was like I had to reevaluate and reassess all of my priorities.

Alyssa: 00:17:07

So I worked full time from home and I also had my babies at home with me.

Alyssa: 00:17:12

I was pregnant with my second born when, my first born was got really sick.

Alyssa: 00:17:17

He got a nasty cold, and I was exhausted and sleep deprived and pregnant and sick.

Alyssa: 00:17:23

And I was walking walking down our cement stairs out front, and I just fainted while I was carrying

Alyssa: 00:17:28

him and fell just face

Shelly: 00:17:30

for him. How scary.

Alyssa: 00:17:31

It it was. He fell he fell on his head, hit the concrete, and, I fell on my belly, and like

Alyssa: 00:17:39

I said, I was pregnant at the time.

Alyssa: 00:17:41

I rushed him to the hospital. Yes.

Alyssa: 00:17:43

I had a had a bad experience at the hospital, which kind of exasperated those feelings of inadequacy

Alyssa: 00:17:49

and what am I doing.

Alyssa: 00:17:50

And the doctor at our hospital told us that, chances were very high that he wasn't going to live.

Alyssa: 00:17:56

They were going to do brain surgery, at a pediatric hospital in a bigger city, so he was airlifted

Alyssa: 00:18:03

there and I accompanied him.

Alyssa: 00:18:06

And I as you can imagine, the mom guilt and the exhaustion and the stress.

Alyssa: 00:18:10

And when we got there, the leading pediatric doctor ended up taking another scan of his brain,

Alyssa: 00:18:16

and they were like, we can't explain it. The bleeding stopped.

Alyssa: 00:18:19

They kept him for observation for 2 days, and he is a healthy, happy 4 or 3 and a half year

Alyssa: 00:18:24

old, hitting all his milestones. And it's Thank goodness. Yes.

Alyssa: 00:18:29

And when it was an incredible an incredible wake up call for what am I doing that I'm living

Alyssa: 00:18:36

a life that I'm so exhausted that my body physically is just shutting down and I'm so mentally and emotionally tapped out.

Alyssa: 00:18:44

So that was the breaking point where I started to assess my own mental health and my own choices

Alyssa: 00:18:50

that had led to this place.

Alyssa: 00:18:51

And it's 1 of the big things I looked at was, slow living mentality, that philosophy of the

Alyssa: 00:18:58

more experiences you have, the less you actually experience.

Alyssa: 00:19:02

The more you're trying to get out of life, the less you get out of life because you're so exhausted

Alyssa: 00:19:08

and distracted that you're not fully present for the things that you're experiencing.

Alyssa: 00:19:12

And so I started to assess my mental health from that standpoint of, I what are my tendencies? I have perfectionist tendencies.

Alyssa: 00:19:21

I have over cheating tendencies, and I'm applying all of this to motherhood.

Alyssa: 00:19:25

And I think the crazy thing about motherhood, I would believe caregiving in general is it opens

Alyssa: 00:19:33

up your eyes to all of these unaddressed mental health struggles that you might have had for

Alyssa: 00:19:37

a long time, but it's not until somebody else is watching you and you're realizing they're learning

Alyssa: 00:19:43

to interact with the world based on how they're watching me interact with it that you're like,

Alyssa: 00:19:47

I gotta get some of these under under control.

Shelly: 00:19:51

Yeah. Yeah. Because you tell a story in your book about your your son's, being upset because

Shelly: 00:19:58

he thought he wasn't doing something right, and he was just a toddler.

Shelly: 00:20:02

But you had said that he was just, you know, mimicking what he was seeing or or learning in

Shelly: 00:20:10

in the household, and you just kinda had to take a a step back. And

Alyssa: 00:20:14

Yes. And that's what I think is so interesting about being a mom or a caregiver.

Alyssa: 00:20:19

You have a mirror into how other people are are seeing you.

Alyssa: 00:20:25

You wanna see how you're acting, how you're teaching modeling for your children to act, look

Alyssa: 00:20:29

at how they're interacting with themselves, how they talk about themselves, how they're learning to talk about others.

Alyssa: 00:20:35

I think 1 of the biggest ways it's hard to model healthy mental health practice is we don't

Alyssa: 00:20:40

take the time to actually exercise our mental health. It is an exercise.

Alyssa: 00:20:44

It your brain is something you need to exercise just like any other part of your body.

Alyssa: 00:20:49

Your healthy healthy thoughts, positive mantras, taking time to get to know yourself on a deeper level.

Alyssa: 00:20:55

Those are all things that contribute to your mental health that we don't take the time to do because we don't. I shouldn't say we.

Alyssa: 00:21:01

I can only speak for myself, but, I, at least, I didn't see it as a valuable return on investment,

Alyssa: 00:21:09

because I couldn't physically see the results of it, but I promise if you wanna exercise anything,

Alyssa: 00:21:14

that is the 1 thing you can exercise that will transform your life.

Shelly: 00:21:19

I want people to realize too that, you know, moms are caregivers of children.

Shelly: 00:21:25

We you are you are caring for those kiddos, and I definitely see moms as caregivers, you know,

Shelly: 00:21:32

not in the sense of caregiving for a sick person, but you are definitely caring for the the

Shelly: 00:21:39

life, physical, mental, emotional, all the things for these kids.

Shelly: 00:21:44

So I I don't know how well prepared we are for these things.

Shelly: 00:21:48

You know, we, we go into having children being told, oh, you know, this is, this is what, what women do.

Shelly: 00:21:57

And, of course, it's a biological urge too.

Shelly: 00:21:59

Like, we you know, some of us, I did.

Shelly: 00:22:01

I had a very strong like, I couldn't explain him.

Shelly: 00:22:04

Like, where is this coming from?

Shelly: 00:22:06

I want a baby, but a strong biological urge as well for having children.

Shelly: 00:22:12

And when Steve came home, just this just this innate thing of, I'm going to be his caregiver,

Shelly: 00:22:19

and I don't need to evaluate that.

Shelly: 00:22:22

It's just what I'm going to do.

Shelly: 00:22:23

So I think a lot of it's just like us naturally.

Shelly: 00:22:26

We were born most of us were, like, born.

Shelly: 00:22:29

Although I've had some women say, I have never wanted a baby.

Shelly: 00:22:32

I don't know where that comes from in you, but I've never wanted a baby. You know?

Shelly: 00:22:37

So, but for the majority of us, it's, it's an innate thing, but we're not really very well prepared.

Shelly: 00:22:42

I was just, you know, like probably like you, you can read all the books before you have a baby,

Shelly: 00:22:47

but you don't know till you, like, actually have that kiddo in your arms. You know?

Shelly: 00:22:52

And and I can read all things about caregiving, but I don't actually know until my person comes home.

Shelly: 00:22:57

And now you're like, what the hell do I do?

Shelly: 00:23:00

So we're not very well prepared in the beginning, I don't think, anyway.

Alyssa: 00:23:05

No. I don't think so either.

Alyssa: 00:23:07

And I think a lot of the things that we are told, can be a little bit miss misleading a little bit.

Alyssa: 00:23:14

We because you'll see on social media the incredible moms who just 3 months and they they got their their bodies back.

Alyssa: 00:23:20

And the house is the house is clean, and they have a great organizational system and the baby's

Alyssa: 00:23:26

sleeping well and they're homeschooling their 3 other kids and life is beautiful and relaxed

Alyssa: 00:23:31

and you can do it too.

Alyssa: 00:23:32

And I think a big part of it, that might be true for some women, it might not be your reality.

Alyssa: 00:23:39

I think a big part of it is, like, we talked about, that unique you need to apply a unique approach

Alyssa: 00:23:45

to your own life and your own family, and finding what works really well for you.

Alyssa: 00:23:50

Some moms I know get so stressed keeping a regimented schedule is the worst thing you could do for them.

Alyssa: 00:23:56

And other moms are a mess without that regimented schedule and I think that we don't prepare

Alyssa: 00:24:03

women well for caregiving, because we're told things like it's such a beautiful time, it'll it's so fulfilling.

Alyssa: 00:24:10

I was told numerous times that, well, after you give birth, you'll wanna do it all over again.

Alyssa: 00:24:15

You're just gonna forget all of the pain and let you know

Shelly: 00:24:19

who the same way. It is not true, people. It's not true. Not true. No.

Alyssa: 00:24:23

You remember all that pain.

Alyssa: 00:24:25

That phantom pain will haunt you.

Shelly: 00:24:26

I hey. It's been almost 40 years, and I can still remember it, Melissa. So Yeah.

Shelly: 00:24:31

In fact, I'm gonna go, like, in the corner and cry now.

Alyssa: 00:24:34

Shelley can be a testament for this.

Alyssa: 00:24:37

But, yes, it's it's so it's these expectations that we have, and I think mentally when you have

Alyssa: 00:24:42

these expectations of what it'll look like, and just sleep when the baby sleeps, and relax when the baby relaxes.

Alyssa: 00:24:49

And I was like, well, no.

Alyssa: 00:24:51

I still I still have a job and I still have a house that I need to pee clean and food I need

Alyssa: 00:24:55

to cook and I'm running on 2 hours of sleep and I love the advice that or this picture that

Alyssa: 00:25:01

you painted for me that I'm just going to nap around the house all day and sleep when the baby sleeps. That's great.

Alyssa: 00:25:06

But for a lot of women, it's it's not our reality.

Alyssa: 00:25:09

Many women go back to work when their babies are only 4 to 6 weeks old.

Alyssa: 00:25:13

Many many of us work from home.

Alyssa: 00:25:15

It's I think that a big part of why we're underprepared is our the expectations aren't realistic

Alyssa: 00:25:22

and then when we get there it feels like we've at least for me, it felt like I was so old this

Alyssa: 00:25:27

lie or this illusion of what motherhood should be.

Alyssa: 00:25:31

And I felt like it was my fault that mother that motherhood wasn't looking the way it I was

Alyssa: 00:25:36

told it was supposed to.

Alyssa: 00:25:37

I was doing something wrong because my experience wasn't what I was told I should be experiencing.

Shelly: 00:25:43

So I hear this, you know, I see these things like everyone has 24 hours in the day.

Shelly: 00:25:46

Beyonce has 24 hours in the day.

Shelly: 00:25:48

Well, Beyonce has a village.

Shelly: 00:25:50

She has a chef, a nanny, a chauffeur, whatever.

Shelly: 00:25:52

Well, you know, good kudos to her. Good for her. Yeah.

Shelly: 00:25:56

I don't begrudge for those things.

Shelly: 00:25:58

But then that applies us to to us mere mortals that, Alyssa, you have 24 hours in a day just

Shelly: 00:26:04

like Beyonce does, so why can't you get your shit done? She can.

Alyssa: 00:26:07

Yeah.

Shelly: 00:26:08

And then she produces albums and all that, but she's got a village.

Shelly: 00:26:12

And so several years ago, Hillary Clinton, you know, was talking about takes a village, and

Shelly: 00:26:17

she was practically, you know, laughed off the face of the earth. But it's so true.

Shelly: 00:26:23

We we, historically, we have lived in in clans.

Shelly: 00:26:29

You know, I remember as a kiddo, all the drymans lived on the same road practically, and we

Shelly: 00:26:34

had neighbors and we all just, like, shared the garden.

Shelly: 00:26:38

And I'd go to my neighbor's house or my grandma's house, and I just felt like I had all this

Shelly: 00:26:43

these, you know, safety nets around me even though I was the generation that, yeah, I drink

Shelly: 00:26:48

out of a water hose and we were locked out of the house.

Shelly: 00:26:50

But I don't go to grandma's, you know. Yeah.

Shelly: 00:26:53

So and my mom probably knew that.

Shelly: 00:26:55

But we don't I don't know that we really have that built.

Shelly: 00:26:58

I mean, we have friends. Right?

Shelly: 00:27:02

But how do you how do we I I think 1 of the things that we can really do, and I know this we'll

Shelly: 00:27:09

get back on the subject of its ability in a second, but 1 of the things I think that we can

Shelly: 00:27:13

really do is to read books like yours.

Shelly: 00:27:16

Because if we can make a change within ourselves, then we can make a help make a change out into the bigger world.

Shelly: 00:27:23

Because it's like, you know, 1 1 person I read your book.

Shelly: 00:27:27

Now we're gonna tell a bunch of people about your book and to read your book and and how you

Shelly: 00:27:32

can help start that process, taking care of yourself and your littles and your person if you're a caregiver. Does that make sense?

Shelly: 00:27:39

Do you do you understand what I'm trying to say, Melissa?

Alyssa: 00:27:42

Yes. I think that's the that's the problem.

Alyssa: 00:27:45

A lot of people look and they're like, it's such a huge systemic problem.

Alyssa: 00:27:47

What am I going to do?

Alyssa: 00:27:48

So you turn and do nothing.

Alyssa: 00:27:50

But the reality is our culture and our society is made up of individuals who are making individual

Alyssa: 00:27:55

choices every day, and you can be countercultural, you can say I'm not choosing to live like

Alyssa: 00:28:00

this anymore and it's incredible how other people meet that stepping out in that courage can

Alyssa: 00:28:07

encourage other people to then be like, no, actually this isn't authentic version of myself either.

Alyssa: 00:28:12

I don't like living my life this way either.

Alyssa: 00:28:15

And you're right, this changes changes start on a personal level and the individual individuals

Alyssa: 00:28:24

are what make up the entire body of society.

Shelly: 00:28:29

So I wanna go back to something you talked about earlier because I was gonna I remembered this

Shelly: 00:28:32

story, and then III forgot, went on to something else.

Shelly: 00:28:37

When you talked about slow living So there's a story in the book about where you and your kiddos

Shelly: 00:28:42

are at the zoo, I think.

Shelly: 00:28:44

And you've gotta get cupcakes. Was it the zoo?

Shelly: 00:28:46

So you're like, the celebrations where you're like, oh, I've got to find a cupcake place before it closes.

Shelly: 00:28:51

So you're like on the phone frantically looking for cupcakes.

Shelly: 00:28:55

And then you don't really enjoy the full experience that you're having with your kiddos at the moment.

Shelly: 00:29:01

So you're so fixated on having this perfect cupcake celebration. Was it a birthday? I can't remember.

Alyssa: 00:29:07

Yep. It was my birthday.

Shelly: 00:29:08

So you're so fixated on having this perfect birthday celebration.

Shelly: 00:29:12

And so I love what you said about slow living.

Shelly: 00:29:15

So now you talk about when you do something, that's all you do.

Alyssa: 00:29:18

Yes. And I think it's so easy to say, and it's really hard to live, because naturally, there's

Alyssa: 00:29:25

so many things calling on our attention and so it's easy to be like, I'm just gonna multitask.

Alyssa: 00:29:29

I'm just gonna answer this email while I'm making dinner and I'm just going to, check my phone

Alyssa: 00:29:36

while they're sitting down to eat and I'm just going to clean clean while while they're doing this.

Alyssa: 00:29:43

And I think we miss out on being fully present with that and we also miss out on incredible

Alyssa: 00:29:48

opportunities to teach our kids how to be contributing members of the family unit.

Alyssa: 00:29:54

When I'm distractedly trying to entertain them or I'm trying to do my phone and I'm also trying

Alyssa: 00:29:59

to, let's say, vacuum, I miss out on an opportunity like, no. We're fully present.

Alyssa: 00:30:04

We are all vacuuming together. We're taking turns.

Alyssa: 00:30:06

I'm teaching you how to do it.

Alyssa: 00:30:08

The boy my toddlers think the vacuum is the coolest thing right now.

Alyssa: 00:30:12

And admit we miss out on those cool teachable moments and same with, like, oh, I am fully focused

Alyssa: 00:30:18

on the dishes and I'm taking 5 extra minutes for my son to wash his own little plastic cup and his own little plate.

Alyssa: 00:30:26

And we practice and we practice, and it's easier to practice when you're able to be fully present

Alyssa: 00:30:31

in the moment instead of viewing your children as an inconvenience that are like, I'm trying

Alyssa: 00:30:37

to get this done, and you're in the way.

Shelly: 00:30:40

So I wonder if your kid would be like, I remember when I was 3 years old and I didn't have that perfect cupcake. Yeah.

Alyssa: 00:30:47

You know? Exactly. It's I Do they

Shelly: 00:30:50

even gotta, like, care? You know, probably not.

Alyssa: 00:30:54

And that's the thing. A lot of research shows that kids kids care about how you show up.

Alyssa: 00:31:00

A lot of times they don't care about how what it looks like, how perfect it is.

Alyssa: 00:31:03

You're, as the mom, the only 1 who's going to remember the imperfect things you didn't pull off that day.

Shelly: 00:31:09

Yeah.

Alyssa: 00:31:09

But your child just knows that you were either present or you weren't present.

Alyssa: 00:31:12

You they my 2 year old doesn't care that I was looking googling for cupcakes.

Alyssa: 00:31:17

All he saw was that I was on my phone the whole the whole day.

Shelly: 00:31:20

And you weren't paying attention?

Alyssa: 00:31:22

Yeah. And you weren't paying attention, and they don't and that translates in their mind, when they get older.

Alyssa: 00:31:27

What do you what habits do you think they're going to have?

Alyssa: 00:31:29

What do you think they're going to view as important?

Alyssa: 00:31:32

If I tell them family time is important, but I'm on my phone the whole time we're spending time together, how is that?

Alyssa: 00:31:37

What message is that conveying?

Shelly: 00:31:39

Yeah. I had a I did a interview with a doctor Alice Rizzi.

Shelly: 00:31:43

She's a psychologist out in Queens, and she talks about mindfulness.

Shelly: 00:31:47

So I think that's really important because she talked about using mindfulness to to find those

Shelly: 00:31:53

values and and what you really who you want to be, what you wanna do, how you wanna be it and do it.

Shelly: 00:32:00

And we can really only find that in the mindful moments.

Shelly: 00:32:04

So I loved how you said, you know, just taking your son, giving him those, you know, 5 extra

Shelly: 00:32:08

minutes to to wash his dishes and and just be him just being totally mindful and present in that moment.

Shelly: 00:32:15

And what a great gift for him because I remember being hurried as a child.

Shelly: 00:32:19

My mom was like, on this strict routine. Okay. It's 9:0:5.

Shelly: 00:32:22

You've got 2 minutes to you know? Chop chop.

Shelly: 00:32:26

And I have a lot of tendencies of scheduling.

Shelly: 00:32:28

Like, if I got my routine, Alyssa, I'm really trying hard not to, especially with Steve now.

Shelly: 00:32:34

You just never know, but it's a hard thing when you've had all this stuff ingrained in you,

Shelly: 00:32:39

so I totally get that.

Shelly: 00:32:40

But, anyway, so what a great gift you're giving your boys and being able to do that.

Alyssa: 00:32:46

I hope so. I think with everything in life it's that balance of, like, we take our time when

Alyssa: 00:32:51

we can and when in the great scheme of life this isn't something to stress and worry and hurry over.

Alyssa: 00:32:57

And then also knowing that there are other people whose time is also important and their schedule

Alyssa: 00:33:02

is impacted by our schedule.

Alyssa: 00:33:04

And so if we say we're gonna be somewhere at a certain time, if we say we're gonna do something

Alyssa: 00:33:08

at a certain time, we make a commitment to ourselves and to other people that we honor that commitment.

Alyssa: 00:33:13

So I think it's a little bit like like with everything in life, that balance of of like yes

Alyssa: 00:33:19

we don't always need to be rushed.

Alyssa: 00:33:20

Life isn't a race to rush through.

Alyssa: 00:33:23

On the flip side, we also have to be considerate that there are other people running the race

Alyssa: 00:33:27

with us and sometimes they need us to show up when we said we were gonna show up.

Shelly: 00:33:31

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Good point.

Shelly: 00:33:34

How can we help people understand how to support caregivers, you know, or, moms with with young

Shelly: 00:33:45

children so that, you know, we're not feeling so alone.

Shelly: 00:33:49

You know, 1 of the 1 of the best things that I've heard with other people that I've talked to

Shelly: 00:33:54

is don't don't ask, just do.

Shelly: 00:33:57

When my mom died, I'll never forget this.

Shelly: 00:33:59

When my mom died, I opened the door and there was, like, grocery bags full of toilet paper and

Shelly: 00:34:04

paper towels and toothpaste and just things, like, you wouldn't think about. Like, everyone brought food.

Shelly: 00:34:08

We had so much food.

Shelly: 00:34:10

But they brought toilet paper and paper towels and things like that. They didn't ask.

Shelly: 00:34:13

I don't even know who it was.

Shelly: 00:34:15

They just left it on the doorstep.

Shelly: 00:34:17

So just doing and and not asking, and I think your friends will know, Alyssa, how to support you.

Alyssa: 00:34:25

Yes. I think, and I would say the other big part is when we talk about taking a village, there's

Alyssa: 00:34:31

so many different generations within that village, people in different seasons of life that

Alyssa: 00:34:35

communicate and live and work all together, and I think a lot of times in our more individualistic

Alyssa: 00:34:41

nuclear family model, we miss out on that wisdom from multiple generations, we miss out on the

Alyssa: 00:34:48

different seasons of life from great aunties and grandmas and and neighbors who are in a different season of life.

Alyssa: 00:34:55

I think even my generation too will will kind of write certain people off because of age differences

Alyssa: 00:35:02

or they're not in the same season of life as me, and I think that's 1 of the biggest disservices

Alyssa: 00:35:07

you can do to your children and to yourself is not, embracing the village concept of having

Alyssa: 00:35:14

other trusted adults who are in different seasons of life around because if you're only interacting

Alyssa: 00:35:19

with women who are in the same season of life as you or men who are in the same season of life

Alyssa: 00:35:23

as you, the problem is we're all burned out and we're all overwhelmed and we're all exhausted

Alyssa: 00:35:28

and I can offer a listening ear but I can't offer the same level of support as my elderly neighbor

Alyssa: 00:35:34

who lives across the street who's retired and is happy to come over and have a cup of tea with

Alyssa: 00:35:38

me when the day is long and hard. Yeah.

Alyssa: 00:35:41

And, you know, things little things like that.

Alyssa: 00:35:44

Or she'll get the advice that you get from somebody who's already raised for 4 boys or the advice

Alyssa: 00:35:50

you would get from a great aunt or the perspective you would get from a friend who's in their

Alyssa: 00:35:56

forties who never had children.

Alyssa: 00:35:58

Those those different perspectives are invaluable, and I think it's not only important for you.

Alyssa: 00:36:03

It's also important for your children to have safe, trusted adults who can they can also go

Alyssa: 00:36:08

to, when they might not always want to go to you with things as they get older.

Shelly: 00:36:12

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's so important.

Shelly: 00:36:16

And, you know, 1 of the things that happens, especially in social media, is our algorithms get

Shelly: 00:36:21

trained to just put in front of us what we want put in front of us, so we don't always see those other things.

Shelly: 00:36:27

So it's really important to get off social media and start, you know, interacting with people in other seasons. I totally love that.

Shelly: 00:36:35

I listen to an NPR. Yes. I'm an NPR junkie.

Shelly: 00:36:38

I listened to an NPR, little thing.

Shelly: 00:36:41

I don't remember which show it was on the other day, and they talked about there's this village

Shelly: 00:36:45

out in Portland, Oregon that they built, and there are 28 apartments for senior citizens.

Shelly: 00:36:51

I don't know the age that they deem senior citizens, and then family homes.

Shelly: 00:36:56

So the woman was 92 years old that they interviewed, and she said, I, you know, I did have kids.

Shelly: 00:37:02

I don't have a family, but here, I can be around children who I love to be around, and I can

Shelly: 00:37:09

call 5 or 6 people if I need to go to the doctor.

Shelly: 00:37:12

So they created this village, which back in the day, we didn't create.

Shelly: 00:37:17

We just it just, like, was a thing that that happened.

Shelly: 00:37:20

Like I said, you know, Dryman Dryman Road. We all lived there.

Alyssa: 00:37:24

Yeah.

Shelly: 00:37:24

You know? So I would I don't, you know, I don't have all the answers for that, but I would love

Shelly: 00:37:29

to see us, you know, get back to what you're talking about of having these neighborhoods of

Shelly: 00:37:34

people we can just, we feel comfortable.

Shelly: 00:37:37

You know, there's a book called The Geography of Nowhere that it's a great book.

Shelly: 00:37:41

I read it in my master's program, but it talks about how how after World War 2 and the GI Bill,

Shelly: 00:37:47

they encouraged people to go build, houses out in the suburbs, you know, with the garage the

Shelly: 00:37:53

car the garage for the cars. You pull your blinds. You go in.

Shelly: 00:37:56

You shut your garage door, and you never see your neighbors.

Shelly: 00:37:58

And they really feel that that was the beginning of the end of these little neighborhoods that

Shelly: 00:38:04

people lived in in the cities and things like that.

Shelly: 00:38:07

They really started us on the path of isolation.

Alyssa: 00:38:11

It's so true. When I remember when I first moved in with my, then boyfriend, now husband, and

Alyssa: 00:38:17

he he lived in an apartment.

Alyssa: 00:38:19

And he came home from work and I'd already gotten off of work and I was making muffins.

Alyssa: 00:38:23

He's like, you're making muffins for me? And I said, no.

Alyssa: 00:38:26

I'm I'm gonna go bring them to the neighbors cause I just moved in.

Alyssa: 00:38:28

I'm gonna introduce myself and bring some muffins.

Alyssa: 00:38:31

And he he kind of, like, laughs at me and he's like, okay. Good luck with that.

Alyssa: 00:38:35

I go and I knocked on all the doors. Nobody answered.

Alyssa: 00:38:38

Even if people were home, they didn't answer. Everyone kept to themselves.

Alyssa: 00:38:41

To this day, I still don't know any of the people who lived in the apartment building with us.

Alyssa: 00:38:46

And I came back and I remember my boyfriend at the time just laughing, laughing at me and be like, oh, don't worry.

Alyssa: 00:38:52

I'll eat all of those. But it was such

Shelly: 00:38:54

a Oh, you could make me some muffins.

Alyssa: 00:38:58

It was such a poignant reminder of, like, all the way, just I have always been teased that I

Alyssa: 00:39:05

have a little bit of an old soul and I my boyfriend was laughing at me.

Alyssa: 00:39:10

He was like, you're the only person I've I've ever met who would even think of doing something like that. Oh.

Alyssa: 00:39:15

Whereas, I feel like that used to be very commonplace. Oh, yeah.

Alyssa: 00:39:18

Somebody moved in, you brought you brought them something to eat.

Alyssa: 00:39:22

You welcomed them to the neighborhood, and I think we've lost a lot of even the thought of connecting

Alyssa: 00:39:27

with other people in that way.

Alyssa: 00:39:29

And I also think social media can contribute to that by giving us this false sense of connection and community.

Alyssa: 00:39:35

And it might be really good for some people.

Alyssa: 00:39:37

You might have really authentic relationships online. That's wonderful.

Alyssa: 00:39:40

A lot of studies show that, online just isn't the same as in person communication.

Alyssa: 00:39:47

It doesn't stimulate the same parts of the brain. Yep.

Alyssa: 00:39:51

And I think that, by giving ourselves this false sense of community, we miss out on building

Alyssa: 00:39:57

a true, real, authentic community.

Alyssa: 00:40:00

And it's not until we hit really hard times that we realize how alone we can make our own lives.

Shelly: 00:40:06

-So, no, lots of lots of big problems, you know, that are gonna take a lot of solutions on a

Shelly: 00:40:12

really large level, but I, you know, I think the the the fine point the 1 of the main points

Shelly: 00:40:18

I took from your book is to take a moment to to look at yourself, you know, create those goals

Shelly: 00:40:27

and those plans for yourself, and just be present in the moment.

Shelly: 00:40:33

And once you change yourself, then that radiate radiates out to rest of the world, I e, you

Shelly: 00:40:39

writing a book for everyone else to help them through this process and me doing a podcast for whatever reason.

Shelly: 00:40:44

So well, I know your kiddos are probably gonna be awake in a little bit, so I'm gonna let you go, Alyssa. Great conversation again.

Alyssa: 00:40:51

Thank you so much.

Shelly: 00:40:52

Appreciate really, really appreciate you coming on early and and doing this.

Shelly: 00:40:57

Grab grab the book, and I'll put a link down below.

Shelly: 00:41:02

Mommy Needs a Minute From Burnout to Empowerment.

Shelly: 00:41:05

And, what parting words do you have for our our listeners, Alyssa?

Alyssa: 00:41:10

Oh, just thank you so much for having me and, never feel bad about needing to take a minute for yourself.

Alyssa: 00:41:16

We all we all do it. We all need it.

Alyssa: 00:41:19

It doesn't mean that you're a bad mom.

Alyssa: 00:41:21

It doesn't mean that you're a bad mom if you had a rough day, if you're overstimulated, overwhelmed.

Alyssa: 00:41:25

I'm right there with you.

Alyssa: 00:41:28

I feel like taking that time to parent from a place of authenticity, really helps reduce a lot

Alyssa: 00:41:34

of that external pressure and internal pressure and stress that we put on ourselves and these

Alyssa: 00:41:39

expectations that we just can't meet.

Alyssa: 00:41:40

So, just if anything, if you could start parenting from an authentic place of who you are and

Alyssa: 00:41:47

knowing and confidence knowing who you are, it can truly transform your parenting and your outlook and your life.

Shelly: 00:41:54

Great words to end this conversation on.

Shelly: 00:41:56

Thank you so much, Alyssa. I really appreciate it.

Alyssa: 00:41:58

Yes. Thank thank you.