Perfectly Flawed Brokenness

a Guest blog by April Lovelace Simmons 

I have a confession to make. I am an anxious person. Some people call it being a worrier or tightly wound. This does not mean that I am a negative person or always barking orders at everyone around me (though I do that sometimes, and to my great horror, I find it invigorating). Having a predisposition to anxiety and being raised by two perfectionists really did not weight the scales in my favor. My anxiety waxed and waned through my twenties, sometimes crescendoing into a tsunami of frenzied behaviors (mostly cleaning and eating). The grand finale came as I entered the thirties and my health, personal, and professional life were such that I had to change or the misery would crush me. With several very specific goals in mind, I began therapy. One of these goals was to learn to cope better so that I would not be a neurotic, controlling horror show of a mother.

So, I sat on my therapist’s overstuffed chair...

What new moms really need: how to be a doula for the women in your life

By Danielle D Jenkins, PsyD

There are lists and lists and lists about what stuff is actually necessary for a new baby or for entrance into motherhood. This isn’t one of those lists. The following are ways you can support the women in your life during the time that is such a mixed bag of emotion along with positive, intense, and horrific experiences. All of my life, dating back to childhood, I have been really good at caring for moms and babies and here’s some of what I’ve learned about what new moms actually need.

To be seen as a person not just a baby host

So many moms feel embarrassed to say that they are sometimes jealous of their babies or resentful of the attention friends and family members pay to their little one. However, resentment and jealousy are so common and so many women feel shameful about these feelings. Sometimes it is nice to just have someone truly see just you and...

Is it common? Is it normal? 

By Danielle D Jenkins, PsyD 

People ask me all the time if they are normal and if what they do or are going through is normal. I don't often answer that question with a clear yes or no. Well sometimes I do. Is it normal to have anxiety as a parent, yes! Normal and common! A little anxiety is very normal and actually helps you be a better parent. A lot of anxiety is common but not healthy. 

Meriam Webster defines common as occurring or appearing frequently. Webster defines normal as usual or ordinary; not strange; mentally and physically healthy. So here's the deal, maternal mental health disorders are common. Not what we could, by definition, call normal, but unfortunately extremely common.

Baby Blues 

About 80% of women experience the “baby blues,” including sadness, confusion, and crying. This usually resolves within two weeks. This makes it both common and normal. If the symptoms do not resolve within 10-14 days or...

By Danielle D Jenkins, PsyD

Pause and Then Remind Yourself You are Safe

When you initially realize you are emotionally overwhelmed, the first thing to do is pause. Then look around and remind yourself you are safe. When you feel overwhelmed, your body can’t really distinguish between feeling overwhelm because you worked too much this week, said yes to too many extras, are going through a rough life patch, or are in the middle of a war or famine. Sometimes, especially when we have too much on our plates, our primal brain takes over and our body processes emotional, family, or work stress as an emergency when it is not. When this happens, pause and tell yourself you are safe. Even if it’s something silly you say to yourself like, “Body, I am safe, there are no monsters here, just a lot of overwhelm.” You can even follow this with simple reminder to yourself, “I got this!”

Once you’ve paused and given yourself a safety check, take a breath, do...

Guest Blogger, Rev. Liliana Barzola

Note from Danielle. Having Liliana write this blog post is a dream come true for me. I love this concept and yet have struggled to bring it to my new momma clients. She is so on point with “being vs. doing.” And I love that Liliana, who has been a source of strength, encouragement, and business mentoring for myself and others I know was my first guest blogger on MamaThriveVillage back in July. Read more about her at the end of the post.

Release Postpartum Anxiety: “Doing” vs. “Being”

Being a powerful, independent woman moving through the world involves a lot of “doing.” When you are growing a baby inside you, problem solving on the phone, and cooking a meal all at the same time, this is the vibration of “doing.” 

Once you give birth and enter into the postpartum zone all of that “doing” becomes “being.” Yes you “do” change diapers and...

By Danielle Jenkins, PsyD

Depression Is a Liar

My science partner my freshman year of college was constantly saying “You’re a liar and a fat mouth.” She used this any time someone said or did something she did not agree with. It basically boiled down to the idea, “I don’t trust you.” I think of this saying often when it comes to depression. Depression is a liar and a fat mouth. It is not to be trusted and it just keeps talking, elaborating on the untruths it says.

Depression Will Lie to Your Face

Depression is the worst kind of friend. It is the kind of friend that cozies up to you and settles in to your couch and then whispers into your ear that you don’t have any friends, no one loves you, and you aren’t invited to the party anyway. The kind of friend you think is a best friend but isn’t even a friend at all. And it says these things in such a way that you believe them completely.

Depression Will Just Keep Talking Even When It...

One of my favorite people in the world is Brene Brown. She has taught me that vulnerability is the path to whole hearted living. I strive to be vulnerable, but to be honest, I am terrible at it. I’ll keep trying but it’s really  hard work. One of the things that keeps me trying to be authentic is that I know that the beautifully curated lives I see on social media are often far from the reality. That’s part of why I am writing this. So often we don’t know what is really going on with someone and what we believe is happening is actually not even close to the reality.

There are many powerful examples of this in my own life. I had a friend from graduate school who rarely posted on social media but I remember seeing this beautiful picture of him with a girlfriend and some happy pictures of them doing fun things around their beautiful home in the Northwest. I assumed based on these photos that my friend was in a happy place, living a happy life. Not too...

Guest Blogger, Rev. Liliana Barzola

Imagine your heart is a container. It is holding all the pain and bliss you’ve experienced. It has all these magical chambers and different rooms.

As we grow and develop we try to stay in the good feeling parts of our hearts, where the playful and wonderful feelings are stored. When we experience loss we often section that part of our heart off. Like a room that was once a fun place to play, it becomes a dark and dreary part of our heart. We close that part of our heart off. We don’t want to look back or feel that again. We do this all the time and pretty much without noticing that we do it.

When your beautiful baby is earthside and beaming you with pure love and bliss, it’s overwhelming. This child stares into your eyes in a way no human has ever looked at you before. The energy is so pure and divine. You feel such depth. And then something strange happens. That baby love beam hits one of those quarantined off rooms and bursts...

For part two of mom shaming, I really wanted to explore why we mom shame. It feels terrible and we know that, so why do we do it? In part one, I told a recent story of how my sister was mom-shamed on social media by “friends.” You can read about it here if you missed it. I had been mulling over this topic for a long time, but when it landed on my sister I couldn’t pass it up. The Big Sister Bear in me wanted to come out with claws but I once I took a moment, I didn’t think that would be actually helpful. Shaming shamers is not going to change what has become an epidemic in our culture. It happens subtly in face-to-face interactions, but in the land of social media, it is constant. CONSTANT. And if we are honest, in our heads, sometimes it’s worse. And we all do it. You know you’ve had that thought, “I would never…. give juice boxes, let my kids watch ___, let my kids eat ____, do ____.” So what? When we all know what it feels...

This is a blog post that I’ve been writing in my head for a long time, but recently I was reminded in a powerful way about one of my biggest concerns for mothers of our times. In September my sweet niece turned 3. My sister posted a series of super sweet pictures of her daughter with her birthday “coffee” (steamed coconut milk from a coffee shop). I remember having a fleeting thought that the headrest in the car seat looked weird from the angle of the picture, but knowing my sister’s nearly obsessive tendency to double check car safety, I didn’t think another thing about it. I made a comment about my niece’s new haircut (a birthday tradition from Aunt Kiki) and went on with my day. I noticed later that the post was comment free. Weird. Didn’t think much of it. 

Scroll to the end of the day, my sister shared what happened. A mom who my sister went to middle school with briefly and became Facebook friends with at some point made a really...