Be Happy Again: January 2022

Sometimes life is hard. Like really hard.

We wonder why it’s happening to us, why we need to go through it.

It can be easy to think that we’re the only ones – everyone else is just living their happy and normal lives, while we’re over here by ourselves, not knowing what to do.

The thing is though, that this is a lie – one of the many lies that our brains tell us when we are going through postpartum depression.

You’re a terrible mom.

Your kids would be better off without you.

Nobody else feels this way.

When I first went through postpartum depression, I didn’t know that’s what it was. I thought it was just me – that there was something horribly wrong with me. I didn’t feel the love that I had always imagined I would feel; in its place was an emptiness that consumed the whole of me.

I thought maybe I had made a mistake in getting married and becoming a mom. The only problem was, that I couldn’t go back and erase that decision. I had to move forward somehow, but I didn’t even know where to start.

I talked to my mom and some of my friends about how I was feeling, but it never came with a solution. It seemed like this is just what my experience of motherhood would be – one where I didn’t want to be a mom, but just did the things anyway.

So I did. I kept putting one foot in front of the other, some days feeling okay with my life and some days even feeling like myself again, but that darkness was always there waiting for me.

It came with each baby, once again telling me that I don’t want to be a mom. That there’s no way I can be happy and be a mom for the rest of my life.

I loved that little baby like no other, but the rest of my life could just leave.

I felt ashamed of these thoughts and feelings – What kind of a mom am I to feel this way?

Which is exactly what the problem was: I attached these thoughts and feelings to who I was. I made them mean that I didn’t deserve these children and that I was ruining them by being in their life. I abandoned this part of me because it was the furthest thing from who I wanted to be. I tried to shove her in a corner so that I could just move forward with my life.

And if I know you, this is how you’ve tried to deal with it too. You hope that it will just go away on it’s own, or that it won’t come with the next baby. You don’t want to look in that dark corner, and you spiral out whenever you start to go down that path again.

If this is how you choose to live the rest of your days, I only want you to promise me one thing: That you will stop beating yourself up for it. I want you to be okay with the days that you aren’t okay – to be okay with the days that you hate being a mom – and still know that it’s worth it to stay.

When you choose to do this, it doesn’t mean that you will stay in that hole forever, even though it’s okay if you do. What happens instead is that you quit fighting against it, which will actually allow you to climb out of that hole quicker. You won’t attach so much meaning to when you are in the hole, which will allow you to truly enjoy the times when you do feel happy – instead of questioning the depth of your happiness, or simply waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And if you’re ready to take it one step further, then it’s time to face that corner. Not in a scary-bracing-for-battle way, but in an open and loving way.

It’s time to understand why you have postpartum depression and come to terms with this part of you.

If you would’ve told me back then that the only thing that’s gone wrong is that I’ve abandoned myself, I would’ve thought you were kookoo crazy.

I would’ve told you that no – if I were to live by my parents, this would be so much better. If my husband understood me, this would be so much easier. If I had kids that were further apart, I would enjoy my life so much more.

And maybe that’s true. But it also wasn’t my reality and left me in a place of helplessness because I’m can’t change other people.

I want you to instead, imagine what it would be like to go through postpartum depression without being scared.

What would it be like to stop wishing that your life was different than it is?

What would it be like to clearly explain to your husband how you’re feeling and to have his support?

What would it be like to no longer fear getting pregnant, because you know that you can handle this life that you have?

This is what we are working on in Be Happy Again- you will become the mom that you always dreamt you would be.

How will this happen, you ask? Maybe you’re looking around at your life right now, feeling like your life is the furthest thing from how you dreamt it would be, and you don’t even know where to start.

It’s okay.

I’ve got you.

We will spend four months working together to create the life that you’ve always dreamed of. We’ll meet twice a month, with weekly content, to help you apply the new tools that you’re learning:

1.       Heal Your Mind: Through coaching and writing, I will teach you how to understand, question, and let go of your depression. You will no longer believe that your depression is the truth of who you are. You’ll feel like yourself again.

2.       Heal Your Body: You need to feel safe in your body – to feel at home. Through meditation, yoga, and feeling your feels, you will be able to create that mind-body connection again. You will feel alive.

3.       Heal Your Soul: And last but not least, comes reconnecting with who you are. I’ll teach you how to hold stronger to your faith than to your doubts, and to decide who it is that you want to be. You will know how to just be happy.

Your past up until now is only one part of the story – you get to decide what the next chapter holds.

Are you ready to see what you’re capable of?

Join us - we’re waiting for you.