8. When Motherhood Feels Heavy: Three Ways to Lift the Load

Are you in a stage of motherhood that feels excruciatingly heavy? 

If you're in the trenches, this episode of Navigating Motherhood Without Your Mother is for you. Alyssa Carlene opens up about the deep difficulties she's experiencing as a mother currently. She also shares three helpful ways you can lift the load and your spirits, because you're not alone in the struggle. 

Listen to this episode to answer the following questions: 

• Why does motherhood feel so heavy, and what can I do to lift the load? 
• Can hypnosis help me when motherhood feels unbearable? 
• How can I better connect with Mother Nature to regulate and feel at peace? 
• What can I do to prioritize humor and laughter in my life? 

1. Want to join a supportive, heartfelt community with other moms who are also navigating motherhood without their mothers? Join our Facebook Group today!

2. Are you ready to build confidence and emotional resilience as a mom, even without the support of your mother? Access the free video training now: Five Steps to Navigating Motherhood Without Your Mother!

3. Want to chat more about what it's like to mother without your mom and get personalized support? Send Alyssa Carlene a DM on Instagram!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

I found this quote that is perfect for today's episode from a website called Seasonal Memories. Here it goes. You're listening to Navigating Motherhood Without Your Mother. Here, we help moms with young children who lack maternal support to overcome childhood wounds and break harmful generational patterns through the five-step Roots framework. My name is Alyssa Carlene. I am a motherhood empowerment and generational healing coach. My mission is to help you discover the root causes of your struggles so you can learn to regulate your emotions and create a healthy, loving environment for your family. Please remember that my podcast content is for educational purposes only and should never replace proper medical and mental health guidance from licensed professionals. Let's get started. Today I want to be totally transparent with you. I am currently in a season of motherhood that feels extremely heavy and difficult and I I want you to leave today's episode knowing that number one, you're not alone when you're in these difficult seasons, the trenches, we can call it, because these trenches are real and there are down days and down seasons. And there are things that I do that really help lighten the load and just lift the my experience. So plan on learning three of them by the end of the episode. But for now, I just really wanted to share a little bit about what I'm going through just so that you can understand and know that, again, you're not alone and that we all have things as moms we go through and we can do everything in our power to shift our mindset and to think positive and which is great. And I'm never going to say that a positive mindset is a bad thing. I think that the other thing we need to recognize is that sometimes, like the quote says, we literally just have to wait, wait for the rainbow. And I'm going to share a little bit about what that's been like for me. So when I got pregnant with my second daughter... The pregnancy was very, very difficult. I was anemic as well as diagnosed with HG. So for any of the HG mamas listening, you know the absolute torture it is to be nauseous nonstop and vomiting all the time. So I was on IVs. And then of course with the anemia, Mine was so severe that I actually had to get iron infusions as well. So it lasted for about seven months, really the sickness, like the daily nausea and vomiting and the anemia is really what got me down to the point where I couldn't stand up for longer than five minutes. It just was like really, really hard. And like I said, this was my second pregnancy, meaning my second baby, my third pregnancy, but my second baby, and I already had another child. And so that was really traumatic for me. That was one of those experiences that felt like all I can do right now is endure. And then after that, I was thankful to have a really healing birth experience. And two weeks after my second baby was born, she developed colic and And if you're a colic mama, then you also know how dark and awful the experience of colic is on the family. So to make a long story short, my daughter's colic lasted for about five months. And within those five months were... a lot of pain from everyone in the family, a lot of suffering, literal darkness. Like I had curtains, you know, the blackout curtains up in our room and I would bounce on an exercise ball for hours to get her to calm down and sleep. And it was in the dead of summer. I live in the desert. And we were just in the basement. And it was extremely, I mean, it was excruciating. And so I developed, at that time, postpartum depression. And I have come around. I would say that the postpartum depression is not as bad as it used to be. I do think I'm still experiencing that. And after the colic, things started to lift. But then we found out my second baby was has some health problems and we just found out she's one now that she needs to get her adenoids removed and the adenoids are so enlarged that she cannot breathe properly she is really struggling with her sleep she has sleep apnea and it's just scary so I'm coming out of a really dark postpartum period something that's just drastically different from the postpartum period with my first daughter which I really feel was like bliss I don't know how to describe it it was just bliss so I tell you this because motherhood is difficult and I know right now that there is a quote from a very prominent musician going around about how she talks about how her friends that are moms are in hell and that they don't have any light in their eyes and that they look miserable and I think that the interpretation is obviously sad and there's been an outrage a lot of people they're mad that this celebrity would say that but I also think that there is a reality that motherhood is very, very hard. And it's okay to talk about it. It's okay to talk about the nightmarish things that we go through. I'm coming out of almost over a year now, because when I was pregnant, I was not sleeping well either, of not sleeping. And I think my baby woke up five times last night. It feels like we're back in the newborn phases and And so I'm functioning on very little sleep. That basic need of sleep is not being met. And there's a lot of other things that we sacrifice as moms and it gets us down and it feels heavy. It feels so heavy because we have to carry it. So to get to really the good of what I want to talk about and thank you for listening and letting me share and be transparent with you because just because I'm this, you know, motherhood empowerment coach, I'm still in it. I'm in the thick of it and I'm here with you. But here are the three things that I do that I know will lift your load. The first one is hypnosis. Have you ever tried hypnosis? Because if you haven't, you need to try it. I was very skeptical of hypnosis when I first heard of it. I thought I was going to be like, you know, the weird, oh, I'm being hypnotized. That's kind of creepy, you know. But truly, truly hypnosis has been game changer for me. And it's not always something that you have to purchase. You could literally go on Spotify or maybe even other podcast apps and find free hypnosis recordings. It's basically very similar to meditation. And I think the difference between hypnosis is that when you're in a hypnotic state, it's more like a dreamlike state. There is a possibility that you could Go into hypnosis and not even remember and just open your eyes and wake up and it's over, which is a really amazing thing. But the power of hypnosis is that it is getting into your subconscious mind and the heaviness that we feel in motherhood, the trials that we experience, we have got to get out of our heads and hypnosis allows that. It allows us to get out of our heads and into our bodies and And the voice, whoever is doing it, is going to help rewire, rewrite this narrative and rewire our subconscious mind. So hypnosis is huge. There are free resources. And I love HypnoBabies, which I actually did with my second. And HypnoBabies also has free resources on their website. So check them out. And remember that hypnosis truly is a game changer. Number two, I think this is a giver, but get outside. There is just something about being outside. And for me, mother nature is the mother that I can always rely on because the nature of this podcast is is for motherless mothers who don't have their mom's support, who are struggling with not only the heaviness and motherhood, but the heaviness and weight of mothering without your mother. And so for me, mother nature is the mom that I can always rely on. I can always go out. I can always be there. And I can ground myself. I can feel her love. I might not always be able to do things because of the weather, but Mother Nature is that for me. And it lifts me up. I mean, I go outside and I'll take my shoes and socks off and I'll just put my feet in the grass and I will ground myself to the earth. Or I live in the desert and there's red sand where I live. I will put my hands in the red sand and just sit there and bask in in the beauty of Mother Nature and all her glory. And pause, slow down, breathe, and remember that this moment is temporary, that it feels really hard, but it is temporary. And going outside and sitting in that stillness and listening to the sounds of nature, it really does lift. And there's ways that we can connect with mother nature that I truly just love. So try it. Try it because I really feel like it will lift your load. And number three, this is the best one in my opinion. It's humor. You have got to laugh, okay? When you're in the trenches, I think sometimes it feels like laughter is the last thing. We're just so deep into whatever stuff we're dealing with. in our mothering, with our kids, with our families, with our lives, that laughing is kind of put on the back burner. But humor is such a big part of the healing journey. And if it means going on Instagram at night when your kids are asleep and scrolling through reels until the algorithm gets that you are needing the funny stuff and saving them, because that's what I do. and showing them to your husband or whoever and laughing out loud, then you've got to do it, okay? And, you know, there's a difference between doom scrolling and, like, scrolling and laughing and enjoying it. But I have found so much relief and just lightness in laughter. And I actually had this idea the other day that... I'm going to start doing something on my Instagram called Friday Funnies. And I'm going to post a few of the funniest videos that I found that week or just that I've had saved. And I'll have some related to motherhood, but I'll just have other random ones because we need to laugh. We need to laugh together and we need to blow off some steam. And if you ever want to laugh, Then you can go to my page and you can click on my stories and you can follow along because there are some funny things out there. And life can be so hard, but it doesn't always have to be all that serious, right? We can joke around. We can laugh. So I hope that you can feel inspired. to try something new if hypnosis is new for you or maybe really grounding yourself and connecting with mother nature and then laughing. I hope that these three ways will really lift your load and that you always know that you're not alone in motherhood. It's heavy, it's hard sometimes, but you are strong. And you can do things to lift yourself and lift others. And I'm cheering for you. So thank you for listening. Do these three things. Let me know what you think. Please rate and review my podcast if it has helped you. It would mean so much to me. I can't wait to hear from you. Until then, you got this, mama.