Regaining Your Identity After Motherhood with @shamelessmomacademy Sara Dean

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Are, you about to start Solid Foods, but You don't know where to start. Or. maybe you started with some purees and now you want to make a switch. The best place To get started. learning about starting solid foods safely is my one hour online video workshop called Baby LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS I just rerecorded this free training and it's packed with videos and visuals on how to safely prep baby led weaning foods, what it looks like for the first few days, how to reduce Choking risk and what to do if your baby has an allergic reaction to food. Everybody on this free training gets a copy of my original 100 First Foods list so you'll never run out of ideas about what to feed your baby. Next, you can get signed up for this video workshop at baby led weaning dot co If.

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you have one hour to dedicate to learning about baby led weaning. Come take this free online video training and grab your copy of that original a hundred FIRST FOODS list. While you're there, again, head to baby led weaning dot co to get signed up and I hope to see you there. Your highchair is definitely the most important piece of equipment that you will buy as your baby makes the transition to Solid Foods. And if you play your cards right, you can pick a highchair that's not only a safe seat for your baby to eat, but one that will also grow with your child through to adolescence. So there's no buy in a highchair for starting solid foods and then having to buy a toddler chair and buying a preschool chair and then getting a different new chair for your school aged kids when they have to do homework.

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The STO Nome highchair is one of my absolute favorite highchair for baby led weaning. The Nome was created by the legendary Scandinavian designer Peter Sik as a modern chair for babies so they can join their family at mealtimes from their first bite. The no meat features an adjustable footrest that does not require tools to change, and that's important because your baby's feet need to be resting flat on a solid foot plate in order to support a safe swallow. Now most high chairs don't have an adjustable foot rest, and if they even do have a footrest and it changes heights, you've gotta go get the toolbox out to move it every time your baby grows an inch. The NOMI also has an optional tray that you can add on if you have a counter or a bar height table because regular high chairs don't reach that high.

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But you also might consider using the tray if you like to eat outside or you move your baby around at mealtimes to different rooms or you'd like to keep the baby by you in the kitchen. Right now you can get the Know me highchair tray for free. So that's a $70 value when you purchase the Stoa No Me Highchair using the affiliate discount code Baby led at checkout. So that's a free $70 Nome highchair tray using the code Baby lead LED when you purchase the nome highchair@stoker.com. That's S-T-O-K-K e.com.

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Mom guilt is a social construct. So what that means is that we have been conditioned to feel guilty when we choose something else over our children or we center something else over motherhood. That guilt is very real. Everything you're feeling is very real. Part of the problem is that first of all, women have been socialized to be self-sacrificial at every turn. We're all being more and more disempowered by allowing ourselves to sit in that guilt.

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Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, registered dietician, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in baby led weaning here on the baby led weaning with Katie Ferraro podcast. I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, giving you the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to Solid Foods using baby led weaning. Do you ever think of your life as being two distinct phases? There was the you before you had a baby or children and now there is the you after you've had a baby or multiple babies. I know that for years after I started having kids, I felt like a shell of my former self, like I used to be the president of this and organize that and I barely can get through the day at this point.

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A lot of moms that I talk to feel this way as well. Regaining your identity after motherhood is a tough hill to climb. But my guest today is here to pave the way. Her name is Sarah Dean and I know Sarah from her work running the Shameless Mom Academy. So she's a speaker, a facilitator, an executive leadership coach. She's just like the most inspirational person who has this amazing way with words. I love all of her content chatting with her. I've done interviews with her in the past and she's also a mom like Gus, she's a baseball mom. She has an 11-year-old son, she's based in Seattle and I first encountered Sarah through her podcast, so it used to be called the Shameless Mom podcast. I loved it was scrolling through my podcast new episodes a little while back and I saw that in her episode of her show number 900, which by the way, as someone coming up on 500 episodes, I know that 900 is a lot.

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Sarah talked about her pivot and her transition to the Shameless Leadership podcast and brand and I was like, oh my gosh, I need to catch up with her, see what she's doing. Is she abandoning moms in her work? No. Sarah's newest endeavor is helping women, many of whom are moms, step into becoming the leaders of their lives. And I know as a new mom you might not feel like much of a leader in your life at this point. I mean other than like being in charge of a crap ton of laundry and keeping your baby alive, which I am not discounting because that is super important work and it is hard. But in today's episode, Sarah's gonna share some activities, some ideas, some exercises and scripts for helping you work towards regaining your identity if that is something that you feel drawn to do or something that you might be interested in doing down the road.

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One thing I love about chatting with Sarah is that she always gives real life concrete examples. So in today's interview, for each of the strategies or exercises that she shares, I was going to try to frame the scenario around food or feeding decisions since you know this is a baby led weaning podcast. But as the interview kind of evolved, I realized that Sarah is so gifted at meeting moms where they're at, that we kind of expanded this conversation and tackled a whole bunch of topics that I think you're gonna be interested in. Number one, how to stand up for yourself and how to voice dissenting opinions without sounding like a whiner or getting canceled. How to relate to your friends that don't have friends and not be the person that only talks about their baby even though you really want to.

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And should you be talking about your baby if that's all you do every day. And then how to show up and how to speak up both at work and in your relationship when you're totally overwhelmed and just feeling like you're drowning in all of this baby stuff. So with no further ado, I wanna introduce you to Sarah Dean. She's still on Instagram at Shameless Mom Academy, but check out her podcast, the Shameless Leadership Podcast, and Sarah's here to talk about regaining your identity after motherhood.

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When my son was born, I had this preconceived notion that having a baby was like viding up the pie of your life and the baby was like 10% of the pie. And what I learned after having my son is that he was not 10% of the pie. He wasn't 30 or 40% of the pie, that my child was the entire pie and that my life revolved around this entire pie. And I was felt so unprepared for that. And what that felt like internally for me was that every piece of my identity had been stripped from me because I had to build a new identity around him. And that felt alarming and scary and overwhelming and it took me the better part of three years to figure out how to do that and create space for myself in the pie, create space for my work in the pie, create space for my passions in the pie.

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And that's really what inspired the work that I ended up moving into with moms at that point.

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I love that you thought it was gonna be 10% of your life. You're like, yes, I will give this like just like doing the laundry or the dishes. Yeah, and then you take care of the baby, but then you go to do work and have friends and be a wife or a partner. It doesn't work like that. And I think what I always love about your speaking and your content is that you acknowledge like, oh, we didn't intend for it to be this way, but it kind of ended up that way. And I know you were talking about a mom that you've been working with recently who was like, has two kids and she's like, I did all the things and I have arrived and I'm totally bored and I'm totally stuck. So can you talk a little bit about your shift? I know you used to be the shameless mom and you've kind of moved into shameless leadership. What's inspired you to focus on women's leadership and identity and have you shifted away from the context of motherhood in your content or do you still work with moms who are like, oh my god, I'm arrived but I'm also super bored and stuck?

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Yes. So I, when I started the Shameless Mom Academy, it really was about helping moms find their identity outside of motherhood and build something that was, you know, with them as the center of the foundation. And I love that work and I, I still am very attached to that work and believe really firmly in it. And I still work with moms all the time. And what I learned over time as I evolved in motherhood and my clients evolved alongside me is that as we had more tools and we grew in terms of how we wanted to take up space in the world, what I recognized is that a lot of the moms I was working with wanted to go for bigger things and they wanted to be leaders in their community, leaders in their workplaces. They wanted to model leadership to their kids. And so as I saw this happening more and more, a lot of my content started really revolving more and more around leadership.

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Then I ended up going back to school. So I'm currently in school getting my master's in organizational leadership. And so as my work evolved, I had this realization that it's okay to change identities or to rebrand your identity I guess as your identity evolves. And so we rebranded the show from the Shameless Mom Academy to Shameless Leadership after 900 episodes. So the 900th episode of the Shameless Mom Academy was the bridge episode into shameless leadership. And that has felt like a really exciting and also honorable way to help moms step past the identity that they've built in motherhood and really into figuring out who am I and how do I wanna lead in the spaces that I take up.

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And so some, for some moms that's leading in their household, for some it's leading in their church communities. For some it's leading in their offices. For some it's leading on the PTA or the as a soccer coach. So that can look like a lot of different things. What's really important to me is that when women step up to use their voices, that they are not only advancing themselves in terms of being able to advance their, you know, the things that matter to them, advancing their ideas, opinions, getting their, sharing their gifts with the world, but that they're also as part of their leadership committed to bringing others with them. And so bringing other moms, bringing other women, bringing people of color, bringing people with disabilities, bringing people who have other identities just like women and moms who are often marginalized that we're bringing one another along as part of our leadership.

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And so that's at the crux of the work that I'm doing now, whether I'm working, whether I'm going into an organization and doing a leadership training with women leaders or I'm doing executive coaching with a one-on-one coach, or I'm doing business consulting with an entrepreneur in all those spaces, we're talking about leadership in that context.

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Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back. As a new parent, are you surprised by how quickly the pictures of your child have come to dominate the photo space on your phone? And While, you certainly want to share them with certain members of your inner circle. Keeping your kids photos private is also important. So that's where the Family Album app comes in. This free app was created to give parents a secure and easy way to share photos and videos with loved ones. The Family Album app creates an instantaneous digital time capsule of your family's journey where all of the memories are chronologically organized and the app automatically sorts photos and videos by month and year while displaying each child's age, which makes it so easy to see your child's growth over time.

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I love that you recognize that you can be a leader in so many different areas. Like you're probably the leader of your baby right now. We always talk about moms are most likely they're the leader of the decisions about food and feeding and what the child eats and how they get fed and what mode of starting solid foods like you are a leader in that, right? But a lot of moms don't identify as leaders. They'll say they'll see other people say, oh well you're, that person's a natural born leader and and I'm shy or I'm introverted. Can you talk a little bit about people who maybe haven't felt empowered as a leader until this phase of like, oh my gosh, now I have a baby, I'm totally in charge of someone else. Like how can they lean into their leadership roles even if it doesn't look like maybe traditional leadership, like I'm going to run for the PTA president.

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Totally. I'm laughing right now because I just did an episode about how extroverts need to make space for introvert leaders and also I'm raising my hand as the mom who was the co-chair of the parent association for two years and is super extroverted. So when we think about what it means to be a leader, we often think of an extrovert on stage with a microphone. And so Katie, you and me like right now in video, like we're on literal like our virtual stages with microphones and people are like, yeah, I'm not like that. Like I'm not really, I'm not, I'm not a leader 'cause I'm not like that leadership can look like 1 million things. And let me tell you, one of my really close dear friends is a super introverted mom who demonstrates leadership in the most beautiful and powerful ways that I cannot because she's an introvert.

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And so I've watched the way she parents, I've wa I've sat on school board with her and watched the questions that she asks and because she's an introvert, she has this uncanny ability to sit and read a room and then wait for the right moment to ask the most powerful question that makes everyone see things from a completely different perspective. As an extrovert, I go into that room and I like have all my ideas and opinions and I just wanna say them out loud as fast as I can 'cause I'm afraid otherwise I'll forget them And I just wanna like be seen and heard and help like everyone help me process this right now. And that introverted energy that I watched my friend carry a possess and lead with is one of the biggest lessons in leadership for me because watching the way that she can use her introversion to her benefit, watching the way that she can lead in a way that everyone is left some like a little starstruck after she asks the question 'cause it's like such the perfect question or she shares an idea and it's like exactly the thing we've been looking for.

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So what I wanna say for people who feel like they're shy or they feel like they're, that they're introverted is that that is its own skill and gift set that extroverts wish they had at times and that the world desperately needs more of. And so if you are thinking like, well I'm not that outgoing or I'm not qualified or I haven't had this big leadership role yet and I'm certainly not gonna just like put my hand in the air for, you know, to go from point A to point X on a leadership scale, I wanna invite people to think about what does it mean to start practicing leadership in ways that are small but also have impact. And so that can be showing up for a meeting and asking a question. It can be sitting around a team conversation and having a dissenting opinion or idea.

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It can be you know, having a one-on-one conversation with a boss where you say Hey you know my experience wasn't the same as others, here's what I experienced here and like sharing a little part of yourself. So all of that, that's all leadership. It's not just the standing on the phone or standing on the stage with the microphone and yelling at people like you and I do.

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That's totally true. I love when you hear people that you know are totally extroverts and they claim to be introverts. Like there's a lot of online personalities in our space who do it all the time. Like oh my gosh, I took a personality test and I'm an introvert and I'm like, you should retake that test. You are ly an extrovert because every time I talk to you, all you're waiting to do is waiting until it's your turn to talk and say all the things so that no one talks over you. And like they have absolutely no listening skills. I'm not saying all extroverts have no listening skills 'cause I'm extroverted and I think I'm, it's a struggle medium at listening. But there is like, I think this like misidentification sometimes of what an introvert yes and an extrovert is. So I would love to hear more examples of introverts expressing leadership roles like and let's maybe role play here with a mom who's listening who is yeah in the weeds, the baby's starting solid foods, they're stressing about transitioning, they're still trying to hold onto breastfeeding, but now they started from formula and maybe they feel guilty about that they're going back to work.

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You feel like you're not doing a great job at work 'cause you're worried about your baby at home or daycare or childcare. You're not doing a great job at home 'cause you're trying to stay up late and get the work done that you couldn't do in the daytime. You don't feel like a good partner because you're worried about the baby in the job. You are literally underwater. Like what percent of the pie is left to be like, oh I want to be leader in my, in my church. Like how do you find that strength when you're underwater?

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So your example is perfect like and the the one mom who feels all those things that you just said. 'cause I think that is, I think that that is the mother that so many of us are or have been at times where we feel like we're failing in all these different ways. And so how do we like take the first step or how do we like then add to the plate? Oh now I also have to go do this other thing because Sarah and Katie said I should practice being a leader. So instead how can you practice leadership in a way where you are putting boundaries in place or asserting your own needs. And so what that can look like in a partnership in a home with a partner is hey I know we've been doing things this way, I'm really overwhelmed right now. Or I'm feeling you know, extra tired or I'm whatever and I need this.

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How can we come together and divide shift gears in terms of how we've been doing things? Could you take this on so that I can have more time and space for this? Or going into the workplace and saying, hey you know I'm still nursing. Perhaps you aren't aware and so I'm gonna be unavailable during at this time every day or I'm gonna need an extra 10 minutes or 15, 20 minutes at this time. So that's leadership is stepping up and asserting your needs is leadership and what that does for other women, first of all, if you're saying these things to men, it allows men to see women who vocalize their needs, which we need to be doing. And if you're doing this in front of other women, it shows women how to assert your needs in ways that women are, are commonly not asserting their needs.

1 (18m 53s):

So not only are you getting what you need, but you're showing people that the way women have been socialized to keep all this stuff just to ourselves and suffer in silence is not what you're willing to stand for anymore. And so instead you're going to assert your needs in different ways by practicing these little ways that don't feel huge and high stakes and super risky but instead you're putting yourself out there and using your voice in a way to advocate for yourself. And that's where leadership can absolutely start is through self-advocacy. Before you need to then go out into your community group and be like, hold on, I wanna also advocate for all moms or all this or that.

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Okay let's talk about that. Raising a dissenting voice. I heard you say that before and my, I kind of perked up 'cause it's like oh nobody allowed to do that anymore. Like politicians can't do that. If you do that online you get canceled. Like, but you gave a very good example of like you are kind of being the squeaky wheel in some regards and the squeaky wheel does get the oil but you also know like the boy who cried wolf sort of thing. Like if you're always the one making a big deal about everything, like people are going to stop listening to you. How do you recommend to moms who, who do wanna raise that dissenting voice but might be non-confrontational? I think a lot of people would identify as I prefer not to engage in confrontation. I actually have a sister who loves it. She's like, I specialize in uncomfortable conversations. Like I wish I could like apply for a job and be like, I will do all of your uncomfortable conversations.

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Like she wants to call the airline and get your money back for that. Like that sort of stuff. But nobody has that skillset. Like how do you raise that dissenting voice in an era where sometimes you're like, it's just not worth it. Either I'm gonna get canceled or I'm gonna get shot down or some bigger voice in the room who's never been dissented against, he's not gonna know how to handle it and then it's gonna be World War II and I'm gonna wish I never brought it up.

1 (20m 31s):

Yeah. Oh such a good question. And I also will say, so I've coached women in so many capacities over the years. I've never had a coaching client come to me and say hey so I really love to, you know, cause the scene and speak up and make people uncomfortable and just, just walk right into conflict. Like no one's ever said that. And also I'm, if

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You need to meet my sister, but I know

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I get what you're saying I do. I'm maybe scared though. No, I probably have a lot to learn from her. But I'll also say I'm not that person so I'm very, very conflict averse. And so what that looks like and what I've had to learn is how can we speak up in ways that we are not defensive and we're not necessarily trying to put the other person on the, on the, in a defensive mode. And that's that that's the trick there is looking at how, what are we, how are we coming into the conversation? So there's a couple different ways that we can do this that creates more comfort for us going into it, but also can create a level of comfort in the conversation that everyone can win. So first is to assume best intentions.

1 (21m 34s):

And so assume that the other person would want to know if they're hurting you, harming you if they could help you in a certain way. Next is to think about, so how this person impacts you in a positive way and what they mean to you. So if I go into something and, and I'm thinking about this in the context of marriage right now. So if I, and because it's easy to get defensive in our marriages, right? Like those are often our safe places to be defensive and to be like ah, You don't even get it and just do it way.

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Can I ask you real quick, can you do it in the sense of like my husband is super scared that the baby is gonna choke on food and he doesn't support my decision to do baby led weaning and every time the baby goes eat food he's like are you sure the baby can eat that? And it's stressing me out. Yeah, like there you have marriage and family and feeding. Yeah. How can that mom respond to that in a way that doesn't put the husband or partner on the defense? Right?

1 (22m 18s):

Right. Great example. So you go in and you acknowledge, so first of all, acknowledge best intentions. I love that you wanna keep our babies safe. Obviously that's our top priority. It's really great that we're on the same page with like keeping the baby alive. So acknowledging, I love that you're, I love that we're having this conversation. I love that you want to know that we're gonna know the same thing so that it's not just me being responsible for this information and even acknowledging there's so many dads that don't ask these questions and I'm so lucky and I wanna be like careful about going like too far off the deep end about being appreciative to a father who should just be there for their child. Yeah,

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You also have to pay the baby,

1 (22m 55s):

But

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I get it. I love that we're both on the same page.

1 (22m 58s):

Like I feel so grateful that we're like equal partners in this. So starting there so that the person that you're not just like jumping down your partner's throat to be like, oh my god you don't even know how to do it. Right? Which is raising my hand here 'cause this is like how easy, that's the easy route for me to take. So instead being like I love that we're doing this together and then saying I also, I held that fear when Katie was talking about this the first time. I was like there's no way this is gonna work or this isn't gonna work for our kids. So acknowledging that piece, like I felt what you're feeling and then acknowledging here's the data, here's the research, here's what we can try, here's what, let's sit here together and figure it out. So you're really framing it around partnership that first of all I totally appreciate you as the person who I'm collaborating with in this moment.

1 (23m 39s):

Second of all, we have a lot of shared goals, way more shared goals than not. And so even though we might be feeling opposite things in this moment and then third I would love to figure it out with you. Can we, so are you, are you good with that? Can we like work through this together and asking that permission. And so within all of that then you now hopefully are gonna be more on the same page to move forward together. That takes some intentionality going into it but that also can become your default. And so as a reactive person who's super reactive between like five and 7:00 PM like I can now pause before I'm gonna be like oh my god, just do it my way and catch myself before going into okay this

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Is why you're the expert in organizational leadership. Because I would be like, listen, if you're not gonna support me, can you just leave the room until I figure out how to do this myself? And then once I get a little bit more comfortable with it and I have the bandwidth to handle your stressors, like I can show you and talk you through it, but it's harder the way that you say to do it because you have to do like the work with the partner upfront and have those uncomfortable conversations. But at the end it's kind of like, it's like that team effort like hey when we all get over a fear or gagging or we know that the baby doesn't have food allergies or we ate a hundred foods, like we're gonna celebrate that together because we worked on it together. And if you're in a marriage or a partnership or a relationship, like it's sometimes so easy to forget about that at the sake of like I have to keep this baby alive.

0 (24m 58s):

Like this is really important and like you kind of put the relationship on the back burner. So I think your approach, it's much more pleasant and it probably results in better outcomes than like just let me do this by myself. Which I know is where a lot of moms who are natural born leaders and up to 'cause they're like Dude, I can just figure this out by myself. I don't really need your help with this.

1 (25m 14s):

And I had a realization a couple years ago, I was talking with my sister-in-Law and we were joking that we're both fast people in our marriages and we're married to slow people and, and not that there's not that one is better than the other. So I'm fast Sarah married to fast, married to slow Vince, she's fast, Holly married to slow Mark. And so we are people who like when we wanna get something done, like we see the path, we know the steps, we're gonna do it and to slow down and bring someone else in is really frustrating. Or to then bring someone else in and have to go at their pace is really frustrating. So I also wanna acknowledge what you said like in the moment that like having to pause and slow down and like be patient, that's really hard. What you can do, what can be helpful is to think about parenting from a place that is more proactive or think about parenting with a partner from a place that is proactive versus reactive.

1 (26m 1s):

So when we're in those moments, everyone's tired and hungry and cranky at seven 5:00 PM 7:00 PM whatever, that's not gonna be the best place for building bridges in our relationships. But if we know that this is something that I've been doing all this research on and I've been watching Katie's videos and listening to her podcast and doing all this, can there be a conversation that I set aside time for over the weekend? Like, hey partner, I would love to, you know on Sunday can we go to happy hour together Or after the kids are in bed on Saturday night, can we just look at the stuff I've been learning with Katie and 'cause I wanna start doing this over the next week or two and I wanna make sure that we both feel comfortable with it, that we both kind of are on the same page. don don't want it to be confusing for the baby. Like also decentering yourself.

1 (26m 42s):

I don't want it to be confusing for the for the baby. Like I want us to be able to be doing the same things. And so then in that, in that moment being proactive, here's how we're going to jointly show up and start this together versus being in the moment and having to be reactive because you didn't have the pre the proactive conversation.

0 (27m 0s):

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0 (27m 46s):

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0 (28m 30s):

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0 (29m 13s):

I wanna move, if it's okay, outside of that and talking about yeah the mom as an individual and a person herself for our moms who are, some of them feel like they're coming out of the haze, especially as they go into the second half of infancy. It's like, dude, I kept this baby alive. We, if you have a partner kept this baby alive for six months, we got through the infant milk up breastfeeding or formula, whatever, we're starting to get a hang on Solid. Foods like the child can eat and now is starting to eat food that came from outside of the mom and they're feeling a maybe a little bit more white space or they'd like to, how can moms step back into their passions? Yeah and rediscover their interests outside of motherhood once they kind of get outta the weeds and don don't know what that, for some parents that might be six years of age, but for other parents might be six months like, I got this down, I'm back to work, whatever.

0 (29m 58s):

How do you go back to doing the things that used to light you up when your life looked so much different? 'cause the child now takes up most of the pie.

1 (30m 5s):

Yeah. After my son was born, I, for the whole first year, I would pretty much every day I would think, I just can't wait till I go, go back to being me. Like I kept thinking that at some point I was gonna quote unquote like go back to being Sarah. And I was actually in a parent group here in Seattle we have these really great parent groups where they match you up with people who live in your neighborhood who've had babies within a month or so of you. And we meet together, we would meet together once a week for three months. So I'd meet up, wait,

0 (30m 33s):

Who matches you up? Who does this? Like it's a,

1 (30m 34s):

It's an organization called PEPs, PEPS. And so basically like you go onto their website when you're pregnant and you just put in like a bit of information and then they send you back, Hey here's the group that you're gonna be in. It starts on this date and then you all show up with like two month olds. And it's like, it is life saving first of all. But it's also hilarious because everyone tries to show up as their best self. The first like we all shower for the first meeting and then we're like, can we be people who don't shower for these meetings? 'cause like I don't actually really shower in my daily life right now. So it was amazing. But in that group, every meeting that we met for 12 weeks in a row, we would do highs and lows and every week I would say I'm just, I'm still waiting for like things to go back to normal.

1 (31m 14s):

Like I'm just, as soon as I get back to normal, like it'll feel better. And it really took me until my son was three to realize, oh you're not going back. You are now a new person. You are never going to be Sarah who, you know the Sarah that you were on September 22nd, 2012 because on September 23rd, 2012 everything changed and you aren't going back. And that's a good thing. So when it comes to looking at how do I make time for myself and what do I even wanna do with myself, I think that sometimes we're like, oh I should like go back and do those things that I was doing the day before my kid was born. Like and those are sometimes not the things we wanna be doing anymore.

0 (31m 49s):

Adult, adult team sports. Like why did I do that? Yeah, I would enjoy that.

1 (31m 52s):

I was gonna say like triathlon training, I'm like, it took me, I was like I'll never do another triathlon again and I'm fine with that. Two summers ago my son's 10 and I was like, huh, maybe I do wanna do a triathlon again. So those things I, you

0 (32m 6s):

Like the light at the end of the tunnel, you guys, you could one day do a triathlon

1 (32m 9s):

One day do it, but, but I was like, I only wanna do it if it's gonna be fun. And I know that's a loose use of the word fun for most people. But anyway it was great. But what I did start to do was do things that sounded like they would feel good in that moment. So if it was going

0 (32m 24s):

Besides sleeping because like that's all I really wanna do is just sleep.

1 (32m 28s):

Yes. I mean going honestly one of the things was going to target by myself that was like, that was a hobby. Can I go to target by myself and spend like money that I don't need to to be spending on things that I don't need? And that just felt really fulfilling for a while. So it was doing that, it was, I ended up, I did, when my son was a year old, I started training for a half marathon with a training group which I'd never done before. And that was like, I didn't start out as training for half marathon. It started with I'm gonna just show up and run with this group on Saturday mornings and do like a couple miles with a friend who we were both committed to being slow runners and so it was like I'm just gonna be outta the house for an hour. And that turned into, oh wait, I really like being outta the house on Saturday mornings.

1 (33m 11s):

It's actually like the thing I'm

0 (33m 12s):

Leaving now, I'm gonna do an ultra marathon. I'm more trading dial this

1 (33m 15s):

Challenge. I'm like an Ironman, I'm gonna, I'm gonna need to train for 17 hours every Saturday. But I learned like okay I'm gonna, I started out like I'm just gonna do this thing. I'm gonna leave for a little bit and do this thing and then like let that evolve. Another thing that I used to do that super dorky is like going to a bookstore and just sitting in the bookstore and like pulling random books off the shelf and looking at them. So it wasn't necessarily a big commitment to like, I'm gonna every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6:00 PM I'm gonna go to like ceramics class. It was just like getting out and trying out a few things and having time to myself and having like to be just to drive somewhere alone and have a thought. Like those were like the beginning inklings that then lent to it was really honestly like time with friends and some work travel that then led to oh now I can see like the brand I wanna be building and who I wanna be becoming and how I want those things to come together and what I want that all to look like.

1 (34m 7s):

And like it was really kind of tiptoeing into that.

0 (34m 9s):

So talking about regaining your identity. I know one thing that a lot of new moms struggle with and they remember this from when they didn't have kids. Oh my gosh, people with kids are so annoying because all they do is talk about their kids and I promise to myself when I have kids, I'm not gonna be that person who only talks about my kids. Then you have that first meetup or coffee or happy hour with a friend who doesn't have kids and you're like, oh my god, I have nothing else to talk about. Like any kids, it's so hard for especially female relationships once you've had kids to not be that annoying person with kids who always talks about their kids. Sorry, I just wanna ask the question. Yeah, how do

1 (34m 43s):

You do it? It's a really good question. I think when you find yourself in that moment, that's the moment to recognize like

0 (34m 51s):

I have kids,

1 (34m 51s):

Wow, oh my gosh they are my whole world. Which nothing wrong with that except for at some point you will need a world beyond them and what will that look like and how will you get there? And so I think you can even say, I think there's nothing wrong with being a really humble person in the moment and to be to say to that friend and I've been in this situation to say to that friend that I have to be really honest, I feel like a shell of myself. I feel like I don't know what, like I don't know who I am in this moment. Like tell me about your life a little bit. What are you doing? And based on that I might be able to tell you some things about mine but like I don't even know which way is up. And so I think there's a way to kind of go into the conversation and instead of feeling awkward and like oh my gosh I don't want this person to be uncomfortable be because don don't have anything to contribute or feel like a weird dynamic I think to be able to say, I just feel really stuck and overwhelmed and I don't feel like I totally know which way I'm going or don don't know exactly what I need right now.

1 (35m 47s):

And I think that these are experiences that we can be vulnerable together in moments and that they're universal experiences. And so whether I'm talking, you know, I can take a 30 5-year-old who has no children, a 30 5-year-old who has a newborn and a 30 5-year-old who has a 10-year-old and then a 21-year-old. And we can still have a human experience of like what is the thing we have in common right now is being 30 5-year-old women, there's a lot to say about that. Anyone else perimenopausal like, you know, maybe not at 35 but like there's other things that we can be talking about that can bond us in these moments in life that are not necessarily centered around the kids.

0 (36m 23s):

I love that fast. Sarah is a slow runner that makes me feel okay. Can you share any strategies for moms who feel guilty about taking time for themselves?

1 (36m 33s):

I love talking about this. I'm so glad you asked. So the first thing I wanna say, it sounds a little controversial. So mom guilt is a social construct. So what that means is that we have been conditioned to feel guilty when we choose something else over our children or we center something else over motherhood. And that doesn't mean that what you're feeling isn't real. So when we feel mom guilt, when I feel guilty about going on a work trip or doing yoga class instead of coming home to be with my kid in the evening or whatever the thing is that guilt is very real. Those feel everything you're feeling is very real. I want you to consider that the reason that you feel that way might be because of the way that we've been socialized as women.

1 (37m 16s):

Part of the problem is that first of all, women have been socialized to be to be self-sacrificial at every turn. And there's a fantastic, are you familiar with the book Burnout? No. So there's a book called Burnout by Emily in Amelia Naski, their two sisters who are brilliant and they talk about human giver syndrome. And human giver syndrome is this idea that women should be giving and overgiving and proving and over proving and overproducing like at every turn to prove themselves to the world. And it's not just unique to motherhood, but we do this like in a really, really heightened way in motherhood. And so this idea that we're always being really self-sacrificial becomes very centered. So what we wanna be thinking about is if we've been conditioned to be self-sacrificial at every turn, how can we recognize, oh this is my conditioning as a woman in the world, or my conditioning as what a mom is quote unquote supposed to do or should do.

1 (38m 9s):

And I don't have to fall into that. And if I'm sitting in this place of mom guilt that most moms sit in, who's winning right now because I'm not winning, my kid's not winning and I'm certainly not making anything better for any other moms if all we're doing is sitting around talking about how guilty we feel. In fact we're all being more and more disempowered by allowing ourselves to sit in that guilt instead of recognizing that we're in a world where there are many, many more opportunities for women and moms than there have been historically with far, far fewer resources than there have been historically. So we're being told you can have it all and you can do it all and do the work trip and go to, you know, get become the huge all this.

1 (38m 51s):

But here's no

0 (38m 51s):

M maternity leave,

1 (38m 52s):

Here's no

0 (38m 53s):

Money for childcare. She was,

1 (38m 54s):

And child care is 1 million exactly like everything is, all the resources that you need for support are almost inaccessible to almost everyone. And so when we feel that sense of mom guilt, it's because of this system that was has never been built to help us be successful. So I'm gonna then, me personally, I'm gonna reject that guilt and instead choose to honor. Okay, the reason I'm feeling this way right now is because of the standards that have been put in front of me and what I need to do right now for myself, for my child, for my family, et cetera, is X, y, z. And I'm gonna go do that thing.

0 (39m 30s):

Hey, we're gonna take a quick break but I'll be right back.

4 (39m 37s):

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0 (40m 11s):

So if you have made this decision, I am going to ignore mom guilt. I'm gonna acknowledge that it's real, but address that, it's a social construct and I love what you say, like there's literally no one's winning. If all we do is sit around, talk about how guilty we feel, how do you set boundaries with family and friends so that you can create this space for personal time and growth? 'cause you acknowledge that it's important. Yeah, it is important towards the regaining of your identity. If that's the journey that you're on, how do you actually make it happen in the real world?

1 (40m 40s):

I love using this example that one of my clients, we co-created this as a goal. And this was probably like six years ago. I was working with a bunch, a group of moms right before the holidays. So there was probably like 60 moms in this. This was back when I had a membership community and there was a bunch of people were talking about how they had over the holidays, they had to see all these different relatives. And so one of multiple people actually were saying, oh my gosh. And like my parents are divorced. So not only do we have like, we have two sets of parents on my side and then my husband also has two sets of parents. So for multiple women in the group, they were like, we have to meet the needs of four sets of grandparents over the holidays and it totally takes away like just enjoying the holidays.

0 (41m 19s):

The hall, like the joyful part of the holidays.

1 (41m 22s):

Yes. And so what we talk, we were talking about different ideas and so what we came up with was, and this was specifically for a mom who all four of sets or grandparents live locally. And she decided, we jointly decided, but mul and then multiple people did this, that I'm not leaving my house. My our family has decided that we are not leaving the house on Christmas Eve or Christmas day. If you would like to come join us, you may come and here's the hours that our house will be open days if you don't wanna come during those times. The Sunday was like the Sunday or Saturday before from like, you know, we would love to meet you for brunch between 12 at 10 and 12 because that works with nap times. So it was, it wasn't a an asking of permission, it wasn't, I'm gonna try to figure out 18 different schedules.

1 (42m 5s):

It's just this is what we're doing this year and here's options for how you can engage with our family.

0 (42m 10s):

And I love that you open the conversation, you're assertive about what you're going to do. Hopefully you talk to the other parent if they're involved that this is a good plan. And then I would say naturally you're gonna feel like, oh what if that mother-in-law is talking crap about me and she doesn't like the tone or she misinterpreted, but it's like sometimes you just have to do with that and move on.

1 (42m 27s):

And if she's not talking crap about you about this, she's gonna find something else to talk crap about. Like you can't control that. And I mean I just say this to my almost 12-year-old all the time, like, your friends are probably gonna say things about you. Sometimes they, they might not like your shoes and are you gonna let that ruin your day? Your friendship? Like what?

0 (42m 42s):

No worry about can't things you can control. I tell my fifth grader that all the time, like you literally can't control what that girl's gonna say about you. So you know, be a nice person. Right. Sarah, thank you so much for sharing these tips. I know there's some really tangible advice in there. Tell our audience where they can go to learn more about you and your work and to support your business. Especially for our working moms who are in the workspace and trying to figure out this like, post I had a baby but I still want to thrive in my work life as well. Where can they go?

1 (43m 8s):

Yes. Thank you for asking. So you can find the podcast if you do a search for Shameless leadership on wherever you're listening to this podcast. And just know that the first 900 episodes are the Shameless Mom academy and then the last handful, 900 plus are shameless leadership. So there's lots to dig into there. And then you can follow me on, I feel like a very big kid saying this, you can follow me on LinkedIn. And I love connecting with people on LinkedIn. I love connecting. Whoa,

0 (43m 34s):

Huge shift for you Sarah. Oh,

1 (43m 35s):

I know. I mean, wow. I mean three years ago I was like, is LinkedIn I, I really thought LinkedIn was like probably gonna be obsolete. I thought

0 (43m 41s):

It is how you like get a job and now it's my most favorite platform as an adult. I love

1 (43m 45s):

It. So if you go to sarah dean.com/linkedin, we can connect there, we can, you can DM me, et cetera. But you can see the work that I do organizationally and how I do it and all my stuff is there. Sarah dean.com is my website. You can see how I work with people individually. There's a coaching page, there's a speaking page, and then if you wanna see Instagram where I post less formal stuff, mostly just in my stories go to at Shameless Mom Academy. We haven't rebranded it yet, who knows. It might be rebranded by the time this goes live, but who, I probably won't get around to it anytime soon.

0 (44m 14s):

So by the way, your, your LinkedIn page is banging. 'cause I had to be like, really? I listened to your episode 900. You know, like stuff doesn't sometimes doesn't show up in your podcast feed or if you don't listen for long enough. And then I was like, where's Sarah? I haven't heard her in, well literally dropped on number 900. I was like, wow, this is a major shift. But I still wanna have you on the podcast because you do have so much expertise helping moms regain their identity and your shift is not away from moms. It's just helping women in leadership roles. Many of whom happen to also be moms. It's just most of them, their identity. Most of them. I would say it's still 90% moms. Yeah. And a lot of people that listen to the podcast, they're not all moms, some are correct caregivers, healthcare professionals. So I get how your message can appeal to different people and I really appreciate the time that you took today to help our audience understand a little bit more about how they might be able to regain their identity after motherhood.

0 (44m 60s):

So thank you Sarah. Thank you so much Katie. I love being here. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that interview with Sarah Dean. She's from the Shameless Mom Academy on Instagram, shameless Leadership podcast. I'll put a link to all of the resources that she was mentioning as well as where you can find her to learn more about her work as in the book that she was talking about too. I really want to check that one out, the one written by the two sisters. That'll all be on the show notes page for this episode, which you can find@blwpodcast.com slash 4 7 6. A special thank you to our partners at AirWave Media. If you like podcasts that feature food and science and using your brain check out Some of the shows from AirWave Media. We're online@blwpodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.