Episode 9 Transcript

Arivee Vargas: Hi I'm Arivee Vargas. I believe we're all so powerful beyond our wildest imaginations. We have the ability to overcome the fears, self-doubt, negative beliefs and all the other roadblocks that hold us back from having the life and career we really want and deserve. That's why I created the Humble Rising podcast. 

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I want to help you get clear on what a joyful and fulfilling life and career looks like for you. And help you go after it with all you have. Each week, we'll talk to badass inspirational women sharing their journeys. We’ll dig into their successes, their failures, challenges, the different shifts, and their careers in their personal lives and so much more. Be inspired, get motivated, and get ready to rise. This is the Humble Rising Podcast. 

Arivee: If you follow me on social media, you know I had my second daughter about 10 weeks ago. I have 2 other children; my son is 6 and my other daughter is almost 4. You may also know that I have an older sister a couple years older than me. My sister and I had girls exactly 5 days apart. We didn’t plan that; I mean how would you plan that anyway? It just happened that way. But they were born so close together and so we’re experiencing newborn motherhood together. Even though this is my third child, and she is a new mom it doesn’t even matter because taking care of a newborn means you aren’t sleeping, and your schedule is basically your babies schedule which is always unpredictable. You’re learning your baby as you go cause really every child is so different. And your experience as a mother is so different each time, but the experience can be really overwhelming. One minute you’re starring lovingly which I say not sarcastic at all. You are staring lovingly at your your tiny human, and your heart is bursting right with how much love you feel for them. And then the next minute, that adorable human essentially refuses to go to sleep, especially when you're exhausted. Right. And so, you just look at them and you love them, but you're looking at them like, please just go to sleep already and you might feel these coexisting emotions and mental states, right? You're grateful, but you're frustrated, and you can be really exhausted. You feel blessed and you feel a lot of joy because babies are they're freaking miracles, right? They're miracles. But then you can feel sad too. Maybe it's it's sadness because of the incredible identity shift that happens as a new mom, right? So, you're sad to say goodbye to the way your life was before because there are things, you'll be doing differently even though you love your baby so much, right? You can still feel that sense of of loss and maybe you won't work as late even if you love the work you do. Maybe you can go out with friends all the time. Maybe you aren't going to experience travel the same way. I mean, I was not prepared for the challenges of being a new mom with my first Child. I Just I just wasn't. I learned the hard way that I had to learn to really take care of myself. And I had to stop being so incredibly hard on myself. It didn't help that my son didn't sleep as a newborn. I'm talking about literally didn't give me more than four hours of sleep in a row, more than maybe four or five times total until he was maybe four months old when we had to do sleep training and let's be honest, I didn't do the sleep training my husband did the sleep training. I provided the directions from a book that I read. Yes, it was the Ferber method. That's what we did if you're curious. I think it works every time, but by the time my son was two months, I had already hit bottom I was in a pretty bad place, and I was I was really struggling, and I was talking to my sister about that whole experience the other day and she said, you know, that she didn't realize it was so hard for me at that time. Like she didn't know. And I said, well, that's because I wasn't really showing anyone except my husband that I was having a hard time. Uh. Because you feel so blessed and you feel grateful, but you also are struggling and you're frustrated, and then you feel guilty for feeling that way because you should be grateful. It felt like this endless loop. At that time. I mean, looking back now, I know those emotions and those feelings can coexist. But I didn't realize that back then. I also didn't have the tools to help me through that. I was still stuck on how I should feel, not how I actually felt. And that wasn't what I needed to take care of myself. So, my sister were having this conversation and my sister asked me. Well, what advice would I give to a new mom like real advice, right? Like no sugarcoating, because we really don't prepare each other truly for this journey of motherhood and what it's like to have a newborn. It's hard. We don't want to scare people that we love, we don't wanna scare our friends and family who are about to become moms or parents that are supposed to get really real, and it can be really hard and maybe for some people it's easy. For some people, it's literally gravy. All easy. They love it and there's nothing nothing that they struggle with. Maybe that's maybe that's true for some people. I haven't met that person yet. I say it's a lot of joy, but it's a lot of other things too.

So here's what I’d share if I'm keeping it absolutely 100 about being a new mom and and and I specifically I'm thinking about when I had my first son, but this applies regardless of when, you know, if it's your first or second your third whatever order you're having these children in. And so the first one I said to her and this is like a no brainer. The number one thing was when you feel like you're in a rut, you feel like you're in a little hole, you're really struggling to function each day. You should consider talking to a therapist. You know what I love about therapist is that they don't know you. Right. Like when you first go to them, they don't know you. They don't have. They don't know what you're bringing. They don't know your history. They don't know any of that. And they have no judgments coming into a conversation with you. And that's super powerful, right? For you to for you to go into a conversation knowing that the person that's across from you. Doesn't know anything about you and is only going to be hearing and knowing what you tell them. I wish I really did that sooner, right? Like I didn't know any therapist to go to. I didn't know how I would find someone to go to, but it almost doesn't matter which therapist you choose, right? That was just an excuse. I mean, it really doesn't matter which therapist you choose or how you find them, so long as they specialize in postpartum, right? Just pick one and talk to them. Even one session can be a game changer because you just release. You release so much. You release so much, and sometimes they mere things back to you. They reflect back to what you've said they'll challenge you a little bit, but sometimes they just listen. And that's super powerful. And sometimes that's that's what you really need. 

The second thing I told her, and what I tell anyone is to really tell your partner or someone you you trust. You love, loved one sometimes really close to you. What you need. I remember literally crying to my husband, being like I can't do this anymore. I'm tired. You know, I I I don't feel like myself and and you know, telling him my body didn't feel like it was mine. I was nursing so my schedule also was not mine. It was my sons and I just wanted it to stop. And he would say, oh, it's gonna be fine, but but it but it wasn't. It wasn't fine. And so we worked on what I needed. And one of those things was sleep right. I was very sleep deprived. He would take the baby more to help me sleep. My mom came to help with the baby even more so that I could also sleep. But that's just one example of the things that we did to give me what I really needed at that time when I finally spoke up and said, hey, I need help and it's important to share what you actually need so people can help. And so, you can take care of yourself. People say this all the time and it's so true, though, if you don't care for you first it will be really hard to take care of anyone else.  Now we always say that. But then when it comes to really what we need, we we hesitate. We don't wanna be a burden. But really what happens is you become a burden to yourself if you don't get the help you need. The third thing I I shared with my sister was and this is really important, especially if you're someone who comes into pregnancy and being a mother and you love being strong and exercising to have strength and to be fit. And you really do you. That's part of who you are as a person. If you birthed this tiny human and your body went through pregnancy, and I know going through pregnancy and labor delivery and that whole journey is its own book or series of books, right. But let's assume, OK, you've done that, you've gone through pregnancy, and you’ve been through labor and delivery, you really have to be kind to your body and really it's kind to your mind, right, 'cause your mind is what's telling you these things about your body. But you can, you know, you choose to believe those thoughts, but it it birthed a human. And I'm always reminding myself of this. Even now, right 'cause. Remember I have a ten-week-old baby girl, but this was true every time I had my other kids was that I really had to remind myself then as I do now. You know I have to be kind to myself because I I literally birthed a human. And it's something that I have on a post it. It's be kind to yourself because you birthed a human, you know it. It can take a while for your body to feel like yours again. But you know that you'll get there. You're already so strong, your body will get stronger as you ease back into working out or whatever you wanna do when or whatever you do to to stay active really as you ease back into things slowly and steadily, you know consistently, maybe take a walk or being active for you. For your Peace of Mind, is is really important. You know, getting active for even or moving your body for even 20 minutes or 10 minutes a day helps a lot. It's time for you. It's a time to be connected to your body. So give your baby to your partner or a friend. And don't come to me, please. Don't come to me with oh, but my partner doesn't know what to do with the baby. No, no, full stop no, they need to learn. Give them the baby and go take care of yourself, right. Remember, I'm not saying it takes 2 hours. I'm not saying do something for two to three hours. Although I would advocate for that. I mean, if you can do that, go for it. But I wanna eliminate some of the overwhelm right. Some of the pressure. So keep this manageable because when your body isn't really sleeping through the night, it can be really challenging to do a 30 to 60 minute workout. You know you're tired. Your body is tired. Your mind is tired, and it's OK to try for just moving for 10 minutes or moving for 20 minutes three times a week to start, or twice a week to start. Or you know what once. Just try it once to start. Once your doctor gives you the OK or make sure your doctor says it's OK to start moving, but really don't overwhelm yourself. Do it because it makes you feel good. It makes you feel in your body and makes you feel present. It makes you feel connected. Do it for that, for you. The goal is to do what you can do each day. Now the fourth thing that I shared with my sister. And this is really important, especially when you're a new mother, is that, you know your baby the best so you really don't wanna let anyone tell you what to do with that baby except a doctor. Except a physician who has eyes on the baby and is telling you what's going on and maybe you want us to the doctor. You should listen to a doctor, but other than that, you know, there are grandparents and friends who have kids who may wanna tell you what you should do, what you shouldn't do, what you're doing wrong, how your choices are adversely affecting your baby. And I take a hard line on this. No one knows your baby like you do. No one has the right to tell you anything about how you're caring for your baby unless you ask for their advice, I do not do unsolicited opinions and when I get them I either ignore or I clap back, but I choose the clapping back battles where like I choose those. I know most of the time the advice comes from a good place, right? So don't get me wrong, I know most of the people who give you advice and give you their opinion without you asking for it have really good intentions, but it can feel like judgement. It can feel like criticism when. Oh my goodness, all you're trying to do is your best. You're actively trying to not be hard in yourself, so it is not helpful when others criticize what you're doing with the baby because you just get harder on yourself than you feel worse. Right. You have to set the boundary and protect your peace, protect the energy around you and the final thing I wanna mention. So this goes into the last piece and it kind of circles back till we were talking about before. But I wanna talk about feelings again throughout your journey as a as a person, but specially when you're a new mom or your newborn mom, as I call it, right, the feelings that you have right now, the feelings that you experience in each moment, they're temporary. That's what feelings are. They are these temporary vibrations in our bodies, but they're caused by the thoughts that we believe and you can have different feelings at the same time, right? The feeling of, oh, I'm grateful, but I'm tired and I'm kind of frustrated. You have to notice them don't push them down. Notice them, acknowledge them. Name them. You know. When you feel it, think to yourself, ask yourself, where is this feeling coming from? And then think about what you need in that moment in that minute, in those ten seconds, or that you know that day, that week, ask for what you need, give yourself what you need. You are taking care of a tiny human people. It's a tiny human who depends on you for their survival, literally will not survive without you. They're so dependent on you. What a shift. What a shift from what you ever have done before. Someone who depends on you to literally live. Right, but you need to remember to take care of yourself first so you can be the best parent you can be to that human. Don't forget that just because you become a mother or parent doesn't mean you give away who you are for new identity. It's just an identity shift. It's going to require you to approach a lot of things in a different way, and that's all part of the journey, right? It's all part of your your unique journey and it's more like a I always say it's like a redefining of who you are. Yeah, just so don't worry about what other people are doing or what they're saying, or how it looks like they're doing. As moms trust me, you will never know what it's like. You will never truly know what they're feeling and experiencing on the daily. 'cause we we don't, we don't like talking about how hard it is. We like to say we're doing great. Oh, she's so precious. Oh, he's so beautiful. Oh, we like to do that. We like to take pictures and share them. Oh, we're doing great. Two months already. The baby is 3 months. Great, but we don't. We don't like to to really share with what oftentimes are the hard moments. Right. So focus on what's in front of you today. How you feel today. What you need today. End love. Oh my gosh. Love. On that teeny human. But know that it's a roller coaster ride. Right. It's, it's up there. There are ups and down sometimes, for sure, but it's 1000% worth it, right? There's no question about that to me, so. 

Until next time, my friends keep taking care of yourselves and and keep doing the best that you can keep trying to do the best that you can. I'm right here with you. 

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