Tag Archives: postpartum

Self-Care is Honouring my Truest Self

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At a special Tarot reading to start the year, I pulled the Empress card. This card is all about self-care, and as this year is about Soft Strength, i felt this call to care for myself really spoke to me. It is when we deem we are worthy of care that transforms us from a capitalist model to a de-conolozied way of embracing rest as our birthright.

I know that self-care has been given such a negative wrap and yet I think it’s also because it’s misunderstood. As a life-long fan of it, i want to write this article in its defence.

Like many of us, I’ve come to the realization that self-care isn’t bubble baths and pedicures just for the sake of them. Self-care is a way to enhance our life and ensure that we’re living with our own needs and love in mind. It’s also a way for us to get more Self energy in our body. When we’re working with an internal systems framework in mind, when our Parts are activated, they take us away from Self, so giving ourselves Self-care is actually a way to get a more felt sense of compassion, calm, connectedness, courage, creativity, curiosity in our bodies; thus Self energy. So self-care is about helping us stay in Self and not get pulled into old defaults or systems that no longer serve.

Does this sound like a bunch of crap to you? I get that, as i’m noticing that i’m speaking in therapy speak here. So let me back up and explain it with some context.
First of all, self-care isn’t about self-regulating or soothing ourselves. It’s actually about enhancing our life by giving ourselves the same care we give others. And I think it can be especially hard for those socialized as women or carers of others.

Self-care helps us stay in what we call Self energy in IFS therapy. It’s about tending to our inner system so we stay present with what is right here right now. In order for this to happen, we might need to learn new activities, exercises, practises or resources to help us do just that.

So think about what books, people or practices help you stay connected with yourself. What manifests feeling compassion towards yourself, or gives you the felt sense of creativity or curiosity What activities help you feel confident with your Self or calm?

It’s when we do these practices that help us enhance our lives that we are also nourishing our soul.

For me, it’s getting time to myself on my SUP board. I don’t get to do this often, and it’s just the ticket for me. When i can’t always get on it, i use this practise of somatic mindfulness to get me to recall a time that i enjoyed a ride. It’s a short cut and works really well. If you want to know what it is, it’s the time i was on my board among dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico – pure bliss.

As folks who live in this time and place, we are conditioned to be busy, to do things, and to hustle hustle hustle. Patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism all urge us to be busy and productive. As women, we also face the added challenge to give of ourselves, from our own backs and bodies at times.

I read this great post recently by Rocio Rosales Meza, where she proclaimed: “You are not burnt-out, you are colonized.” It reminded me of the term Patriarchy Stress Disorder (PSD). Dr. Valerie Rein coined the term and describes it as “this trauma creates an invisible inner prison, that holds them back from stepping into the full power of their authentic presence, unbridled joy, outrageous success, freedom, and fulfillment. This is where women feel stuck in their lives, with this persistent inner voice that wants more out of life. They feel guilty for the life that they have and then numb the feeling with all the self-help things we are taught to do. You know what i’m talking about – yoga, therapy (i see the paradox here), exercise classes, books, retreats. They look for solutions to fix their life but they are looking in the wrong place – thinking it’s ourselves that we need to fix, not the ill-fated and misguided framework of patriarchy and culture at large.

Repeat after me: I am not a personal improvement project. I am also not the problem to be fixed.

Self-care is a bridge – a portal to living a life that is more aligned with your fullest self. That includes accessing a felt sense of joy, and being present with this moment right here right now. It is about shifting from one state to another one that is more ‘you.’

Your body mind soul need to be tended to, cared for. That means you need to listen to their needs. What is your body needing right now? What might be soul vitamins or a brain massage?

Self-care has a role, but is not the answer. The degree it can help you is in the proportion to how much the need is to alleviate the hurt being done. Burnout comes from a push for perfectionism, toxic productivity and poor boundaries. Ultimately, self-care is about taking the theme to access the things that make you feel like your truest Self. It is an intentional practice that enhances your life with meaning and pleasure, presence and love. It is what nourishes you as a whole being, not just the Parts of you.

What happens is we begin to experience a paradox: we not only over-give from ourselves but also under-receive. (Thank-you to Sarah Jenks for this insight.)

Let me explain this with a personal reflection that really took this home for me. I was lamenting to my partner about my workload, and struggling to take a longer vacation time off. I want to take a full month off in the Summer, but find it hard to navigate this with clients’ needs as well as my children’s. He listened to me and then stated that it’s good to be needed. It meant it as a compliment to me, a professional caregiver and mother. I told him I am needed too much and what I want is to not be needed for a break. What i would love is to be the receiver of such care.

I am more than the roles I play or the work I do.

Here is a helpful question to ponder: What makes you come alive?

Practising this helps me have space to do things i love, and not to accept things with compromising or giving up. This is especially true about my own happiness. It means also accepting what capacity i have in that moment so that i do push myself. This is a practice of Radical Acceptance of good enough.

“I will never have this version of me again. Let me slow down and be with her.” Rupi Kaur

This reframing, or rather reclamation of the concept of self-care is especially potent for mothers and folks who are actively parenting children. It is a necessary practice in early postpartum, so that we don’t get lost in parenthood. It is also true that it is not enough to ‘self-care’ the challenges away. This article by Motherly demonstrates this further. Thanks to the research of Stephanie Knaak, via Olivia Scobie’s book, Impossible Parenting, we know that there are key resilience factors to consider in postpartum that ensure a healthy matrescence. You can see from the list below that self-care is only one of the factors. I added a couple of factors that i have found incredibly important as well:
*Be baby ready
*Self-care routine
*Self-regulation of emotions and stress
*Helpful community and aligned vision
*Have realistic expectations for yourself and others*Know your core values
*Recognize your Motherline
*Have time to yourself and the other identities that fall outside of mothering
*Find moments of joy and gratitude
*Do not compare yourself to others or get stuck in comparative suffering

In case you need a bit more anecdotal evidence, i’m going to dare to take us back in time to April 2020, when we were all sheltering at home. I knew that i couldn’t just work from my bedroom and parent each day, day in day out without fail, without also tending to my own soul and care. So i created a recipe for daily self-care for my family: We had to laugh a little, move a little, cry and feel when called to do so, make time for connection with each other, and breathe and rest.

Looking back, i know i did this as a way to ensure i accessed Self energy, as that was tested a lot back then. I was pulled into a lot of Protective Parts activation and survival mode, and yet i knew i was safe in ways my younger Parts did not. That’s a key piece – i wasn’t laughing at myself, or spiritually bypassing what i was feeling. Rather, i was using what i knew were playful and persistent remedies to get into Self. When i was committed to it, it gave me perspective to catch when my Parts were online and wanting to take over. This made me feel more alive, versus the empty shell of me. This reframe was especially important because i was catching myself fall back into old trauma vortex tendencies, the trauma responses of my younger years.

Self-care is about updating your internal system to move you into your truest self. And with that in mind, i’m going to go indulge in decadent bubble bath now.

“Keep good company, read good books, love good things and cultivate soul and body as faithfully as you can.” Louise May Alcott

I Have a Team in Me – just in time for a new school year

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My kids are on the brink of starting a new school year. This has always been a bittersweet time for me – the mix of excitement of the year ahead mixed with the anticipatory worry that comes with what they will face that is still unknown.

Some of it stems from visceral memories of my own childhood, that was mixed with some of my best years and some of my hardest. As a therapist now, who specializes in trauma and attachment wounds, this wisdom is hard to overlook now that i am a parent.


Our core memories still show up in the present – sometimes in the form of wounds or if we are lucky, as wisdom to guide us. They show up in our internal parts and the goal they have to inform or protect us. I have been able to heal the more exiled parts and give my strong inner guides a more healthy and wanted role. And yet, it’s times like a new school year that still bring up the old defaults of my Parts. My various parts show up to help me out when faced with new experiences, and can be a bit polarized.

For instance, the Good Mom in me wants to shelter my kids from disappointment and sadness. The wounded adult in me is still grappling with her own scars from school. The fully formed self is appreciating this interplay that at times feels paradoxical.

These parts of me have come to guide me in a more deeper way than ever before – i can witness in my children what they need as well as know what my strengths and limits are.

Take for example, the special kind of hell of finding out that your kid isn’t in the same class as her best friends. Again.

The Good Mom Part of me knows that my kid is resilient, social and thrives in community. The Wounded Child Part of me knows my own mom never showed up for me when i needed her advocacy or voice at school. The Young Teen Part is so scared that this happening, as it was close to this age that i also experienced some of my hardest years at school. The Trauma Therapist Part knows that being separated from peers is a small t trauma that can build over time. The Attachment Theory Geek Part in me is worried about how this will impact her at school and life, when she has to keep working at fitting in and adapting, instead of feeling safe and belonging in a community that considers her needs. The Grieving Daughter Part knows my mom tried her best, and faced a lot of her own Wounded Parts. The Skeptical Part is not trusting of a system that totes the company line and is focused on the best for the greater good, rather than individual mental health – all very masculine energy based focus.

These are just some of the parts that show up in my head as i try to grapple what is best for my child. Coming to centre allows each voice to be heard and considered, in a way that values their input. This is not easy work and yet it is transformative.

When i am faced with a decision that seems hard and i feel pulled in different directions, that is a cue to me that i have polarized Parts that are trying to guide me, albeit in different directions. I am starting to listen to them, track them like animal tracks in the snow. Then i use a more centred Self to guide me back to a voice of reason instead of being pulled into catastrophizing.

This is how i start to embody RESILIENCE – feeling like i have capacity to handle things because i am resourced. This comes from starting to really listen to my self and all my parts.

I love the word ‘resilience,’ even though it has become a buzz word these days. I love that it shows we can come back after experiencing adversity, that we have strength in us all along. Resilience is not independence or self-sufficiency, but rather a felt sense of confidence of our own capacity. It is a reflection of having an embodied knowing we have the resources we need to handle something. It also is a reflection of knowing we belong to a community that will be there for us.

Independence can be more of a trauma response or attachment wound from not being able to trust others when we need to be held or soften. We feel like we can only trust ourselves.

I love how both my kids share about their days, their life, their worries with me. That they know i will listen (even when it’s sometimes not fully because i’m not perfect and can only take some much Roblox or anime info load). This is not something that i had as a child when i was their age. I was alone in my misery and worries, as well as my interests and wins.

This is huge reparative work, both for my inner wounded parts as well as our generational cycle. No matter what the outcome may bring, i want my kids to know i have their back and their pain is no smaller than mine just because they are young. Their worries are not trivial, they are age-appropriate.

What truly makes us feel a sense of resilience, capacity and confidence is knowing that we belong because others will hold us when we soften. When i consider what is best for my kids’ mental health and well-being, this is what i come back to. When adults show that their students’ wellbeing is paramount, that means knowing what students are friends and feel both confident and safe together. That shows students that teachers can be trusted to have their best interests in mind, and are a safe harbour.

After these last 2 years, we should all know that community is what helps us get through hard times. Isolation and being separated by our loved ones can be detrimental to our health. We are social creatures, not unlike elephants and wolves. We need connection to be safe.

“The difference between fitting in and belonging is that fitting in, by its very definition, is to parcel off our wholeness in exchange for acceptance.”
Excerpt from “Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home” by Toko-pa Turner
In the work of attachment theory, the focus is on adult-child attachment. While i don’t disagree with this, because schools do not typically follow the pedagogy of one teacher for a student’s lifetime (unless you are in a Waldorf setting), it is peers that build that felt sense of belonging. For better or worse, it is peers that shape us and guide us, who we compare ourselves to and find our way with. As my daughter has entered puberty, this is a huge focus of her self-identity and sense of worth right now. She needs to be with her peers so she can embody this confidence of what is felt inside and reflected in her peers.

We also now know that it is the ages of 9-12 that are pivotal for personal growth and self-worth, especially for children who are female identified. This transition of puberty is messy and a major rite of passage. I shared more about it in my previous journal article HERE.

But i digressed…

I guess a part of me really wanted to focus on the science of Attachment Theory!

Coming back to my Parts and how they can guide me, one thing that is key to note is that we don’t’ want to get rid of our parts but rather update them to the most current edition, the best version of me. Not all of my Parts are wounded, some have always been helpful. It’s the Protective ones that get blended and take over when i am deeply triggered, upset or dysregulated.

As i continue my journey into Motherhood, i am updating my Parts to know that a new one is present – my Inner Mother. She is the one that is nurturing the me of now, and all my Parts, in ways i needed all along. She is my most self-like Part so i am still working on ways to hold space for her.

One way i have done that in these last two years is recognize that Motherhood is a type of a Hero’s Journey. Similar to Inanna, the mother archetype in Jung’s body of work experiences this journey as we descend to the underworld. This is the process of Matrescense – when we come out whole and individualized, yet with a felt sense of belonging in a larger community.

In the classic guide, Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes speaks about the transition from being a Child Mother (a new parent) to being more of a self-identified Goddess Mother or Strong Mother. It is a shift that comes from experience and integrating the knowledge that comes from it:

“Rather than disengaging from The Mother, We are seeking a wild and wise mother. We are not, cannot be, separate from her. Our relationship to the soulful Mother is meant to turn and turn, and to change and change and it is a paradox. This mother is a school we are born into, a school we are students in, school we are teachers at, all at the same time, and for the rest of our lives.”
We are the sum of our Parts.

Here are a few things i have done to recognize and welcome my Parts:

1) Map out your Parts – get a sense where they live in your body and when they come up to help you, warranted or not.
2) Find the role models you admire most – both real or fictional. See if you can create a composite of them to bring together the best version of your Parts roles.
3) Self-Mothering – find a way to nurture the Part with love and compassion.
4) Find your Wise and Wild Woman inside – that voice of reason who can hold space for the polarized and scared Parts.

If you are interested in finding our what Parts make you whole, Richard Schwartz’ new book No Bad Parts offers a great map to help you start. I also really like to ask myself if i am feeling something deeply now, where does it live in my body and what does it need right now? I don’t bypass or override it. I listen to the soft voice inside. I give her space to be seen.

Parenting is hard because your child is reflecting back a part of you that hasn’t yet healed in yourself.

It doesn’t have to be.

A Day to Recognize

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Today marks World Maternal Mental Health Day. It’s part of Mental Health Week that is honoured here in Canada. I wanted to take a moment to honour and play tribute to the many women and parents who have experienced any form of hardship, pain and suffering in their identity as a parent. It can be ugly, isolating, and scary at times for sure.

Our society definitely still paints an unjust and judgmental lens on mental health issues in general. This makes it so hard for new parents to reach out for support. New mothers are told that they should be in love with their newborn at first site, that the pain is worth it, that they will get sleep when their kids are teens, and that we are to suck it up.

That is so far from the truth and the opposite of supportive. As a mother myself, i definitely had to learn as i went when my children were newborns. I feel like i was a lucky one when it came to my postpartum life, even with a somewhat traumatic birth of my first. That said, there are still things that i felt too scared to voice and ask for support with. Like i was supposed to love being alone with my baby all day long. Each and every day. Like we were supposed to nap all the time, and i never felt (internal or external) pressure to have it all and do it all.

I’m not sure if it’s because i am immersed in supporting new parents now, or if it’s really the case, but i appreciate seeing all the blog writers, the celebrities, the ads and documentaries on this topic that is do dear to me. Maybe it was there 8 years ago when i was pregnant with my first. But maybe not and we are doing better now.

In my work, one thing that i really love is helping the women i support to build a wellness toolkit for themselves. I know one of the hardest things is to feel like we have or deserve time for ourselves. But we do – we can’t give from an empty cup (oh how i love that quote!). So, my gift to you today, on World Maternal Mental Health Day is access to some tools i have created, especially this one: Building Your Wellness Toolkit. Feel FREE to download and print it. It’s a worksheet that helps you look at ways you can provide yourself with some good self-care. When you need it. When you deserve it. Each and every day. Fill your cup.