Shedding Guilt and Finding Joy in Millennial Motherhood
Mar 06, 2024Episode 9
Kate Ikert
Have you ever stood at the intersection of healing and parenting, feeling the weight of both worlds pressing on your shoulders? Let's discuss it! Share them with me in a Voice Message!
In this episode of The Space Between podcast, I start off the conversation by exploring the challenging yet transformative journey of a millennial mom seeking wholeness. This conversation is an open heart, laid bare, as we acknowledge the imperfection that comes with parenting. By sharing my own missteps and moments of vulnerability, I'll show you how self-compassion and making amends—both to ourselves and our little ones—are vital steps on the path to growth. Join me as we seek joy in the simple acts of reconnecting with our inner child, and together, let's uncover the profound strength it takes to break generational cycles.
Ready to join in a community of women breaking cycles, stepping into their power and reclaiming their voice? Join us inside The Collective today: https://www.kateikert.com/the_collective
Have you ever stood at the intersection of healing and parenting, feeling the weight of both worlds pressing on your shoulders? Let's discuss it! Share them with me in a Voice Message!
In this episode of The Space Between podcast, I start off the conversation by exploring the challenging yet transformative journey of a millennial mom seeking wholeness. This conversation is an open heart, laid bare, as we acknowledge the imperfection that comes with parenting. By sharing my own missteps and moments of vulnerability, I'll show you how self-compassion and making amends—both to ourselves and our little ones—are vital steps on the path to growth. Join me as we seek joy in the simple acts of reconnecting with our inner child, and together, let's uncover the profound strength it takes to break generational cycles.
Ready to join in a community of women breaking cycles, stepping into their power and reclaiming their voice? Join us inside The Collective today: https://www.kateikert.com/the_collective
Be honest. You know deep down you're here for more. You feel the calling, there's something you're here to do. But as soon as you start working on yourself, life interrupts and you're zapped back to reality. You feel like you're stuck in the messy middle, the space between being a mum and this deeply profound spiritual being. But what if I told you you don't have to choose one side or the other, that you can exist in both.
Speaker 1:
Hi, I'm Kate. I'm a NeuroSpicy, conscious Mama, human Design Projector and Shaman here to guide you into raising the vibration of the collective, one small practice at a time. I invite you to let me guide you on this journey of growth, healing and expansion. I'll equip you with the tools and the resources to be your own healer, to strengthen your discernment and give you the actual, tangible embodiment pieces that you can apply in your day to day life. And little moments between making dinner, picking up your kids or whatever it is for you, because your spiritual growth doesn't have to be another thing on your to-do list. Pop your earbuds in and let's pretend each episode is our weekly commitment to join each other on my virtual couch for deep conversations about things like how the patriarch he serves no one, embracing your feminine energy in an actual, tangible way, and what it's like to actually break generational trauma so you can know yourself deeply, shed your old self and move into this new paradigm. And let your spiritual growth sit in a box collecting dust in the attic of your mind. Let's navigate it together in the space between.
Speaker 1:
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Space Between podcast. All right, this is a very important episode to share, so this episode is for all of the mums that are you know, I've joked to this on Instagram like parenting yourself while simultaneously parenting your children and maybe also parenting your parents. Okay, so the millennial mums? Okay, so, navigating your healing and growth journey while you're also parenting others. Okay, so I'm going to speak to this, these pieces of this journey, the first being, you know, the first part being how to show up when you're grieving and healing yourself. Okay, so you're in the throes of re-parenting yourself. Okay, holding space for yourself, for your emotions, and then also trying to be a regulated individual for your little ones. Okay, to hold, to break that cycle right, to not do the same things, to not repeat the same patterns, but to be there for them in a way that maybe you didn't receive that support that you needed, right? And so the first piece of this is I'm going to give you logistical things and tangible things, and I'm also going to give you gentle reminders. So the first gentle reminder is to be compassionate with yourself.
Speaker 1:
Okay, this is, healing is not linear. Okay, I mess up and I continue to mess up, and what matters is their repair. Okay, what matters is the forgiveness. I was unregulated, overtired. I am human, I am navigating all the things that everybody else is as well, and I snapped and I was not my best self and I was not gentle parenting and I was not holding space for my kids, and I had to count it to 10 multiple times by that point. And so it took me taking a breath, walking away, regulating myself again, dropping a grounding cord, separating out that energy, sending energy back to my kids, taking back my life forcentage Okay, I speak to that in other episodes, navigating life as an empath. And then the grounding cord, meditation. So I always refer to those, go back to those episodes and check that out, okay. And then forgiving myself, not dropping into shame Okay, how can I hold space for myself? And then I'm going to speak to my kids and I'm going to say I'm sorry, I'm sorry, that wasn't okay, I love you, you're safe. Whatever they need to hear in that moment, right. Whatever is going to make that moment, whatever is going to repair that rupture, it's not about being perfect, it's not saying that the rupture is never going to happen. It's minimizing the damage and then making the repair and reconnection after that happens. Right, you're human and you're navigating a lot.
Speaker 1:
Okay, doing this parallel journey is hard. It's the hardest thing I think I've ever done. I had no idea that this is what was waiting for me when I stepped into being a mother. I had no idea that I was going to do the cycle breaker work. I had no idea that I was going to be re-parenting myself while simultaneously parenting my children Okay. So on the more logistical side of things, you know I'm going to kind of sprinkle this in here and there, but having a way that you can reconnect with your inner child, okay, having a way to do that.
Speaker 1:
So for me personally, I have an altar. So I have an altar for myself. It has baby blankets on it and a picture of my cute little three-year-old self. It's so cute. I'll probably, when this episode comes out, I'll share a little picture on my Instagram stories, because, man oh man, was I a cutie pie, right? And when I can see her and validate her and love her, that makes all the difference and as often as I can, I try to do something for her. Now this works great.
Speaker 1:
When my kids want to go to the park, I say mommy needs a few minutes. They're getting older now so they're more capable, but I am going to be on those swings. I love being on those swings. As a kid had a hard time getting me to not be on those swings. I loved it. I love being on those swings.
Speaker 1:
So what can you do for your inner child? What can you do to bring some joy? Right? It's not just the hard and heavy, but the good, the joy as well, right? So the other piece I want to speak to is the grief around, and this is a vulnerable share for me, so I might get a little bit emotional, but I just want to speak to this because I just don't. It's wrapped up in so much shame and guilt and judgment and we're stepping out of that, okay. We're stepping out of that here on the Space Between Podcast. We're stepping out of shame, guilt and judgment on ourselves. Okay, we're stepping into radical self-acceptance, love and compassion.
Speaker 1:
Always okay, as someone who had to be a mother figure very early on in their life. There was always this pressure to take care of everybody else, right. And then you know society-speaking and the patriarchy yay always puts us in that role as well. Right, we go just as women. It's like automatically stepping into being on this mom figure, right. And I just felt like I you know life circumstances, childhood needed to step into this mother role sooner than I should have. Okay, fast forward, I have kids still very asleep at the wheel up until you know, five, six years ago. And then all of a sudden, I'm like, wait a second, I have been a mother my whole life. I don't want to be a mom anymore. Like, I don't want to be that mother role. I don't want to just always be responsible for everyone.
Speaker 1:
And I remember coming back from, I think, my second time down for Shaman School feeling that way, being like I just only want to take care of myself right now. I don't want to be responsible for anyone else. I've always been responsible for everyone else and I don't want to do that anymore. And there was a lot of guilt and a lot of shame and a lot of grief around that, and I witnessed it. Right, it didn't happen overnight, but I could see it, I could feel it and I didn't want to look in that box and I was like you're allowed to feel that way. So, if you need this reminder, you're allowed to feel that way. That's a very valid feeling to have so much was asked of you so early on and that was unfair and I am sorry. You were allowed to feel this way. You were allowed to feel the weight of what responsibilities you have. Okay, and I hope that that is permission enough to lift the weight off and loosen the grip on how you think you need to feel, because you are allowed to feel the way you feel.
Speaker 1:
And I tell myself this often, right as I'm still going through this process of expansion and growth and healing, right that there's times that I just don't wanna be that responsible person. I don't wanna be responsible for anyone else but myself. Right, I've had to hold that weight for so long. So when you allow yourself to just feel the way you feel, it opens up space to no longer feel that way. That's how can you loosen your grip on that okay, and by allowing yourself to feel that way, supporting yourself as you feel that way, just meeting yourself where you're at with grace and compassion and love, always, it takes that resistance away. And that is what I've learned in the past few years of like it's hard, it's hard to carry all this, it's hard to navigate all this and it's a lot, and so many more of us are waking up to this and so many more of us are stepping into this and it's just, it's shifting and it's changing and it's not easy.
Speaker 1:
Okay, it is not easy, and so those feelings that you have are valid. So hold space for yourself. Meet yourself where you're at. Okay, you're allowed to feel the way that you feel, okay, okay, so that was a quick little episode, but it's just something that I wanted to speak to. I wanted to speak to this idea of grieving and allowing yourself to grieve the pieces and the ways that this maybe didn't show up the way you thought it would, or it didn't look the way that you thought it would. Okay, and that this is where you're at right now. And how can you meet yourself where you're at with love and compassion, how can you step, go through that grief process right and we get to a place of acceptance. Okay, we get to a place of acceptance and that's the process and it's a journey, okay. So how can you support yourself in this?
Speaker 1:
I hope you, you know permission if you need it, you know, to talk to a mental health professional, to talk to a therapist, to have a coach, to have someone that you can speak this out with, you know, a trusted best friend. These are conversations we're having inside of the collective, which is super magical. Just have a sacred space to be witnessed, right? No toxic positivity, no gaslighting, no like. Well, here's how to help just sacred witness and the power of sacred witness, of just seeing that and validating it and not having to do anything with it. Right, it's powerful and it's important.
Speaker 1:
So I'm hoping that this little tiny baby episode was permission slip that maybe you needed a conversation that you needed to have or listen to or invite yourself in to, to step out of any shame or guilt and judgment around some feelings you may have, around how challenging this journey can be for some of us. Okay, when we're navigating, all that we're navigating. So I wanna send some love your way. I hope that this inspired something within you to just meet yourself with some more compassion and grace and love, as always, if any part of this resonated with you. If you want to have a deeper conversation with this around this, please send me a message on Instagram. Please, you can send a message. Reach out to me below on SpeakPipe. Again, share this episode if it resonated with you. There was anybody else that maybe needs to hear this. So, as always, I love you lots and we'll chat soon. Bye, thanks, lisa.