Matrescence: Crossing the Threshold Into Motherhood

Introduction and Welcome

Opening & Introduction

Britta: Hello folks, and welcome to Transformed by Birth, a podcast about the rite of passage of birth, pregnancy, new parenthood. I'm your host, Britta Bushnell, author, mythologist, childbirth educator and all around deep diver with a side of goofball. I'm so glad you're here.

Today's episode is all about the transformation into motherhood. This is a juicy one, so grab your cup of tea. Take us along for a walk as we dive into the rite of passage of becoming a mom with matrescence specialists Julia Sarowitz and Victoria Trinko. Before we begin, we start the way we always do, by lighting a candle. If you'd like to join me, please do or just take a breath as I light mine. Today's candle is for moms.

For over 25 years, I've witnessed and worked with individuals on the tender threshold of becoming parents. The excitement and trepidation is mixed in a very specific and special type of pre-birth cocktail. During this transformative time, I see them thrust into the cauldron of great change, which makes me think of one of my favorite Rumi poems, "Chickpea to Cook." It's a poem I love, and I wish I could share the whole thing with you here. So go find it and read it if you're not familiar with this poem.

It's a conversation between a chickpea and a cook. The chickpea is arguing with the cook about being boiled, and the cook knocks the chickpea down and says, "You think I'm torturing you, I'm giving you flavor." I share this one line with you, because the cauldron of new parenthood can feel like being boiled in a pot, being transformed from a hard, dried bean into a bean that can be seasoned and added to the beauty of a full meal, but that doesn't make the boiling any less painful.

But there's an additional rub to the whole being cooked in the cauldron of new parenthood experience, and that's it can feel like it comes out of nowhere as few people are talking about it. Instead, we hear the chorus of congratulations, the celebrations and baby showers, the gifts and general baby joy. It's baby baby baby all the time after birth. But what about mothers? Their journey, their transformation, their cooking in the pot of great transformation matters profoundly and deserves not only being centered in the conversation, but deserves special consideration, care and preparation.

That's where today's guests come in. Julia and Victoria are co-founders of Seed Mother, an evidence-based maternal education program rooted in the concept of matrescence, the developmental transition to motherhood. The duo met at Teachers College Columbia University, where they studied and trained under leading matrescence researcher Aurélie Athan and co-authored a study on the impact of matrescence education on maternal well-being, which was recently published in the Maternal Health, Neonatology and Perinatology journal.

At Seed Mother, they guide mothers across all stages through research-informed, interactive learning, grounded in interdisciplinary frameworks, combining resilience-building practices with community connection to support their psychological growth and well-being throughout their motherhood journey. Welcome Julia and Victoria. I'm so glad you're here.

Julia/Victoria: We're so excited to be here. Yay.

Understanding Matrescence as a Rite of Passage

Britta: There's so many ways that our work, the work that you do, and the area of my focus overlap so beautifully. I've kind of been giddy with excitement to have this conversation with the two of you. So can we jump right in? Wonderful. I really want to understand and have our listeners understand matrescence as a rite of passage. Those are both pretty big terms. Matrescence—some people are like, "Yeah, I got it. I know what that is." And other people are like, "wait, what? What's that word?" And rites of passage? So get us there. What do we need to know?

Julia: Yeah, if you haven't heard of matrescence you're not alone. A lot of people haven't, and that's why we're here. So it's like you mentioned, the developmental transition to motherhood, or the process of becoming a mother. So it's really a major whole person transformation that touches every single aspect of your life: your body, your hormones, your emotions, your relationships, your identity and even your spirituality.

The official definition is a developmental passage where a woman transitions through preconception, pregnancy and birth, surrogacy or adoption to the postnatal period and beyond. And the term was first coined by an anthropologist named Dana Raphael in the 1970s who, fun fact, also gave us the word doula. And this was later expanded by Dr. Aurélie Athan in her research in 2015 and that is who we learned and trained under, as you mentioned.

But we learned all about the different aspects of it, and one way that Aurélie explains it, which can be really helpful to just understand the comparison is to adolescence, which is another really messy kind of meaningful developmental shift and developmental life stage. But unlike adolescence, which is really supported with education and language and cultural acknowledgement, matrescence is often invisible.

Britta: Yeah, right. It's often not talked about at all. It's like, "Oh, baby, baby, baby," as I said, and it's like, "Wait, there's a massive transformation occurring for the one who's given birth," right?

Victoria: Exactly. Many mothers that we work with, just the definition alone, which shifts the perspective of "when I birth or when I adopt, or when the baby is first in my arms, I am now mother" to "oh, this is a transformation that takes place over time, and kind of ebbs and flows and comes and goes." I know for me when I was first introduced to the definition of this framework, it gave me full permission to just allow myself to be where I was at that moment. I was seven months postpartum, and felt guilty that I didn't identify fully as mother yet, and it was just so freeing to know that this is a process.

Britta: Yes, absolutely. And that brings us to that rite of passage part. Speak about how matrescence kind of gives that name, as you spoke about, kind of identifies and encapsulates this as a rite of passage. So then, what's a rite of passage? That's my area too, but you name it.

Julia: Yeah. So part of what Dana Raphael did in naming was describing it as a rite of passage, a transition that is as social and psychological as it is biological. And so like all rites of passage, matrescence follows a similar arc: that first stage of separation from an old identity, liminality, or the liminal space, the in between, and then reintegration.

So that is kind of the arc of the matrescence journey and a lot of mothers, often because it's not acknowledged as a rite of passage, can get stuck or lost in that liminal stage because they have no frame of reference or context for what's happening to them. So the rites of passage framework, knowing that across time and culture, people have had guides to usher them through these rites of passage. So when we name it as being such, we can acknowledge that mothers need that guidance and support to be able to move through the stages and come to reintegration.

The Liminal Space and Shadow Work

Britta: I love that, and the idea that one of the things that I have seen in my work, that I'm curious if the two of you have seen as well, is you mentioned Victoria, that getting stuck in the liminal phase, or the messy middle, that place between leaving our past and truly integrating into our new identity. That place between those parts is a place that so often happens in the shadows and is often not talked about, acknowledged, celebrated, given care or attention to. It's like, "Yay, you're gonna have a baby. Welcome, you're a new mom." And it's like, "Wait, what about that messy middle in the shadow between?" which I think makes the transition in some ways quite a bit harder for a lot of folks, which I imagine in the place of naming it, in that matrescence, in the rite of passage, can be part of what is acknowledging that messy middle place can be part of what is helpful for new parents.

Victoria: Right? And something that we do with both expecting parents as well as people who are having their third child and working with us for the first time is not only naming that this is called liminality, but it requires almost a grieving process or a letting go of a past version of self or a past version of relationship, and not only that acknowledgement, but then also offering them tools and perspectives to support themselves within that liminal space.

And as Julia was saying, there were ritual elders, wise women that, for millennia, have supported mothers through the birthing process, even just in the way that we all used to live together, and now we're all so isolated from each other who could hold that space and offer those tools. But in modern culture, we have to rely on ourselves for those tools, and that's something that at Seed Mother, what we really work on is our three pillars are education, ritual and community, and the ritual piece is all about, how do we make these dark, stormy, scary, sometimes times, how do we make them juicy and seeds for ourselves for the future. It's why we're called Seed Mother, right? Like we don't know what the hell this is, but it is going to sprout, and having that trust that it will.

Britta: And so often, there is an energy for new parents, of feeling like they are in darkness and in that place of it can be hard to realize that they're a seed that's been planted and just dating themselves, not just in darkness, right? They're the chickpea getting cooked in that pot. I love that ritual is a piece of it, community and education. Those are phenomenal pillars. I'd love to hear you speak about what are some of the things that you educate about? Let's start with the first one.

Education: The Foundation of Understanding

Victoria: Matrescence. So the first thing that we really hit on is this is a framework that has so much research behind it, that is so inclusive, there's nothing prescriptive about the matrescence framework, right? It is saying this is what happens, what mothers have reported happened to them in this process of becoming a mother. It is defined by the mother, when their matrescence journey begins, when their matrescence journey ends, if it ends. So it's all about their own experience. So that is really where we begin, and then we do go into the research and sort of writings around rites of passage and major life transitions.

Something that Julia and I, where we saw so much beautiful alignment in is I came into this work through I had had a baby during the pandemic, and it rocked me, and Julia had recently experienced a major loss in her life, and we noticed that we were going through major life transitions, through these rites of passage, whether we wanted to or not, and the tools and the things that we needed that helped us to move through the liminal and how to harness it for our personal transformation were in such alignment. So we deep-dived into rites of passage research, and so that's another thing that we really prioritize in our education component.

Julia: Yeah, I think the other thing that is really helpful that we name in our workshops is these different domains of change, of matrescence. So a lot of times when people become parents, they are expecting some of maybe the biological changes that they might experience, how their body is going to change, but they're not expecting the other changes that happen across all different areas of their life: changes to their relationship with their partner, with their friends, their relationship to their career, just even general economic changes that are happening to them, moral, political, existential, spiritual changes, all these different things. There's also neurobiological changes. Your brain is completely changing during that phase.

And one thing that I think is really cool is that a lot of the recent research has shown that these changes actually can happen even for non-birthing parents. So it's also showing that no matter how you come into motherhood, you're also going through a lot of these neurobiological and just developmental shifts. So bringing that developmental framework, that this is something that's affecting all parts of your life, and that's something that's not always named or talked about beforehand.

Britta: Yes, absolutely so much change. And the universal of this time is change. The constant is change.

Victoria: And something that I find to be so beautiful when we open to that, so often we have women or budding mothers in our workshops who are saying, "I'm just struggling with letting go of control, like I can't control how my pregnancy is going. I can't control what's happening with my friendships right now." And something for me when I reflect back on my first matrescence journey with my first son, is that was the theme of it was, "oh, this is a rite of passage, of letting go of control and coming back into this feminine space," and there are so many lessons that we can take into and bless the rest of our life with as we move through this, that this lack of control and just having to roll with those changes can offer both us and the world around us.

Britta: Yeah, and it's understandably very challenging. I have deep respect and an empathetic tenderness and warmth in my heart witnessing that struggle with control, because everything in our lives leading up to that moment has taught us to believe the illusion of control, right? And so, of course, we're at a threshold of "Holy fuck, I can't control anything."

Victoria: Right? Welcome to the rest of your life.

Britta: Because when we have a human who we care about so much in our lives, who has their own wants and needs and personality and vibration and hormonal makeup that we want to help in this profound, visceral way, we're going to be challenged with control.

Resilience: Tools for the Journey

Julia: Yeah, those are the things that have made us successful, maybe in our careers or in our personalized our friendships, but they aren't always things that serve us in parenthood, and that lesson of letting go of that attachment or that attachment to the outcome is such a tough lesson, but it's also one of the amazing fertile ground that you have for personal growth in this process that mirrors a lot of the spiritual growth that people go through when they go through something really traumatic or other major life transitions.

Britta: Right? It's part of that ordeal, part of the transition of the rite of passage, of that initiatory aspect, being that place of loss, of letting go of identity, cooking the identity in the cauldron of alchemical change, and it's intense, which makes me think about the part of your work that is about resilience. Can you speak to that? What do we mean when we talk about resilience, and how can resilience work? So many parents feel like, "Oh yeah, I'm totally resilient. Look at what I can do." But this requires something else, something special. So talk to me about the resilience aspect of your work.

Julia: Yeah, so when we refer to resilience, it's really this idea of having psychological flexibility and also knowing, even when you're faced with really challenging situations, that you will get to the other side that you have the tools to make your way and by looking back on previous things, that you have the inner resources to make your way through it, and that looks differently for everyone. There's no set of tools in one person's toolbox works for one person, and different tools work for a different person.

But so much of what we do is this idea of the ritual practice giving people an example or trying out all these different tools that they can take to help them with stress management, with coping skills, with the ability to face stress and challenges in their life. That doesn't necessarily make it any less difficult or challenging while you're in the midst of it, which is such...

Britta: That's such an important part of resilience work. I feel like I just wanted to pause you, because that piece feels so important and often missed when we're talking about this, that sometimes there is a false belief that if you're resilient, it's now easy.

Julia: And I want to say that's not always the case.

Britta: Yeah, absolutely not.

Julia: So that piece that you're giving tools and it sounds like a whole collection of tools, so not a one size fits all, but a collection of tools for folks to be able to keep moving through even challenging...

Victoria: We really prioritize not being prescriptive with what tools people should be practicing, but so we do a variety of different ritual practices throughout each of our sessions. And we always want to remind, particularly our expectant mothers, that what works for them in pregnancy might not work for them in the first three months postpartum, and that, again, this idea of being flexible and of moving sort of like water, right? We're just going to allow ourselves to shape shift as we need to. Maybe journaling is not going to happen for 12 months post baby, like, who knows, but just so that they know what works for them in the moment might not work for them a little bit later, but there are other tools in their toolbox that they can bring in, even if it is one deep breath before responding, which is such a powerful tool.

Britta: Oh, it's an absolutely powerful tool. I mean, I have grown children now, but I still need that tool in my parenthood toolbox. One of the things you just said, Victoria, was noticing what works. And so I'm curious what is the definition of something working, because even that can have a sense of fallacy for some folks.

Cultivating Intuition and Inner Wisdom

Victoria: So before we even go into ritual, we wait until session four of six to even really deep dive into ritual, because the thing that we really try to communicate to the women that we work with is hearing your intuition. So before we know what works, before we're trying on all the different ritual outfits, right? We need to know, how do I hear that voice? How do I know that this is me. I'm pointing to my heart right now. This is me. This is not the noise. This is me, the little flag inside of me, saying, "yes." This is my intuition, and so that's what we start with.

Is okay, we're going to be present, we're going to ground, we're going to tune into breath, and we're just going to notice, how much more easily are you able to hear what you really want or what you really need as compared to what you are being told you should want or should need. So once we can tune into our intuitive sense and figure out how to access that, then we can try on rituals. Because what we realize is, when we have that connection to intuition thanks to a ritual, then that's perfect, a perfect opportunity to then take whatever next step or to continue swimming in the stormy waters that you may be in.

Julia: Yeah. And just to add on to that, I think one thing my meditation teacher used to say to me was, "it's not about quieting your mind, it's about making friends with it." So there can be a really big misnomer in mindfulness practices that the goal of meditation is to be this Zen Buddhist monk on top of a mountain. The goal is really just to be able to sit in the discomfort of your mind and to treat it with loving kindness and compassion and non-judgment.

So that's more so the quote, unquote outcome that we're looking for, not that you're going to be this calm, cool and collected mother for the rest of your life, it's that you can treat yourself with compassion when you're in the midst of really tough moments, and treat yourself with love and kindness and not try and even if you're self critical, just even acknowledging the self critical parts of yourself.

And then the other thing is, we also use something that we learned in school in positive psychology, which is a field of study that focuses on not just what's wrong with you, but what makes humans flourish. And they have a survey called the Character Strength Survey, and it identifies attributes so love of learning or appreciation of beauty and excellence or things that are your personal strengths, there are 24 of them.

And so what they notice is that when people are doing activities or exercises or things that are playing into their character strengths, they are more likely to go into a state of flow, or that feeling of being alive. So we also ask them to take the survey, to look at, what are the things that light them up, that make them feel alive, that make them feel joyful, so that they're also looking at, what tools can I use that play into those character strengths, so that it doesn't feel like just another thing on their to-do list. It actually feels like something they enjoy doing.

Britta: And so they're also moving and connecting into the parts of themselves that are some of their strongest sides, and utilizing those strengths in service of what's happening in the moment. Did I get that right?

Julia: Exactly.

Victoria: And we also have them reflect on a rite of passage or a life transition from previous part of their life, not related to matrescence, like, did you apply any of those character strengths? So they can see, "oh my god, I totally used my love of learning in that to bolster and buoy myself out of it," so they can see outside of the jar that they're in, and see how they can use how they have utilized them in the past.

And I just wanted to add one other thing, kind of going back. The most mind blowing thing, I think, for mothers myself included, is when someone says, "What is your story? What is your experience?" And I'm like, "who cares? Nobody cares about my story. Nobody cares about my experience. Every time, everywhere I look there are mothers, mine doesn't matter." And I think there is something so profound about looking at someone in the eyes and saying, "I want to hear exactly where you are. I want to hear about what led you here." And I really think that opening up to someone to their own inherent value, the value of their experience, also awakens or opens something up inside them, connecting them to their intuition and to their inner voice.

The Challenge of Expert Culture vs. Intuition

Britta: Yeah, which makes me think about the role of curiosity as well. So when you spoke about the idea of connecting with self loving kindness and tenderness to self and love of self. There's also a real role for curiosity of what's happening for me right now, what is true, and I loved how you spoke about intuition.

And so often in this field, if we can call it a field, right, it's... Are we all in the same field? Yes and no. But you know what I mean? It's like this field of working with families. In this field so often, especially in the space of expecting, there's a lot of hammering of the idea of, "listen to your intuition. Listen to your intuition," like it's this instruction manual that you haven't opened yet. Like it's this, "come on, people, open up that book. Open up that book of your intuition. All the information is in there," and yet that is such a misnomer because our intuition, one is something that needs to be cultivated, right? It's a practice.

Victoria: It's a practice. It's a relationship that has to be nurtured. It's also something that has to be fed like we have to feed it something to eat, and sometimes we think of it instead, like it exists in a vacuum, that all we need to do is figure out what key unlocks it. And I think there's so much more than that, where it's the work that you're doing, and the work that others in this field are doing that are saying, "hang on, how do we help parents listen and feed and nourish and honor an intuition to develop it, not just unlock it?" feels important to me.

Julia: Yeah, especially as women, we are taught to actually not listen to our intuition, to look outside of ourselves, externally for advice, praise, all these things and it takes... when I was in my early 20s, if someone asked me what I thought about something, my honest answer was, "I don't know," because I had never or I hadn't taken the time at that point in time to connect with myself. It took many years of having practices like yoga and meditation and all these things for me to be able to reconnect with that inner voice. So the first thing that we do, like Victoria was saying in our first workshop, is notice what you notice about your body, about your breath, about what's going on in your mind. Because that's the first step. Is just what's going on in here versus what's going on out there.

Britta: That's so critically important, and I... that the place again I come back to this place of feeling a deep tenderness for families and for new parents who are wanting to follow this instruction to listen to their intuition and get it right, because there's that desire coming. Circling back to the earlier part of our conversation about control, that feeling of wanting to do it right, wanting to do it well. And the stakes have never felt higher for most people than when they're raising a child. It feels so damn important that they want to get it right, and then they hit something that they don't have any experience in, and feel the "where's my intuition? And how do I figure this out?" And enter experts, enter expert culture, which is so pervasive right now, expert culture, and what I'm hearing you doing is encouraging and helping nurture something that can re-bring that energy back to be able to... that doesn't mean the expert culture doesn't still have value, but to be able to navigate it, it's like tools of navigation is sort of what I'm hearing you do.

Victoria: We work on that with our participants, where we say, once you can tune in to the things that are that might be missing, right? We used to have our whole village, and that village is not here anymore. So what do we have? Okay, my social support is here, my economic support is here, but I'm really needing X, Y or Z support in this domain now that I recognize that I can intentionally seek expert advice or pay for or read about something that will then inform me so that I can make the right decision, versus scrolling on a social media feed and being inundated with quotes "expert advice" on things that maybe you weren't even sure you wanted to know about yet, right? And then you get that feeling of overwhelm where you can't control anything and it's confusing. So we really love it when we see our participants clarify their needs. Where do I have this hole and then intentionally seek the support?

Identifying and Meeting Needs

Britta: Okay, there's something in there just really hit hard, which is the identifying our needs. Holy bejebuses like that in its own right is really challenging in new parenthood.

Victoria: Well, and there's so much disappointment, like, "Oh, I thought my mom was gonna be XYZ, and now she's not. But I guess I'll have to find someone else to be that." There's so much disappointment.

Britta: Disappointment, and often resentment, the feeling of unmet needs, which sometimes we don't even know what need has been missed because there is a disconnect from identifying, understanding, knowing, feeling our needs. We've done such a super human job of sublimating our needs for a lifetime prior to new parenthood, and suddenly it's like we have them, but we are also off putting all of our energy onto another human, or humans, and the ability for our needs to get met just by happenstance, which may have been how they've gotten met up to that point no longer even exists. Feels so important just that piece of identifying our needs.

Julia: Yeah, and there's also this pervasive idea of the self sacrifice in motherhood, that your needs no longer matter that your needs come secondary to your baby. And I think so much of what we love about the matrescence framework is that it really brings the mother back to the foreground, back to the center, to say your needs matter too, and you can't fill from an empty cup. You need to be able to be well for your child to be well, you need to take care of yourself in order to be able to take care of your child. So the first thing is putting on your own oxygen mask and being able to not just sacrifice all the things that make you you in service of another human being.

Britta: Easier said than done.

Julia: Yes, and that might look very different in new motherhood. It might not look the way it did prior. It might be these really small, micro moments of coming back to yourself.

Britta: And I think that that's part of unpacking this change and nuance that we're moving into with the conversation about matrescence is kind of really shining a light on the myth... I, you know, with me in mythology, I don't love using that word all the time, but the archetype, let's do that, the archetype of the sacrificial mother and how it... often it's being used against ourselves that we're using it against ourselves that we're the "not good enough mother," if we are tending to ourselves and our heart.

Victoria: And it's amazing how having been in this work for many years now, I have been a mother for four and a half years now, and even now, understanding all of this intellectually, and I think energetically, when I choose things for myself, whether that's exercise, whether that's to run a Seed Mother workshop, the guilt is wild, and I just... I know that it's because of cultural programming, right? It needs to and I need to just see it and sit with it and just notice, "oh, wow, that one's really strong today." And it's just amazing how when we do make the choices to not sacrifice all the time, it feels in some ways, against my intuition, even though, when I really slow down into it, tune in, it's in alignment.

Britta: I'm feeling this right. I mean, you're seeing me smile because we can see each other, but I'm feeling this in my body right now. I have an adult son who got off a wait list for an outpatient medical procedure this morning, and I got off the list last night, and I was like, "Oh, my God, what am I going to do?" Of course, he called me and said, "Hey, can you be the one there for me, drive me and drive me back and be there during the procedure." And I'm like, "I have interviews tomorrow," and I had to face that moment. I mean, my child is, this is my baby. He's 22 years old. And I had mom guilt. I had mom guilt as a mother of a 22 year old because I wanted to be there for him. It's like these things. There's an element of it being in here now. I have a lot of years of resilience practices and mindfulness practices and self care tools. And so I was able to name what was happening for me, the part of me that I really want to be there for you, sweetheart, and I'm not going to be able to this is going to be... you're going to need to call Dad and see if he can do it and just be in that place of there are times when this doesn't work and be tender with the part of me that did want to be with him, right, and is sad that I wasn't able to be with him while honoring and celebrating that I instead get to be here with the two of you. But they're real.

Julia: Those conflicts and... they can exist at the same time.

Britta: At the same time. I mean, one of my guiding principles is, and I've... you're able to see me over my shoulder is an ampersand. And is, to me, such an important part of matrescence of parenthood is being able to hold often seemingly conflicting things at the same time.

Victoria: Yeah? Well, and that is where the growth happens. I mean, if we just allow ourselves to be with that discomfort and to understand everything's a season, everything we are going to move out of this eventually, what it's going to look like, I don't know, but that is the source. That is the seed of this sort of leveling up.

Post-Traumatic Growth and Resilience

Britta: Yeah, which makes me think of post-traumatic growth. Can you talk about post-traumatic growth? Because a lot of people may not know that term, and I'd love to understand what it is and what its relationship is to matrescence.

Julia: So it's a field of study within psychology that looks at how people grow through traumatic events in their life. So a lot of the research shows that, despite what we've kind of learned or heard about trauma, that it's very... the effects of trauma are a very real thing, and it's so important that we're exploring it and talking about it. And there's also so much research that shows that most people actually find resilience in the face of trauma. Most people actually have positive growth that happens after difficult or challenging experiences.

Britta: Doesn't mean that it feels good in the midst of it exactly, that it is...

Julia: Traumatic, right? Exactly. It's still acknowledging that these moments and these experiences are incredibly hard, incredibly difficult, and they are traumatic. And it also, I think, opens up the lens of not a more positive aspect, but a more... I guess, like optimistic and hopeful, a hopeful aspect that we have the tools to survive and thrive even when life is challenging.

Britta: Yes, okay, and what's the role of community through all of this. Because, as you're talking and thinking about as you started speaking about it, and I started thinking about trauma and how that can be challenged, so painful and challenging, and growth inducing, resilience inspiring. What about community? What's the role of community there?

The Power of Community

Victoria: I mean community buoys. And it's, I think, to not just community, but a community that is either like minded or that you feel safe or supported with, that can really make a big difference. So within our circles, within our workshops, everyone is encouraged to share as much as they feel called to, so that they can feel fully seen by all of us. And so everyone is holding space for the other. And so we like that sort of little micro community feeling.

But then as well, what we do is we do an exercise in one of our workshop sessions where we have people assess who is your community right now. And for a lot of people who are postpartum, they're noticing that wow, the people that I thought were going to be my community maybe are in a slightly different place. Maybe they aren't as close, maybe they aren't showing up the way that I thought they did, or maybe I'm not needing them so much. And so community is very intentional, and it's something that can be nurtured and can be built, and just like what we were talking about previously, we need to identify our community needs in order to then fill them and grow them.

Britta: Oh, I love that you have to identify your community needs. Like, what does community mean to each person, individually, right?

Victoria: For me, postpartum with my first it was November 2020, I had myself, I had my husband, and I had my baby in my house like we were just in the house. Parents did not hold the baby without masks on until we knew a little bit more. So it was very isolating, and I'll tell you that that was kind of all the community, that there was a big loss and a grief, but it was also so beautiful to have my littlest community in that space. Fast forward three years, my second son and I live in a place that's healthy, community wise, children everywhere and families everywhere. I work in a school, and it's so amazing to see how both communities served right the forced micro community and then this more integrated macro community. But just even seeing that and knowing that has really helped feed my feeling of connection and of support.

Britta: So interesting that you speak about that November of 2020, because I remember speaking to clients of mine during more of the quarantine part of the pandemic, who were newly postpartum, and one of them said to me how surprised she was that she actually liked the fact that it was just them in their home, and that part of what made it feel better to her was knowing that the whole world was sort of taking a postpartum break, that nobody... I just loved it because she was like, "I didn't have the feeling of missing out or that people weren't coming to see me for this reason, or that reason, or any of the things." She's like, "everybody was just postpartum, and it gave me a sense of connection with everybody." And I thought that was such an interesting perspective.

Victoria: What a beautiful way to frame that. And I also think my husband and I learned how to parent without the influence of our families.

Britta: Also have some advantages.

Victoria: Yeah, we got to do it on our own a little bit before other people showing us what's right, what's wrong, this way, that way.

Julia: That also speaks to another aspect of what is so important about community is that you feel less alone in your experience. And that also goes back to the post traumatic growth, or the reframing of these... and in Kristin Neff's work around self compassion one of the components of being able to show yourself self compassion is acknowledging that pain and suffering is part of the human experience. So that idea like, "I'm not the only one going through this," and when you hear other mothers in the group reflecting back, maybe different challenges that they're going through, but challenges nonetheless, you can acknowledge "I'm not alone in this. I'm not the only one going through it."

Britta: Yeah? And that feeling of "I'm not alone" is really important, as is Victoria, what you were saying that there can be an advantage to figuring things out with your partner without a lot of external noise, that can help point your parental compass toward your true north, rather than feeling like there's magnetic fields all over the place, pulling the needle around, right? And that's powerful.

Okay? So I want to find out, I want to hear from the two of you, what gives you hope? What do you see changing? Kind of tell me that there's hope and change for what's happening at this really challenging, difficult time in a person's life.

Hope and Transformation

Victoria: Well, lucky for us, my top character strength is hope. So I am endlessly, wildly hopeful. And I really think that what becoming a mother, this process of personal transformation, can offer us, if we open to it, is this opportunity to challenge how we've been in the world. What actually belongs to me? Is it that control thinking? Is it this sort of need to be linear and to know where I'm going, or is this going to support me in allowing that spaciousness and allowing that beingness and allowing everything to unfold organically, and with trust and with self-love and with knowing.

And again, that to me, that is... we live in this masculine world, and it allows us to bring it into balance with this feminine learned experience, and that's what gives me hope, because I don't think that if you zoom out to the macro what we need, collectively as a planet is more of the masculine control energy, however you want to call it. We need that softness, we need that gentleness. And there's so much power and so much wisdom in it, and then also just everything can be sacred. That hidden, shadowy part of motherhood is the place where miracles can be created from. It's just to me, it's endlessly hopeful.

Britta: Wow, yeah, okay. Hope stayed in your Pandora's box.

Victoria: Yeah, and I see it in the mothers that we work with.

Britta: Yeah, and I mean, I talk about masculine feminine energies, often through the lens of mythology of Artemis and Apollo, and that strength and wildness of that Artemisian energy is really exciting. And the control and focus of that Apollonian has value and balance and space for each really matters as well.

Victoria: There's so much fierceness in that feminine, right? And that's empowering.

Julia: And I think, yeah, something we're seeing so much is also mothers as change makers, mothers that are using this experience of transformation and maybe some of that fierceness and maybe some of the anger from their experience to fuel their energy towards making a change and making the world a better place, and fighting for the rights of mothers, fighting for the well being of mothers, and seeing that movement take place, even despite all the obstacles and challenges that we're being faced with, from a larger global standpoint, right now. It's really inspiring to see that this transformation can actually fuel so much positive transformation, almost on a global and humanity scale as well.

Britta: Yeah, so it's not just about the individuals who are navigating matrescence, but finding ways to make change in the systemic barriers to thriving during that change.

Julia: Yes, one of the slogans for the program that Victoria and I went to is "inner work for outer change." And it's this idea that when you're doing that inner work, you have a ripple effect on society. So the hope is that by supporting and ushering mothers through this process, that will have a ripple effect on larger society.

Britta: Yeah, as my mother-in-law would say, "from your mouth to God's ears," that's one of her favorite sayings.

So as we start to wrap up, where can people find you? What are your handles and your website and all your info, and we'll put it in the show notes. But before I ask you to answer my final question, give us that stuff. What are your offerings?

Resources and Contact Information

Victoria: Our website is www.seed-mother.com, and that's where you can find all of our upcoming workshops, free webinars. Our cornerstone workshop is a six week workshop called Fertile Ground, and that's where we really dive into the nitty gritty. That is the research study that we published is based a lot around that workshop. And then we also do more specific one time workshops, whether that's about motherhood and friendship or partnership. And you can go to our website to see when those will be scheduled throughout the summer, in the fall, and our Instagram handle is @seedmother.

Britta: Great. Thank you so much. Okay, so I have a final question. And my final question is, what's one thing you feel passionately about that you want new or expectant parents to see, hear, feel or know during this profound period of their lives? Who wants to go first?

Victoria: I'll go first. Everything is a season. The only constant is change.

Britta: Ah, yes. Absolutely love that. Julia, what about for you?

Julia: I would say one thing I want them to know is you are not alone in this experience. Motherhood can feel so isolating, such an individual experience, but it's also universal, and it's been done across time, across cultures and... yeah, and you are not alone.

Closing

Britta: Yeah, you are not alone, which is part of why we do this podcast, is to help people know and feel connected to the rite of passage and the journey that this transformative time offers up for us. Victoria, Julia, thank you so much, both of you for being a part of this work that is impacting so many people, and for doing some of the hard work of research and publication, because those of us, like me, who go out there and do speaking things and things of that sort, we need research that has been published in a peer reviewed journal in the past five years.

Frankly, you two know, and I know there's not a lot of it out there about rites of passage during this time. So I am super grateful that you are publishing and doing that work too, because it matters, as well as offering workshops directly to those who need it. So thank you so much for being here and for the work that you do, and thank you listeners for sharing this time with us.

If something shared today impacted, supported or moved you, please share this podcast with a friend. I produce this podcast myself, and your support makes it possible to show a little love for the podcast and these conversations. Please follow, rate and review. If you'd like to continue the conversation with us, please join us on Instagram at @transformedbybirth.

I look forward to being with you again on the next episode of Transformed by Birth. Now let's gather what we want to take away from this episode on an inhale, and with our exhale, we're going to blow out our candle.

Until next time... bye, friends.