REWILD + FREE - When We Heal Motherhood, We Heal the World, with Alexis Stearns

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Are you just a character in someone else’s book or are you holding the pen and writing your own story?  In this episode,  I'm joined by Alexis (@intentionally.alexis) and we chat about all things healing in motherhood,  including self-worth, spiritual bypassing, and radical responsibility to finally get out of that victim mindset. Alexis Stearns is a healing mentor for moms who are ready to heal their birth trauma, break generational cycles, and enjoy motherhood.  This episode is a juicy one, we touch on sooo many themes including: Creating and cultivating rhythm and ritual in your life Unsubscribing from the patriarchal and masculine expectation to find balance Looking at balance as a myth, instead striving for presence as our goal Falling victim to this idea of destination  addiction  Who you are before the world got to you Recognizing when your 'shoulding' on yourself The ripple effect our healing has on future generations How fitting in and belonging might lead to self abandonment Taking radical responsibility in healing, looking at where you’re being the victim in your life Importance of self worth in motherhood Want to work with Alexis? Her signature course, Healing Birth Within is available hereHer FREE course to get started with healing can be found hereAnd on Wednesday May 24/23, Alexis is hosting a Inner Child Healing Workshop, details can be found here Connect with Nicole (@nicolepasveer)Want to join Nicole on the show? Apply to be on the podcast hereSupport the showConnect with Nicole on IG (@nicolepasveer) Want to be a guest on the podcast? Fill out this form

Welcome to the Not Just a Mom Show, where we have open and honest conversations about the vulnerabilities and the victories within entrepreneurship and new motherhood. If we haven't met yet, I'm Nicole Pazvir and I'm going to be your host. Here on the show, we don't subscribe to perfection. In fact, being present is the new perfect and showing up messy is the new norm. My hope is that this podcast serves as a safe space for me and inspiration for you to stop living life watered down. Together, we will uncover versions of our most potent selves where we show up unapologetically, intentionally, and without filter. We are worthy, just as we are,

as all that we are, not just the label we put on ourselves. We are more than just a mom, and I'm so glad you're here. So this episode is a special one. I'm joined by my friend Alexis and what I've been saying to people before we hit record or before we even like schedule a time to record is that I want to basically talk about whatever is alive on our hearts that day. As much as I know certain people have certain areas of expertise and very likely have a story that they want to share, I don't really like setting any of that up as something that we have to talk about.

And so these episodes aren't scripted. They really don't have much of an agenda. Instead, we show up to record and I treat it like a chit chat over a cup of tea, like two friends just having a conversation. And this episode was exactly that. There were numerous directions I could have suggested that we take this episode. And instead, Alexis and I hopped on Zoom and we basically started talking and catching up. And we said, OK, let's just hit record. And so she asked me about my upcoming mastermind for moms who are also heart-led entrepreneurs called Recalibrate. And so you'll hear me talking a bit about that, talking a little bit about where that came from and what it's becoming. We also dive into some really juicy topics about

healing and feeling whole and the pendulum swing that we can go on in our healing journey and spiritual bypassing and this constant need for a certain outcome. And anyway, so tons of different themes are discussed in this episode. It's really good. I really enjoy the conversation. And I hope that you can find pieces of it that resonate to whatever you're currently going through and can take some time and space to reflect on things and just allow this to be whatever kind of medicine it needs to be for you. I should also mention that the time that this episode goes live, which is May 23rd, 2023, I'm currently in the middle of doing a

pre-sale launch for Recalibrate. And so if you have been curious and maybe you're feeling the call to join, you're just not sure if this is the right time, I feel like I'd be doing a disservice if I didn't let you know that the investment right now is 50% off the right time. I feel like I'd be doing a disservice if I didn't let you know that the investment right now is 50% off the regular cost. So now is an amazing time to jump in. This sale is running until Friday, May 26th, and this will be the lowest price that Recalibrate will be available ever. So definitely jump in if it's something that's been on your radar and it feels like the right time for you also alexis is hosting a workshop tomorrow on wednesday about inner child healing and so if you're listening to this the day that it goes live it's not too late to join

and if you're listening to this at a later date be sure to follow Alexis on Instagram I will drop all the details in the show notes that way you will be sure not to miss any future workshops or offerings of hers and before we get into it I just want to invite you to take a second pause what you're doing drop your shoulders relax your jaw and take the most loving breath you've given yourself today I think we all forget to do this. We forget to breathe deeply and we get so sucked into the busyness of our day. And I'm not going to go tell you to curl up on a couch with a cup of tea and listen to this because I know you're too busy, but I do invite you to just take a simple moment to pause and reconnect with yourself

before you keep listening. I hope you enjoy this episode. Without further ado, here is my chat with Alexis. I've just been like sitting in a corner laughing because for the better part of last year, I was trying to fit myself into this box of being a childbirth educator or being a like virtual doula, but I knew I didn't actually want to attend birth. So again, I was trying to like mold myself into this box of doula, even though like I was never actually supposed to be a doula. And then like finally this year, just more and more things have kind of fallen into place for me where I'm like, okay, like, I think I'm just supposed to be supporting mothers. I'm supposed to be holding mothers as they are transitioning one from like maiden to mother, but also the people that seem to be gravitating to my message also seem to be crazy like me

and building a business of some sort. So it's not only like the maiden to mother journey, it's also like birthing a business baby and holding space for the mother baby dyad of your business, which like nobody talks about because we're always told like, you need to be separate from your business. But how can we be separate from our business when we're heart centered entrepreneurs and our business is us right yes I love the verbiage of the mother baby dyad in relation to business you know like I heard you I don't know what you posted the other day about balance in motherhood but I just wanted to shout from the rooftops like balance is the myth it is not something that we need to seek like this elusive mountain tiger. I don't know. I love that you're saying that because I don't

remember what day I posted that, but a couple of days later, even the next day I was talking with a friend and we, and she was kind of dissecting what I said. She's like, what do you mean? Like you're looking for like a work-life balance. Like, what do you think is missing right now? Or what are you searching for? And I was kind of like, oh, well, like, I just, I think I need to like set boundaries. I feel like I'm just always thinking about my business. I'm always thinking about how I want to serve people or what kind of content I want to, excuse me, what kind of content I want to create or what episode I want to record on the podcast next. And it was kind of like a light bulb moment of like, wait a minute, that's kind of like how it's supposed to be. Like I'm supposed to be inspired at any given point. I'm not supposed

to turn that off and just be like, nope, sorry, I'm not open to inspiration right now. Much like you would never turn yourself off as a mother and be like, sorry can't mom you right now I'm busy right like it's just we're always on and I think normalizing and um not feeling uh I don't know I feel like I was just getting really hard on myself thinking I must be doing something wrong I'm not balancing these things right so instead if we switch the narrative and normalize the fact that no, it's okay to be always on in a healthy way. Um, and just knowing that you are, the creative juices are always flowing and you never know when inspiration is gonna, gonna like sore. You never know when you're going to have a moment of clarity or a light bulb moment. You never know when you're going to hit resistance and like need to work through something. You never know when you're going to have a moment of clarity or a light bulb moment.

You never know when you're going to hit resistance and like need to work through something. You never know when that layer of the onion in your healing journey is going to be ready to fall off and you get to work on the next thing, right? Like you don't get to plan those things. You can't schedule them and time block them into your day. And so, yeah, I guess just this giant permission slip for myself and maybe anyone else that is experiencing this is that like you just said balance is a myth we need to stop searching for balance because we're never going to get it just like we're never going to get perfection we're never going to get that completed to-do list those things are it's almost like a

carrot in front of us right like we're a donkey chasing the carrot that we're never going to reach. And it's just making us feel like we're failing and it's making us feel like we're missing something. And then we start searching outside of ourselves to feel whole again or to get the next strategy or answer that we think we're missing. And yeah, so I am not subscribing to that any longer. I agree. Balance is a myth. And I think instead the answer, the solution, the way to maintain and find just like the healthy equilibrium and make sure that our nervous system state is regulated is really just having intentional rhythms and rituals throughout the day and making sure that you're taking radical self-responsibility for your actions in your

mothering and your business, but also radical self-love and honoring your self-worth, maybe even reevaluating what you define as worthy and success and all those things. But I'd love to hear your take on, okay, if we aren't looking for balance, what are we looking for and how do we get there? I think it's about cultivating this feeling of harmony. Like what makes your life feel harmonious. And you already mentioned creating and cultivating rhythms, right? It's all about rhythms and rituals. And maybe there's a schedule or a routine that helps you cultivate these feelings of harmony and balance. But when we look at strict schedules, that's adhering almost more

to this more patriarchal, structured, masculine view of how to make it balanced. Whereas when we are working in our feminine, we can find this flow and find harmony in this flow. Right. Um, and I really, I thought of this quote that about destination addiction. Have you heard of destination addiction? No, I haven't. I feel like I've been victim of that though. Let's see. I have this quote actually in my inner child healing workshop. It's beware of destination addiction, preoccupation with the idea that happiness is in the next place, the next job and with the next partner until you give up the idea that happiness is somewhere else. It will never be where you are. And so I think what we're really looking for when we say balance is actually more like presence and the ability to maybe just say I'm going to just turn off the tap for a minute

because I am ovulating and I just have all these ideas flowing through me like a waterfall well I'm just going to turn off the tap and be really present for these next 10 minutes with my child. And when we are able to tap into that presence, whether it's with our ideas or with our children, I feel like that's when we can really, or at least for me, I can only speak to my experience, but I feel like that's what allows me to access that feeling of harmony. Does that make sense? I don't know. It absolutely does. Like I would absolutely agree with that. And I think this is also like that idea of multitasking

and we know that that's bullshit, right? You can't actually multitask. And when we're trying to divide our attention on more than one thing, then we aren't fully present in that one thing. So it's exactly what you're saying, where if we can be present, then we are able to actually soak up whatever is happening in that moment, right? Whether it's pleasure, whether it's joy,

whether it's whatever emotion and actually like be human in the sense of feeling the whole spectrum of human emotions. And I think for so many of us, we've fallen away from that. We've tried to suppress certain emotions. We've started labeling things as these are good, these are bad, and no, no, no, no, no. We got to feel it all. And we definitely need to be modeling this to our kids. And I think that's something that you and I definitely are super passionate about. I love your saying that like, when we heal ourselves, we heal the world. And just this idea of the work we do for ourselves, the actions we take today, and the ripple effect that that has on our families, right? And then on future generations,

and that sits with me almost all day long. If I can tap into the bigness of that, it allows me and it helps me to get back into the present and really start being intentional with how I'm using my time and where my energy is going. I love that. And it can feel like so big, right? And, you know, with all this information that we have at our fingertips, TikTok, Instagram, even on like regular TV shows. All right. So I am on my period. And when I'm in my late luteal early menstruation and through my menstruation, I get to binge watch TV. It is my rest time. And so I've been watching. That's your ritual. That's your ritual. So then there's no shame around it because you know, this is just temporary. You're not crapping on yourself for, oh, I'm watching TV again. Like, oh, I should be doing

something else. No, you know, it's temporary. You know, it's just for this, this portion of your cycle. And that's exactly what I think I'm talking about when I'm speaking about rituals and rhythms. That's exactly it. I love that you brought that up. So, but side note is when I don't do that, I feel more tired the rest of the month. I'm not able to access the full spectrum of my creative and energetic ovulation if I skip out on the rest. And it doesn't have to be TV. Like sometimes it's books, sometimes it's journaling while it is, you know, it's all of it. But, um, the point being that even in mainstream media, now we are seeing all of this information about healing. And on Ted Lasso last week, we literally saw Rebecca's inner child in the mirror.

Do you watch Ted Lasso? I don't know. It is so funny. But Ted Lasso is just like a good one in that way. But other like mainstream TV shows, we start to see all these little seeds of generational trauma and healing, and it can feel really big, right? Especially when we know that our impact is so wide with our ripple. Yeah. The fact is, is it doesn't have to be big, right?

You don't have to heal seven years or seven generations back and seven generations forward. All we have to do is welcome. Yeah. And not even, we don't even have to go balls to the wall at it. We just have to be receptive to the opportunity to heal

when triggers come up, right? We just have to be open to feeling instead of sweeping it under the rug. And we don't, we don't have to go seeking, you know, or like, what's that book by the holistic psychologist, how to do the work or even the work that we do together that we have done together, right? We don't have to heal everything all at once. And I think it's a good point to bring up because I think we can fall into this trap of feeling like there is a destination with healing, right? Or like I said before, where you start outsourcing your power thinking, well, if I just hire the right coach or see the right therapist or do the right whatever modality you're trying out if I just do the right

thing then I'm gonna feel whole again and that's not possible okay hold on though let's I hate to get into semantics but I totally do sometimes but let's like differentiate the word wholeness from healing right like healing yes very good point. You're right. Right. Yeah. And really we are whole, we are already whole, like whole can't be the goal. We have, it's like what you just, the quote you just brought up about happiness. Like we have to, yeah. Oh, oh, thank you for spinning that right back around to me because you're absolutely correct. And I think this comes back to that piece about self-worth and how do we view ourselves and how do we view our own self-worth?

And are we worthy for simply just being or are we still valuing and measuring our worthiness based on our achievements and based on our whatever hat we're wearing that day and how well we did that job. Because, again, I think that's a very masculine way of being, but that's also how culturally we've been praised in the past, right? And, yeah. Well, and how we live in this world. I mean, we have created this world where we need to be quote time to heal when so many are working multiple jobs just to make ends meet and don't even have the capacity to consider what that looks like. And they're breaking cycles just by living and doing that and getting by, and getting by, um, which is incredible to acknowledge too. But, um, I thought of something else when we talk about this, this idea of balance, um, that I love to share and it kind of ties in with wholeness. And so like way, we've been conditioned and

programmed to be something other than who we are. So returning to that wholeness. And I know like some people totally crap on the word alignment, but really I feel like we're able to access this wholeness and this harmony when we're living in alignment with who we are. Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. I think something that I try to reflect on often is who am I before the world got to me right and that that starts that helps me start recognizing like all the shoulds as they pop up and anytime I'm I'm having like a I'm shooting on myself and I'm like I should do this I should go show up on Instagram this way I should go do this at the next like mom group I'm involved in I should do do this, like whatever it is and whatever role I'm playing, if I can start recognizing the shoulds, then it's an opportunity

for me to pause and look at it as a choice point of, okay, like, do I actually want to do this should, or, well, first of all, is this something I actually want to do? Is this actually a desire of mine? Or is this just something that socially I've been conditioned to believe that I should be doing? And so this role, this hat that I'm wearing and this role that I'm trying to fill, is it actually because I want to be doing it and it's in alignment with me and it feels authentic? Or is it because of societal conditioning? And so for me, basically, since my pregnancy, that has been the story of my life. That's kind of been the narrative going on in my head. And I'm constantly challenging my thinking because I'm evaluating like where that thought

even came from, right? Did it originate from something outside of me or is it my own? And really just tuning into what my desires actually are. And I think if you would have talked to me like two, three years ago, like I wouldn't have even been able to tell you like what I want, even like early postpartum, like I had a really hard time identifying my needs. I mean, I still do, but I'm working on it. And I'm finally understanding that being able to identify your needs, your wants, and your desires is how you can be like your truest self. Because if you're not, then you're just constantly sidelining your own feelings, your own needs, your own opinions and

then in comes like people pleasing and good conditioning and all the things yeah where you're basically being something else somebody else for everyone around you yeah yeah which is a slippery slope for sure and I think at least from my own experience like that was my story for a long time and I didn't even know that I was living someone else's story right like I didn't even know that I was just I was almost like I was just like a character in someone else's book like I didn't even realize that I wasn't holding the pen and I wasn't narrating my own story. And my own pregnancy and birth experience definitely was the catalyst for me to start reclaiming that power and take that pen back, so to speak, and start writing my own chapters.

But yeah, when you're just like a character in someone else's book, it's hard to even notice that, that you're in that state. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's almost like you're living on autopilot based on societal domestication, right? Yeah. No, it's exactly that and just like living by default right like you're not you're not even recognizing again it kind of goes back to the bigness of the bigness of our actions and the influence that it has on future and past generations and um just yeah recognizing that like i don't know it goes back to that idea of like the ripple effect and when you throw a stone into the water like it's just this tiny stone and it's just this like one splash into

the water but then of course there's a ripple effect and it can go on for I don't actually know the science plan I don't know how long you can like the ripple the ripple magnitudes too but um yeah like when you're when you're on autopilot and living by default you you can't see that bigness you can that ripple. Yeah, that is such a good point. I, um, when I did my, before I even knew like what my mission was and who I wanted to serve, I took an NLP, uh, life coaching course. And one of the first things that we talked about is living, they use the term at cause, but it's basically that whole idea of realizing that you have more power than you think you have over your life, right? It's, you know, first before anybody can make any kind of change, they have to be willing to say, yeah, I'm ready to take the pen. And that can be really scary because then you are responsible

for like whatever happens, whatever consequences might arise, whatever huge successes might happen. And that's like a whole other thing is like, are we even open to receive success and abundance and super great things? Because I think we've been so conditioned to play small and we've been so conditioned to just like be in this little box and have this mediocre life. And again, this was another part of my story. Like I, I literally couldn't even see outside the box. I didn't think I could have anything bigger or better than what I knew. So back, like when I was nursing, for example, like I kind of had in my head that, okay, this is like kind of the cap salary for a nurse and my husband's a mechanic. So like, I knew what our family income was likely going to be. And so I kind of put ourselves in

this box of, okay, well, this is the kind of lifestyle we can have with the incomes we have. This is the kind of house we can live in. These are the kind of vacations we can have. And I never allowed myself to think or dream any bigger, which is really really sad like I'm glad I'm not doing that anymore but could you imagine living your whole life that way and just not thinking you could even be outside this box that either you've put yourself or like society is putting around you because that's the other thing is I think um it can be really easy to fall into trying to live up to societal expectations. And by doing that, because you're constantly trying to fill that role, you're putting yourself in the box.

Right. And I mean, society trains little girls to be small, right? And so like, don't be too loud. Don't be too big. Don't be too happy. Don't laugh too loud. Yeah. Perfect.

Pretty and pleasing. Right? Yes. Yeah. Well, and when we talk about people pleasing, I mean, we're not, but we kind of are. Because that is kind of what, what all of this is at its core is like, you're pleasing someone else instead of pleasing yourself and people pleasing starts with parent pleasing. And then it turns into teacher pleasing. And then

it turns into, I need to, um, impress the right boys, the boys like me. And then it's, I need to make sure I fit in with the right friend group so that my friends think I'm cool like it's it's constant and um when we fast forward into motherhood and even into like entrepreneurship because it's so new and unfamiliar for unfamiliar to us and we know our nervous systems love familiar so we're just going to keep going to what's familiar even if it's not the best for us um we end up putting ourselves again in these boxes and trying to fit in because we so deeply want a sense of belonging and we want to feel like we fit in we want to feel held seen and recognized but we're almost searching for all of that in the wrong places because in some instances it's smushing us yeah yeah and anytime we're trying to fit in there's this element of self-abandonment right um i'd love to come back to this responsibility like it is scary to take responsibility right

and there's this like element of radical responsibility like if I'm gonna take the pen does that mean that the traumatic experiences that I've experienced are my fault and what role in those did I play and where was I willing or even wanting to be the victim in my my own life yes I don't think I have an answer to that I would love to hear your two cents on the trauma piece where my mind was initially going as you started saying that was from a nervous system perspective and trying to keep ourselves safe and safety comes with you know, just like having a sense of belonging and feeling like you're supported.

And those things can actually be like distorted and not, not, what's the word? I don't know where my mind was going, but just like from a nervous system perspective, trying to fit in, because if we don't fit in, that feels unsafe and we might be shamed or ostracized or just then we stand out and standing out is very uncomfortable. Standing up and standing out is very uncomfortable. And in terms of a radical responsibility perspective, in order to take radical responsibility, that often means you might be doing something different than the norm and different than the community that you felt like you belong in. And, um, yeah, I don't know. I'm kind of losing my train of thought. You go back to what you were going to say about trauma. But just with what you just said, before I go back to that, I just want to emphasize like the community that you thought you belonged in like are you belonging if you are not able to know because you're fitting in and I think that's

like the but how when you're in that how do you actually recognize that because I think it's one of those like hindsight is 2020 it's so easy to see it once you're out but once you're in and you're feeling it sometimes it feels like it's your only option right like yes I feel like it sounds like yeah I hear you so when you're in it like how do you oh yeah like how do you even recognize that wait a minute like this might not be where I'm supposed to be I think I'm different and maybe that's what it starts with maybe it starts with just feeling like okay I think I'm different here and then it starts to be an opportunity um doorbell rang dogs are barking I don't know what can be heard but whatever we're just gonna roll with it um Dylan can answer the door um I think what I was gonna say is um shoot what was I saying so you start to realize that maybe this isn't where you belong

right right so like feeling that, I think I'm different. And in order to have like the bravery and the courage to actually stand out and stand up for your own truth, you have to be able to like resource within yourself. And again, this comes back to that self-worth piece and finding balance, not balance, but harmony and just feeling content and happy with how things are. confident and believe in your worth for simply just being all as you are all the parts the good the bad the ugly the whatever part then it doesn't matter what other people think and so once you can get to that place then you are able to stand up and stand out more confidently and actually make choices that um are counter-cultural and like don't fit into that box that you thought you once were in.

Right. That's hard. And I think that's where like the healing piece comes into, cause that's very like, that's multifaceted. There's a lot of layers there. It's not just like one morning you wake up and you feel worthy and confident. Like it doesn't work that way. Unfortunately. No, it is a process, right. And it's't work that way, unfortunately. No, it is a process, right? And it's a never ending process because as long as we're living, we'll continue to experience things that trigger certain memories or trigger certain feelings that, you know, we want to learn. I think, you know, there's this idea that we want to be able to stand up, stand out, be completely ourselves without caring what other people think. But I think that it's okay to care what the people we love think and be unabashedly ourselves with people who think differently.

And whether that's family or friends, being able to speak your truth, but still be loved and appreciated and still feel safe within that space and with those people, I think that's where true belonging comes from, right? I love that you brought that up because, again, my own experience for the longest time, I felt very uncomfortable if people disagreed with me. That either meant that I needed to control, manipulate, and change their opinions so that they'd be on my side, or I would downplay whatever I was thinking, again, sideline my own feelings and opinions so that I could be on their side. And so again, something

that I've been working through is finding safety in,, it's, it's okay. It's safe for people to disagree with me. And even though someone disagrees with me, that doesn't mean that they think any differently of me. And it definitely doesn't mean that I should think any different of myself. Like my, my worthiness again, back to self-worth, my worthiness is not dependent on agreeing with people and being on the same page and I think we actually can feel deeply seen and deeply heard and recognized when people can actually see us in our well first of all when they can see us in our own truth but also when there is some disagreement because that actually shows that you are separate and you are like your own person right um yeah the other thing I was thinking with that is um

um I'm so there's like people downstairs and I'm like half listening to that conversation and half trying to like stay in my own head and it is not working. Oh dear. That's so funny. And I only have like one headphone in, so I guess I should have put two in. Yeah, I don't know what my next. No, I'm totally okay. It's, we're dog sitting today. So they

were just dropping off the dog. Um, they're leaving now. I heard, I heard Dylan say, do you want to say bye-bye? And then Aubrey's cute voice, bye-bye. Um, I don't know where I was going. Um, yeah, I honestly don't know. So I don't know if you have a comment back to what I had said previously. I would eventually like to go back to kind of what we're starting to see in media and like the seeds trauma but I don't know if you've seen Coco or if whoever's listening has seen Coco but basically like music isn't allowed in the whole community or at least in the family you can tell I actually haven't paid that close of attention but the premise is that like music isn't allowed because of the family history and back to the idea of recognizing our shoulds. And so like, if you're constantly thinking like, oh, I shouldn't play music because like, that's how

it's always been done. It just like, there's no room for growth and expansion if we are constantly living in this world of shoulds because those shoulds are written by someone else's pen. Ooh, that is such a good point. Oh, I love that. But again, breaking free and unsubscribing to those shoulds, taking the power back, grabbing the pen for yourself. In the case of Coco playing music, obviously like it's hard and it's scary because there might be consequences but it goes back to that piece of trying to belong and you might not belong anymore you might not be part of the tribe you might not be part of the tribe. You might not be part of the community. And yeah, it's kind of messy because it's risky. It takes like a buttload of bravery and courage to do something outside of the box.

Right. And then to know that if there's a consequence, you're the one responsible. Right. Okay. So back to what you were saying about looking at past traumas and I don't know, I think you were maybe going to kind of touch on like victim mindset and how easy it would be to just kind of fall into victim mindset there, but how do we actually hold our power there and, yeah, digest some of that, digest like our past. Okay. So I think it can be kind of a messy idea of taking responsibility for our role in our own trauma. Um, because I think some people would argue that it implies that there is blame to be had by the victim. And when I use the word victim in this sense, I mean like the person who experienced the trauma. But I mean, I don't know about you, but in almost every hard thing or even traumatic thing that I've experienced, there has been an element of self-blame without self-responsibility.

Does that make sense? It does. And so like you need the two together and then you need to be able to hold yourself and have compassion for that past version of you that was in that situation. And hold space for the grief, anguish, whatever other feelings come up. Shame. And actually like being with it all, which is the hardest thing to do. And that comes back to being present. So we have to feel these things. That's so true. I think, you know, I never, ever want to imply that anybody's trauma was their fault at all.

But I know that for myself personally, I didn't start healing until I was ready to stop being the victim of what happened to me and start kind of deciding where I wanted to go from there. And a big part of that was saying, here are the parts that I want to take responsibility for, not because this experience was my quote unquote fault, but because these are the parts of my experience that I'm already blaming and shaming myself for. And so in order to kind of free myself from that, I have to first take responsibility for the things that I'm already holding against myself. when we think of like shadow work, um, in like the healing world, I feel like there's a lot of people that just try to avoid even looking at the dark side. And that includes some of those not so comfortable feelings. And if we can just stay on the other side of positive affirmations and manifestation and finding the silver lining and only looking forward,

um, that is not how we find harmony. That is not how we can be fully present. And that is certainly not how we can be whole because being whole involves looking at all parts of ourselves, past, future, present, dark, ugly, all of it. But it sure is fun to feel like you are the most positive person and you are more spiritual and more enlightened and better at affirmations and not a complainer, right? But it's just really another way to stuff down your feelings. And, um, I mean, they actually call it spiritual bypassing, right. It's using these tools that can be so incredible, right. Like affirmations and manifestation, like those are so neat.

Subconscious reprogramming, all of these tools are so incredible, but first we have to be willing to meet with the parts of ourselves that we've rejected along the way. We have to be willing to meet with the feelings that we've rejected along the way. Yeah. I would love to get into, there's two different directions. I would love to take Yeah. I would love to get into, there's two different directions. I would love to take this. I would love to quickly touch on a bit of like inner child healing, because I think that is an important piece of kind of looking at the past and maybe some of the darker, darker side. But also talking about this idea of integration, which we can get to in a second. But before we even go to those things, I would love if you're comfortable just sharing a bit

about your own story and your own experience with trauma and taking responsibility, just so that that idea that you just spoke about can really land for whoever's listening, because I think that's a complex thing to grasp. So I'm hoping that like a story might help. Yeah. So I have a few times in my life where this has been a similar story for me and it is, you know, I think the first and most clear example is when I was a teenager, I was rear-ended and, um, uh, looking back, I think it was then on chronic back pain. And so for probably a couple of years, I was so depressed by this back pain. This I'm 19. I should be enjoying my life. And it lasted all the way until 21.

Right. And I remember turning 21 and being like, I should be like hung over from drinking, not hung over from sitting on a stool at a restaurant because my back is killing me. And I just lived in this victim mindset and like, this is just my life forever. This is hopeless. Um, and I don't know, my mom said something about medication being really helpful for her. And it was like a switch flicked inside my head. Like, Oh yeah, this is not how I want to live. I don't know if I need medication, but I literally made the decision to just be happier. And from that decision and not necessarily even be happier, but to take control of my life. Right.

And so from then I was able to get more support with my back pain and get to a place where I was able to do most things without being impacted to the severity that I was before. Right. And so I feel like that's the most like concrete example, but like I can get into victim mode anytime, right? It's, it's not hard to slip into this role. Like when we talk about the drama triangle where we have like a victim and a hero and a villain, it's, it's easy to slip into this victim role and want a hero, want somebody to save you from this, right? Whether it's a doctor saving you from your chronic back pain or whether it's a practitioner or a doula at your birth experience, right? And like even into my second birth experience, right? I hired a doula and I got the best OB I could find, the one that all the people

were talking about for VBACs, right? And everything was going to be okay because I had this team. And if anything went wrong, they were going to save me, right? And it's, you know, when you're in the throes of an unmedicated labor, like there is a very harsh reality that nobody is coming to save you. You are the one doing it. And you are the only one who can do it. Right. And so that's probably just my most concrete example. But like I lived it again after I had my son, my first child, I had had a traumatic

emergency cesarean. And of course I did not have the words. I did not understand trauma to the degree that I do now. Um, but I had't want to like compare a victim mindset to a trauma response, but I think that it's easy when you're living in your trauma response, when you're living in survival mode to kind of fall prey to this hopelessness. Right. And, um, I don't know that there was necessarily a switch with that one,

as much as there were little seeds planted with each book I read and each interaction with certain friends. Right. Um, but I think after having my daughter, there was this realization that I was responsible, um, as I prepared for her birth. And then as I dove into my healing journey after having her because I realized it had all been just swept under the rug with you know her self-help books and spiritual bypassing and any way that I could possibly sweep it under the rug I did I'm glad you brought up birth trauma as sort of one of your examples, because I think, well, obviously we know the prevalence of birth trauma is rising and that's a victim of obstetric violence. And instead of actually taking responsibility for your birth, and I mean, we can't control

birth outcomes, but, um, I, I do believe we can sort of influence them and we can obviously prepare differently and have different expectations because when we have certain expectations and then reality doesn't meet those expectations, that just like makes it even easier for it to potentially be a traumatic experience. But what I'm trying to say is it can be so easy to just say, oh, well, like my birth just happened that way because of the way the world is and the way the healthcare system is. The healthcare system failed me. It was obstetric violence. It was whatever else and just shoving the blame somewhere else. And so I think, again, like that, that is really tricky to navigate. And when you are in the throes of it, it is like damn near impossible to see it any other way. Right. And the thing about it is, is both are true. Yeah. Right. That self blame that we're

harboring, like, yes, I had a gut feeling that the doctor that I had with my first birth was not that this was not going to go well, right? Yes. I ignored that feeling over and over and over again, and I can silently blame and shame myself. Right. And I can outwardly blame my doctor and the system. Right. But for me personally, it wasn't until I was willing to take responsibility and say, and this is, and I feel like I really want to be clear, like taking responsibility and blaming yourself are two totally different things. Mm-hmm. are two totally different things. And I mean, shoot, I think I dove really deeply into that.

And one of the modules in healing birth within is like, like, this is a whole big, long discussion, right? But the essence of it is that when I'm taking responsibility, I'm able to kind of step back and say, here are the parts I'm blaming myself for. Here's what I want to take responsibility for. And I'm almost able to then you talk about bringing in inner child healing. What I'm doing is I'm talking to that inner child because that inner critic really who is criticizing me, they're saying you should have done this, this and this differently. You shouldn't have gone to that hospital. You shouldn't have stayed with that. Look at all the shoulds. Look at all the shoulds. Yes. Right. I'm shooting myself to death with shoulda, coulda, what, what, right. And when we instead take away that and not take away, but when we, when we stop and we

say to that inner critic, I see you, like, I hear you, right? You really think that this is helping and it's, it's not. And so now what I can do is I can, once I have validated and empathized with myself or, and sometimes people find this elsewhere, right? Sometimes they can find it with a friend. Sometimes they can find it with a therapist or a, in a birth story healing session. Sorry, just went off on a tangent in my head. You should have said it out loud. Yeah. But when that empathy is infused into the story, whether it is by somebody else or by ourselves, we're able to see that, yeah, I can take responsibility for ignoring my intuition. And we can finally tell ourselves because it comes different from ourselves than from somebody else.

But you did the best that you could with what you knew at the time. Yeah. Yeah. And that sounds so simple. And the thing is, is it, it can be that simple. The tricky thing is, is actually embodying it and believing it to your core. And I think like you mentioned that we can get empathy from someone else and yes, we can. But I think if we, again, that's that slippery slope of almost like outsourcing our power because if we are depending

on someone else for that empathy and that compassion we're still not doing the work the work is embodying those things for yourself and um having that deep compassion and that empathy for that previous version of yourself that that previous event whatever it is that you are working through um yeah and so I think like this ties in nicely with what I wanted to talk about in terms of integration and that's that this idea of like a pendulum swing and I've been on this and you and I have talked about this before where one side of the pendulum swing is kind of like outsourcing our power thinking we need someone else external to us someone something to help us through whatever we're doing and we begin to like I said depend on them and in the case of this example depend on them. And in the case of this example, depend on them for that empathy and that compassion.

And by doing that, that is basically saying that I am not enough just as I am. I am lacking something, right? If I'm constantly depending on something else or another course or another, whatever it is. The other side of the pendulum swing, and I've been guilty of this, is thinking, okay, well, I have everything I need within myself. I just need to go inwards. I just need to do the things. I just need to journal more, reflect more, sit with my inner child more. And I'm beyond grateful for you because you have reminded me that no, Nicole, like there's an in between and you are allowed to be supported while you're integrating things. Because I've felt like it's one or nothing. It's either I have this support where I am indirectly outsourcing my power to them without even knowing it or I'm on my own and this like

ultra independence I can do it myself almost proving it to proving whatever I'm doing to myself and to others and no there's like this this middle space that I think a lot of us are forgetting about forgetting that it's an option and also like forgetting that that is, that middle space is how we actually integrate these things. We can't integrate as quickly or as deeply alone. We need to be held. We need to be seen. We need to be recognized. We need community. Yes. And that's like that feeling of safety, right? Safety is the precursor to healing. And so having in a relationship, whether it's a therapeutic relationship or a deep friendship or a deep partnership, ideally somebody that is, you know, more outside of your relationships, right. And more, uh, bird's eye view, but like having that person

there who can be really just a mirror and help you access it from within yourself. Because whatever I say is like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks. Uh-huh. You know, like we've all heard that, that placation almost is what it feels like, right. Yeah. Or hand validation and, um, validation feels good when people do it, right. Yeah. And it feels even better when we do it for ourselves. Yeah. That just gave me full body chills as someone who has spent my whole life basically thriving on external validation, the reminder of how good it feels when it's coming from within, like nothing beats that, nothing beats that. Right. And it's, you know,

like you brought up affirmations earlier and, you know, I said, it's being able to say to yourself, you did the best you could with what you knew at the time, right? It's not this, this pre-written affirmation. It's a truly deep knowing that you did that. Yeah. Right. And in order to do that, you have to first hold that inner child and be able to love on them, accept them, forgive them. Sorry. I feel like I'm all over the place this morning. Remind Recalibrate. This is truly what I want the women and myself working through inside Recalibrate, this integration piece and this self-worth piece and this feeling of whole,

wholeness without needing the external noise and really just taking our pen back to be writing our own story specifically in motherhood and specifically in business because I think those are well that those are the two trenches that I'm currently in but they are two situations or seasons of my life that I've had feelings of inadequacy. I've had feelings of feeling incomplete or feeling like I'm missing something or thinking that I just need advice. I just need strategy. I just need, need, need, like not feeling complete on my own. And so recalibrate is about shushing out that noise and looking within and rising up together because I do firmly believe that like, we're not supposed to do any of these things alone I know we we know in motherhood we know as mothers we need a village we also know

that collectively we are lacking that village um and I I kind of see the same thing in business it can be so easy to fall into the traps of either doing it alone and feeling alone, which is overwhelming and not fun. And like business should be fun. We should be having joy in our business. Or we get ourselves into these groups that they just don't align with us. They are shouting out strategy that just doesn't make sense in the season of life. It doesn't fit into motherhood. It doesn't feel good. It turns into hustle and grind and burnout. And when we already have a nervous system that is on the verge of overstimulation because mothering is hard, we can't just add more to the list. So yeah, recalibrate is really about

recalibrating into the most aligned version of ourselves and allowing that ripple effect into our business and our mothering. So yeah, anyways, thank you for going into all those different tangents with me because they are all super important and a big part of my current life right now. I would love to hear what's going on in your world, what you do, where people can find you, just like all the things because we didn't even do a proper introduction in the beginning. That's okay. Yeah. So I am right now on Instagram at intentionally Alexis. My website is alexisinspires.com. And if you are someone currently in the mud of birth trauma, I have a free course at Alexis inspires.com slash free course. I'll put all the links in the show notes. Thank you. It teaches some of those foundational skills to find safety in order to just start healing. And so that is like completely free to just get a healing plan going to get a little bit of access to the feelings of safety.

And then, um, further along, I do have my healing birth within program, which is eight modules where you are basically, um, kind of processing your birth story a little bit, but also just learning how to hold yourself and learning those next steps after you have those first feelings of safety. Um, and so I feel like I should just do like the whole ramble of healing birth within, huh? So that covers, we go through, um, kind of a basic understanding of trauma and healing and kind of getting really clear on what healing looks like for you, right? Because we all have different definitions of what we want to see in this world. And so it's opening up to the possibility of writing your own story. And so that's what that first module is all about. And then we get into creating your own healing practice

so that you're kind of building a safe space for you to do all this inner work that we have talked about, learning how to get to the root, how to work with your subconscious mind, how to reprogram domestication without all the spiritual bypassing, right? And then we dive a little bit into connecting with yourself and integrating what you've experienced to kind of get back to that feeling of wholeness. And then we learn a little bit more about like visualization, manifestation, really living in alignment with who you really are, and then creating the community that you want to create so that you can thrive because healing does happen in community. And that's, I think what's really beautiful about recalibrate, right. Is like, you are bringing people together to do this in community where we might not have people who are as excited to heal in our real lives in our day to day yeah I think for me at least like COVID was like a big turning point in like the trajectory of I think like the way society was

going like I think we were already headed into this very individual, every man for himself kind of way of being. And COVID obviously rocked our worlds. Everyone's in a different way. But I think coming out of it, it's given us this opportunity to say like, Hey, like that's fucked up. We don't have to go there. Um, we can actually do things different and we're humans. We are supposed to be in community. We're not supposed to be like a wolf living alone, doing everything alone. Um, and also that piece of it's safe to disagree. Like we also don't all need to be on the same page because we are each writing our own book. Yes. Oh, put that one on your Instagram. That was so good. Yeah. Every once in a while. Hey, every once in a while.

Hey, every once in a while I say something really wise. That was really, yeah, really beautiful. And it's so true, right? So, yeah, it's just, if I guess it sounds like the big takeaway here is take the damn pen. Take the damn pen. is take the damn pen. Take the damn pen. Absolutely take the damn pen. And I think like, I don't want to say find your village because that is almost like bogus advice. It's not that easy.

Like you can't just like find them. Sometimes you have to create them. You have to create your village. You have to create your village you have to create your community you have to intentionally hand select who you want in your corner and I think I kind of learned that the hard way and thinking um well and I was when I was preparing for birth and sort of preparing for postpartum I didn't really prepare her postpartum. But I naively thought, oh, like I have,

I have like a supportive friend group. We have family close by. Like my village is just going to be there. I even hired a postpartum doula. Like I have my village. Like I don't need to worry about that. And I mean, like I don't want to poo poo on those people because they, they, they were there in a sense, like in a physical proximity sense, they were there, but I often come back to this visualization and if I could draw, I would probably try to draw it, but

I don't draw. So instead this visualization just stays in my head. And it's this idea of like a freshly postpartum mom with her newborn baby laying in a bed and she's almost like in a hallway and she's surrounded by all these doors. And behind these doors is her village. It's her friend group. It's her family. It's all the people that she does have. Like it's her circle, but they're all behind a door. And I see it that way because one, society doesn't, we've come to a place in society where those people, they don't even know how to step up.

They don't know what to do to support that mom. And that puts that mom in a place of feeling like she's alone, which is why they're all behind a closed door in my little visualization. But it also puts that mom in a place where she has to ask for help instead of the help just being there. She has to knock on the door, open the door and invite that person in. And like, that's how this world is. And that's messed up. That's not how we're supposed to be initiated into motherhood. I've had tons of conversations with my own mom about this because it hasn't been like a point of tension necessarily, but there's been just some,

she's had a hard time navigating how to support me, but then I've also had a hard time communicating what I need. And we both recognize that that stems from just the way the world is and the conditioning that we've both experienced and just the lack of understanding that like socially we have on motherhood and postpartum and all the things but anyways back to my visualization the the flip side of that and how I would love to see the world go is that same mom, same bed, same hallway. But instead of all the doors being closed, everyone is already inside and they're literally like holding the mom up. They're just there. They just are. They know what to do. They know what their role are. It goes back to back in the day when we actually had a village, you had your sisters and your aunties and the wise women and like all of the things like we need to get back there. And I don't think it's easy to do in a physical sense.

I think in our day and age, we have to allow ourselves to take in virtual support. And I think that's a blessing. And I think it's a blessing mostly because the world has gotten so much smaller because of technology, but it also just like opens up the doors to the amount of people that we can actually be supported, seen, held and recognized by. We aren't stuck with just the people that are a certain distance away from us. That's such a good point. That was a big tangent. I did not mean to go there.

No, I think that's a beautiful tangent because like, I mean, I was just having the same conversation yesterday is how do we get to a place where we can feel more community, you know, despite our single family homes and yeah because I don't think the answer is moving into like I don't I think it's we've come too far in modern day society to go back to like the physical layout of having the village and like living with your who I don't even know what it was like back then. We can't go back to that because we're so spread out, right? We live in the suburbs.

We are living in families where like mom and dad have to go back to work. Like it's just, we can't go back to the way things were. So instead we need to create a new world. We need to create a new paradigm. We have to create the village. We have to create space that we so badly deserve. Yes. And it can look so many different ways. And that's part of taking the pen, right?

Okay, before you go, I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode. If you were thinking of anyone while listening please send it their way and if anything resonated with you or you love these conversations please subscribe and leave a review this really helps the podcast algorithms put my show in front of more people just like you and the the last thing, I would love nothing more than hearing from you. So say hi, DM me on Instagram and give me a follow at Nicole Pazvera. Until next time.