Things You Learn in Therapy
Things You Learn in Therapy
Ep 126: Navigating Mom Rage: Finding Community in Chaos with Nicole and Megan
Join us for a compelling discussion on the growing concerns of mom rage and how community care among mothers can transform individual struggles into collective strength. In this episode, I sit down with two incredible therapists, Megan and Nicole, who share their insights and experiences working in the field of maternal mental health.
As we dive deep into the subject of mom rage, we explore how societal pressures can contribute to feelings of anger, isolation, and frustration among mothers. Our conversation emphasizes the pivotal role of support networks—connecting with other moms who can relate to our experiences—and how these connections can provide emotional relief during overwhelming times.
Humor emerges as a key theme, showcasing how sharing laughs through shared struggles can create bonds that ease the weight of parenting’s demands. Our guests share relatable moments from their practice and personal lives, demonstrating how community care is vital to fostering resilience and well-being.
We also touch on the importance of vulnerability, recognizing that reaching out for help is not a sign of weakness but an integral aspect of nurturing connections. Discover strategies to expand your support network and enhance your community engagement.
Through this episode, we celebrate the journey of motherhood and encourage you to build connections that uplift and sustain you, reminding us that we are not alone in this experience. Tune in for an array of insights that might just change your perspective on how to cope with mom rage and underscore the power of community support. Your thoughts and questions can help guide our future discussions, so don’t hesitate to reach out!
www.bethtrammell.com
and welcome back. I'm your host, dr beth trammell, and I love that you are here with me today, and I have to tell you this has been something I have had on my calendar for a little while and I am so stoked this is the first time ever situation here. Friends, I know this is great. We're going to see how this goes. I know it's going to be amazing because I have two guests today and two guests that have already been here for amazing times together, and so it's just going to be a wild ride. I know, and I couldn't think of a better topic for the three of us to sit down and chat about, and I just really hope that, listener, you can take lots of nuggets from today. So get a journal out, get a notepad. If you're taking a walk right now and you're listening, you might want to just like stop on the side of the road and say, hey, I'm going to take a note about this.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, I want to welcome both Megan and Cole to be on the show today to talk about this idea of you. Know, I think we're going to talk about mom rage, because it has become kind of this thing that we've been chatting about. It has been kind of this thread between the three of us, but I think it's more than that. It's also moms who experience all sorts of things anxiety, depression, sadness, sickness and how do we show up for one another, and perhaps ways that we could think about doing it even better. So I am thrilled to be here with two amazing therapists and you know what friends. Megan, can you start by introducing yourself? Then we're going to pass it to Nicole. Tell us a little bit about you and tell us one fun thing about you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so I'm Megan McCutcheon. I am a therapist in the Northern Virginia area. I specialize in working with families during pregnancy, postpartum parenting and beyond. And let's see one fun thing about me well, I'll tie it into kind of how we all connected is I connected to Nicole through Beth and I'm just so happy that we've become friends and actually traveled up to a presentation that Nicole did in her area in Pennsylvania and yeah, I just I guess that's one. My fun fact is just that I traveled to be part of this collaboration and that I'm excited to kind of share with people what came out of that talk and just the friendships that have grown from connecting in this way came out of that talk and just the friendships that have grown from connecting in this way.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because I think on one of your episodes and whether it was live or if it was like before or after we had done recording or whatever when I had met both of you individually, I was like these two need to know each other. It's like these two are just like two peas in a pod following the same path, like doing kind of similar, great, amazing work, and I just knew y'all needed to like know each other. And the interesting thing is that I've had other guests. I'm like we need to have like a Things you Learn On Therapy guest reunion. You know like somewhere where we can all just like come together and hang out. And I've thought about this a lot, that I want to be friends with these people. You know like I want to see them more than just you know recording an episode. So, anyway, I'm just so grateful that y'all connected and you live close enough to be able to travel together. I just I think it's so fun.
Speaker 3:So I'm Nicole. I am so excited to be here today. This is so much fun to have the three of us chatting together. So, yeah, I'll do a quick intro. So my name is Nicole McNallis.
Speaker 3:I am a perinatal mental health therapist with a private practice in the Philadelphia area. I'm a mom of two and my subspecialization has really become maternal rage, which has been it's been quite a wild ride. So the cool thing about Megan and I is that we have you as a connection, Beth, but we also have another mutual therapist friend who connected us also, which is just unreal kind of how small but also how beautifully connected the therapy world is. So it's amazing that Megan and I had two people in our lives who were trying to connect us, which was unbelievable. And then we met in person at the Postpartum Support International Conference last summer. And then, yeah, Megan drove six hours round trip to come to a two-hour presentation. So she's dedicated. She's dedicated and we were so excited to have her there. It was an amazing event.
Speaker 3:And then a little cool fact about me this is something that's about to happen. Postpartum Support International is translating my maternal rage presentation into Spanish, which is amazing, so that me to do a live presentation for their alliance of people of color, and they're going to translate the presentation live into Spanish, which is really really cool, so I'm excited about that. That's happening in about a month, so yeah, so some really great things have come out of my specialization in maternal rage lots of connections and some really cool things happening that I didn't expect at all. It's definitely a topic that's hitting a nerve and then really leads into a lot of what we're going to be talking about today in terms of, like, how we take care of each other and how that's really an intervention for so many of the things that we struggle with. So I am just thrilled thrilled to be here, and I couldn't think of two better people to have this conversation with.
Speaker 1:So, because I consider you both part of my community, that's what we said kind of at the beginning of this, that I love that we're kind of coming together to kind of model the thing that we're going to kind of talk about, and so, and Nicole, hooray, I mean that's, that's really incredible. I mean, I think anytime, I mean I know, megan, you have some really great resources out to help moms and I just love that we just get the privilege to share this to help people in the community and I just yeah, I just couldn't be more excited about that. Let's start by reorienting toward kind of this idea of mom rage and maybe a little about the panel or the discussion that you did, and maybe, nicole, you can start there, and then, megan, you can kind of jump in with anything that you kind of learned or what stood out to you.
Speaker 3:So in November of 2024, we decided to. The topic of mom rage is really something that is really coming to the forefront, it feels like in the perinatal mental health community. The presentation that I did over the summer seemed to really resonate and there was a lot of interest, and one of the resources that I used was a book called Mom Rage and the author's name is Mina Dubin. And our local chapter of Postpartum Support International here in Pennsylvania wanted to put together a live in-person event and they wanted to do a panel discussion on MomRage and they asked Mina Dubin and myself to be on the panel. So that was pretty. It was so amazing and so full circle to meet the person whose book that I use as essentially like the inspiration and foundation for this presentation. So I got to sit next to her and talked about this and it was great the angle that we took. So she is a clearly a writer and an author and also a really wonderful. She does like great research, is some background in like journalism, if I'm not mistaken, and so her book is a combination of memoir and she mixes in really meticulous research and just does it seamlessly, and so she gave kind of the mom and author perspective and then I gave the mom and therapist perspective on the topic. So it was a really great discussion.
Speaker 3:We centered a lot of the discussion around this idea of community care, and the reason that that came up is it was a, you know, it was November of 2024. The election had just happened, people were feeling a lot of things and we felt like it would be a disservice to our audience to ignore what was happening in the world. Right, because that's also part of what happens with mom rage. Mom rage is a reaction to what's going on in our environment in addition to what's happening internally. And we felt like, if we just pretend that this is so, the election was on Tuesday, this event was that Friday, if we just pretend this is like a normal week, nothing significant has happened to this week, let's just carry on with our scheduled programming.
Speaker 3:Essentially, that that just wasn't the right thing to do. It felt like dismissive, like that's one of the things that we all learn in grad school for counseling and for therapy is you have to acknowledge what's happening in the room, right, you have to, you know, reflect what's happening for the client, and to not reflect what was happening for our audience felt like well, if we do that, then this discussion is not going anywhere. Right, we really have to go there with them, and we did, and we centered the discussion around this idea of community care and how one of the things we can control right now is how we show up for each other and how can we do that and what does that look like. And it was really just a really beautiful and meaningful and, I think, hopeful discussion at a time where many of us were struggling with probably a whole lot of complex feelings. So that's the short version of what happened that night at that event.
Speaker 2:So that Megan drove six hours for happened that night at that event, so that Megan drove six hours for yeah. So I'll chime in and say one of the things that stood out to me at the event was I loved the icebreaker that you guys did at the beginning. They, when people were coming in and checking in, they had a basket and invited everyone to write down on a piece of paper one of the things that sort of contributes to the buildup of mom rage, one of the things that just like feels overwhelming. And then we went around the room and passed around the basket and everybody pulled out a note and read it and it was just so fun to see like a lot of the answers were were some of them were really funny, they were all so relatable and it was just so great to see like all the heads nodding and all the laughter and I think that's like one of the best antidotes to.
Speaker 2:You know, mom rage is what we're talking about, this idea of community care and this idea of sort of coming together and bonding over a shared experience, and it was just so nice to see how we could add humor to some of the things that felt really heavy, especially, as Nicole said, during kind of a fraught time with election results, having just come through and just you know the overwhelm of parenting in general, it was so nice to see everybody really just relating to one another and I think that's kind of the heart of what we're talking about.
Speaker 2:And then it's funny that Nicole always is like I can't believe you drove six hours. You know, that was such like not a big deal for me. It was so great because that drive it was sort of like self-care for me. It was really nice to be in the car alone, without my kids asking me questions, without you know, I could listen to whatever I wanted to. And I spent part of the drive catching up with a good friend of mine from college who we don't live in the same town so we don't see each other very often, so it felt like this just total warm buzzy, mom care night, self-care, connecting, connecting with amazing therapists and new friends once I got there. So yeah, it just really kind of highlights what this conversation is about.
Speaker 1:I love that and I can definitely relate to the idea of driving and kind of peace and quiet, whether that's to catch up with an old friend or if that's to listen to an audio book or to jam out to some music. Okay, so I have a couple of follow up questions that maybe we can clarify. You know we're talking about this word, this sort of term like community care. What I would love is for Nicole to start and then Megan I'm going to have you chime in too to give kind of your interpretation. Right, like what does this idea of community care kind of mean and maybe compare that to like what people generally think of as friendship? Where do those overlap and what are we kind of talking about when you mean community care?
Speaker 3:So that's such a great question. When I think of community care, I think of this idea that for many moms, for many women, for people who are in marginalized communities, the systems have always failed. Us, failed some of us more than others, right, it kind of depends on how you're feeling that failure, but that failure, systemic failure, exists, and so when the systems fail us, it's the moms frequently who show up for each other, or at least that is what that is what I learned, that's what I have learned in my experience of motherhood and that's also what we, what we talked about at this event, because we were, we were focused on, on mom rage and this idea that, like you know, you've just had your second baby and you have a toddler, and your friend who also has a toddler and maybe her baby is six months old, that's the mom who's bringing you a meal because she knows that you're getting like two hours of sleep a night, right, it's your friend who, when you're running late from a meeting, is picking up your kids from the bus stop because you can't get there in time. It's during COVID. This was actually something that my friends and I did during COVID, when it was really early in COVID and it was difficult to go grocery shopping. And one because we had young kids and all the kids were home and we didn't want to take the kids grocery shopping during COVID. And also they had what we called computer school. They had virtual school. It was just chaos. And also, you know, we called computer school, they had virtual school. It was just chaos.
Speaker 3:And also, you know, we were trying to limit going out in public spaces. So what we would do is we would combine our food shopping lists and one of us would go shopping for like three of us, and it was amazing. And so we wouldn't have to go to the grocery store every week because we would trade off doing this essentially unpaid labor of motherhood and of parenthood. And what we were doing is we were kind of protecting each other from exposure and also we were helping each other with all of this labor that we had to do. And so for me that's community care. For me, that is showing up for the people that you care about, but also for your community at large when it's needed. And I just think that is such a beautiful and hopeful thing and it's also very much rooted in reality and it's actually very much rooted in the research we have, you know, there's evidence-based interventions that are based on this idea of community care and just how valuable community is to us, especially.
Speaker 3:I was just listening to something the other night on the epidemic of loneliness, and there's so many complicated factors that contribute to that, one of which is being, you know, technology kind of eating up so much of our attention and this idea that getting back to communing with others whether that be virtually, like we are today, or whether that be in person, if you have the ability to do that how that combats this epidemic of loneliness, and I think community care is all part of that. So for me, friendship can be part of community care, but it doesn't have to be right Like. Community care could also be dropping off food at your local food bank or volunteering at your kid's school or whatever it might be. So community care is this very broad idea that we show up when the systems are failing us. That's how we care for each other, and then friendship is kind of like a subset.
Speaker 2:Is that circle that surrounds you that can give you support? And one of the questions I always ask in an intake when I'm meeting with a new client is what does your support system look like? And sometimes people have local family members. Sometimes they have a great friend group, but sometimes not so much. Sometimes people don't have those relationships in place and I think the population that we work a lot with postpartum can be one of those times that feels really lonely. I always ask do you have any out of your friend group? Are any going through that same phase of life for you? Because if not, it can feel really isolating. So I like to encourage people to think about how can they get connected to different communities if they don't already have that support? We have a bunch of different local moms groups. I'm in Vienna, in Virginia, and so there's a Vienna moms groups. I'm also connected to some of the local postpartum groups and to an advocacy group in the community and just encouraging people to get involved and whether it's you know they want to go out and do a class with other moms or just join a Facebook group, but just so that they have avenues for that support One of these groups that I was in yesterday there was a post saying like can anyone help me?
Speaker 2:My husband just left for work. We only have one car and I just realized I used my last diaper and I don't have any way of getting diapers. I need like two or three diapers to get me through the day. And immediately there were so many responses like yes, I'm on my way, I'll drop some off on your porch, no big deal. And so just that type of thing like if you don't feel like you have a community immediate to you, how can you find different things you know in where you live online to just connect to other people? Because as moms, there's inevitably going to be times where we need to kind of lean on somebody else and get that support, whether it's something you know, tangible or just emotional, just having somebody else who kind of gets it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I love all of this and, as we're talking right, like, I know both of you specialize in working with perinatal or postnatal or kind of around pregnancy, those kind of months after pregnancy, and I'm thinking about this idea of community, right, and I love the questions. You're talking about, megan, like what is your support network, like what does that look like? And I'm I'm really pondering, you know, about Megan, like what is your support network, like what does that look like? And I'm I'm really pondering, you know, and I'm I might be sharing too much about my own life here in just a second, but we are not great. Well, maybe I should just say for myself that I think sometimes I'm not great at understanding or even like taking the time to think about I could answer the question. These are the people in my support network, these are the people that I'm close to. These would be people that I'd consider friends, that I could rely on.
Speaker 1:But this idea of building community, feeling this sense of belonging, combating this idea of loneliness, brings me to this question about what would community care look like for me?
Speaker 1:I probably rely on my social network for emotional or like verbal support. They would be the people I might text about what's happening, or hey, the kids this happened, or hey, we got this game coming up, or whatever. I'm thinking about some of that like acts of service stuff that we're talking about, and I wonder if we're just not, we're not really programmed to do that part. Well, to ask people for like very real, tangible help, like the diaper incident that you were talking about. You know, like I think we kind of see this idea of community care as an equivalent to friendship, right. So it's like, oh, my friends, I talked to them, I connected them. But this idea of community care really feels like it's more than just hey, there are people that I talked to. It's like it feels to me like it's a doing thing. We're like doing things within this community care I'm trying to think of. We're trying to think of like why that's hard for us.
Speaker 2:Well, where my brain went when you were saying that was back to the diaper example, how it's really easy for moms to ask for help and support when it's like for their child, but I was thinking about how sometimes we don't give ourselves that same permission to reach out and ask for help. So what does that look like for each person? And whether it's reaching out to a friend saying like, hey, I'm having a bad day, can we grab coffee? Or just texting someone for support, or being really mindful about taking care of yourself in different ways, like whether it's scheduling a therapy appointment or you know, I've been seeing this great acupuncturist and for me it's like that's someone in my community who I really rely on to just kind of have like a reset every now and then. But I think I think part of the conversation is really thinking for each individual. What do you already do to surround yourself with a community of support and where are you maybe not giving yourself permission to do that and maybe need to start doing that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, if I can chime in, first of all, you both bring up such such wonderful points. If you weren't my friends, I would see either of you for therapy. You're both so amazing and so insightful. So, oh my goodness, I don't even know where to start because you're both bringing up such great points. So I think there's a number of things happening here.
Speaker 3:We live in a culture just kind of like in our Western society in general, and especially in the United States of toxic individualism, right? This idea that you know you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, be able to handle everything yourself, and that ethos, if you will, has very more. That idea, those expectations, have very much seeped into motherhood and parenthood that, like you should be able to handle this on your own, that you shouldn't have forgotten something, right? Or you should be able to handle whatever the labor is that goes on with your household, or you should be able to handle whatever emotional difficulties come your way, and that is truly, truly a toxic culture, right? Because when we really really look at how humans function and you know I'm such a therapy nerd I always kind of go back to the research we do best when we are living in community, when we are caring for each other, when we have a support system that we can count on. So I'm thinking of an example. This is a therapist friend of mine who I always say she has the best words, she always puts things so beautifully. So we have a. I'm really fortunate that I have a wonderful little community like a peer consultation group, and honestly it's like a peer support group. We call it a consultation group, so we consult on cases, but we also help each other out with you know both things going on in our practices, but also personally out with you know both things going on in our practices, but also personally.
Speaker 3:So one of the therapists in our group had surgery and she's well, we all show up for each other, but she is that person who really shows up for people, right? She's the person bringing the meals, she's the person you know sending you little cards in the mail. She's the one sending texts, checking in on people. And when she had surgery she initially didn't want any help from anybody, right? We were like, we'll bring you meals, we'll set up a meal. And she's like no, no, no, no, no, I don't need that. And we were like, listen, we want to show up for you in this way, can you let us show up for you? And then my one therapist friend who has the best words when because we finally convinced this other therapist friend who has the best words when, because we finally convinced this other therapist friend who just had the surgery to let us show up for her.
Speaker 3:And then my other therapist friend thanked her for that, which I thought that was so beautiful. She said Thank you for letting us show up for you. I know that was hard for you. And I just thought, my goodness, that is so lovely, like recognizing just how hard it is for most of us because we have internalized these expectations. It's so hard for most of us to ask for and to accept the assistance of people who really care for us and really want to and are literally begging to help us. So she recognized that and said thank you for letting us show up for you. We appreciate that. We know that was hard for you. And I just thought, oh, my goodness, I just have the most wonderful community of therapist friends. That's what that made me think of, in that it's often the people who show up the most for others who have the hardest time taking that help and assistance and support and love and care for themselves right, and like not only is it okay, but people want to show up for you, right. So like really learning to embrace that.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree more. I think you're spot on to say one of the things that I have found, both in my therapy life but also in my personal life, is that even when people are struggling, they want to feel like they can support other people. You know so that mom who's got her own kids and who has her own stress, still feels good about her life, that she can show up for somebody else with a meal or to stop and grab coffee for you and drop it off at your house and kind of make your day with just a cup of coffee. You know. So I'm thinking about a couple of things. One I just had a conversation yesterday with a friend of mine and I was like you know, hey, how's it going? You know, and she was like you know what, how are you? She said you probably don't get people who ask you very often like how are you? You know you're a therapist, you are used to, you know, hearing how other people are, and it was really kind of this moment that it's ironic. It happened just yesterday. But I think when you have people in your community who kind of get it, they get that. It's yes, it's kind of us as therapists, who tend to be helpers to other people, but I think it's also like just moms we tend to do that. We tend to just say, hey, it's about you or it's about the kids. Megan, you were saying that I think we can ask for help if it's about our kids, but to be like, hey, I'm just really stressed this week and I don't know what I'm going to do, you know. So I have a couple of, I have a couple of additional thoughts and then I want to ask you how do you feel most loved by your community? So, as I'm finishing, that's going to be my question that I have for both of you.
Speaker 1:But I had, over the course of time, I've had some good friends who have talked about ways that they show up, and this hasn't happened in a while. But a couple of like really tangible ideas is there was this group of like four friends that once a month they would commit like four hours to just showing up in scrubby clothes and cleaning whatever it was that that person needed cleaned in their house that day. So I know the one friend was like I really the grout lines in my bathroom really bother me. And my friends showed up and we cleaned the grout lines. You know it was the baseboards for another friend. It was just like this idea of kind of showing up together and saying, hey, we're going to do this together, we're going to love one another and we're going to, like, do something that matters to you. I think about the moms who are always in charge of making or purchasing the birthday cakes, and I had a friend who was like well, who makes a birthday cake for you.
Speaker 1:So it's like these really tangible things that I think this idea of like well, I'm overwhelmed, how do I show up for somebody else. I think it can be like, even really tiny ways. It's a text to a friend that you just say hey, what's one thing that would make you feel loved today? And I'm asking this of both of you because I'm hoping that you might say well, it's kind of hard to think about that, or I don't know, I might need to pause to think about that, or I did kind of have to pause to think about that because I'm not sure it is always at the front of our mind right To be like well, this is how people could love me today and this is how people could love me this week.
Speaker 1:This is, I mean most of us. I think we're just like, well, we got to get to the doctor appointment and we got to get to the you know, get the oil change, and we got to go do all these things and practice and homework, and I don't know that we pause to even think about gosh. If somebody offered to love me this week, here is something that I could share with them, okay. So who wants to go first? Nicole just pointed, and voluntold Megan.
Speaker 2:I got voluntold. I love it. Oh gosh, this is a good question. What's coming up for me is thinking big scale and small scale, and so, like one of the the how did I feel most taken care of, like, most seen, most shown up for? I think about a girl's trip I did a couple of months ago with a friend of mine where we met at this great resort and just had a couple nights there, some good meals and a spa day, and that's incredible.
Speaker 2:But one of the things I talk to the clients I work with a lot is how those types of things we obviously can't do all the time and so we have to think really, really small scale. And so I was trying to then think about, well, what's just kind of an easy, simple way that I feel like people show up and support me and take can talk back. And there's also Voxer, which does it without video. I don't like represent any of these companies, but I love them both. But Marco Polo has the video and so often, like, if I like, even just a couple nights ago, I had something that stressed me out and I popped on my phone and just recorded a message to my friend and I'm like, oh my gosh, here's what's going on. Do you have any thoughts?
Speaker 2:And I love it because as moms, we're all so busy. We're running around all the time, you know, juggling so many things, and sometimes it's hard for friends to mesh their schedules, to be able to get, like you know, go out for a drink or be live, and so I love that I can put this out there and my friend can get back to me. And it was awesome. And she responded back a couple hours later and was like, oh my God, I love that post you just made.
Speaker 2:It was so relatable and we just kind of like went back and forth and I always joke it is like a therapy session for me, you know, just being able to sort of process with somebody. So that's where my brain when you when when to ask that. And it is again just that connecting and finding ways to connect with people if you can't do it more. You know, like I love what you were saying about your friends showing up, committing four hours to do a project. That's amazing If you can schedule that and make that time. But even if you can't, how can you find other ways to connect with people?
Speaker 1:I mean, I love the Marco Polo app for what you're saying. Like I think texting people is great and and it's easy and it's, you know, fast. But Marco Polo like adds that personal, face to face connection, like, even though it's not live, it does feel like oh, they're talking to me and they're right there, you know, and. But it has the convenience of being able to be like hey, I don't need to check this right now. I know this is a four minute thing. I don't have time to you know. Or like I couldn't FaceTime this person right now. My kids are. I'm trying to get my kids to eat their vegetable on their plate, you know, but I would love to see her and then be like see what I'm dealing with here, you know.
Speaker 2:I listen. I listen to the responses all the time, like while I'm folding laundry, while I'm doing the dishes, so that multitasking.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I love that. And a little side note that I love the idea of a girls trip. I think if people are able to do that, in whatever increment you can do, and it doesn't even have to be long, it can just be like one overnight where you're just away. I think having dinner with girlfriends is great, but I think that the idea of not having to wake up as a mom, it's just something about waking up where you're just you, and I love my kids. I know you both love your kids.
Speaker 1:But I took this girls trip with some friends of mine and I had another friend who shared with me. She was like I just did this girl's trip and it was so fun. And what we actually did was everybody bought a wig and we all went out wearing these wigs and we're not talking like the pink, blue wigs, we're talking like the wigs that like look like actual hair, you know. And so we bought the little like netting thing that goes over top and we we took pictures and we called that it was things that we probably shouldn't say on air. And then we all wore our wigs and we went out to dinner and the whole time we just giggled and laughed and just it was like wow, that is a really strong part that you got in that wig you're wearing. And we, we just laughed at, like the people that looked at us because we were like do you think they know, do you think they're wondering why we all have hair like this? And and I mean, it was just such a like it was kind of an inexpensive addition to the girls trip that we just kind of laughed until we probably needed to change undergarments. That's more than we needed.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, megan, go ahead. What were you thinking?
Speaker 2:No, no, I was just saying I love that and I'm thinking when can the three of us get together and bring wigs? Because that would. That's just what. Just what a fun way to just bring some humor to it.
Speaker 1:So here's the thing the wigs are in the in a box in my, in my office closet, and so, listen, I have four wigs that are ready for any friends that want to get together and just have a good time. One size fits all, I think, yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm here for it. I am here for it. Oh my goodness, I love that. And I also love how you turn this question on us, beth, right, because it's this idea, especially as therapist moms, right, I feel like. So therapist moms are we are helpers professionally, right, but then we are also caretakers personally. So I feel like we have this, it's like exponential, where we frequently don't think what is it that I need? Right, where we're putting the needs of others before ourselves.
Speaker 3:So what I think about when I feel most loved is, I think about this idea of being considered right, because I think that is how I frequently show my love. So there's little things, like for this most recent Valentine's Day, I got everyone in my family their favorite chocolate. Like that was such a little thing, like I know what their favorite chocolate was, and they each got their own little box and they each got a card. So it shows being considered to me as this idea of paying attention, Like it's this idea that somebody else is taking initiative, that I didn't have to ask and they noticed this thing and they paid attention to, and now they're going to show me that they care for me by doing this thing or reflecting this thing back to me. So I have felt there's a number of times where I have felt really considered and then I feel really taken care of. Considered and then I feel really taken care of.
Speaker 3:So I had major surgery I guess it was a little over two years ago now and I couldn't lift more than five pounds for a good four to six weeks after the surgery. So I really couldn't do much at all for a good month after the surgery and I'm the cook in our house and I did not have to cook one meal, probably for two months so, and I had friends that set up the meal train. I had friends that were bringing us meals. It was really amazing to be considered in that and taken care of in that way. Right and paid attention to in that way. Like you know, I was focused on the surgery. So nobody asked me to think about anything, they just took it over and said we're going to do this.
Speaker 3:It's the little things you know when you know, when I was a new mom and you know feeding a baby overnight and in the morning, where you know my partner would get up and say you know, on the weekends especially, you stay in bed because I know that you've been up overnight with the baby, like get some sleep, and I'll take him in the morning, right, even if that means I'm putting him in the car and driving him around for an hour, because that's the only thing that I'm going to do, that so that you can get some rest.
Speaker 3:Right, that's not me asking, that's me being like noticed that I'm so tired and then, like considered, I'm going to take this on for you so that you can get what you need without you even asking, right. So for me, this idea of like being considered and paid attention to is just so really, it's so moving, I think, right, it shows that you're really, you care about somebody so much that you are paying attention to them, and that means that means a lot, that means the most to me, and you can, you know, do that in big ways and small ways, and it's just really meaningful and beautiful, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree so much. When I was thinking about some of the examples that we're sharing, I'm reminded of the thing that I tend to tell other people but then I maybe am not great at remembering myself is you know, I think about some of these things and then, if I'm thinking about my friends, right, I'm like, well, you know, they have a spouse or a partner that might do that for them, right, like a spouse or a partner that might do that for them, right, like, get them something for Valentine's Day. Or you know, hey, we've got another holiday coming up. Or hey, spring break.
Speaker 1:And I'm reminded that, like I usually remind people that your partner doesn't have to, or shouldn't, fulfill every need you ever have, right, like, this is the idea of building a community and trying to be intentional about having at least one or two other people in your life that can fulfill some of these needs, so that you're not relying on your partner to fill all these needs. I wonder what y'all think about this that you know, when I have these thoughts of like, oh well, their partner or spouse or, you know, significant other will probably do that for them, I probably. You know, I have this idea that I'm going to show up for someone this way and then I'm like, well, they've got a partner to do that. What do you think about that idea?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that that is another pervasive cultural expectation for many people, and for many women especially, marriage is held up as the ultimate accomplishment, and this idea that your partner needs to be your best friend and your support system, your everything right, your romantic partner, like all of these things all in one, and that you shouldn't need which is, you know, should, is our favorite word as therapists. That you shouldn't need anybody else in your life because you have this partner that you can count on, is really a ridiculous. It's too much to expect of someone right, and I would argue that it's honestly unhealthy. You know, for many reasons, right One it's too much to expect of someone right, and I would argue that it's honestly unhealthy. You know, for many reasons, right One, it's too much to expect of somebody, and it's too much to expect of ourselves individually too. It's so much healthier to have a community and a support system that we can count on. So I'm going to give an example that just happened recently in my own life. So we are speaking on a Tuesday, right, it's Tuesday, right? Yes, we're talking on a Tuesday morning.
Speaker 3:Just this past weekend, I was at a conference. I was giving a presentation on trauma in the perinatal period and I got into a car accident on the way home. As one does when they are driving home from a trauma conference, I decided to traumatize myself on the way home, and Saturdays are busy for my family. So I was at this conference giving this presentation and then got into a car accident on the way home and I'm totally fine, by the way, my car's not fine but I'm fine. So that's the important thing. But my husband was at a sports practice with our children and he was pretty far away from where I got into a car accident which was closer to our home and so I couldn't drive my car. My car needed to be towed. I couldn't drive my car home from the scene and so, you know, I obviously called him and told him what was happening and he immediately was like I'm gonna come, and you know I'm gonna. You know, pack up the kids, I'm gonna come get to you. And I was like, hang on a second. I think what I need most in this moment is I need to get out of here and home as quickly as possible, and if I have to wait for you, that's going to take a lot longer and I don't think that I am emotionally in that place right now, and so I called a couple of my friends on a Saturday afternoon where most of us are very busy. I was like, hey, this is the situation, I'm okay, but I'm only 10 minutes from where you are. Can you come get me and bring me home? I just need to get home as quickly as possible. If I have to wait for my husband, he can get to me, but it's going to take a lot longer. This is what I need right now.
Speaker 3:And it was hard for me to ask for that. And, of course, my one friend first of all. My friends were like oh my God, why is she calling? Nobody like called right, she's not texting, she's calling, something is up.
Speaker 3:And then one of my friends was able she dropped everything to come and get me. And of course, I was so thankful and she was like it never even. Like of course I would come, like get, drop everything and come get you if this is what you needed, like thank you for reaching out, right. And then, and but my husband felt bad. He's like oh, I could have come to get you, you didn't have to call on our friends.
Speaker 3:And I was like but I did, but I did right and so, because I didn't want to just be waiting and crying by myself, I I needed somebody, and I needed somebody soon, and in this instance it couldn't be you like. You couldn't get there in time, and I think that was an important lesson for all of us. So I was thankful for my friends. My friends were happy to be there for me and he was thankful for you know our support circle too, and our network of friends and families that support us. So so I think that goes right along with your question of like, having a supportive partner and a wonderful reciprocal relationship with your partner is amazing and wonderful, and I'm so thankful that I have that. But I don't want it to be everything right, because it can't be, and so having this outside support system just makes everything better, yeah.
Speaker 2:You said something really important that I want to kind of highlight, beth, you said like build community and I think that word is so important because I'm thinking there may be listeners out there that's like, oh, that's so great, you guys have a community, but I don't feel like I have one, or I don't feel like I do have a partner or a spouse who, you know, sort of shows up for me in the ways I need the emotional support and all that. And you know, I was just kind of reflecting, as you guys were talking, sort of a share from my personal life. I wasn't in a great mood before we got on this call. I had a situation with my child last night, just bawling his eyes out because he didn't get invited to a birthday party. And he found out, he heard about it. He was really sad and I was, you know, frankly, like a little surprised because I'm friendly with the mom and so it was kind of like that's sort of weird and you know so it just had me thinking like I just was feeling this like warm fuzzy feeling talking to you guys and feeling like, you know, sometimes in our personal lives we may feel slighted or we may feel like we don't have that support that we're talking about.
Speaker 2:But how can you go out and build it? And I feel so fortunate that you know I have connected with so many amazing professionals, like Nicole you were saying having that peer consultation group. I feel like I've done a really good job in my professional life building such a great community. I'm surprised in my 40s, honestly, at how much friend drama there can sometimes be. But just that idea of if you feel like you don't have that support within you know again your partnership or your friend group or your family, maybe you know we see a lot of people with family trauma and dysfunction. So if you don't feel like you have that, go out and build it. You know, join a mom's group, go take a class, go connect with people in other ways and be proactive about building that community that you need.
Speaker 1:I am so grateful that you brought this up. And now I'm like, dang, I want to talk about this so much and we're right at the end of our time together and so I'm like, okay, well, this is going to be ripe for our next conversation about things, because I couldn't agree more that. You know. I know, even in my own life like I've had like kind of ebbs and flows of when I have felt more or less supported by my network, but it's not necessarily because they were actually more or less supportive. It was more like I was more withdrawn and I had kind of chosen to isolate or I had chosen to kind of wallow in self-pity. If I'm being real honest, you know, it's like, well, nobody gives me, and it's like I think we can all fall into that.
Speaker 1:You know where we, even if we have built a network, I think sometimes we can believe the lie that relationships aren't work. You know that it's like, oh well, if this person is my friend, then they would just know and they would reach out to me, you know, and if this person really was my friend, then I wouldn't have to be the one that is calling them or texting them, and I just don't think that's reality. You know, I think relationships kind of ebb and flow and sometimes the work of relationships kind of ebbs and flows in terms of how hard or how easy it is to feel connected. But what an amazing conversation we are going to have to continue to talk about this idea of building a community and the vulnerability it takes, the sort of risk and the courage that it takes to build a network and, if we're being real honest, like the time that it takes, good relationships cost something, you know.
Speaker 1:You have to say yes to committing to time with this relationship. You have to say yes to stepping out of your comfort zone and those things are hard and I don't think any of us would suggest that it's a simple hop on and become friends with somebody. But I do love that we're sort of wrapping up with this idea of you really have to be intentional about building it. Okay, so in 60 seconds each of you tell me just one last thought you have. Oh, that's hard, I know right, we're therapists, we just want to talk. I mean I just I just said like we're gonna be done and then I talked for like three minutes.
Speaker 3:I'll, I'll start, I'm gonna start with.
Speaker 3:So this is piggybacking off of what you were just saying, beth, this idea that you have to be really intentional about building community, and I think one of the ways you can be intentional about building community is showing gratitude.
Speaker 3:And so I am going to end this conversation with just saying how grateful I am for the two of you, because I really do consider both of you part of my community, professionally, but also personally, as friends. You know, when I got into the car accident on Saturday, I texted Megan the picture of the presentation board that I was doing and then a picture of my car and I was like, guess who just traumatized themselves on the way home from a trauma conference. It's me Right, like, because she's my friend, because she's not just a, you know, a professional contact that I had. You know, I consider her more than a colleague, and so that is how I want to end this conversation with gratitude, because gratitude really does help build our community. So I am grateful that the two of you are part of my professional community and part of my personal community. So thank you both and thank you both for this really beautiful, lovely, hopeful conversation. I'm just so thankful.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't think I can top that.
Speaker 1:I mean I was gonna say I don't know. You got 60 seconds to do your best.
Speaker 2:I'll just I'll just echo that and say, yeah, I'm so grateful for the connections I always love. I've done a couple episodes with Beth and I just always love the conversation. There's just so much to talk about and I love that Beth connected me, nicole. We met in person at the conference and I just I loved your presentation. I feel like it was so relatable as both a professional and as a mom, and so I know that the three of us just love sharing content. So I'm going to end with an invitation to your listeners, beth, to reach out to you and let you know topics that they want to hear more of, because I think the three of us get so much energy from connecting and talking with one another, and so I'd love to hear if there's things that listeners are like.
Speaker 1:Talk more about this because I know the three of us will show up and want to do that. So I love that. And you know, the thing that I was thinking is I love that, Nicole, what you said, like that this can be a hopeful conversation, Right. I think sometimes it's easy when we're talking about hard things, to feel like, well, you know, we're all just stuck in the mud or people who think, well, talking about it isn't going to change it, Right, talking about it isn't going to change it, right. But I think what we're saying is you can talk about hard things, you can build community around the shared experience of hard things, whether it's mom rage or mom guilt or anxiety, or perinatal or post postpartum depression.
Speaker 1:I think we can build around the things we struggle with and still remain in a hopeful, grateful place. Together Doesn't mean we're just toxically positive, like everything's fine and we're fine and nothing's wrong, but it's yeah, things aren't fine and we can show up and be vulnerable. And also, yeah, let's hope for what might be next. Let's hope for, you know, something better than what we have right now. So I'm also grateful for both of you and I look forward to hearing from listeners what they want to hear us talk more about, and if it's not related to anything women or mom rage or any of those things shoot me a message.
Speaker 1:Anyway, you know we can talk about a lot of things, and if it's not Megan or Nicole, maybe it's another another guest you want to hear from, but we would love to hear from you. So, Megan and Nicole, have a good rest of your day today and I'll be thinking about how you can. Yeah, I can send good vibes to you as we, as we move about our Tuesday today. So, thanks for being here, Thanks for saying yes, Thanks. I look forward to our next time. Alright, ciao.
