I worked helping kids with emotional challenges by teaching them coping skills and guiding them when they got upset.
I experienced a full spectrum of behaviour and emotional challenges with kids. I poured all my time into learning how to help these kids be successful. I learned all of the best strategies for building trusting relationships and communicating with kids in ways that would get them to listen to me, calm them down, and do what they were supposed to do. And the experiences and knowledge I had gained from my career made me feel confident someday when I was a mom, I could handle anything.
Eventually, I did become a mom! After giving birth, I was excited to start a new chapter of life as a stay-at-home mom. However, in the weeks and months that followed, I noticed some weird symptoms things like trouble breathing, random chest pain, and heart palpitations. These symptoms sent me to the ER on multiple occasions. I had countless doctor appointments, which led to cardiac heart monitoring, pulmonary lung function tests, lab work… all inconclusive. Everything looked ‘fine.’ Eventually, at an appointment with my primary care doctor, she looked at me and in the most gentle way said, ‘Honey, it sounds like you could have postpartum anxiety.’ She made a referral to a therapist that worked in the practice.
Deep down, I think I knew she was right, but I remember feeling like I could fix it. I determined if it was anxiety, I could pull myself up out of what was going on. So, I pushed off her referral for several months. But the more I resisted help, the more I noticed the anxiety was interfering with my daily life. Some days I would be on our couch, totally frozen it felt like I was unable to think or move.
Other times, I’d have to lay down in bed because the symptoms felt so strong. I felt like I was struggling to breathe, tension throughout my whole body, and chest pain. My husband would have to lay with me and rub my back as I cried because I couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong.
The tipping point was one night when I was at a gathering with friends. It was a celebration dinner to cap off a small group study with some women I had quickly grown to love. It was our last night together, but just as the dinner was beginning, I could feel the symptoms of anxiety growing for what felt like no reason at all. Heart racing, shallow breathing… I felt like I needed to throw up. I went to the bathroom and stayed there for several minutes debating what I should do. I felt clammy, trapped. I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘I need to leave. I need to get out of here.’ And at the same time, I felt so much turmoil and frustration with myself: It was our last night together as a group, and I desperately wanted to be there. But I knew the anxiety wouldn’t stop. I had to leave. I came out of the bathroom and told some of the ladies I wasn’t feeling well. I left just as they were starting to eat, talk and laugh.
I got help, learned to handle my anxiety, and started enjoying life and being a mom.
As I continued to grow emotionally stronger, it dawned on me: I finally felt empowered to use all the positive parenting strategies I had learned over the years in my career. I realized it didn’t matter if I knew everything there was to know about parenting and kids’ behaviour. If I was emotionally unhealthy, I wasn’t going to show up as the mom I wanted to be. I realized if I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth and internal resources to deal with my strong-willed daughter, then my parenting would suffer, my relationship with her would suffer, and any enjoyment of motherhood would suffer. But because I had taken the time to get help and equip myself with the tools I needed to thrive, I knew our family would now thrive, too!
One night I had a moment where I felt God whisper to me, ‘You’re not the only mom struggling.’ He gave me a vision of all these moms on their own islands, silently suffering, doing motherhood on their own. I shared a post on Facebook about it and the vision was confirmed by many moms reaching out to me saying that is exactly how they felt.
So, I decided to do something about it. I started by creating an online community for moms to have easy access to resources and relationships without leaving their homes. And only a few short months after launching the online community, the coronavirus shut down the entire world. Moms were suddenly thrown into more isolation than ever before, with bigger and bigger stressors being added to their plate, like e-learning, job loss, or self-isolation, just to name a few.
I started coaching moms to handle their emotions which helped them and their whole families thrive.
