[LISA LEWIS] The Am I Ok? Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith Fringes, the Holistic Counseling Podcast, and Beta Male Revolution, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. Welcome to the Am I Ok? Podcast, where you will discover that being highly sensitive is something to embrace and it’s actually a gift you bring to the world. We will learn together how to take ownership of your high sensitivity, so you can make positive changes in your life, in the lives of others, and it’s totally okay to feel this way. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. I’m so glad you’re here for the journey. Welcome to today’s episode of the Am I Ok? Podcast. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. Thank you so much for tuning in. I would like to remind my listeners that I offer a free eight-week email course titled Highly Sensitive People. My email course provides weekly tools that help you feel more whole in a world isn’t exactly made for us and I show you how your sensitivity can be seen as a unique gift and how many others are just like you. To find out more about my email course, please go to my website, amiokpodcast.com. Today’s guest is going to talk to us about reducing overwhelm and motherhood with holistic self-care as a highly sensitive mom. I wish I had this information when I was a newly mother, I think that would’ve helped me tremendously. Today’s guest is Peg Sadie. Peg is a wife of 20 years, mom of two boys and trained psychotherapist and resiliency coach. Her own experience with postpartum depression and anxiety and chronic overwhelm ignited her passion to help moms create calm and intentional lives with holistic self-care. Peg is the founder of Resilient Mom Academy, host of the Resilient Mom Podcast, and has been featured in numerous media outlets, including InStyle, Parents and women’s health magazines. She’s on the mission to reshape the legacy of maternal mental health. Welcome to the show, peg. [PEG SADIE] Thank you so much for having me, Lisa. I’m so excited to be here. This is, this topic that you speak to is just something I’m very passionate about, so I’m really excited for our conversation. [LISA] Oh, great. Well, I’m happy and very excited to have you on the show and to be able to help moms that are highly sensitive. As I like to ask all my guests that come on the show, do you consider yourself a highly sensitive person or not? If so, can you share a little story about that? [PEG] Sure, absolutely. I do 100% consider myself a highly sensitive person slash empath. I would have to say I didn’t step into knowing this about myself until not too long ago, like within the past maybe decade, maybe even less than that after I became a mom and I realized that I was becoming overwhelmed very easily. It wasn’t until I found the highly sensitivity as it’s defined. I identified with it and I thought, oh my gosh, it’s like they’re speaking to me about this. So I realized once I found this, that it explains so much for me, it was just such, it was like a light bulb moment, an aha moment. I feel like so many of us moms don’t even realize we are highly sensitive until we step into motherhood because it, I would say like shines a flashlight on how we’re feeling. What else I think triggered it for me was I realized my son, even at a very young age was experiencing, he’s also highly sensitive and he was having problems with crowded areas and loud noises. I realized I’m the same way, but I’m able to manage myself better but I never realized why I was managing my energy this way. I didn’t put ever put a label on it as highly sensitive. I thought, oh, I’m just an introvert. I just like to have my alone time but I realized, no, there’s more to this. This was the first time when I discovered high sensitivity that I thought, okay, now this fully explains why I feel this way and why I get my energy gets strained and why the way I am. Because I do like being around people. I don’t just want to stay home alone, but it was all about harnessing my energy. [LISA] I love that. I love that when like the light bulb aha moment went off and then realizing like, oh my gosh, oh, now this all makes sense. Even for myself wondering how have I managed my life not knowing any of this until much later on in life. I guess just one of those things like resiliency that you just learned to adapt. [PEG] Exactly. Exactly, and I think as before we become mothers, I feel as if it’s so much easier to compartmentalize our life or take a break when we need it or have some quite alone time recharge our energy. But motherhood is 24/7, especially if you’re home with your kids or if you are going to work and then coming home. You don’t have any more alone time. You have your kids around. It is a magnifying glass. It’s like, okay, before you could compartmentalize your life and manage and now it’s like, no, it’s, it’s a 24/7 bombardment of sensory and touch and which for highly sensitive mom is completely draining to be on call because I stayed with both my kids at home with them full-time for the first three years. It’s a lot, you feel talked out, touched out, you just want some alone time to recharge and you don’t know that’s what you need at the time if you don’t realize you’re highly sensitive. So you just feel, you don’t know what to do. [LISA] Yes. As a highly sensitive person, especially caring for like a newborn baby, they require 24/7 care in that you’re responsible for this person. Like you said, like they are attached to you. They’re with you all the time and needing some alone time, even if it’s for five minutes, just to just be with yourself and allow those feelings and emotions to release and also having a partner that understands that too, which I think is a real key component with families. [PEG] That’s so true. Now I remember another part of that it’s not just the sensory, like you’ve said, Lisa. But you’re right that round the clock, especially if you’re breastfeeding, that’s a whole nother dynamic, they need you. It’s not just a bottle. So I remember wanting to take a nap and that high sensitivity, I feel, when my child would cry, I would feel so emotionally connected to my child. They say, oh, let your baby cry it out, or what have you, I could never do that. I explained this to highly sensitive moms. It just goes against the grain of how we function, like it physically pains us to hear our children in pain. It pains us to hear others in pain. That’s the empath part of me. But I remember having to take a short nap. My husband was home and I would have to wear earplugs because I knew if I heard my baby cry out that I wouldn’t be able to relax or rest because I felt so attached. So it’s this, you feel so connected and you want to be there for all the things, but at the same time, you need to preserve your energy. So it is like a tightrope balance trying to figure this out for yourself and manage your energy as a highly sensitive mom. [LISA] I love that. What are some of the things that highly sensitive moms can do to feel less overwhelmed? [PEG] Oh, this is a great question. Well, one of the things that is possible, and speaking to what you were talking about, Lisa, about having a partner that understands is sharing this information with your partner and letting them know this is a real thing that you do need this time. Carving out time for yourself to reenergize away from your kids, I think is one of the most important things you could do. That may be simply learning to set limitations, saying no, not feeling like you have to go to group play dates or be around a lot of other people. If you don’t, if that’s not speaking to you, it’s okay. I feel like as moms, we feel this peer pressure, like we do want to get out and we want to connect with moms but at the same time, I remember for me, it would create a lot of anxiety having to go out and be around others because I was at the time, I didn’t realize what I was trying to protect my energy. Another, I would think is creating, I call it a calm mom toolkit, things that can help keep us centered and relaxed if we feel our energy escaping from us, deep breathing exercises to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, sense oils to also help relax and making sure you’re getting what you need baseline, which is obviously sleep. Having some movement throughout the day and listening to your gut, listening to your body, I would say is one of the most essential things I would share, because we tend to want to like, go with the norm, what other moms are doing, how they’re behaving and feel pulled to do the same things. For me, it was all about listening to my gut, realizing that that’s not for me. And go at your own pace. Go at your own speed. If you don’t feel like going to the birthday party, don’t go to the birthday party. For me, I’d rather connect one-on-one, so if it was like one friend with a baby, rather than go to a big mom group or a play place, those kinds of things. Then you have this guilt about, oh, I’m not doing all the things, taking my kid where they need to go to have fun, but that’s not, give yourself some grace and some self-compassion because your kid is going to be happy if you are happy and your energy is positive and centered because your child can feel your energy regardless of their age or regardless of if you’re smiling or regardless of what you’re doing. It’s this magical connection that you have. So there’s no lying to your child, I always say, they know how you feel. So when you learn to just manage your energy and listen to your gut, listen to your body, what it’s telling you, or you becoming anxious, is it stiff, is it telling you don’t want to do this, that’s when you need to listen to it. [LISA] What happens when you don’t listen to it or even if like you acknowledge it and you’re going to like, well, I’m just, I’m going to do this thing anyways. [PEG] For me, Lisa, I remember I did this a lot, I would just go do the thing and my anxiety would be through the roof for me and I would feel really overwhelmed. That’s how I knew, there’s a difference between having a little anxiety leaving the house. We obviously, when we have young kids, it’s always a little anxiety producing having to get the bag and what happens if I have an emergency and we’re out somewhere and the bathroom’s not nearby, those kinds of things. A little bit of that is normal, but pay attention to that deeper level anxiety where once you get out you still don’t feel relaxed or comfortable, and then you come home and then you feel relieved again. Or the residual overwhelm or anxiety stays with you. We want to pay attention to that. So many moms that come work with me, we find out pretty early on because we do first, one of the first things we do is an energy audit and a self-care audit together. I can usually tell right away by what they’re sharing with me, whether or not they’re highly sensitive or an empath. It’s some simple questions. People don’t even realize and they have so many aha moments. They’re just like, oh my gosh, that’s me. I’m an empath, I think. I never knew, but all these signs and symptoms are me. [LISA] Is that a sense of relief for your clients once they know that? [PEG] Yes. So there is this huge sense of relief and realization that, okay, so it’s not just me, there are other people like me and other moms like me, and this is something I can learn about. The more they learn about it, the more, the more they’re like, oh my gosh, that’s why I feel this way. That’s why I couldn’t let my baby cry it out. That’s why I feel anxious leaving my baby. It gives them such a sense of relief and that they’re able to put a label on it and read about it, educate themselves and have an answer for why they’re feeling that way. A lot of times they might think, oh, I must there must be something wrong with me, I must need medication or why is no one else feeling this way? Because as you know significantly smaller number of amount of the population, about 20% they say, is this way. So it’s not something that’s readily talked about, I don’t think, among moms. So when I bring it up and explain it and share it, and I do this a lot through my email and social media, because people don’t even, women don’t even realize. They’re not even self-aware that this is something that could be explaining their overwhelm or anxiety. [LISA] Well, I hear that and I see that I can, as you’re sharing the details of what to look for, I can definitely see that in me not knowing it when I was a newly mother and having to learn about it as time went on. So I see that you’re on a mission to reshape the legacy of maternal mental health. Why is that so important to you? [PEG] Thank you for asking that, Lisa. I am so passionate about maternal mental health because I experienced crippling postpartum depression and anxiety with my first born. The journey that I took to healing took way longer than it should have. There’s a shame and a stigma surrounding it. My oldest is now, oh my gosh, he’s almost 16, so this was quite some time ago. There really, people weren’t even talking about maternal mental health or mood back then. So it really was very hush hush and I didn’t share it with anyone. The only people that knew were like my partner, my husband, my partner that is my husband, that sounded funny and my mom and my doctors, my therapist, my psychiatrist. I wanted to, I feel like women suffer in silence a lot of times and we put everyone’s needs ahead of our own and we pass down these legacies, mental health legacies intergenerationally, and we become martyrs. Especially my mom’s generation and her mom’s generation it is subconscious. It’s being passed down. I feel like if I can help women self-reflect, get to know their needs, their wants, who they are heal fully and step into their most authentic self and their most authentic life, really be intentional about not just who they are as a mother, but who they are as a woman, that we can shed some of this archetype, the stereotype role that we feel that has been handed down to us from our mother. Because what we don’t realize, I think that so many of us are carrying the wounds and the trauma of our own mom and they don’t even realize they’re passing it. So I want women to heal and move forward and not pass that on to their own children. It’s not just passing it to your daughter, you can pass it down to your sons as well. So I believe the way to do that is, I know having open conversations and really not feeling so alone in your journey and realizing that, okay, this is all of me and I can work through this and I want to be more conscious. I want to be more self-aware. I want to be a conscious parent. I don’t want to pass this down to my own children. So that was a long answer. [LISA] No that’s fine. I’m curious if you want to share or not, I mean, this may be too personal, when you went through your postpartum depression and, I’m just curious, did your mom recognize it? Did she say like, “Oh my gosh, I had that same thing,” or? [PEG] No, she didn’t because she wasn’t living in the same city I was. She didn’t move close to us till my son was about three. But I didn’t get help till I was about one. I mean, my son was, I was one, my son was one. I really, I thought first of all, nobody teaches you what’s normal and what’s not normal in that first year, like, I know I’m going to be tired, but how tired am I going to be? I know I’m going to have some anxiety, but how anxious am I going to be? What’s normal? What’s not normal? So for me, and I thought, okay, I’m a trained therapist, I’ll realize when things aren’t or if I really need help. It took me like almost a year to go get professional help. I always say it’s very difficult to read the label from inside the bottle and that’s how I felt like where I was. No, my mom didn’t say anything because she wasn’t around. Then my husband didn’t know what to look for. He just knew I wasn’t myself, but he thought I was exhausted or tired, but I remember going to my doctor, my internist, and she gave me the little checklist that we look for if someone is depressed. I was like, check, check, check, check, all of it. But I got to a really dark place, a really bad place. I wish if I had had a support system, if I had had a community of moms, if I had had some guidance and just not felt so alone, I felt like I would’ve gotten help sooner, I would have, because I waited so long, it became a more of a chronic condition for me. So it took several years for me to pull through that. [LISA] Oh my goodness. I could see why your mission is so important to you that you don’t want other moms to suffer the same way that you did. That there’s, you can get help right away. [PEG] Exactly. You know what, Lisa, I obviously I think therapy is beautiful and I think it’s so important but, for my experience, talk therapy alone did not help me get to where I felt like I needed to be. So I wanted to create programs that bridge that gap between therapy and thriving. Like I have many moms that work with me that are diagnosed while we work together years because we can have postpartum depression up to our kids are about five years old. Most moms don’t realize that [LISA] Oh, I didn’t know that. [PEG] Yes, isn’t that wild? So I had a mom recently get diagnosed and her kids are I think her youngest is two and a half or three and her twins are five. But yes, so she was diagnosed and they’re in talk therapy in conjunction with my program because my programs give that additional education component and community support component, which I think the community support is so essential for moms to not feel so alone in our journey in conjunction with talk therapy. That’s what I felt like was missing for me in my journey because it’s a very lonely and dark place to be by yourself. [LISA] I can just imagine. Wow. What can moms do to feel like themselves again after postpartum depression or anxiety? [PEG] Gosh, well, it is definitely not a one-size-fits-all. But for every mom the journey is different. We want, like I was saying before, we want to do the baselines because often when we experience depression, anxiety, we stop doing the things that are good for us. Physically, emotionally, we self-isolate. We stop doing things that we enjoy. We stop exercising. A lot of times it’s just like this, and sometimes for me it got to a point where I could function. So to the outside world, you would never in a million years know I was depressed. I was going to a job, I was coming and taking care of my child, but I would compartmentalize and then I would like, at the end of the night I would be like done. I was, but I was miserable inside but I was masking throughout the day. But I would say one of the biggest things is connecting with others. Like for me, I withdrew and self-isolated and I didn’t talk about it. Just one person that you trust and know, making a plan to connect with them regularly and also exercising, that is so huge to get those feel good hormones going in your body. The catch 22 with depression and anxiety is we don’t want to do those things that are going to make us feel better, because a lot of times we think, oh, I need to feel motivated, I need to feel good to exercise, I need to feel good. But the opposite is really true. We need to do those things so we can begin to feel better. [PEG] For me, that’s one of the things I did. I started introducing exercise into my, and I started small just walking outside, getting my vitamin D and I would just make myself do it. That created the me to start feeling better. Then also going back to work, getting a part-time job, connecting with others, having a sense of value community, giving back, doing, I started writing again, doing something that I loved, having a passion project, doing something just for you. Then asking for help, that was one of the big things and self-care, holistic self-care as far as cutting out people from your life that are negative or toxic. This was, when I was struggling with postpartum depression, I wasn’t, I self-isolated. I pulled away from people that were closest to me because I knew that they would know that something was wrong and I didn’t want to talk about it with them because I felt a shame and stigma. Then I started to become friends with some people that maybe weren’t the healthiest for me. We say mystery loves company and energetically that was just festering. It was not helping me to feel better. When we’re coming from that place of low vibration, we tend to attract others around us to that that are also in that low vibration. So I would say making sure you’re surrounding yourself with the right people, people that are contributing in a good way, that are encouraging you to do things that are healthy for you and that you’re not just wallowing in misery or self-pity together because that can be a really toxic, co-dependent situation. It’s really easy to get into when you’re in a low place. [LISA] Well, it sounds like really taking a well look inventory of your life and that may even be overwhelming. I would assume that you just start with one thing at a time and then work your way through like the inventory of what you need to change in your life or add to your life. [PEG] Absolutely. It’s all about the micro habits. Like you don’t, you can’t change it all at once, just like you just said. That in itself, just like you stated, is completely overwhelming. When we’re in this place that is unfamiliar to us, just the idea of having to change or wanting to change can, and not knowing how can bring us to this place of paralysis. It’s like inaction, paralysis inaction. But yes, just, like I was saying, for me it was just deciding what’s that one promise I’m going to keep my to myself today? We’re not going to be able to do all the things and be all the things to everybody, so I’m going to go for a walk today. I’m going to get outside with my baby. Whatever that is, oh this is what I was going to say as far as the self-care holistically, also realizing that it’s okay to do things differently and it might just be temporarily. One of the best things I did for myself when I was pregnant with my second was hiring a housekeeper. I was six months pregnant. I remembered, okay, I’m exhausted. I can’t do this. I started, self-care is not, it gets this bad rap. It’s not bubble, it’s not just bubble baths. It’s not just manicures. It’s really about managing your expectations and doing what you need to do to preserve your energy as a mom, so whether that’s hiring a housekeeper. It wasn’t a luxury expense at that time in our life. I was like, okay, but we’re going to have to cut expenses somewhere else because this is something that I need or doing grocery delivery or having a pre-made food delivery service, getting a babysitter so you can reconnect with your husband again. Coming out of this postpartum depression, your relationship suffers which causes added stress. So these little things that you can do, prioritizing yourself, and just because you’ve done it one way up until that point doesn’t mean you can’t change the script. It’s really important to make sure your partner’s on the same page with you and understands the levity of it and why you need to shift things for the moment. [LISA] I love that. Wow, that’s a really powerful message there. So important, all of those things. So even the self-care it may have to like shift some finances and it’s well worth it, doesn’t mean it has to stay that way forever, but for the time being to help everybody. [PEG] Yes, exactly. It’s funny Lisa, I’m just thinking of a mom that I work with and she had some stressors recently and they were moving location. They moved to a new house and oh, they were in a temporary house in the interim between houses and it had a tiny kitchen and she was feeling overwhelmed and cooking and they had no dishwasher, cooking and cleaning. I told her, I said, Nancy, her name’s not Nancy, but we’ll call her Nancy. I said, Nancy, why do you feel like you have, why can’t you use paper plates? I mean, I know we all want to be environmentally conscious, but in this moment in your life right now where you feel overwhelmed that you don’t even want to be in your house and you feel stressed spending time with your kids, why can’t you just make your life a little easier? Her husband wasn’t there. He would work a whole week at a time and he’d only come on the weekends. So she was with her kids by herself doing all the things I said, just get the paper plates. Don’t worry about doing the dishes. This is temporary. So what if you do this for a couple months? It might cost a few more dollars, but you’re releasing yourself of this stress. So sometimes it’s hard for us to think outside of the box because we’re so used to doing things a certain way we feel that we need to. [LISA] Yes. I totally hear you on that. Peg, what would you like listeners to take away from our conversation today? [PEG] Oh gosh, that’s a good question, Lisa. I think the most important thing I’d love listeners to take away from today, especially if they’re mom struggling with overwhelm is that you don’t have to suffer and overwhelm. That by really prioritizing your needs and wants and restructuring a little bit and becoming more self-aware you are able to move through this with grace and ease. I promise you. I’ve been there and done it. I just want moms to know that they don’t have to suffer in silence because I felt like I did for so long and I was like out on an island. So there are so many women just like you that are suffering and the thing that kills me is social media is such a gift, but it’s such a bane at the same time because we see all the highlight reels, we see all the moms with their kids and families living their best lives and we think to ourselves, and even I do it’s hard. You look at these pictures, you think, what am I doing wrong? Why doesn’t my life look like that? Why am I not experiencing this? I don’t have my kids in matching outfits and I’m not at this fancy vacation or what have you. But I’ll tell you what, I speak to so many of you moms that have the fancy highlight reels, we all have the highlight reels, and I know what’s going on behind the scenes and that is not reality. You don’t realize that these moms are really suffering and struggling right behind that photo. That’s what I want moms to take away with them, is that you are not alone and you don’t have to suffer in silence and you can feel better. I promise you. [LISA] I love that message, Peg. That’s wonderful. That’s really inspiring. Where can listeners get in touch with you? [PEG] Absolutely, they can find me on my website at pegsadie.com. It’s P-E-G S-A-D-I-E and I’d love to hang out on Instagram. My handle is at Peg.Sadie, S-A-D-I-E, and I’d love to share with your listeners a free resource I have if that’s okay, Lisa. [LISA] Yes, please tell us. [PEG] Wonderful. So I have this brand new free resource, it’s called the Resilient Mom Starter Kit, and it is a seven-day video training filled with tools for moms that are ready to create that calm and intentional life that they’ve been wanting to. So if you’re a mom that is right now struggling with stress, overwhelm, or anxiety, you’ll love this training. It’s just little micro video trainings that just pop right into your inbox every day for seven days. It gets you jumpstarted and starting to look at things a little bit differently and jumpstart your feel better journey. I’ll share the link with you, Lisa, as well. You can find it on my website at pegsadie.com/links [LISA] Well, thank you so much. That’s wonderful. Take advantage of that free resource. Thank you for providing that to my listeners. Appreciate that. [PEG] Absolutely. My pleasure. [LISA] Thank you so much for coming on this show today, Peg. It’s been wonderful to have you here and to share all of your resources and your personal journey through this. Now you’re helping moms that something that you went through. [PEG] Thank you so much, Lisa. I’ve so enjoyed talking with you today and yes, I’m so grateful for platforms like yours, which also educates people on high sensitivity. It’s such an amazing resource for people as well. I know it has been for me and yes, I just, I’d love to touch as many moms out there and yes, just let them know they’re not alone. So thank you so much. [LISA] You’re very welcome. Thank you for listening. Please let me know what you thought of the episode. Send me an email to lisa@amiokpodcast.com. Remember to subscribe, rate and review wherever you get your podcast. To find out more about Highly Sensitive Persons, please visit my website at amiokpodcast.com and subscribe to my free eight-week email course to help you navigate your own sensitivities and to show you that it’s okay not to take on everyone else’s problems. This is Lisa Lewis reminding each and every one of you that you are okay. Until next time, be well. Thank you for listening today at Am I Ok? Podcast. If you are loving the show, please rate, review and subscribe to it on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you’d like to learn how to manage situations as a highly sensitive person, discover your unique gift as a highly sensitive person, and learn how to be comfortable in your own skin, I offer a free eight-week email course called Highly Sensitive People. Just go to amiokpodcast.com to sign up. In addition, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email to let me know what is on your mind. You can reach me at lisa@amiokpodcast.com. 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