PODCAST INTRO: Hey, I'm Kilah. And since becoming a mom, I struggled with mental illness and just feeling so depleted. That was nine years ago. And then I realized that so many moms are just like I was. I finally recovered my health holistically and I want to teach you how to do the same. Whether you're newly postpartum or a few years in this podcast was for you. This time to recover your health so that you can show up as the mom that you deeply desire to be. This is “The Healthy Postpartum Mama” podcast. Let's learn and heal together.

Kilah Lawson: Everyone, welcome back to “The Healthy Postpartum Mama” podcast. I'm your host, Kilah Lawson, the Owner and Founder of Elephant Baby. We are really the first and only postpartum care agency providing extensive support to moms in their first few years postpartum. I am a mom of five myself, I'm a postpartum doula. And I'm also known as your postpartum vitality coach. Because for years, I've really been diving into the work of postpartum wellness on a holistic level. And I've been teaching moms what it takes to recover their health within their first few years postpartum. So I'm so glad that you're here. I'm so excited about this episode today. I think it's going to be a really good conversation. Thanks for tuning in with me. The first thing I'm going to tell you to do is to get comfortable. Grab yourself a cup of tea, a cup of coffee, if that's your thing, get comfy and let's dive in.

All right, so if you listen to our intro episode that was published last week, then you know all about just kind of a topic that we'll be covering on the podcast. So this episode, I felt it's so necessary to dive in to our pillar of wellness that has to do with restoring your mind. So if you're not familiar with my “Seven pillars of wellness”, I want you to go to my YouTube channel, it's at “The Healthy Postpartum Mama”. And on the channel, you'll see either the intro episode, or you'll see a breakdown of my seven pillars of wellness that I use to teach women how to recover their health in their first few years postpartum. So we have seven pillars of wellness. If y'all don't know by now, I 100% believe that health is holistic, and we cannot be well in one area without acknowledging all areas of health. And we talk about mental health, we talk about spiritual, physical, emotional, all of those aspects of health interconnect. So today, we are going to be really touching on the pillar of wellness that I label as restoring your mind. Are y'all ready? Let's dive in. Let's get to it.

1

Restoring Your Mind:

What does it take really to restore your mind and your postpartum journey? The first thing that I want to chat about is the point and the purpose of pain. And the reason why I want to do this, so our pillar that talks about unleashing emotion is going to kind of overlap in this episode today. So you guys are going to hear me talking about the emotional aspects of healing as well as how that correlates with restoring and resetting really just having a mindset shift in your postpartum healing. But the reason why I want to talk about the purpose of pain is because many of you guys are like I was you're listening and maybe you're experiencing postpartum depression or maybe postpartum anxiety or postpartum OCD or you're just not there, you're really struggling mentally, maybe you've experienced trauma within your birth that hasn't been resolved, maybe something happened to you immediately postpartum or something traumatic, that's outside of the topic of postpartum, maybe it's been a rough year for you, or maybe the last few with 2020 and the onset of COVID, maybe the last two, three years have just been wild for you and you're just really struggling. You're in this place where so much has happened to you emotionally, it's affected you you're experiencing some type of pain, not physical pain, necessarily, but maybe some emotional pain and you really haven't addressed it. And I want to talk today about first of all, how our society views pain and how so many women get to be to where we are when it comes to just struggling with mental health after childbirth?

So let's dive into the topic of “PAIN”. I want to encourage you today, first of all. I want to let you know that your pain has a purpose. There is a purpose. There is a reason for you experiencing whatever it is that you're experiencing. You may be going through one of your toughest seasons, you may be experiencing a financial struggle or loneliness, whatever it is. I want you to think the first thing that comes to mind that's causing you pain. I want you to just maybe if you have a pen and a piece of paper, jot it down, what is causing you pain right now, what is your biggest struggle right now? Maybe part of your pain has to do with overwhelm of being a mom. And really the heavy responsibility load that you carry within your home, because you're responsible for everything, you're responsible for meals, doctor's appointments, waking up with the baby, making sure that the kids lunches are packed, and then you're doing homework and you're just exhausted, you're burnt out, you feel like your responsibility load is unequal when you compare it to your partners, or maybe you're a single mom or whatever it is, what is your pain? When you think of your biggest struggle in this season? What is it? So now that you've answered that question, I want you to answer the question of;

•   What are you doing about that pain?
•   Are you feeling the struggle fully?
•   Are you allowing yourself to experience that pain?
•   Are you avoiding that pain? Has your pain manifested into something else?
•   Has it caused you to be someone that you don't even recognize?
•   Has it caused you to be angry?
•   Has your pain developed into resentment?
•   Be honest with yourself and answer these questions, how are you handling your
• struggle right now?
•   How are you handling your pain?
• I'll tell you how society teaches us how to handle our pain. And when it comes to postpartum, I have found that so many moms, were dealing with depression or hopelessness or some sort of struggle. And what society likes to do is they like to tell us that because we're struggling in this way. We're abnormal. You get me because we are experiencing depression. There's something not right with us and we need prescription. If we are experiencing overwhelm and burnout, there's something wrong with us because we should be able to do it. We should be able to be superhuman mom, we should be able to carry all these loads. And if we're feeling overwhelmed, or burnout, we're abnormal, there's something wrong with us. I want to share with you why this is a problem. Why it's a problem for society to treat us like when we are experiencing pain, it's abnormal, and other cultures. Have you ever recognized that other cultures sometimes when they are going through a rite of passage, they may have this ceremony that involves pain. Sometimes I've seen where people have to be initiated into a tribe or a group or some sort of they're in, they're going through a rite of passage, and they have to experience some sort of pain in order to gain this initiation, in order to really be a part of the group and we might look at that that's wild and crazy, nobody's gonna get me to be walking on hot coals or getting some sort of tap to win in some crazy place or, like not. We're trying to look at pain in our society. And I feel within our culture, we try to avoid it at all costs. If you have a headache, you get a Tylenol. If you have depression, you get in a depressant so that you don't feel those feelings anymore. So it could be an acute pain, a chronic pain, it could be a high level of pain, it could be an emotional pain, but whatever pain we experience within our culture, it's like let's get a cure for this. Let's not experience this. But I want part of shifting your mindset part of restoring your mind has to do with the fact that whatever struggle, whatever pain that you're going through, it's for a reason there's a purpose or something that I really want you to understand or something that I really want you to grasp a hold of and that is, when you experience pain, it touches your inner refuge of strength, of surrender and of trust. And that's something that I feel that maybe other cultures who honor pain as a rite of passage, they accept that a little bit more readily than we do. I want to give a little bit of an example of just how acknowledging, expressing and working through our pain, how it truly benefits and transforms us. It helps us to heal when you're cutting up an onion, and those tears flow down your cheeks, and you start to cry, there is no benefit, there's nothing positive that really happens within your body.

But when you release tears, because you're sad about something, or when you're releasing the emotion of anger, and it manifests as tears that run down your face, those tears help to release different hormones within your body that encourage your body to heal. So when we suppress the urge to cry, or the urge to respond to our pain, or a struggle, or trauma, it really inhibits our healing process, and not just on an emotional level but on a physical level. It throws your body out of balance, when you do not accept and acknowledge your struggle, your point of pain. So as we talk about the point of pain and the point of struggle, I want to really tap into what this looks like practically whether you are a mom who's planning for postpartum or newly postpartum. Or if you're years into your journey, like what does this actually look like? Let's start with if you're planning for postpartum or newly postpartum. The thing about it is that the struggle and I hate to even say struggle, because these things don't have to necessarily be a struggle if we change our mindset. And if we really tap into what will be expected during the postpartum time. But unfortunately, society deems when you hear depletion, you automatically think that's not supposed to happen. Or when we talk about the need for tapping in and asking others for help, because you're not able to do it all again, the way that society views that is, you shouldn't be able to do it all. So we might see these things as struggle, but as struggles. But the thing about it is, the depletion will happen, your body has stripped itself of vital nutrients in order to bring your beautiful babies for life. So it's inevitable, we can't avoid that the sleepless nights that it's going to happen unless you have a baby where it's very rare, but the expectation of your baby waking every two to three hours and you not having a full night stretch asleep, that's going to happen. The fact that you're going to have to ask for help if you truly want to lean into just the femininity of this time, that it's inevitable. So those things that we might deem as this is a struggle or this might be difficult if we change ourmindset, if you change your mindset now and truly accept and be aware of what might be expected of you in order for you to promote optimal healing within those first few weeks postpartum, then it doesn't have to be a struggle, you can lean into the transformation, you can see the time as a rite of passage, where you're truly embracing those feminine characteristics of rusting and being nurtured. And everything that comes with the role of being a new mom. And the same aspect, if you're further along into your journey, and you're struggling with your health, and you're just the season is just so difficult. You can change your mindset regarding the process that you're dealing with, when you see the struggle that you're dealing with as an opportunity to change you to grow you as an opportunity and the acceptance of I can overcome this. And when I overcome, it's going to make me someone who was radically different. And not only will that benefit me, but then I can tell others how to get through it to when we see the time when we embrace the struggle and just positively hope for something better the expectation of the healing when we embrace those things. It doesn't have to feel so heavy the struggle that we're dealing with, doesn't have to consume us we can almost be excited about it. And that's kind of how we go into just the benefit of shifting your mind, restoring your mind truly seeing this time as the gateway. It's the onset of your healing journey.

So whatever it is that is preventing you from coming to optimal healing during your postpartum time, it's not something that has dammed you, it is not something that is going to cause your demise or your destruction. This is not something that you do not have control over. I want you to feel empowered during this time. I want you to feel hope during this time. I want you to view whatever it is, whether it's depression, whether it's anxiety, whether it's your struggle with nutrition, your lack of support, whatever it is, I want you to view this as something that's a part of you, that's going to truly create something beautiful. And the reason that this mindset shift is necessary. The reason why you need to shift your mind in this area is that we are seeing more and more research that points to the fact that those who believe that healing is possible. Those who hope for a positive outcome truly have better health outcomes, those who are fearful and they're thinking concerning their health, or those who are negative and they're thinking towards their health, they have less of a chance of truly coming to help recovery and truly healing during a time when it's needed. Now this is where we see that people who pray, or people who believe in higher power, people who believe in something outside of themselves, this is where we see records of them experiencing miraculous healing more frequently than those who do not. Now, me myself personally, I'm a God girl. So when I confronted the fact that I needed to shift my mindset and truly take steps to heal my body, I had a faith that first of all, that God was Raphe healer, that with his sovereignty, I could heal, that he could heal me now with me, and the fact that I wrestle with being so analytical. And y'all hear me talk about my lack of faith all the time, and just how I struggle in this area. But I'm telling myself, also faith without works is dead, I can believe these things. But if I'm not taking the steps to heal my body, and truly believing that I can heal, and truly believing that God can heal me, and that he's equipped me with everything that my body needs in order to bring it back to balance. If I'm not taking the steps, then it's just not going to happen.

So this is where when we talk about, , the spiritual aspect of health and what you believe about health and just what you believe about the world around you and your body, this is where it truly benefits people who believe in something outside of themselves, we have to shift our mindset from victim mentality. And that's probably the hardest thing that we deal with is mothers. When we live in a society that doesn't support mothers, and we know all of the things about just how things should be and just what we are not receiving. And that's where I got stuck in my personal journey, just looking with resentment on the outside of why isn't the health care system helping me? Why don't I have access to the care that I need? Why don't I have support from friends and family? And I was stuck in a victim mindset, and shifting my mind and empowering myself to believe that I didn't need anybody else in order to recover and reclaim my health. The healing started with me, it started with my mindset change. And from there, once I started to believe that I could heal, then it was easier for me to implement certain protocols that supported what I believe, what I feel so many people are missing. So many moms are missing when we talk about recovering our health, we may know the surface information of we need to eat better, we need to do exercise or we may know this information, but something within our mindset is truly blocking us from our healing journey and our journey to recovery. We are not the victim. We are given everything that we need in order to bring our bodies to balance and reclaim our health. Do you hear me? I want you all to hear do I need to say it again? We are given all that we need to bring our bodies back to balance and if you don't believe that, maybe that's where we need to start is really shifting the mindset and affirming yourself and knowing that saying to yourself that this can happen until you believe it.

So at this point, I want to encourage you to stop fighting with yourself. There's a war, there's a resistance, there's a friction that's happening right now and it's preventing you from truly healing and your postpartum time. Stop resisting, see this time, see the struggle, see what you're dealing with as an opportunity for acceptance. See this as an opportunity for transformation. This adversity that you're experiencing is happening for a reason. And when you worry, when you're consumed with fear, it inhibits your healing journey. It actually activates a stress response within your body that may be contributing to your lack of health. This is a time for a true mindset shift. And I want to leave you with a couple of practical steps that you can take after listening to this podcast before the week is out. Step number one is if you have not already or if you forgot about what I've challenged you to do within the beginning of this episode, and really write down what are the things that are causing you adversity right now? What are your struggles? What are your health struggles? What are you dealing with that's overwhelming you or stressing you out? Those things that are causing adversity, write them down, acknowledge them, confront them, so that's practical step number one. Practical step number two, the start affirming your mindset shift that is going to lead to your healing. And you can do that by writing affirmations in your journal or finding affirmations online that you can say verbally, I always feel like I'm not there yet when it comes to affirmations. I feel like I'm so awkward when I try to say things out loud in the mirror. So I'm not there yet. I'm a journaling type of girl. But if you need affirmations, this is something where that I've created and I've put into my membership for moms who are recovering their health in their first few years postpartum. It's a resource where within the postpartum wellness revolution membership, I give you different affirmations that you can repeat that affirm your healing journey. So check it out, get in that membership, slight plug there, but that's what I want you before the week is out. That's what I want you to do. I want you to work on and complete those two steps and let that propel you into your healing journey. I'm so excited for what's to come for you. I'm so excited for you to get on the other side of your health struggle. I'm so excited to see where this is going to lead to when you heal, how you're going to be able to impact others, how you're going to be able to show up for your children and your family just when you come to maximum healing?

PODCAST OUTRO: I'm so excited for this. Thank you so much for tuning in. Make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast that you're subscribed to the YouTube channel so that you can get notifications of when new episodes are released. And always remember that I'm in this journey with you. We are learning. We are healing together so that we can truly reclaim our health as mothers so that we can show up to be the mom that we desire to be. I'll see you on the next episode.