5 Seasons of Connection Podcast

Dr. Stella Chess and her husband Dr. Alexander Thomas spearheaded the classic New York Longitudinal study in the early 1950s to track hundreds of children over a 30-year period to understand the tendencies that babies are born with and how they influence their lives, and from that research they developed the 9 Temperamental Traits.[i] The traits are: Activity Level: how active is your child most of the time? Distractibility: how easily do outside influences distract your child? Intensity: how much intensity does your child have in her responses? Regularity: does your child vary in her eating or sleeping patterns? Sensory Threshold: how sensitive is your child to physical sensations? Approach/Withdrawal: how does your child respond to strangers? Adaptability: how easily does your child adapt to changes in his day? Persistence: how long will your child work to solve something that is hard? Mood: is your child a glass half empty or half full kind of person? 5 Chess, Dr. Stella, and Dr. Alexander Thomas. TEMPERAMENT: Theory and Practice. Psychology Press, 1996.

o   o   AIn this episode, I talk about Core Values as a strategy to build awareness about who you are and what are the deeply held beliefs that guide your life. Here are a list of Core Values that you can use as a starting point for selecting your 5-7 most powerful Core Value words.   Ability o   Acceptance o   Accessibility o   Accomplishment o   Accuracy o   Achievement o   Adventure o   Ambition o   Appreciation o   Assertive o   Authenticity o   Authority o   Balance o   Beauty o   Bold o   Brave o   Calm o   Capable o   Careful o   Challenge o   Charity o   Collaborative o   Community o   Compassion o   Competency o   Connection o   Contribution o   Cooperation o   Courage o   Creativity o   Curiosity o   Daring o   Decisive o   Dependable o   Determination o   Diligence o   Duty o   Eagerness o   Education o   Efficient o   Empathetic o   Encouragement o   Energy o   Entrepreneurship o   Environment o   Ethical o   Excellence o   Fairness o   Faith o   Fame o   Family o   Fearless o   Flexible o   Freedom o   Friendships o   Fun o   Generosity o   Grace o   Gratitude o   Happiness o   Hard working o   Helpful o   Honesty o   Hopeful o   Humor o   Impact o   Impartial o   Independent o   Innovative o   Inquisitive o   Inspiring o   Integrity o   Intelligent o   Intuitive o   Joy o   Justice o   Kindness o   Knowledge o   Lawful o   Leadership o   Learning o   Listening o   Logical o   Love o   Loyalty o   Meticulous o   Mindful o   Moderate o   Openness o   Optimism o   Order o   Organized o   Patient o   Patriotic o   Peace o   Pleasure o   Persistent o   Philanthropy o   Play o   Positive o   Practical o   Prepared o   Private o   Productive o   Professional o   Realistic o   Reliable o   Resilient o   Resourceful o   Results-oriented o   Religion o   Reputation o   Respect o   Responsibility o   Security o   Self-Respect o   Service o   Spirituality o   Simplicity o   Stability o   Status o   Success o   Thoughtful o   Trustworthiness o   Truth o   Understanding o   Unique o   Wealth o   Wisdom WWonder

In this episode, we dive into the 5th season, called the Crossroads,  where you will find all the power to stay in Summer with your kids. 

In this episode, we explore the season of Fall and the ways we can slip out of Summer and into Fall with our children. 

Spring is the season coming out of Winter, thawing the frozen landscape. In your relationship with your children, Spring in The 5 Seasons of Connection is a time to build bridges back towards Summer, nurturing an environment where togetherness can bloom.

This is the season where many families find themselves disconnected from their children and living under a heaviness of unhappiness. In this introduction of Winter, we will learn about this season of your relationship and some ways you can navigate the cold, harsh time.

This podcast episode is the introduction to The 5 Seasons of Connection philosophy that I have created to stay in deep, loving connection with my children. In this episode, I will share the five seasons that we encounter in every interaction, and how we can navigate them best to meet the needs of our family members.

In this episode, I share some history about our family's adoption of a dairy-free diet for my youngest son, and I work with a Mama2Mama mom about her son's dietary restrictions. In finding her way on her new path, this mom actually helps her own mother create a whole new business opportunity! Thanks for listening!

I am honored to continue to share about some Mama2Mama stories that I experienced last year when I committed to helping 50 mamas in 50 days before our MamaCon event in the spring. In this episode, I am sharing about travelling. Most moms I talk to would love to travel more but many are afraid of making it work with a baby, toddler, preschooler, or even school-aged child. They feel overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that they think their kids need, and how to move about without the comforts of home. Take a listen to learn more about how I worked with one mama to help her design a trip of her dreams for her family, and we didn't start with her budget. Some questions we covered include: How do you want to feel on your trip? How adventurous is your family? How active is your family? Do you like to be in one place or do you like to move around?   Once you get honest with what you love most, and how you want to feel, finding a destination in the world is easy.   Hope you enjoy this episode and feel free to join us in the MamaConnects Facebook group to share how your family selects destinations for travel.   Thanks!

Hi everyone, thank you for joining us for episode 5! Today we are dipping our toe into two more Mama2Mama stories with lovely women named Erica and Janelle. They both started off saying many of the things I said when I felt ashamed I wasn’t being a good mom after my brain crash. “Everything was so hard, so overwhelming. I sat there and took it and took it, without ever asking for help. I didn’t tell any girlfriends, I didn’t tell my husband, I didn’t ask for help from anyone and the stress of my life chipped me, cracked me, and smashed me open over and over and then I felt horrible for raging out of control.” I totally understood their hopelessness. For me having this mysterious neurological condition that left me confused, exhausted, dizzy and in pain, I worried constantly that I would be seen as a failure. What if people saw how messed up I was, how I seemed weirdly confused, or completely unable to keep track of when we needed to send snack to school on our designated day? What if my kids wouldn’t be invited for birthday parties because the moms thought I was a hot mess? I was afraid so I kept it all boxed in as best I could, and it made my suffering so much harder. For Erica and Janelle, they hid from everyone because of a different shame – they felt out of control with their temper. They both felt drawn to connect with me after watching my Facebook video in March of 2017 for some encouragement, support, and help. Erica is a young mom with a young baby, and she said that throughout her whole life, she was calm and relaxed. The fury started to burn inside her shortly after her baby was born. She was ashamed to admit this to anyone because she said she must be the only one in the world who had rage when she should have been feeling like a gift from heaven lay on her lap. Many people are aware of Postpartum Depression, and signs include anxiety, sadness, no interest in the baby, thoughts of hurting yourself or baby. No one mentioned “rage” or feeling entirely out of control. Erica said that she would yell and then cry because she felt guilty for yelling. She suffered for months and her husband actually mentioned something to the nurse when they had a well-baby checkup, and the nurse suggested Erica see her own doctor for postpartum rage. Erica was fuming at him for revealing her secret but she told me that he couldn’t take the yelling and verbal abuse any longer, so it really saved her life that he did it. Baby blues affects 50-85% of women and often doesn’t require extra medical attention because it is considered the 4th trimester of a pregnancy – adjusting to life at home with a new baby while experiencing symptoms like crying, sadness, impatience. However, 1 in 7 women experience postpartum depression, and it has nothing to do with the baby blues. Post-partum depression is a mood disorder that follows typically a few weeks after giving birth and creates feelings of despair, hopelessness, scary thoughts and rage.  Everyone celebrates the cute, sweet angelic little fingers and toes, and the pediatrician checks their growth and weight, and your doctor might check your physical healing, but rarely do post-baby checkups include helping the new mama understand the emotional roller coaster of hormones, body chemistry, sleep deprivation, and fear and Erica had no idea that post partum rage was real. Janelle had a 13 year old daughter. She was out of the baby years, out of the toddler tantrums and felt pretty confident that her child was awesome, and that it was her who had come undone. Janelle would be going along on her day, waiting for Samantha to get home from school and soon after arriving, she would find herself yelling and furious about left dishes, crumbs on the counter, shoes not put away, or a faucet that was left dripping. Janelle would explode at her daughter, slam things, and then run to her room, crying and then berating herself for being such a monster.   Rage is the thief of joy, and moms suffering secretly count down the hours until bedtime, days until school starts, Saturdays when their partner can step in to parenting, school trips to have a break, the college years, anything to get through. We talked about Mom guilt in our last episode, and it hits hard here because mothers love their kids and would do anything for them, they want to be the best mom they can be, and they wish they could stay calm and cool but when they erupt, they see that as evidence that they mustn’t love their kids enough, aren’t the best, and will never be the calm, happy mom of their dreams. For both women, it was totally uncharacteristic for them to have this burning, explosive lava inside. They said they never screamed at drivers who cut them off in traffic or barked at their husbands when he said he had a great day at work before. Erica showed me her wrists that were bruised from smashing the steering wheel as she came home from getting groceries. Rage is intense and we think we go from 0 to 60 in one second because on the surface, we can seem so calm and in control, “now sweetie, stop that,” or “that’s enough” but that calmness is an illusion because in actual fact, all day we've adding heat to our fire and that 0-60 is really the overflow from a continuous chipping away at our calm reserves.   Author, speaker and parenting expert Amy McCready has created Positive Parenting Solutions, a business around a breaking point in her life when she found herself yelling more than speaking to her kids and calls herself a recovering yeller. She speaks on stages all over the country because it is one of those things that we should talk about, but we just hide in shame. But did you know that rage is a symptom? It’s a symptom of a bigger problem.  Many psychologists feel that we yell at our kids because we are feeling powerlessness. That might seem strange because we are bigger, stronger, smarter and more capable, but their defiance, or stubbornness, or refusals to help or cooperate, participate or do something we ask is a trigger that reminds us we can’t actually force them to do what we want. So we use our power to try to exert control, and one vehicle to do that is yelling because it helps re-establish us as the person holding the power, not the child. Janelle mentioned that her belief from her history was that children should be obedient, and obedient children are respectful. In her life, she learned that people who didn’t follow rules were disrespectful. So, leaving shoes out, dishes out, crumbs all over, Janelle saw her child’s disobedience as disrespect and she created a negative story to explain her daughter’s disobedience. She would say, “Sam doesn’t care enough about me to put her shoes away. She is selfish to leave her mess for me to clean up.” I asked her if there was a different story that could be possible. She really struggled, but we came up with other possibilities which put responsibility on her daughter, like her short attention span, her overloaded schedule, her knowledge that Janelle will just come in and clean up no matter what. The point isn’t to find other stories to place blame, the point is that the story Janelle was creating came from a belief she had from her childhood and may not be grounded in the current situation. We talked about seeing something that needed to be changed, and making a request. We set up this exercise for her to try. When Sam comes home, Janelle will say: “Honey, would you please put your shoes in the closet when you first take them off?” Samantha will probably say yes. Then, you can calmly state the consequence. “That works for me. If I see them out of the closet I will move them to the garage and you will not be able to leave them inside anymore. So let’s practice this. Please put your shoes on and go back outside, count to 5 and come in as if it was your first time today.” Now, her teen may moan, groan, roll her eyes, but Janelle would encourage her to do a run-through of the expectation while she watched, encouraging her and commentating the whole time. Sam will better remember the request, and knows what will happen if she doesn’t complete it the next time. Can I add a side note here? If we as parents say our kids never clean, and we yell at our kids to clean, never really outline exactly what clean means, and then flitter around like an angry Mary Poppins cleaning up around them while grumbling, why would they clean? The cost of listening to us grumble is totally worth not having to do it. Parents, you will need to stop yourself and give them the gift of committing to a request and following through – it’s a life lesson. We will have another episode on empowering our kids with some of the life lessons like cleaning and chores another time, but for now, please use the request system, one request at a time, and outline your expectation super clearly, spell out the natural consequence if the request is ignored, and then practice it. Soon, they will know the drill and when you make the request and they say yes, they know what is to come so they will just do it or they won’t and the consequence will happen.   For Erica, I was a sounding board for all the things that were hard, wrong, and overwhelming for her. We had a beautiful talk, we laughed and cried and hugged quite a few times, and then I gently and lovingly asked if she was still seeing someone for her post partum rage. She exhaled and said yes, she was taking medication short term and still seeing a therapist. I told her I was proud of her and her commitment to doing her best for herself, her child and her husband. We talked about some techniques she was learning, and I will share them here as well. -          Of course, breathing deeply from your diaphragm is key, not shallow chest breathing. In through your nose, count to three, out through your mouth, count to three. You can slowly repeat a mantra in your mind like ‘calm’, om, or ‘slow’, something that vibrates nicely in your throat. -          You can journal it out, writing your feelings is a freeing and healthy way to release the energy that anger and rage create. You can lie down in bed and visualize a place you have been to or a place you dream of going that symbolizes total relaxation, maybe a deserted beach or a remote lakeside cabin. One mama would visualize heli-skiing alone on a beautiful sunny mountain, carving through the untouched snow. One mama’s happy place was bringing her easel, canvas and paints to a busy square in Turkey and immersing herself in the sights, sounds, smells, and energy of that vibrant city. It is your dream place. It is you happy place. You can remember something you’ve done where you were filled with joy, or you can dream of something you’ve never done and wish to do. -          You can do something physical, like power walking, dancing, biking, something that takes focus and effort. -          Flood yourself with happy memories with your child. Go through old photo albums, or power up your computer and watch old videos of your child when they were tiny, fumbling around and being super cute. It’s hard to remember your child was simply the light of your life when they pushing your rage buttons like whac a mole! -          And lastly, you can reach out and connect to someone. Having someone in your life who can listen and empathize is crucial to your mental health. That may mean a friend, or in Erica’s case, it may mean a professional who helped her with her rage. There are therapists who specialize in women and moms, and are amazing at helping you release that intense emotion in a healthier way. As always, if you feel that you are looking for a community, you are in the right place. The power of community and the feeling of belonging is a core desire for us as humans, a critical component just like food and shelter and it is fundamental to our feelings of happiness and well-being. I think about how much courage it took for these women to watch my Facebook video, deem me to be someone safe, find me and allow me into their life and say, “I have a need. I’m overwhelmed and drowning in my pain. Can you help me?” But, that inspired action was all these women needed to do to absolutely change their lives and their family’s lives. That is why being connected in a community is so important! If you are looking for a community, a wonderful, warm, inviting place to ask and share and read and offer support and get support, join us in our MamaConnects private Facebook group.  It’s free and we are designing it to be a place to find encouragement, education, and inspiration on your motherhood journey. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave me a review. I am here to bring you the best ideas and stories and I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode.  Thank you and thanks for listening!

We’re going to continue to explore the topics that came up during the Mama2Mama Campaign because I think during our motherhood journey, we’ve all been in many of these places, and felt many of the feelings these women shared. Some of the non-critical information has been changed to protect the identity of the mama. Today we are going to talk about mom guilt. This theme came up in almost all conversations when women over and over told me all the ways they were failing their kids. But, the fact that these women thought they were failing their kids, most certainly meant they weren’t! I’m going to share the stories of two mamas to dig a little deeper into this powerful and paralyzing epidemic. I’m going to start with a stat. According to a recent Baby Center survey, 94% of moms confessed to feeling shame in the last 3 months. 94%! That’s unbelievable! According to authors Devra Renner and Aviva Pflock, coauthors of a book called Mommy Guilt: Learn to Worry Less, Focus on What Matters Most, and Raise Happier Kids, mommy guilt is an equal-opportunity condition which strikes women of every age, every race, every economic level, in every part of the country, urban and rural. There is literally no escape from any of the three camps moms find themselves in. The moms who are “JUST” stay at home moms say they feel guilty because they quit their jobs and aren’t helping to support their families so finances are more stretched. The moms who work outside the home feel guilty because they send their kids to daycare every day and aren’t around to see all the special moments and milestones. On top of that level of guilt, a good number of moms who work outside the home feel extra guilty because they actually enjoy getting showered, dressed, and being at work, doing a good job, spending time with other adults, and getting recognition, and they think choosing their happiness and fulfillment makes them a bad mom. Finally, the moms who work from home feel guilty because they are always forced to choose between work and family and feel they do half a job on each, not really thriving in either role… and there is always more they could do for both.  Guilt is a way we have of recognizing that we have not lived up to our own values and standards, but this is 2018, and we are not setting out values and standards based on the women in our community who model good mother or good wife or good caregiver behavior. We erroneously set our values and standards based on all the beautiful people we see living fabulously perfect lives on social media and on TV. Mariana had this exact situation. She is a mom who works outside the home because first, she loves her job, and second, she makes more money than her husband so it makes sense for her family. Her mom lives with them to care for the kids, but she constantly feels like she isn’t being a good mom by leaving her kids with her elderly mother when all her friend’s kids get to go to paint pottery and take music classes and take gymnastics during the day. To add icing on this guilt-cake, her friends kept including her in texts and invites to daytime outings, knowing she couldn’t attend. They would post pictures on Facebook of all of them meeting for coffee or visits to the trampoline place and tag her with sentences like, “when you want to be a real mommy, come join us!” Mariana brushed it off at first, but the digs didn’t stop. She barely goes on Facebook anymore and doesn’t answer any texts or phone calls from this group. When she is home with her kids and she snaps at them, she suffocates herself with self-criticism and uses those instances as evidence that she is a bad mom, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Danielle works at a lower-paying job and can only make ends meet with the help of her sister, who watches Danielle’s two kids after school for a few hours, and all holidays and breaks. She thinks her sister is a good mom, but when her kids come home with bad habits or new vocabulary that she doesn’t like, she hates herself for not being their primary caregiver and hates her job even more for keeping her from what she wants more than anything, which is to live the perfect stay at home life that she sees on Instagram. Her feed is filled with pictures of cute kids and happy moms at the zoo, getting their nails done, shopping for shoes and baking cookies. I asked her what her feed would look like if she put it up on Instagram and she said it would be a messy house with piles of unfolded laundry and unwashed dishes, a stack of unopened mail, and kids sitting alone watching TV because she is cooking, paying bills, cleaning the bathroom or looking for that form that her kid needs in the morning. She asked how could she be a good mom when she barely has time to be a mom at all? Mom guilt comes in two main streams- either external or internal. External guilt comes from the burdens, judgements and criticisms of other people, and internal guilt is what we place on ourselves after comparing our life to that of other people. The strategies to shed some of the guilt is the same: First, experts recommend examining each thought as it enters our mind and check if there is something you could do about the situation differently. So, when you say, “I lost my kid’s form because I’m so disorganized and now they are mad at me and I am such a horrible mom” pause for a moment and examine that sentence. You lost your kid’s form? Or did your child hand you the form in the middle of a dozen other things and you put it down? What does this tell us? We need a system. There are two main options. One option is to create a physical space to hold this stuff. You can have an inbox or tray or folder and all forms and papers go into there and you check it regularly, fill it out, and then they can pick it up from there. For my life, that holds too many opportunities for messing up. With three kids in three schools and 5 sports, I used to lose hundreds of papers every year because I would forget to check the folder or move the tray and then everyone was lost. So I go with option 2: Put it all on them, age-appropriately. Now, I don’t let my kids hand me papers ever! At the end of the evening, after dinner, after cleanup, as we are preparing for the next day, I will ask them to check their school folders or agendas for anything they need me to pay attention to and we do it together at the kitchen table. They bring their forms to me and I sign it and they stay with me until it’s done. Oh, and I don’t fill out any forms. If they can write, they can do it. In our school district, every form needs our name, full mailing address, phone number, email, school name, teacher name, homeroom, and a bunch of other info. I hate these forms. I’ve called the district to complain about these forms. But, we get at least 3 every month so I needed a system. So, part of my rule is that my kids fill all that info out, and all I do with any form is check that it is correct and sign it. They manage it from start to finish. So, by not getting a form in the middle of dinner or booking a campsite for the summer or scheduling an appointment for their dental check up or anything else, I don’t create a situation where I can call myself a bad mom. In fact, I feel like a great mom, on top of things, modelling good systems for my kids, and getting it done the first time. So, as the experts recommend examining each thought as it enters our mind and check if there is something you could do about the situation differently, let’s think about Mariana and Danielle. For Mariana, she felt less than. She felt she wasn’t enough. She felt like she was failing. She felt this way because her friends kept pointing out how she wasn’t really a mom if she chose to work full time. That just isn’t true. She needed to tell her friends how she felt. If they were open and receptive, understanding and compassionate, they would not want to hurt their friend. When Mariana called me back with an update, they hadn’t realized how hurtful they were being and not only did they stop, but they invited Mariana’s kids along a few times so they could play with their friends while Mariana was at work. I asked Mariana if she wanted to invest in these friendships and she said yes, so I suggested she could take the lead and schedule some activities on the weekend so she could participate as well and she felt more connected and loved than she had in a long time. When her friends heard how she is the main provider for their family, they found a new respect for her and really supported her in new ways. For Danielle, what could she do differently? Well, the first thing was to do a social-media detox for a while, and put her focus on all the blessings in her life, instead of all the 'missings'. It was important for Danielle to reflect on what she wanted most for her life with her kids, and how best to achieve it. Could she change jobs to something more flexible or higher paying? Maybe, she would look into it. Could she organize her schedule so she can have easy-to-prepare meals during the week and spend more time playing board games or other activities with her kids? Yes. That was an easy one. We popped onto Pinterest and created her a page for free and easy kid’s activities, a page for freezer meals, and a page for organizing chores because her kids were old enough and could benefit from helping out around the house. When we were done, we had created a 14 day rotating meal plan with an emphasis on easy and versatile, a chore chart that everyone loved, and a daily schedule so she could spend 2 hours of quality time with her kids every night. You know what we also did? We wrote out these words for her to post on her fridge: Listen to my heart and let love lead the way. Another tip from the experts to shed the mom guilt burden is to find a community of like-minded women, with the same struggles, successes and situations as you because it will keep things in perspective. Danielle texted me that she created a dance party time every night after dinner for 15 mins and one night they didn’t have it and the kids were cranky and she was snippy and she started to feel guilty but quickly realized that she could reflect on the situation and make a change and through that thinking, she realized how important rituals were for her kids, as well as time to play together and find happiness. If you find you can’t get out from under the mom guilt at all, it might be time to chat with a professional. There are therapists who specialize in women and moms, and are amazing at helping you reframe your perspective. But, if you feel that you are looking for a community, you are in the right place. The power of community and the feeling of belonging is a core desire for us as humans, a critical component just like food and shelter and it is fundamental to our feelings of happiness and well-being. I think about how much courage it took for these women to watch my Facebook video, deem me to be someone safe, find me and allow me into their life and say, “I have a need. I’m overwhelmed and drowning in my guilt. Can you help me?” But, that inspired action was all these women needed to do to absolutely change their lives and their family’s lives. It’s not that I was some magician or superhero, it’s just that I can see things they can’t see because I bring an outsider’s perspective. That is why being connected in a community is so important! If you are looking for a community, a wonderful, warm, inviting place to ask and share and read and offer support and get support, join us in our MamaConnects private Facebook group.  It’s free and we are designing it to be a place to find encouragement, education, and inspiration on your motherhood journey. If you enjoyed this podcast, please join me in our MamaConnects Facebook group, or leave me a review. I am here to bring you the best ideas and stories and I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode.  Thank you and thanks for listening!

One day, I had an epiphany and I wanted to reach moms, those who were sitting at home unsure how they would get through the next week, next day or next minute. On March 11, 2017, I decided to walk my talk that 'No Mama Should Mama Alone' and went on Facebook to share a video about my offer to help 50 mamas in 50 days. Within a few hours, the video had been seen by over 500 people and after 3 weeks it had been viewed 5100 times, reaching 11,000 people  https://www.facebook.com/MamaConUS/videos/1432461893473335   My message struck a chord with mamas who were feeling disconnected and alone.  Day 2 - reworked a resume with a mama who wants to land her dream job Day 4 - helped a mama declutter a room in her house for an arriving guest Day 5 - strategized with a mama in Ottawa, Canada about her son who has hit the defiant stage Day 6 - met a mama at a toy store to find the perfect toy for her preschooler Day 7 - brainstormed a new business idea with a mama, sparking a new passion pathway Day 12 - trained with a mama for her first 5K in June Day 14 - met a mama who is launching a new business and is seeking ideas to better balance her time Day 18 - completed a closet edit with a mama who wanted to let go of her old styles and redefine herself Day 21 - meeting a mama to identify ways to simplify her life after bringing home baby #2 Day 25 - planted a new garden with a mama who wants to write her novel and be surrounded by flowers   The requests for connection kept coming from around the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia thanks to the power of social media.   One of the women who reached out was Priyanka. This episode dives deeper into her loneliness as a mama in a new country.   Links mentioned:   https://www.facebook.com/MamaConUS/videos/1432461893473335 www.mamaconnects.com     

Motherhood is hard enough when you are healthy. When you have the added complexity of testing, medication-hopping, poking, prodding, and side effects, motherhood is extremely challenging!  In this podcast episode, I talk about what it was like to be in the fog, and how much grit and determination it took to clear my mind and heart and live with purpose and intention for myself, my kids, and my family. In 2012, my girlfriend gave me a free ticket to an event and I didn't think I would go because, well, I just didn't do things like that. However, as the date drew nearer, I decided to go and everything changed. For the first time, I saw women sharing and laughing, dancing and hugging, I saw strangers become supporters during the conference when brave, bold women shared their inner pain. It was transformational! I went on to join the MamaCon team and worked for a few years before having the opportunity to buy the company. I now cherish every mama in our community, and my motto of No Mama Should Mama Alone just gets stronger with each passing day.    www.mamaconnects.com  

This is a story about a time in my motherhood journey when everything changed. I moved from Ottawa, Canada to a suburb of Seattle, Washington in January 2006.  Before I had a chance to make any friends or meet any neighbors, my husband left on a week-long business trip leaving me home with my 4-year-old and my 2-year-old, and I was 3 months pregnant. My husband had been gone a for a few nights when I woke up to use the bathroom (remember all the pregnancy peeing?!?)  When I got out of bed, I blacked out, fell on my belly, and woke up on my daughter’s bedroom floor paralyzed.  I lay there for hours unable to move or speak. After hours of asking, negotiating, and begging to GET UP, my body finally came back to me and after the vertigo and burning ceased, I was able to get up and get my kids dressed and fed and down to the hospital.  What followed was months of testing, the birth of my third baby, drastic changes to my mothering, tons more testing, and ultimately this prognosis by my neurological team: “We don’t know what you have.  But we can tell you that based on the brain damage we are seeing from your ‘incident’, you only have 5 years to live.” Listen in to hear: ·         what my life was like after receiving a death sentence ·         how my mothering changed after my brain crash ·         my ultimate breaking point 3 years after my diagnosis ·         how drugs ruined me and mindset saved me   Related Links: MamaConnects website: https://www.mamaconnects.com/ MamaCon on Facebook