Lessons From a Year of Motherhood
— EPISODE 81 —
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[00:00:00] I am not expecting myself to be a perfect mom. I am expecting myself to be a present mom. That is a value that I have. And when I am not present, I acknowledge it. I release it, and I return to the present with my daughter so I can soak in this joy. Ugh. I started with the joy and gosh, it is joyful.
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Welcome to the Unconditionally Worthy Podcast. In this podcast, I will guide you on your journey to connect with the true source of your self-worth. Each week we'll discuss barriers to unconditional self-worth, the connection between self-worth and relationships, self-worth practices you can apply to your life. And how to use self-worth as a foundation for living courageously. I'm your host, Dr. Adia Gooden, a licensed clinical psychologist, dance enthusiast, and a dark chocolate lover who believes deeply that you are worthy unconditionally.
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Hello and welcome to another solo episode of The Unconditionally Worthy Podcast. As always, I am so grateful that you take the time to listen and engage, and it is always so amazing and helpful and encouraging when I hear you share that the podcast has an impact and that it's helping you on your self-worth journey, that means so, so much to me. So this episode is being released just under a week before, Amani. My daughter, Amani Joy's first birthday, right? So she is almost 12 months, which is really hard to believe. She turns one year old on May 13th. And so I thought that since we are coming up on the anniversary of her birth, that I would spend some time reflecting on my experiences as a new mother and some of the lessons that I'm learning and that I am taking away from this experience. And this is by no means intended to be like this is what mothers should do, or this is definitely how you should do motherhood, or this is the right way to do motherhood like that.
I'm not about that. And this podcast is not going to turn into a motherhood podcast, at least in this iteration. This is really just about kind of me sharing what it's been like for me, how I've navigated the challenges and embraced the joy and the beauty of it, and the lessons and the things that have helped inform me and helped me navigate this first year as a mother. So I hope that it's helpful for you if you are a mother, if you're a parent, a father, I hope that it's helpful for you maybe even thinking about how to live life, right? Because there are so many pieces that I'm going to talk about that really just relate to life. Motherhood is a unique sort of manifestation of life. And so I hope that whatever life stage or phase you're in parent or not, that you'll find this helpful.
So before I got pregnant, one of my good friends was talking about what it was like to be a mother for her. And what she said is that it was the best, hardest thing that she ever did. And now that I am a mom, I completely, completely relate to that, right? I love being Amani's mom. It is just so incredibly joyful for me. Like I am actually almost tearing up when I talk about this. Like just kind of seeing her, witnessing her be a little human in the world and develop and explore the world, and starting to see her preferences and what she likes and see her express herself with her screeches, her screams, and her babbling. Like it is so joyful. I think that this last year has been one of the most joyful years of my life, if not the most joyful year of my life.
Like I have been so regularly in touch with feelings of deep joy and gratitude at the simplest moments. Like really, the way it sort of works in our household is, Amani wakes up at 6:30, sometimes she wakes up earlier. That's not so much fun. She wakes up around 6:30 and my husband Jason, often leaves early for work. So if he's leaving early for work, then it's me and Amani for about [00:05:00] an hour and a half hanging out, nursing, eating, all of those things playing. And then the nanny gets here and then I work, and then the nanny leaves at four. So we have some more time. Jason comes home, we hang out as a family, eat all that stuff. And it's such, so simple and it's so joyful. I have enjoyed being a mom way more than I ever imagined.
And I think that's because the identity of being a mom is not one that I'm like super like jazzed to claim. Does that make sense? I'm not I'm a mom, I'm a mom, I'm a mom. It's just not like there for me. But I love being Amani's mom and I love being with her and I love being present. So that's like the wonderful part. And also, she's super cute. If you have not seen a picture of my daughter, I highly encourage you to go to my Instagram. I actually am probably overdue to share some more pictures. But go to my Instagram, check it out. You'll see all that cuteness. It's also been really challenging and really hard. So Amani has sickle cell, which is a genetic blood disorder, and it comes with a whole host of challenges that are somewhat unpredictable.
And so I'm recording this when she is almost 10 months. We're almost at the 10-month mark. And we have been in the hospital with her, like overnight, had to stay in the hospital, I think about four times at this point, maybe five. I think it's four. And that has been hard, right? it is really hard to be in the hospital, first of all, to see your baby scream and cry when they're getting poked and prodded and blood is being drawn. It's hard and it's scary when you're worried that they might not be okay. And she can't tell me what's going on, and she can't tell me how she feels. And it's frustrating when it feels like you lose your rights as a parent. And there's only so much you can do to advocate and like you're sort of usurped by the doctors.
It's hard. And so it's also been an incredibly stressful year because of all of those things, right? Because of worrying about her health, worrying that she might not be okay having to go to the hospital. All of those things have made it a really hard year also. And so it's this kind of full life experience, right? And I know that this would be true even if Amani didn't have a health issue. I think the health issue just amplifies the challenge, right? The worry, if she's crying, is there something really wrong? Like is it just that she's tired or hungry or something? Or is it that there's something actually wrong that we need to address, that we need to go to the doctor for? So motherhood has been a full life experience. It's sort of like how I've been describing it recently, right?
Like there are the highs, the joys, the amazing, amazing, amazing parts that I would not trade for the world. And there are also the really hard parts, right? There's also the stress and the anxiety and the worry and the disrupted plans, right? I missed one of my closest friends from high school. I missed her wedding because we were in the hospital. I've had to change plans in my business. I've had to cancel things. I've had to reschedule things, which is just not something that I like to do. We've missed birthday parties and other plans for family to visit, right? So there has been a lot of disruption and that's been hard. And I am someone who likes things to go as planned. I like to make plans and I like those plans to come to fruition.
And so this year has certainly been an exercise and a lesson for me in flexibility, right? In moving with what is happening right now in releasing what I planned in making the best right decision for Amani, for our family, for myself, for my business, it has required me to flex and move and be resilient in ways that I really never had to be before. And I'm grateful for that, even though I would like to learn it the easy way, not the hard way. So it's been a full life experience. And I think that for [00:10:00] all parents and honestly, all humans, if we're really honest and we're really open, life is full of ups and life is full of downs. And one of the lessons that I am taking away from my first year of motherhood that I also encourage you to see how it applies to your life is to allow yourself to experience it all.
Allow yourself to experience the joys, the little moments, right? Like to make room for that, right? One of the things that I have been continually working on is putting away my phone and not being on my phone because that takes me away from those little moments and it interrupts my joy. One of the things that Brene Brown talks about is that joy is actually one of the most vulnerable emotions. And that's because we feel vulnerable when we experience joy. And it feels like it might get taken away, and it also can feel out of control, right? And so our mind can very quickly pull us out of joy by making up stories that it's going to go away, right? So I could easily let my mind take me out of moments of joy with Amani, Amani, and Jason by saying, well, what if she has to go to the hospital and what's going to happen next?
Or even what do we have to do? What do we where dinner, right? Like all the things. And so it's so important to make room for the joy and then also to allow yourself to process. And this has been for me to process through the hard, right? I have experienced stress, I have experienced anxiety, I have experienced fear, right? Sadness, disappointment, all of these things, particularly around Amani's health, but also around my breastfeeding journey. Also around the birth story and the traumatic birthing experience that I had, which I've talked about in a previous podcast. I have had to let myself experience it all. And that is what helps me process it and release it because nothing is permanent, right? And that's definitely a lesson of motherhood is that everything changes. Like just when you think you got something down, okay, we got this routine, now this is working, she likes this.
It's hot work. We got it, we got it, we got it, right? Just when you do that, it's like developmental milestone. Developmental leap is all changed up. Like she needs a new nap schedule. She needs a new this, she needs a do, right? So this is the thing, you go to kind of be light with it. You got to be loose in your knees, right? Because it's going to change. It literally is going to change. And I think the thing about the first year of life is that there is so much change, right? Like your baby goes from this sort of really adorable blob that barely opens its eyes to like a moving, crawling, expressing little being, right? In a year. And so you have to be willing to move with it. And that's also so helpful because the hard stuff doesn't stay either, right?
Like the good stuff doesn't last literally because everything changes. So savor it and the hard stuff doesn't last either. So don't get so upset and attached to it, right? What I found is like okay, it's really hard to spend two days in the hospital. It's really disruptive. It is really difficult. It's disruptive for our whole family and it doesn't last. And we get back to our routine and we get back to normalcy and we get back to life, right? And so learning to move through this full life experience, allowing myself to embrace and feel into and really soak in the good and the joy, and also allowing myself to feel and then release the hard stuff has been incredibly helpful. And remembering that the good stuff doesn't last, so I better savor it and the bad stuff doesn't last.
So let's not get too upset about it. Like that is a lesson, right? And it's a lesson as I mentioned at the top, like not only for motherhood, but for life, right? So can you apply that to your life, right? Like when you experience good, savor it, let it in. Don't let your mind pull you away from it. Don't let your mind tell you you don't deserve it. Don't let your mind tell you that it's not going to last. And you better start thinking of the next thing. Let yourself soak it in. And when life is hard, remember that that is not permanent, that it will not last. Literally nothing is permanent. Even if it feels that way, even if it feels [00:15:00]
like it's never going to get better, it will. And think back to another time when it felt like it never was going to get better and it did, the same thing will happen again.
So that's kind of the first lesson, right? Like motherhood life, it's a full life experience. The hard, the good, the joyful, the challenging, the things that make you stretch and flex and move beyond what you thought was possible, both in the good and the hard. See if you can let it in because it feels so much better to let it in than to resist and to struggle against it, right? Like loose knees. I think about when I was growing up in LA area, Pasadena, to be specific, but we go to the beach and I went to this hippie elementary school called Sequoia, shout out Sequoia, like best elementary school ever. And we had beach days twice a year. Yes, the whole school got on buses and we went to the beach and we would like boogie board and wave surf and like do all these things as kids, right?
And what you learned was you better loosen your knees, right? Because if you stand with a wave coming to you with your knees locked like you are going to get knocked over. But if you stand with loose knees, if you are loose, if you're movable, then you can either have the wave pass through you without getting knocked over or maybe you jump over the wave or maybe you turn around and ride the wave to the shore. But if you are loose with it, then you can move with it, right? And not be taken over or knocked down by it. So I hope that little metaphor helps. That is how I encourage myself. I encourage you to go through life. Okay?
So next lesson that I am sort of taking from this first year in motherhood, and this is going to resonate with things I've also said before on the podcast, as a mother, it is more important how I be than what I do. My presence, how I show up, how I spend time with Amani, how I see her, how I affirm her, how I mirror her is so much more important than the specifics of what I do, what I feed her. And whether I'm getting it exactly right and whether her language is developing, right? It is so easy as a mother in particular, right? Like certainly in life and certainly as a parent, but I think specifically as a mother, it is so easy to get caught up in feeling like you have to prove that you're a good enough mom by doing all of the things. Is your baby dressed well? Do they have the cutest clothes? Are they eating the right foods? Are you breastfeeding? Do you make enough breast milk, right? Like that has been a thing on my journey is I have never made as much breast milk as Amani needed.
And in the first few days after I gave birth to her, I really wasn't producing any milk. I had a traumatic delivery, right? That was a big disappointment that I had to move through. And it's been a process of reminding myself that isn't what matters the most, right? Like Amani's not going to be sitting in a therapist's office, therapist's couch 20-something years from now being like my mom didn't breastfeed me or feed me organic foods, right? And now, yes, I make choices that feel aligned in terms of what I want to try to support her health and well-being, and I do want her to breastfeed. And so I am committed to that and I have been able to do it. Maybe not to the extent I want, which is a thing I have had to accept, but I've been able to do it.
And that's not the most important thing, right? It is more important for me to be present with her, and that's part of me putting away my phone, right? Like setting time limits on how much social media I'm doing, not bringing my phone in the bedroom when I'm nursing her, right? There are these things because our world is full of distractions and things that will pull our energy away from what matters to us most, right? And if we are not careful, we will not actually put the most attention on the things that matter to us most, right? So we'll say it's family, we'll say it's our kids. We'll say it's doing things we love, and yet we'll find ourselves spending all this time on our computer, on our phones, distracted. And so I'm really working to be intentional about being present, being there, seeing her, affirming her, because I know that that is a big powerful way to communicate to Amani that she is worthy just as she is, right?
[00:20:00] That being with her, that focusing on my being is more important than what I do, right? That's another big lesson that again, I think applies to everyday life, even if you're not a parent. And then the third lesson that I have taken that I want to share with you is that grace is required. Grace is required. Like I have gotten things wrong. Like there have been at least a couple of times when I fed Amani something and Amani likes adult grownup food. Like she likes her vegetables, she likes her grownup food, which I am so proud of as a person who loves to eat, right? Like and eat real grownup food. I am so proud of her that she loves adult grownup food. But usually what I do is I just cook myself a meal and I cook a meal that she can eat and then I share it with her.
And so mostly this works great and there've been a couple of times when I have fed her something and then that's resulted in vomit, vomit everywhere, right? And disrupted sleep. And it makes me feel bad, right? Like nobody wants to feed their child something that makes them sick, right? I have also given Amani Covid, I went to Puerto Rico for a conference, which was amazing, and I came back with Covid. And despite my efforts to not do this, to mask, like it's very hard to quarantine from your child that's nursing and is under a couple years old, right? So I gave her covid and then we end up in the hospital, right? Ugh, talk about the guilt. Guilt that I felt. I make mistakes, I will continue to make mistakes. And what I have learned is that grace is required, that I have to forgive myself, that I have to forgive myself and offer myself compassion.
Because if I get stuck in the guilt and the shame and the embarrassment of doing something wrong as a mom, then guess what? I cannot be present. Guess what? I can't be in the full life experience, right? If I am beating myself up, that does no good for Amani, it does not help me show up as a better mom. And so grace is required to navigate the challenges, the mistakes, the missteps, grace, forgiveness, self-compassion have been tools that I have used again and again on this motherhood journey because I do not get everything right. I will not get everything right and I am doing my best to fully experience it, to show up as present as loving. And I also know that the more grace I give myself, the more I model to Amani that she should give herself grace too. If I were to beat myself up and shame myself and blame myself in an unhelpful and unhealthy way, all I would be doing is modeling to her that this is how you treat yourself when you make a mistake and you do something wrong.
Or even when you hurt someone, right? Do I do what I need to do to fix it and clean it up? Of course. And I also offer myself grace in the process because I'm not expecting myself to be a perfect mom. I am expecting myself to be a present mom. That is a value that I have. And when I am not present, I acknowledge it, I release it, and I return to the present with my daughter so I can soak in this joy. Oh, I started with the joy and gosh, it's joyful. It's one of the best things I have ever experienced in my life is being Amani's mom. I love it so much and it is so joyful and so fun and so hard and so challenging. It is a full, full, full life experience. And honestly, that's what I'm about. That's what I'm about over here in unconditionally worthy world, I am about full life experiences.
I am not about suppress, I am not about only the good, I'm about let's live full out. And this year in motherhood has certainly, certainly given me an opportunity to do that. I hope that whether you are a parent or not, that you'll give yourself grace because beating yourself up isn't helpful. It doesn't help you at all. It doesn't help you show up the way you want to show up. You can acknowledge the challenges, the mistakes, the missteps, the failures with compassion and with grace. And you can do something different the next time. Grace is required in motherhood and grace is required in life. I am so grateful for all of you coming on this journey with me, for allowing me to share a bit about my journey to motherhood. I've talked in episodes about my pregnancy, about the birth of Amani and now I'm talking about being a mom.
[00:25:00] And I hope that it's helpful for me to share these experiences, right? My real life, living out this unconditionally worthy journey experiences because I'm not finished living, I'm not finished learning, I'm not finished growing and evolving. And my hope is that as I continue to grow and evolve, that when I share those lessons with you, they inspire you, they encourage you, they uplift you. That is my hope. So I'd love to know what you think, right? If you hear an episode that really resonates with you, it would mean so much to me. If you would leave me a rating or review, if you'd shoot me a DM at Dr. Adia Gooden on Instagram, Dr. Adia Gooden on LinkedIn, those are my two main social platforms. Lemme know, right? It really is encouraging to know that this resonates. So I'd love to hear about your takeaways and I'd also love for you to share the episode if you found it helpful. Thank you as always for listening.
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Thanks for joining me this week on the Unconditionally Worthy Podcast. Make sure to visit my website, dradiagooden.com and subscribe to the show on iTunes so you'll never miss an episode. You can also follow me on social media at Dr. Adia Gooden. If you loved the show, please leave a review on iTunes so we can continue to bring you amazing episodes. Lastly, if you found this episode helpful and know someone who might benefit from hearing it, please share it. Thanks for listening and see you next episode.
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This episode was produced by Crys & Tiana and the music is by Wataboi.
Cali by Wataboi https://soundcloud.com/wataboi
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Music promoted by FDL Music https://youtu.be/ZdQI7WQWi_g
My daughter, Amani Joy, is turning one year old in just a few days! To celebrate this milestone, I wanted to reflect on my experience as a new mother and what I’ve been learning over the past 12 months.
In this solo episode of Unconditionally Worthy, I share with you the biggest lessons I’ve learned during my first year of motherhood.
Whether you’re a parent or not, I’m hoping this episode and the lessons I’ve learned will help you navigate life with a bit more ease and joy.
So, let’s be real… being a mom is the best and hardest thing I have ever done. If you’re a parent, I’m sure you can resonate. The simplest moments have brought us such joy and the hardest moments have brought us pain. Still, I’ve enjoyed being a mom way more than I had ever imagined.
Something else I never imagined was my daughter being born with sickle cell, a genetic blood disorder that comes with a whole host of somewhat unpredictable challenges. Bringing her to the hospital and watching her get poked and prodded by doctors, without her being able to express to us how she’s feeling, has been extremely challenging and frustrating.
On top of the stress of being a new mom, worrying about her health has added an extra layer of stress and worry. Despite that, I keep remembering that motherhood is a full life experience. Through all the disruption of plans and work, this year has been a practice of flexibility and going with the flow. It has required me to be resilient in ways that I never had to be before… and I’m grateful for that.
For all of us, life is full of ups and downs. The #1 lesson I’ve learned from this past year is the importance of allowing yourself to experience it all - the joys, the little moments, the hardships - and to make room to process that.
Another thing I’ve learned is that nothing is permanent. Everything changes! Just when you think you have your routine down, something will change, so you have to be ready to pivot and work with the changes. When I’m in the hospital, wondering when I’ll be able to bring my baby home, I have to remind myself that I won’t be there forever. The good stuff doesn’t last, so we better savor it, and the bad stuff doesn’t last, so let’s not get too upset about it.
As a mother, how I “be” is more important than what I do. It’s more important for me to try to be the best mother I can be for Amani, to put away my phone, and to be present with her. There will always be things that pull our energy and attention away from what truly matters. I’m working to be intentional with seeing and affirming her because I know that is a powerful way to communicate to Amani that she is worthy just as she is.
Of course, parents make mistakes and we will continue to make mistakes. What I’ve learned is that grace, self-forgiveness, and self-compassion are required to show up each day as a better mom. We need to give ourselves grace in the missteps, in all aspects of life.
I am not expecting myself to be a perfect mom. I am expecting myself to be a present mom. When I’m not present, I acknowledge it, I release it, and I return to the present moment with my beautiful daughter.
Being Amani’s mom is the best thing that’s ever happened to me! This year of motherhood has given me an opportunity to live life full out, the way I’ve always wanted to.
Lessons From My First Year of Motherhood:
Motherhood is a full life experience, so allow yourself to experience it ALL.
Nothing is permanent, even when it feels like it is.
As a mother, how I “be” is more important than what I do.
Grace, self-forgiveness, and self-compassion are required to show up as a better parent.
This episode was produced by Crys & Tiana.
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