About this Episode

Having an identity crisis in motherhood is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not only normal, it’s biological.

In this episode, I share 3 things you need to remember to help you reconnect with and rediscover yourself during the identity crisis that occurs after you become a mom.

Whether you’ve been a mom for 10 months or 10 years, this episode will help you understand yourself better and discover how to replenish yourself in ways that actually work for you.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

Why the identity crisis you experience in motherhood is not your fault — and the biological reason you are literally a new person after becoming a mom
Why trying to get back to your "pre-pregnancy self" may actually be keeping you stuck in burnout and making your self-care journey harder than it needs to be
How to reframe the "failures" you experience while trying to reconnect with yourself — and why trying something and hating it is actually a win
Why good intentions alone won't get you out of burnout — and the types of action that actually lead to real reconnection with yourself
The anti-overwhelm approach to self-care that helps you figure out what to do with your alone time so you stop defaulting to doom scrolling and going right back to burnout

Episode Resources

When you’re ready, here’s how I can help you.

Free 4B Self-Care Framework© Guide: A great way to get started on your self-care journey, this guide provides an easy-to-use framework that makes self-care actually supportive rather than another burden on your to-do list. Get the Guide
Rituals that Replenish: Instant Access Workshop: This DIY 3-hour workshop (1 hour per week) will help you get to know your true wants and needs and will help you develop the habit of practicing one self-care ritual in your daily life. Learn More
The No Longer Last Journey®: Live Coaching Program: This 12-month program includes monthly coaching & community calls, classes, reflection guides, and weekly self-care reminders to help you overcome obstacles, improve your self-worth, and make self-care a sustainable and supportive part of your life. Learn More

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey, I am Mia. Hemstad I'm a wife. I'm a mom

of two kids, and I'm a trauma-informed self-care coach. I also live with diagnosed PTSD and depression. I started sharing my mental wellness journey online in 2017 when I was diagnosed with postpartum depression and anxiety. And since then I've heard from hundreds of women who all struggle with the same thing, putting ourselves last.

This is a struggle that's. Keeping so many women burned out and unhappy through no fault of our own. By the way, I've been working on my own healing as an abuse survivor since 2013, but when I became a mom, I really started to do the inner work of figuring out why I was putting myself last, and how to start prioritizing myself for the first time in my life.

This podcast is about sharing. All of those lessons with you. So if you're interested in hearing honest stories, life advice, and inspiration that encourages you to make your health, happiness, and wellbeing a priority, then definitely stick around. [00:01:00] Welcome to your no longer last journey.

Hey everybody. Thanks for joining me. It is Sunday where I am. It is a gorgeous sunny day in Portugal, and it took everything in me to like not take a nap, but I couldn't fall asleep even though I tried because I really was anxious to get this next episode out to you because it's a topic I haven't talked about before that I think is really important for moms to talk about.

It's about the loss of identity that we go through, the identity crisis that every mom I know goes through. We don't always have the vocabulary for it, but we go through it. And how it affects your ability to like stay out of burnout. Last episode I talked about getting outta the burnout cycle, and I know I talk about that a lot, but there's so many different angles.

And in the last episode, I gave three tips that I haven't given before. One of them I have, but there's two others that are like new, fresh mindset shifts and approaches to your life that can really help you break out a burnout and [00:02:00] sustain staying outta that cycle because you know, sometimes you have a good week or two and then we fall right back into it.

So continuing in that same vein of like wanting to break out a burnout, wanting to take really good care of yourself, wanting to finally be no longer last in your own life, this episode. Is on a topic that I think really naturally comes next, which is okay, Mia, I am striving to put the housework after my self-care.

I am seeing myself as a garden. I am recognizing how important my health and wellbeing are. I'm ready to take this seriously. I'm ready to break out of burnout. I am decreasing and deleting and delegating. I am striving to free up time, energy, and space. Now here I am alone with my own thoughts and I don't know what to do.

This is something that so many moms go through and we have like this embarrassment over it and it breaks my heart, and that's what we're gonna be unpacking in today's episode. We're gonna be unpacking what to do [00:03:00] in this process of trying to break out a burnout and take good care of yourself 'cause. If the loss of identity that we go through in motherhood can leave you feeling stuck and ashamed and overwhelmed at what do I even do, I rarely even get free time.

And when I'm alone with myself, I don't know what to do. And then we end up going back to old habits and patterns, like maybe scrolling on social media, doom scrolling, or going back to just doing chores. 'cause that's what feels familiar. And then we just sink right back into burnout. So that's the topic I'm gonna be digging into today.

But before I get into the three things that I'm gonna share with you, I wanna remind you of two important dates. And that is April 4th. I'm teaching a free one hour workshop. In the past, I've called this , workshop the four Bs of self-care. That's what we're gonna be covering. So if you're familiar, that's what we're gonna be covering.

But this time around, and bear with me as my, my, my brand, this business evolves, I'm revisiting and just being like, this is the weekly wellness check-in webinar. Like I am teaching you my [00:04:00] weekly wellness check-in. 15 minute journaling practice, and within that is the four B self-care framework.

Within that is the 3D boundary setting framework, and this is the weekly wellness check-in that every mom should use in order to not only break out a burnout, but sustain that and actually build a life where she gets to take care of herself. So that is Saturday, April 4th, 12:00 PM Eastern. It's free.

It's one hour. And it's gonna be amazing. And yes, there will be a replay, but if you come live, there's some special prizes and you get to ask her questions and I get to answer them for you. So come live. And then enrollment for my coaching program. The no longer Last journey is reopening on Sunday, April 5th, and that kicks off enrollment week.

That's seven days of. Enrollment week where you get to join the program, get a massive discount and a couple other bonuses. So if you have been eyeing my coaching program for a while, this is my 12 month long, like no longer last immersion experience, and it's not [00:05:00] immersion in the sense that you're going to be doing this every single day, all day.

It's immersion in the sense that I'm not going to give you something that lasts an hour and tell you it's gonna change your life. It is 12 months long. 'cause we meet once a month. There are classes to accompany you every month, reflection guide to accompany you every month. And I've been doing this for five years and I've seen that changing your life takes time.

And when I invest a year with the people who join, I really see them transform and change their life. So those are the two dates. Put it in your calendar. April 4th for the free workshop. April 5th, enrollment opens. And if you're on my. Newsletter, you'll get access to all that, but all the links are in the description.

All right, so how can moms reconnect with themselves after they've lost their identities and why? Why does this matter? It matters so much because what happens in this journey when moms are like, okay, I'm sick of being burned out. I see how it negatively impacts my marriage. I see how it negatively impacts [00:06:00] my kids, my career, my self-esteem.

And I've fought really hard to find time and space for myself, but then now my husband has the kids and I have the house to myself. And I am faced with this overwhelming pressure of how do I best spend , these two to three hours that I now have? This overwhelming, this pressure for me. I remember usually just led to me lying on the couch, scrolling on my phone, and then all my time was gone.

And I didn't even shower, brush my teeth, get the sun on my face eat breakfast. Like it was overwhelming. And I felt really embarrassed by that. I used to be, at this point in time, like I was, like, I used to be very, like people in college would give me. Projects to lead because they knew that I was really good at managing my time, and all of a sudden when I had a couple hours to myself, I couldn't get off my phone.

And it felt really embarrassing and shameful that I would [00:07:00] spend child-free time doing things that made me anxious, doing things that made me depressed. And I was like, why on earth I've been dying for a moment alone? Why am I. Why am I spending my time like this? And I did that over and over again until I just, I don't even remember where the, it dawned on me, but I was like, I think it's because for years I was just serving everybody and living in this martyr mom mindset where I never asked for time alone.

If I asked, my husband would absolutely give it to me, but I really believe that my place. At that time, I was a very religious, traditional person. Not because I wanted to be, but because that's what I was taught. I had to be from a very young age, and I just believed that I couldn't leave the family, I couldn't leave the kids, and so I realized that for years I had been externally focused and that external focus caused me to lose sight of myself, who I [00:08:00] was, what mattered to me outside of my family.

Outside of motherhood, what made me happy, what gave me energy, what replenished and recharged my own batteries which made that time alone so difficult. And so this episode is important because it's so, it would be ridiculous for me to teach you how to, um, you know, believe that you're worth real self-care.

To figure out how to free up time and energy and space to actually make space for you to take care of yourself. And then I leave you with that space and you don't know what to do. And then you do things that maybe don't recharge, you like doom scrolling as an example, and then you feel embarrassed and ashamed.

And because of that horrible feeling, you just go right back to where you were before. This is the really important next step after you have figured out. I really matter. I wanna change this. I don't wanna be burned out. I don't wanna spend my kids' childhood being a martyr mom. I want change. I'm decreasing.

I'm [00:09:00] delegating. I'm, I'm being ruthless about my time. But now I have the time at Mia and I don't know what to do with it. So that's what I'm gonna be unpacking today. And when I was reflecting on what to share with you today, I was like, okay, there are three things that you need to remember as you reconnect with yourself on your self-care journey.

Because part of the identity crisis is, it's truly just a disconnection. From who you are, and that happens naturally. This isn't your fault. It happens naturally and it's connected to the first point, which is remember that when you become a mom, you become a new person. Remember that when you become a mom, you become a new person.

And this is not some cutesy little saying this is actually true on a biological level. You physically change when you become pregnant and you give birth. But you also, uh, your brain creates changes. Your hormones change. We know this, we talk about a lot, but like your brain actually changes.

Neuro pathways change. Certain parts of your brains become larger. Certain parts of your brain, uh, become smaller in order to [00:10:00] prioritize this new function, this new role of motherhood and it's biological. There's nothing that you can do about that. And I really think that as a society, we discount this. We don't really talk enough about the reality that you are a new person.

Your brain has changed. The only time someone's a new brain comes into the picture is when a new person is born or when someone goes through a traumatic brain injury. But we forget that another way that a new person is born or a new brain comes into the picture on this world is when you become a mother.

It's crazy, but I really want you to sit with that. Because I think a lot of us feel like we let ourselves go, quote unquote, and that's why we're detached from ourselves, disconnected feeling an identity crisis when in reality you didn't cause this. This is part of human nature. This is actually mother nature and so.

This societal expectation that we all practice, whether we [00:11:00] like it or not, whether we realize it or not, is that we expect our brains and bodies to bounce back to our pre-pregnancy selves. And I'm sorry I say this with so much love, but you've gotta stop painting yourself in comparison to your pre-pregnancy self.

I see so many videos on social media that are like. I wanna get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I wanna get back to my pre-pregnancy productivity. I wanna get back to my pre-pregnancy stamina. There is no going back to pre-pregnancy U. You will always be post-pregnancy U. That is a beautiful thing. That is an evolution, that is a chapter in your life that was foundational.

Marker

That is a milestone. There's no going back. So the striving to go back to the past is kind of cruel sometimes. I know For me, striving to go back to that version of myself kept me stuck in habits. Ways of [00:12:00] thinking, behaviors, patterns that were keeping me in that burnout cycle because I was trying to live as if I didn't just have two children.

I was trying to live as if I don't have the responsibility of raising two children. I was trying to live as if I don't have the responsibility of paying bills for a family as if I don't have the responsibility of running a home for a family. And all that did was keep me burned out and exhausted. And it wasn't until I accepted, no, I'm a new person now.

I have to change the way that I think, the way that I act, the way that I see myself and trying to get back to pre-pregnancy. Mia was just creating and manufacturing suffering. It was creating all of these obstacles that were making it harder and harder for me to create a new reality that embraces.

The fact that I'm a mother that embraces the fact that self, her needs look different now, that embraces the fact that, my needs are different now. And once I started to accept that and build [00:13:00] towards my actual reality and not this pre-pregnancy reality that society wants me to go after, as if what I went through needs to be this invisible, hidden chapter that is completely undetectable.

You know, I hate when people go, oh my gosh, you don't look like a mom, as if looking like a mom is the most disgusting thing ever. So it's all these little things we hear in society. Maybe you realize that maybe you don't, but by spending energy and time. Trying to go back to who you were pre-pregnancy.

You are participating in your own oppression. I say that with love and you are much better off remembering that you are a new person now and you are building a new reality. One that honors and respects the fact that you're a mother, not one that tries to pretend that you're not. And so I would say that figuring this out and accepting and embracing who I am and making decisions that align with that is the reason why I live in Europe.

It's the reason why I'm able to afford now to go to weekly therapy. It's the reason why I am a self-care coach for others. I built a [00:14:00] career that I love. I get to work in US policy work that literally funds millions of federal dollars into programs that serve moms. Like it's the reason why I just finally feel like I have escaped that burnout cycle.

Now, the work is never done. I'm always kind of nervous that I'll fall back. But it's just like, it's been years to get here, but I don't think it would've been possible if I didn't stop trying to go back to pre-pregnancy me and instead recognize the truth, the biological truth, that when you become a mom, you become a new version of you.

You're, you're a new person. So please remember that as you try to reconnect with yourself, because sometimes I see a lot of my clients trying to. Reconnect with who they were before, try to get back to who they were before. And in reality, you need to actually be, you need to be learning. Like who? Who is this?

Now you're like [00:15:00] meeting this new version of you, but if you're constantly looking around for the old version of you, you're not actually taking the time to meet this new version of you. So that's number one.

Marker

Number two is to remember that reconnecting with yourself is a process that takes time. I've just touched on this because.

In talking about, I live in Europe. I have a career that I love now, like I'm healthier than I've ever been in a long, long time, and that's taken years. I moved to Europe four years ago and before that I made a lot of choices that set myself up to be able to have the life I have now. I would say I've been a mom for almost 10 years, so it's been a process and it's been a journey.

Now. I did a lot of it without any coaching, without any guidance, not because I didn't try to find that, but because all the guidance and coaching I. Did have didn't speak to the problems I was actually facing. I couldn't find anybody that really understood all the things I was going through as an abuse survivor, as someone recovering from PTSD, as someone [00:16:00] who was going through severe postpartum depression anxiety as someone who had two kids, as someone who didn't have any family support, right?

There's a lot of nuances there that made my motherhood journey very complex and very challenging, and all the advice I was reading and consuming and the coaching I was going after and getting was just not. Working for me. So all that's to say that just because it took me 10 years doesn't mean it's gonna take you 10 years.

And that's the whole part of the mission behind what I do here at no longer last is hopefully I can save you some time. So the number two thing you need to remember here is to remember that reconnecting with yourself is a process and it takes time. And so I really want you to see this as a new chapter.

Like Becoming a Mother is a new chapter. We're not trying to erase the fact that we became mothers. We're actually trying to like plant a flag down on that chapter and let it be the milestone that it is, and recognize that we've become a new person. And one thing that I've noticed when my clients are trying to speed up the [00:17:00] process is they don't like the feeling when the journey takes them.

On a down, right? There's ups and downs on every journey, and I notice that they want to only experience the highs. Like they wanna do things that make them feel like themselves, that make them feel good, that help them feel like, oh, I, I know myself again. And they don't want to have to go through the downs to get there.

And that is completely ignoring the truth of the matter, which is that. A process has ups and downs and the downs, and this is the mindset shift I want you to have. The downs do not mean that you failed. A good example of this is, let's say you decide to sign up for a ceramics class. You've been seeing videos on social media.

You've heard a friend maybe take a ceramics class. She said she loved it. You go through the trouble of looking at your budget, finding the money. [00:18:00] Talking about it with your partner, arranging childcare, mustering up the energy, even though you're too tired to go and you go to this class and you hate it, you find it completely boring.

You don't enjoy it at all. And when you go through that, there's two ways to look at it. You could look at it as, oh my God, what a waste of time. What a waste of money. This is awful. Why can't I just find the things that make me feel good, that help me reconnect with myself, that help me not be burned out?

I just completely blew it. And the other way to look at it is, oh, I have new information now. I'm so proud of myself for trying something new. For stepping outside of my comfort zone, for making the effort to do something that's just for me, and now I know that this is something that I don't like and I can use that information into my next decision, into my next move.

I find that people, when they first start [00:19:00] working with me, they're in this head space of every time I do something that isn't the thing. That replenishes me, that energizes me, that makes me feel good. It was a waste of time. It was a waste of money, and they might even feel ashamed or guilty On top of that.

That is the complete opposite of acknowledging the fact that reconnecting with yourself is a process that takes time. And in that time, in that journey, there are gonna be ups and downs. There's no such thing as peaks without valleys. If there were no valleys, everything would be flat. And I know that sounds nice, like flat stability.

But actually that's not life. Life is not this straight line. Nothing is linear, including this process of reconnecting with yourself and learning this new version of you. So it's really important that you see every experience as an experience. Sometimes it's positive, sometimes it's negative, sometimes it's neutral, but it's all information and none of it's a waste.

None of it's a waste. And I [00:20:00] want you, if you show up to that ceramics class or that dance class or that art class or that mom group or that book club that you had high hopes for and it didn't go the way you hoped to feel. So proud of yourself for the effort you put in for you. 'cause even just that effort you put in, if you don't label it as this, like shameful, embarrassing, guilt-ridden, oh my God, I wasted my time.

If you don't label it negatively. And instead label it as, wow, look at all I did for me today to go out and have a break on a Thursday night. It's gonna build up your self-esteem. It's gonna build up your self-worth because only somebody who loves herself goes through all of that trouble. Only somebody who loves herself goes through all of that trouble.

So it's a mindset shift. It takes practice, especially if you're somebody who tends to, pressure herself a lot to be efficient and to never waste a dime or a minute. Life is in the these moments of non-op optimization, [00:21:00] messiness. I know we call it waste, which is such a negative term, but this is just life and you're living it, and I think you should be proud of that.

So now I wanna cover the last thing, which is, remember that intentions are not enough. This is a hard truth, but intentions are not enough and action is where the reconnection happens. So this is why I love my coaching program because I don't just leave everybody with, write down what you're gonna do this month, take care of yourself.

I see everybody the next month and the next month and the month after that, and I go, last month you said you were gonna start going on a morning walk every day for 15 minutes with your baby in the stroller. How is that going? That accountability is what makes sure that your intentions don't just stay on the page and that they turn into action.

That enables you to actually get new information, figure out things that [00:22:00] help you feel good. And I'm not just talking about the book clubs and the ceramics class and the dance class and the fun stuff. Because staying out of burnout also requires the boring and the basic of self-care, which are two of my four Bs in the four B self-care framework.

Basic self-care includes sleep, nutrition. Hydration, hygiene and movement and boring self-care is all the stuff you're avoiding that if you got it done, you would have tremendous peace of mind. So I know I talked a lot about like going to different classes and trying things and reconnecting with people, but truly a lot of the intentions that I make people set when I work with them has to do with basic self-care.

And we spend like five months on basic self-care because it's the foundation from which the rest of your life is possible. Your health truly cannot sustain without it. And so I want you to remember this in this, like, how do I release this identity crisis or move through it? [00:23:00] That it doesn't matter how great your intentions are, if you're not actually making the effort to carve out the time and even money needed, and the childcare and the logistics needed to take care of yourself and meet your needs and practice self-care holistically.

Not just the classes. We're talking basic self-care, boring self-care, brilliant self-care, and bougie self-care. Don't have time to go into the definitions of all of those. I have a free guide. You can get that in the description if you're interested, where I cover all , the types. But that's by practicing all the types of self-care you're able to put into action.

You know all the different things that can help you feel better and that can help you replenish because it doesn't really matter if you're. Trying different classes to figure out what sparks joy for you if you're excruciatingly sleep deprived, not eating healthy and never moving your body.

If you're not taking care of your basic self-care or you're ignoring the boring self-care, like maybe you're in [00:24:00] credit card debt and it causes you a tremendous amount of stress, but you're avoiding looking at those credit card statements, you're avoiding making a debt payoff plan, you're avoiding having budgeting meetings with your partner.

Then the brilliant self-care, like the hobbies and the classes and the friends and the bougie self-care, the little luxuries or big luxuries that can make us feel good, they're not really gonna do much for you if you're ignoring the other half of the basic and the boring self-care. Now when I talk about this and people are like, okay, Mia, I get it.

I don't wanna just. Talk the talk. I wanna walk the walk. I don't wanna just have good intentions written down. I wanna actually do them. And I'm trying my best to like find the time and make the time and like, make it happen. But I'm overwhelmed. I have a list of 10 things that I'm trying to do every single day, and I'm failing.

And it makes me feel upset and it makes me feel embarrassed and it makes me feel ashamed. And I go back to square zero, and this is where the order of priority matters a lot. So what types of self-care you choose to focus on? In any given season [00:25:00] matters and how often you practice them matters to what extent, and I have a free resource that enables you to understand the different types of self-care.

And in my one hour free workshop, the weekly wellness check-in, we talk about the order of priority, the anti overwhelm order of priority. Because what happens when I tell people, listen, you have to take action, is like they make this huge, intricate, unrealistic plan. I don't blame you. We all do it. And they don't know how to like prioritize things so that they don't literally burn out trying to do self care, which I know is like crazy, but it's possible and it's counterintuitive.

So. The anti overwhelm order of priority is part of the workshop, the free workshop that I teach, and I basically explain to you like how to know how much of each self-care to practice and in what frequency, and I spread it out. Some things you do daily, some things you do once a week. Some things you do once a month or once a quarter, and [00:26:00] when you have that plan and you know when to add more, like you start small and you add more over time, it's all sustainable and you're not hustling, like filling your day trying to check off all these boxes and instead you're doing all of this self care, but in a way that works with the season of life you're in, in a way that doesn't overwhelm you in a way that doesn't feel like you're rushing through life.

But you find a way to practice self care that like increases your capacity and makes you feel good. Like, oh, what I did today actually makes me feel energized. It makes me feel able to actually tackle my work to-do list or my, my chores to-do list or whatever. It doesn't feel like, oh God, Mia. I get this message a lot.

Actually. Self-care feels like one more thing to do. Self-care feels like a burden. And to that, I always ask people like, well, how do you approach it? Because that matters a lot. You have to approach it in a way that honors the season you're in. You have to approach it in a way that is. Realistic and doable, and you need to not think that you have to do [00:27:00] every single type of self-care today.

Don't overhaul your diet and your sleep schedule, and when you go to bed and when you wake up and how you exercise and join a gym and try to schedule a coffee date every single week with a friend and start a new class, like plan a solo like date. I, I just. That's too much. It's too much. And there is a way to approach it.

And I dig into that in my free workshop on April 4th. Yeah, just remember that action is where reconnection happens, but it can be where you get overwhelmed and start with the four Bs. And if you need more support, the workshop is where I go into the how of that.

But if you want like something to take action on now, just know that you should pick one to two basic self-care that you're struggling with, whether that's sleep, eating well, hydration, hygiene, or movement one to two, and work on one to two of those in a [00:28:00] very small, small way. So for me, when I wanted to start moving my body more, I did 10 minutes of gentle yoga every day.

That was very doable. I did it with my kids, climbing all over me. I did it in the mess of the living room. I did it in my pajamas. And then when it came to sleep, I just started to read books and listen to podcasts about how to get better sleep. Because I suffered from and still somewhat suffer from chronic nightmares.

It's related to my PTSD. And so for me. Improving. My sleep wasn't about just going to bed earlier. It was about actually understanding PTSD and what to do to, like, what are the options to improve my sleep. And that led me to EMDR therapy, which is a modality of therapy that helps people with PTSD, who have nightmares.

And I've been doing that for several years now, but I finally have seen some real progress in my nightmare. So that's just my version. Like I read for 15 minutes a day about sleep and PTSD and I spent 10 minutes a [00:29:00] day. I'm doing gentle yoga for free in my living room, in my pajamas. So that is how you can start to take action on your good intentions in a way that doesn't overwhelm you in a way that enables you to use what you have to then make more capacity to do more as time goes on.

Right? So those are the three things I wanted to share with you today. Hopefully they can help you reconnect with yourself and, um. See this identity crisis that's completely a part of mother nature and human nature. It's not your fault. It's an organic evolution that happens when you become a mother. And if your kids are older like mine are, you are still on this evolution.

'cause as your kids age and you age and motherhood, you discover new things about yourself, you continue to evolve and change, and it's not something that you messed up on. It's something that you're a part of. Just by the nature of entering into the role of motherhood. So that's all I had for you today.

Again, if you want to access the weekly Wellness check-in [00:30:00] workshop, I'm teaching it live on Saturday, April 4th at 12:00 PM Eastern. And enrollment for the No longer Last Journey coaching program is on April 5th, That is your chance to work with me in a really high touch way where I'm supporting you day to day, week to week, month to month, on helping you uncover the reasons why you put yourself last, and building sustainable plans to actually make that change in your life over the course of a year. I wanna thank you for spending time with me.

I hope this episode was helpful. I'd love to hear your feedback. Please leave me a comment or send me a DM on Instagram and I'll see you next time. Bye.