Kristen
Welcome to the Close the Chapter podcast. I am Kristen Boice a licenced Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice Pathways to Healing counselling. Through conversations, education, strategies and shared stories. We will be closing the chapter on all the thoughts, feelings, people and circumstances that don't serve you anymore and open the door to possibilities and the real you. You won't want to miss an episode, so be sure to subscribe Welcome to this week's close the chapter podcast. I am so grateful you are here with me today for this important topic that we're going to cover. And I cannot wait to introduce you to my guest today. Without further ado, let me jump in and let you know a little bit about her. Amelia Chris is a drama therapist and certified coach in private practice in the Bay Area, California, where she lives with her husband and two powerhouse daughters. I love how you put that in there. I have two daughters as well. She works primarily with recovering people pleasers in nice girls who are ready to deconstruct self defeating patterns and find more ease and joy. Amelia is also deeply committed to birth story medicine work, helping birthing parents integrate and move forward from unresolved issues connected to the experience of giving birth. She believes that supporting parents through a birdie as a rite of passage is an important and often missing piece of creating healthier and happier families. Welcome to the podcast, Amelia.

Amelia
Oh my gosh, thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

Kristen
I am thrilled you're here your bio, I was like, Oh my gosh, we could go talk about perfectionism. Pleasing, the birthing process postpartum, though much when we got on before we got started. You're like this all ties together? Really?

Amelia
Absolutely. I think it does. I mean, so when I started my career as a therapist, and it's been, I guess, almost 10 years now, which feels crazy. I was really drawn to working with women, but also all sorts of people around like, what are the stories that we have about ourselves, and these standards that we're holding ourselves to that intellectually we know are impossible, and that we don't hold other people to generally, but that we sort of make ourselves miserable with have been doing that work in lots of different ways. And then, I guess it was seven years ago, I had my first child. And I had this huge, like personal awakening, I don't think is uncommon, but it was new for me. And all my perfectionism stuff and all my like over researching and overextending and like everything's so high stakes, like was so loud. And as I got my own sort of healing off of that, I sort of started bringing that back into my clinical work, and also in my coaching work with folks, and just really wanting moms and all parents to know like, we can't do this perfectly. And the sooner we let that go, the better we can actually do it, and the better it feels. So that's kind of a centre of all of it. For me, it is such an important conversation to be had. Because we do have these standards in these stories of how we should be as a woman, how we should be as a partner, how we should be as a mother.

Kristen
So tell me about your awakening that you had the birth of your first daughter,

Amelia
I think all of us who've been through this period know that it's like very fuzzy, right? So I'm going to tell you what I remember about it. But I was in such a sort of altered state in early postpartum. And I think most of us are, that I'm kind of reaching into it and telling you from a place that's much more grounded now, of course, but I think the core of it, I have this really clear memory. My daughter, Vera was just a couple of days old. And we'd had some visitors and some people and everyone had been like sweet and kind. And it was like that kind of cocoon postpartum. And I remember my husband, like looked at me and really asked me, he was like, how are you? And what I heard come out of my mouth was, I feel like I just got back from a war and everyone else is acting normal. I want to be clear that my brief experience, I'm not comparing it to a literal war. But that was the emotional tenor of it to me is I felt like I had been through something that I had no place to put in, and no time or space really to process it. And then I like had this tiny person that I was like, I'm gonna take care of you, you have a lot of needs. And so I think when I heard myself say that to my husband, I had this little my therapist brain went okay, let's not forget, that seems irrelevant. So I think that was the beginning of me being like, something has happened to me on an identity level that I did not expect. And for all the childbirth classes and all the reading and all the like good students that I did leading up to the birth, I realised it was like, Oh, I understood maybe what labour was going to be like, or might be like, but I have no understanding of what was going to happen inside of me. And like, in what way was I also being born?

Unknown Speaker
Yes, that's what like when you were talking, I

Amelia
was like, this is the birth I just hit me processes is the birth of the authentic like, parents are being born in that moment too. And I Because that's the thing that often gets lost in the conversation about it. And so I'll now just I'll try to tie this to like in my work with clients now, I often am like, oh, that's the missing piece is because we're not framing it like, Hey, this is a huge experience. However it goes, whatever the details are, this is a threshold that you come back from changed. That's what it means to give birth. Because we don't have that framing or a lot of folks don't. I think there's a lot of self blame and shame about specific things in the labour or birthing experience, like people personalise it. They're like, Oh, I guess I should have done this, right. And maybe if I hadn't said yes to that intervention, and this wouldn't have happened, and it's like, Wait, let's pan the camera back. This is a huge, intense experience. There's no controlling it. There's no getting it, right. That's it. If parents had a sense that, like, that's what this is, rather than there's some right way to do it. I think there's a lot of suffering and like particular birth and medical trauma, that would not be so intense.

Kristen
I'm wondering, this may be a deep question. That's okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna tie this together, because we have our own birthing stories as well, right? We're once a baby, we were in our mother's use, really? How much? Do you think there is a subconscious connection for our own birth process? And then we're now giving birth there seems to be is there a tie in there between these

Amelia
things? There must be is a thing. I mean, I would be interested in whatever research has been done. It's a thing I think that would be very hard to study, right? Because we're talking about like, the absolute beginning of pre verbal memory. Right. Although maybe there are things that pre verbally remember from in the womb? I don't know the answer to that. I think it's a really interesting question. But I do think there is a whether we call it that, like a connection to our own being born experience as babies, I do think there's a collective consciousness around it. I think there's a I don't know, but certainly the birthing parents that I've spoken to, they talk about this birth of labour land, and all these ways that you describe this kind of liminal space between the baby being here and not, I think we all have a sense of how primal and how universal that is, when we're in it. And there's something to that. I think there's something really beautiful there, but I think if we're not prepared for how intense it is, or can be, that can feel scary, right? When really, I think maybe there's a way that we get to contextualise like it's not a coincidence that you at some point in labour go back to like older parts of your brain, right? The talk of ours, right? When we exactly we talked about like our animal selves, they know how to do this. But if we're not prepared for what parts of ourselves might come forward, in the birthing process, I think we can be afraid of things that we don't need to be afraid of.

Kristen
It's very interesting, because we think about semesters, and for those listening, it's your body we know through research through Dr. Basil, Vander coughs, research and others. I mean, he's, he's one of the pioneers, the Body Keeps the Score, we absolutely know that the body holds all the memory even from utero, we are our bodies feel and sense. Even if we don't have the what we call explicit memory, we have more of an implicit memory, which we call the subconscious. Here we are, most women do not talk about their birthing process. They don't process it, because like you said, now we have to take care of the baby. Now I have to shift from my own experience and processing it to take care of the baby. And can we do both? And when we start normalising a conversation around, how was it for you tell me about or the process was like, in a real vulnerable sense. Absolutely. And creatively happy, we're supposed to be grateful we're supposed to meet all these

Amelia
years. So right, that's, I think part of it. And I think this is where it connects to all of sort of perfectionism and patriarchy and these stories about how women and particularly mothers, right, whatever that role brings up for us whatever stories we have about how we're supposed to embody that, that a lot of feelings or experiences are like not allowed. And that I think, is part of what makes us sick, right. To the extent that we struggle and suffer. I think a lot of it is a gap between how we think we should feel or how we think we should present and the dimensionality of what's actually going on. And I think that's a huge thing that happens as part of it. Even as you're talking about like inquiring about birth stories. It's so tricky. I think I can't tell you how many pregnant folks I've spoken to who just while they're pregnant, like they get on the bus and someone wants to like tell them their traumatic birth story. Do you know what I mean? And I think part of that is because it's so unprocessed for so many of us that we have these like compulsive stories that we tell which like that's what a trauma story is right? Is I don't know what I'm telling you because I haven't processed it. And then I'm just like, Here hold all this and you are just like pregnant on the bus on your way to work. But no, thank you. And I think that is like without villainizing anyone in that interaction.

Kristen
I think that's a symptom of the fact that as a society you don't have safe cars. bunch of spaces to talk about what happens for parents. That is such a good point. Because if you're already scared about maybe your loss, something bad happening, we have that fear inside that anxiety inside. And then we're hearing someone else's traumas, but which is birth story, which is really a trauma story and process, and they haven't had the opportunity to tell anybody that is such a highlight point. Can you share more about how that like, if you already afraid? What does that do to the nervous system?

Amelia
Right? Well, I think that's one of the things that's really really, I'm so glad you're asking this because I think there is this really polarised conversation around both pregnancy and birth, and it leaves really no room for the middle ground. And that's where most of us are. So I'll try to tell you more about what I mean. If you think about like strong birth messages or opinions, I hear a lot from like one side of the spectrum that's like, this is like a medically necessary crisis, and you're in danger, and so is your baby until we decide you're not and good luck with your project. Totally so much fear. Then on the other side, there's this sort of message from I don't want to say natural birth, because I think all birth is natural. So I want to just reclaim that that forgets. But from the other side, there's this messaging that like, if you're enlightened or pure enough, you can have this like blissful, even orgasmic experience, right. And I'm not saying that either one of those isn't true for some people. I'm saying, for most people, we feel some amount of fear, normal, and some amount of trust in our bodies and ourselves and the process and the lineage of millions of years of birthing people. I think it's both. And so I think often, we end up in these conversations where what's actually battling is this ideology between whether it's a be afraid experience or a trust yourself experience, and there's no room for like, most of us feel both. It is scary, it is uncertain. And we have coping mechanisms and skills and 1000s of years of collective experience and wisdom to draw on both, not one or the other. And one or the other puts us in us in a bad spot.

Kristen
So share about the shame stories in partum and ashamed story of I'm not doing it good enough. I'm defective. I'm a bad mother. That person Yeah, we're bumping up against it my good or my bad. And am I doing it? Right, right? Which goes into my good or bad. So if I'm told that I'm a good mother, wrong, I'm a bad mother, causing harm to my child, and I'm damaging them for life, which isn't true. We can always rewire networks have some ways there is always healing, we can always do repair work. But talk to me

Amelia
about that. I think that's so big, too. So I think often because there's the setup going into birth, people make birth plans, right, which I think just implies that there's some way that you can control this or do it right. It's like, no, what you can control is how you show up. What do you know about yourself? What do you know about what makes you feel supported and held? What do you know about what you're not into? That's a birth plan to me is knowing myself and entering into the situation in a way that hopefully supports my best coping my best compassion for myself and others. Anyway, that's another rant. But I think what happens is people make a birth plan, and they think it's a report card that the end I'm going to fill out as I met this rubric or not. And the truth is, we don't get to control what happens. That's the only thing we know for sure is it's going to unfold how it's going to unfold. And hopefully, we get to take that as it comes with as much grace as we can. And I think what to your point, what happens is, it gets I think the message gets in so deep that like, this is your first important job as a parent, you're going to be birthing, right? And then when whatever their expectations are about what right means don't get met, then they're like, that was the first thing I did as a and I mess it up, I failed. I couldn't even do that. And I don't think these are super conscious thoughts. I think they're what kind of gets baked in underneath. And often when I'm working with people with in birth story, medicine and processing, what comes out almost every time is it's not literally what happened in the birth. Sometimes there are incredibly scary and traumatic things that happen in birth. But most of the time, the core of it is something in their mind went wrong. Something didn't go the way they thought it should. Or they didn't make the right choice in the moment or they didn't advocate enough or their partner didn't advocate enough for this provider didn't understand or whatever. And the pain comes from what they make that mean about themselves. They start telling the story. If I wasn't so weak, I would have asked for this. They start telling the story, whatever it is, and it's like that's the story that hurts them moving forward that I believe gets in the way of them getting to really be with their kids, which is what our kids need. They don't need us to be perfect. They need us to regulate enough that we can be present and whatever's in the way of that it has to go, you don't need it, they don't need it. It's not even true.

Kristen
So when you're talking what I'll share a story about my birthing process with my oldest, and this is where there's a lot of deep rumbling what you said what you want, what works for you what what worked for you. And I knew from enough that my nervous system could handle and not handle certain people, it was going to take me out of the process, I was going to have to care take them, I eat my mother, and some people love their mother. And that's very regulating to them. So individual, it's an individual, I want to make sure I'm clear on this. But for me, personally, I knew I will have to see her after, after the birthing process is done. I will see her after I'll just have my husband in there. And that will help me stay regulated. And then I'll see her afterwards. So here she comes right in the middle, peek your head, and we had told her the boundaries. This is the boundary, we will see you afterwards. We're very low.

Amelia
Like she's like, does a peak count is that am I still holding her down? She was trying

Kristen
to do it so nonchalantly like I'm hiding behind here and I got her heart and desire to be there. As a mother, I understand you want to be there for your child do you want to see your grandchild born? That makes sense to me, and how hard that was for her to like process. But she really had trouble handling that boundary. And I could feel the difference of seeing her peek around. And therefore having the ability to say and my husband to help because I'm burning in the process. A little bit busy with all that and having that support and having to plan ahead of time. It didn't go according to plan because we hadn't predicted that she would try to come through and having knowing what was good for my nervous system. And what was good for my mental health and emotional health was so important. It is so important not only with the birthing process, but in life. So that's an example of even the people around you affecting your ability to self regulate your ability to centre and keep as calm as you can. I still feel important in this journey of life, whether it's birding or any other event, anything going on in your life.

Amelia
Absolutely. And I think one of the points you're making that's so important here too. And it's a great example. But it's your mom, because some ways we're talking about you birthing but also your experience being a kid and her being your mom, right? And just that sometimes the love that we need the care that we need, it doesn't look like the way they might want it to. Sometimes the care that we need is I'll see you after, and then having them as painful as it may be regulate that that's maybe not, that's not the way they wanted to show the care. But the way to care is to honour what you asked for. And I think that's a huge lesson for all of us with our little ones too. It's like I have this story about how you're supposed to be born so that I can think I'm a good mom. But really like this is going to unfold how it unfolds. And I'm going to make room for what that is and try to love You and me both through it. And that's maybe not going to be pretty but I'm going to try and I'm

Kristen
going to work on self soothing enough to accept and meet you where you are and not take it personally like I'm a bad mother, or you don't love me, or you don't want me or I'm not important enough, although shame stories. That's not our job to manage for someone else. It's our job to kind of be aware of those and start tending to those exploring them with curiosity and compassion and nurturing them. I'm really curious, tell us more about birth story medicine.

Amelia
Okay, so I'm going to try to keep it brief because this is where I get very nerdy. So birth story medicine is a methodology that was developed by Pam England, who's a midwife. She's written some books, her work is really incredible. And then I have another teacher in that programme. Her name is Denise, or mog. So I've learned a lot from both of them. And then I also think it's important to say, and then I'll say more about it is that like this idea of birth story, medicine, or basically stories or narrative as medicine is ancient, and certainly it doesn't belong to like my most recent teachers, like it is an ancient healing, I think impulse in human beings, and there are traditions of it across the world. So I think I was drawn to it because my original training is in drama therapy is in using like theatre and acting techniques therapeutically. And now I'm in private practice. And I do some of that in very small ways, but not in like super performance oriented ways most of the time now, but it is this. It's a one session modality, which is also incredible to me, because I've been doing processing work with people for years around birth stories. And basically it's this very structured, but also flexible time that I spend with birthing parents and they come to the session like knowing there's something about the birth that they need to process. They may not know exactly what it is and that's fine, we'll find it but they know that's what we're there to do. And giving birth they're giving birth to not their birth story, but not their as the baby but Ms. Ms. The mother birdie Yes. And basically what I think is really revolutionary about this method is it's a way of looking at the story and sort of unpacking it It is very different than the way we would normally tell our birth stories like you've probably told your birth story, you've probably heard friends and other people tell their birth story. And usually that version is a very medical version. This happened, this happened, this happened, this happened, this happened. And that's a true version of the story. But there's also a whole inner dialogue about that that's happening in the moment that we may or may not be aware of, in the moment, certainly in later stages of labour, we definitely hurt. But it's helping people to separate in a way, what happened from what they're making it mean, wow. So separation, what actually happened to the meaning they've assigned to it. And so it's not my job to decide what meaning is right or wrong. And I'm not over here saying like, that's not the meaning. But it's a space to put a little bit of space between what happened and what we've decided it means about you. Because that space, we can't change what happened, the birth has already happened. That's not changing. What can change is what we're holding about it, the residue that we've decided to carry forward.

Kristen
Okay, so let me see if I'm getting this in a deeper way to translate this into perfectionism. Okay, so you said the meaning we assigned to it? Is that the birthplace of perfectionism?

Amelia
I think that's a really good question. I think there's definitely something there because I think perfectionism is a lot about the meaning that we assign, it's a lot about like, Okay, I've decided that if I can do this way, then that'll be perfect. And all of that, as you're saying is our own sort of invention. Perfect doesn't exist in an objective way. It's whatever our stories are. So I think that's right. I think that's one of the things that's so powerful about narrative exploration and Narrative Therapy across the board is that it is a type of mindfulness, it forces us to back up and go, okay, but not all of this is what happened. Some of this is all my imagination. On top of that, some of this is my story that that person didn't like me, and my story that if I'd done this, that or the other partner had done that, but it would have gotten different, you know, and those are things that we don't get to know if we don't get to go back and see, is that true? Can we test it? It's like, truth of these things is shaky to start with, and they're not serving us.

Kristen
So what if something else is possible? Okay, then here's another question in terms of the I love this conversation. So me too, we're telling our birth story, we're trying to find the meaning here's what happened. And here's the meaning we kind of assigned to it, how much does that play into postpartum depression.

Amelia
So I think that's a really important piece of this. So there's lots of research that tells us very clearly that an experience of birth trauma is a risk factor for lots of postpartum issues, including postpartum depression. And if we think about the trauma is rooted both in what happened, and in the story we told about it. And so if we can soften that a little bit, or bring some more questions or possibilities to that, then we're able to hopefully, there's some breath around the story. And some, I mean, hopefully, I think the goal for all of us at some point is to be able to just get to a place of acceptance, about not just our birth experiences, whatever they were, but there are so many things that we go through that we don't get to go back and do it again. That's how it went. And what does it mean to be able to grieve some of what we wish it had been, maybe to be angry about whatever it is, you need to be angry about? And also to go, Okay, what healing do I need to move forward in my life without the shadow of this or with less of it is so powerful for people to go there is possibility and hope when you are going through a birthing trauma, postpartum depression, we

Kristen
know hormones, there's so many variables. And we know if we're holding the space to process the body responses to everything, the emotions, the meaning we're assigning to it, the shame stories, getting the hormones regulated, all those things, we're going to be able to move towards acceptance. And I think this is part of the work that I do with people a lot. And I think in some ways, it's sort of a kind of sideways or backwards approach, but it tends to work is like, I'm always trying to help people grow their capacity for self compassion. But sometimes people are like, I don't know what that means. I hear you saying Be nice to myself. But like, I

Amelia
don't know what that means. And sometimes I'm like, You know what, forget talking to yourself nicely. I mean, we're gonna come back to that. But I'm like, let's just especially postpartum when people are so tired and so tapped. And like, let's just go to the body. What does it mean to treat yourself your body like someone you love and care about? That's it, and it's not and you can fake it. You don't have to mean it. But I want you to do it. The way we believe our babies, massage our babies hold our babies, the depth of our understanding, and we don't have to be therapists to notice it's so deep in us the understanding that they need their bodies need us and that their bodies need to be held loved, regulated, fed, nurtured. Rest did write, I'm like, Just do as much of that for yourself as you can. And you don't even have to meet it. But do it. Because I think there's a way that we begin to learn kind of, from the outside into, let's just practice being kinder to ourselves and see what happens. You don't have to get it. You don't have to study it. Let's just take the first step. If your baby needed a hug, you would give your baby a hug. It's not rocket science.

Kristen
It's hard. But it's simple. What I just came up with when you are talking is this visualisation. And I've had clients do this, where if you're rocking your baby, or you're on a glider, you're rocking yourself, like you are rocking yourself up feels exhausted, maybe you feel like you're failing, you're not good enough. Or maybe you're just like, I'm barely, I'm barely making it holding on by a thread. And I'm about to lose my mind. Just get in the rocking chair, can hold the baby or not, can you just rock yourself, because what that does is it tends to the nervous system, and calms your body down. And it's a way to be kind to your point to yourself, it's a way to take care of yourself, I highly recommend people invest in a swing or like outside swing or hammock, or some sort of a rocking device, especially postpartum. You can do it anytime, but especially postpartum. Absolutely. And I think that's part of ties back to your question earlier about like,

Amelia
Are we aware of our own birth rate? Are we subconsciously connecting to our own baby selves, and certainly in postpartum we are, certainly, and that part of us. And it's also so beginner's mind, especially with your first child, but also every child is your first bat child, but you're in this place where you really are at the very beginning of learning, this relationship, this person this role, there's we're babies too, in that sense. And it just, I think we deserve so much more care, not just from others and from society, but from ourselves. Yes, and I think this is a good point, because I know I and many women struggle with asking for help, I should should ashamed, you know, we

Kristen
should all have ourselves that people have heard that expression, but I should be able to make the meals and take care of the kids or I should be able to do it all work. And the reality is, we are not meant to do that. So ask for help is very vulnerable, whether it's your partner, whether it's a friend, a neighbour, it's so hard. So what do you say to women when they're like for help? That's way too vulnerable way too uncomfortable?

Amelia
Totally. I'm so glad you're asking that. So I think there's even a step before that. Before we get to the asking for help. We have to recognise what our even nervous system alarm systems are. And to your point about being like socialised as women, and I think it happens across genders in lots of different ways. Many of us are so disconnected from our own capacity from our own limits from our own bodies in that sense, that it's like ask for help is almost like, we don't even understand like, what, and I think that's part of the training is to start with, okay, how am I doing? Okay, my heart is pounding. That's interesting information. I can't tell you how many I don't think it's just postpartum. But it happens in all kinds of moments. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who are like, you know, to just get in that zone, and like you don't eat, you don't pee, and like the end of your workday comes in, you're like, Oh, my God, we're up here to eat. And it's like, that's what I mean, is being just floating totally above your actual physiological experience, which I think is something that women are taught to do in all kinds of ways. And then you become a mom. And then it's like, there really is this little being who's it's not their fault, but they constantly interrupt yourself connection. And you constantly override your own need to attend to that right. And so I think that's the first thing is like learning how to drop back down and be like, oh, yeah, you're here. You're having an experience. What's that about? And then we can start to practice, like noticing how we're actually doing before, it's like a rage screen. Right? Often, it's like the first symptom. I snapped. And it's like, wow, there was a lot of signals before that, that we didn't hear no shame. But what is it like to maybe start listening a little more deeply? And then I think we can go, Okay, this is where all right when I start having this, I'm going to make this up. But like when my hands start sweating, for instance, maybe that means it's time for me to go to my partner and go, I'm going to take 10 minutes. I'm also not going to micromanage or assign what you do in that 10 minutes, I'm leaving, starting to be able to hear ourselves, because I think the idea of asking for help doesn't even occur to us, when we're not actually inhabiting this space trail. We're not even connected.

Kristen
No, I don't even have it. There's nobody to help here. I'm a robot, just like that's what we have to. And if you've played the prenta phi child, which means you took on the responsibility of being the responsible one in the family system, you help caretaker emotionally, your parents in some way or a parent or sibling, and now you're just functioning From that role of parental FIDE child, don't recognise it because it's your normal. Totally, that's something you're talking about to like, you're just used to taking care of everything you're used to being the one to have it all together, in when you feel like you're not, and you feel like I'm losing it, I feel inside. That's very grief producing and scary and anxiety producing,

Amelia
oh my gosh, it's so do women thing, when, because when you think about the parent of a child is a great example you think about, that's a survival strategy. That's a role that you take on because that's what you need to survive and your family environment. Often, no one's doing that to you on purpose. Like, again, it's not about blaming or judging in the event, it just happens. And then fast forward, you let's say it's sometimes it's a new child, but there's all kinds of levelling up in our lives that make it so we can't do it all the over functioning kind of just like backfires, or something gets messed up in the system. And we can't actually do that anymore. And it's so important. I do this in my work with people all the time, it makes total sense that you're afraid of that because your child self couldn't let that happen. The only way through, was to be in that role. And whether that was true or not. That's what it felt like. And so I think for a lot of folks who think of themselves as like high functioning, achieving, got it together, right? Often, parenthood is one of the first frontiers that they're like, Oh, snap, I can't do it all. This is not possible. And again, then all these first feelings come up. And what if that's your first experience thinking, Oh, my gosh, I can't juggle all this, I can't do all of this. What's going to happen? Like, oh, it's never felt more high stakes, and it doesn't feel possible. And that although it's so scary for people, it's also that's the doorway to choosing something else. Like that's the opportunity to go, Okay, what if I don't carry everything? And is the sky actually falling? And wow, okay, what if I let people around me help. And if the information is they can't help me, then that's important information, too. But we're never going to find out. If we are constantly holding ourselves to this standard that is not just impossible, and like ludicrous, but also really damaging. For us.

Kristen
It can be up where you feel broken, open, awaken. And you're like that awakening process where you're awakening to what you really need, what you really want, and your body's screaming at you and saying I can't, I can't that it has been for a long time. This just happened to be the catalyst to really awaken something in you that's been knocking at the door for a long time.

Amelia
Totally. I mean, I think that's another thing to talk about Cymatics a lot, where it's like, there are so many whispers that our body will give us so many whispers and nudges before it gets loud, before something goes wrong before something. And many of us are just not listening. And also we live in a world that teaches us not to listen, right? Like I mean, there's nothing about capitalism that's like, hey, tune in take a minute, we have to do that work ourselves. And yeah, I think it is, I think, at least for me, being with both of my babies, and having that like mandatory slowdown has been a great teacher, about my own nervous system and about my own pacity even though there have been moments where it has been incredibly frustrating or hard. And I have wanted to push myself through or push them through or whatever I think my grand plan is. But there's something really beautiful about that breaking open and about letting some stuff fall and having the body level experience of oh, I'm okay. Because I feel like our children are here. And other people, our partners, our friendships are here to awaken us to mirror back something in us

Kristen
that is just wanting to expand be released. I remember when I had my second daughter, and they're 18 months apart, and I thought, oh my gosh, what am I doing? Because I know from being a therapist, they have all these needs. And we have what's called secure attachment. That means mom is attuned, emotionally, physically, we have to be regulated to regulate, help regulate our children, all these variables that I know are important. And I remember thinking, I've got two of them, and how am I going to do two. And it was a real reckoning for me on reckoning with my own shame, not feeling good enough as a mother because I felt like oh, I'm gonna mess them up. And they're gonna have insecure attachment or anxious attachment, and I want them to feel secure and who they are. In order to do that. I've got to be consistent with meeting their needs. And it was so much pressure it was I gotta be this perfect

Amelia
mom. It's so exhausting. And what you're making me think about which is sort of my safe place, both as a mom and as a therapist, and certainly in the postpartum time. I kept telling myself about like, when a cots theory about the good enough mother, I kept being like, listen, you're gonna attune the best you can always gonna be able to attune and that's what made seem resilient enough to deal with the actual world. Good job. Love it. I was like, I'm gonna take that and run with it because as you're saying, right, as far as the attachment and sort of the ways that our training can get the best of us that way, we know just enough to like, terrorise ourselves, our kids, we're not going to be able to totally attune, that's good for them. I'm gonna do the best I can. It's not going to be perfect. That's good for them. You're welcome. It's real. It's serious, because Winnicott is one of the researchers who really pioneered the attachment work with your dog, I was like, Oh, you're not gonna be okay. In the real world if I literally attune to every need, and I can't. So that's perfect. We're setting it up, that'll work just fine.

Kristen
So what for those listening and some practical, helpful strategies steps? Yeah, would you say to them, about what particular plus out here, their birth story so that we could take that piece and then perfectionism maybe as piece two. And maybe that's true together? Totally, I

Amelia
think so. Certainly, as far as healing, the birth story goes, or any huge experience like that, I think getting some professional help and partnership, and support is always a plan. It doesn't have to be me, because many of us out there, but I think finding a place, whether it's therapy or otherwise, where you can really, really dig into what the story is for you, without having to feel like you have to take care of the other person without having to feel like they have judgments or their own stories in the way, which often we have like wonderful friends, but they can't really hold that space in the same way often. So that's number one is it's okay to get support. Even if you're not in crisis. In fact, support is for all the time support is for hopefully, so that you don't have to get to crisis. So that's my soapbox about that. And then the other piece that I think is really, really important is really thinking about what were your expectations, or ideas or dreams about what the experience would be like? And where did the experience itself in your mind? Because that's all that matters? fall short of that? And is there a way for you to let yourself feel sad or disappointed, or wish it had gone differently? without blaming yourself for that? Because I think often part of the way that shame, I think works is some of that is kind of self protective, right? Like, if we can say it was my fault, then there's the story that maybe we could do it differently next time. Or maybe we could avoid that pain in some other context. And I think often the truth is, it's not your fault, which means you can't control it next time either. Which means we have to actually get into the deep work of the grief and the sadness, that we don't get to control everything that happens. And when we can get down to that. And actually, I mean, for any of us who've been through grief processes about anything, there's a way to move through it. There's no like bandaid, but there is a way to carry it where it doesn't feel so heavy. And we're not so nice to ourselves. And I think that's the hope that's what we get. That's beautiful.

Kristen
What would you say about perfectionism?

Amelia
You made it up. I mean, I made it up my version too. But like, I think there's so many things, but I think this is the core of it. I think, at least for me, my experience of perfectionism is it's rooted in the fact that I want to be loved and accepted by other people and by myself. But what happens when I pretend that I'm perfect, as opposed to I'm me, is the love and acceptance that I get doesn't even get to me, because I feel loved and accepted for what I'm performing, which is like I'm perfect. And I have it all together and all this the real love and acceptance, the belonging that all of us want is only possible if we let people see us if there's no, it's not coming from perfectionism, that is not a recipe for the thing that we want for. And it's really hard to remember that because I think that we mistake being like, admired or envied or whatever, for sometimes for being loved and accepted, and it's not the same thing. Love this conversation means you're grateful for you, Amelia. If folks want to find out more about you and your work, where can they find you? Yes. Okay, so you can go to my website, which is Amelia chris.com. I assume it'll be in the show notes so you can hit K ri S S? Yes. Amelia chris.com. I also have a newsletter there. I have a newsletter for pregnant folks called soft cheese. And it's basically I created it to be kind of a companion for the pregnancy journey and it's love letters and permission slips and resources and things that I write every week that I like love doing. And yeah, it's just a place to hopefully hold like the all the absurd parts and all the sacred parts and just all of it. How did you come up with the newsletter title soft cheese now you got me intrigued. That was the thing that I wanted to eat when I was pregnant. It was like if you're not allowed, and then I was like actually softness and like cheesiness is very on brand for me like I could provide

Unknown Speaker
a cheese ball.

Amelia
Yeah. And I was like, I just want it to be, it's sort of about like holding it a little more lightly. But also being able to really talk about a lot of it is about hopefully preparing to show up for the birth experience, right? Not planning how it goes, but going like, Okay, how do you deal with fear? What's your relationship to pain? What kind of support helps you practical, sort of know thyself explorations? So that hopefully people feel, you know, it's such a weird thing birth, it's like I say all the time, it's like, you have power, and you get to make choices, but you don't have control. And the more we can just lean into our own agency, and whatever choices are available in the moment, and let go of the idea that we can control it. I think the better off we are. Yes, control is an illusion. And it's hard to wrap our minds around that. Absolutely. And I think you're naming something that is actually central in a lot of people's birth experiences, depending on how their life has gone up to that point, it is often the first real, I mean, face to face with the reality that that's an illusion. And that is a huge shift for a lot of people and not one that they're psyched about.

Kristen
Usually Oh, because like I did everything by the book, like you said, I

Alyssa
did the checklist. I did everything by the book, it was supposed to go this way. Totally the grief and the shock. I mean, really, the grieving process and the shock of that? Absolutely. The shock is so real. And I think that's why I do this first story medicine work, which I love. And then what it has kind of led to a knee is this, like, what's the preventative medicine? What can I do with people so they never have to come to me to process their experience, right? I love that work. And also, that's kind of what the newsletter and sort of some of the new stuff that I'm working on. Is there a way to prepare for this as a kind of, in sort of the lineage of referring medicine right, as a kind of heroic journey as something that's going to be challenging, it's going to bring you to the edges of yourself. And that's a part of it. It doesn't mean anything about you

Kristen
know thyself, it is the most empowering work you'll do and the best investment in yourself, know thyself, I cannot then you can sit that's where boundaries come from. All of them are permission slips and self compassion and empathy and attunement, like all the things come from that place. Working through those shame stories. So thank you, Amelia. So much. I loved our time together, too. It was a joy and I know this will be helpful to so many people. So please go check her website out and thank you for your heart, your energy your time. It's been wonderful. Till next time. Thank you so much for listening to the close the chapter podcast. My hope is that you took home some actionable steps, along with motivation, inspiration and hope for making sustainable change in your life. If you enjoyed this episode, click the subscribe button to be sure to get the updated episodes every week, and share with a friend or family member. For more information about how to get connected visit Kristen k r i s t e n d Boice b o ice.com. Thanks and have a great day.