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Hey, everyone. Welcome to 2024. I know it's already been a week. I did launch this podcast a full year ago in January of 2023, and it has been amazing and I am very excited to continue with it. But I am going to be doing something a little bit different for this month.

I'm going to be releasing some shorter episodes that are More laid back, less like practical things that you can implement in your life, and more behind the [00:00:30] scenes of my life and my experience breastfeeding for a few reasons. One, I think that we need that connection as moms, and I think that that can be something that can be really valuable to you.

More than the, you know, more practical support for things or the educational piece, but that connection piece and knowing that you're not alone in this. Number two is that I have been diagnosed with sleep [00:01:00] apnea, which I've kind of alluded to a few times. I've mentioned in other capacities on Instagram and whatnot, but I'm just saying it here now, and it has yet to be properly treated.

It's just, things move slowly. It's been over a year that I asked for the sleep study and all the things, but it took a long time to get the diagnosis, and then the treatment is still not here yet, which means I'm tired. I know that a lot of you can relate to that, so my perspective sharing these things will be a little bit about that as [00:01:30] well as sharing some of the pieces from My breastfeeding experience breastfeeding for, well, it's been over six and a half years now and tandem feeding for three and a half of those years.

So I'll be sharing about that too over this next little bit. Yeah. So sleep apnea stinks. For those of you who don't know, it's when your airway collapses while you are sleeping. So you stop breathing. Each kind of apnea episode has to last at least 10 seconds in order [00:02:00] to be considered an episode.

It can last up to two minutes. And when I had my sleep study it showed that I stopped breathing about two dozen times. Every hour. Sometimes more, sometimes less. So yeah, that is something that I share with you. To say that, I understand what it's like to be sleep deprived because even though I get a lot of numbers of hours of sleep, my quality is very, very poor and my body is really stressed out.

And it can [00:02:30] impact a lot of things. This is the kind of thing that It can happen when you are in your pregnancy postpartum period due to hormonal shifts in your body. You can be more susceptible to it. And it's something that not a lot of people are tested for, especially young people who are otherwise healthy.

There's a lot of risk factors that I don't have. Most of them I don't have. So it's. You know, it was kind of like an off thing that I asked for the sleep study [00:03:00] because I just, I wanted to pursue it but it's a process to do and it's difficult. That being said, there could be some of you in the audience who are listening who You know, maybe you're waking up exhausted every day, and maybe your kid wakes up a few times during the night, but it feels a little bit disproportional.

The amount of exhaustion that you're having, and headaches, and maybe you're experiencing some other health issues too, it might be worthwhile to bring up to your doctor. So, putting that out there. And as well, I really understand what it's like to [00:03:30] Be not, you know, well rested. And I know that's a situation that many of us are in and many of you are in.

Just from those early young kid years, there can be a lot of wakefulness. So, my experiences with sleep apnea, I feel like, will relate to a lot of you in your experiences with just feeling sleep deprived in general. What I wanted to talk about today was just the idea of being in that survival mode state, because that is what I felt like I've been in for a year. Sometimes I was [00:04:00] really, really burnt out and really low points in my parenting, just feeling awful and having really hard, hard moments with my kids.

Which is really challenging doing this work and kind of being more public and with my parenting and whatnot to feel like, oh, it's all falling apart. Thankfully, I had the people to lean on, the resources to lean on, and all of the things I teach on this podcast, on my Instagram, with my clients, you know, in the [00:04:30] products and the courses that I sell, 100 percent I was leaning on those things.

I practice what I preach in that, in that regard, and it was amazing to really see how beneficial they are because, you know, I talk about them in the context of breastfeeding and how I learned them in those earlier breastfeeding years with my daughter, but they're still applicable, and it was really neat to see.

Like, when I was back into this moment of intensity, this season of really, you know, just intense [00:05:00] stress and just hard, how those things still, still benefited me so much and how they became a lifeline for me. So it would just reinforce for me how important it is to share these things with you, like all these tools, all the things I talk about.

Yeah, and that doing that work when my daughter was younger to learn these things and of course there's things that I've learned before that and along the way and all that but a lot of the core things I teach I learned when my daughter was in that first year or two of life. So they benefited [00:05:30] me so much and I'm so glad that I honed those skills then because I'm leaning on them again in a new season right and I know that I'll be leaning on them.

In many seasons to come. So, when you're in the survival mode state, and there are gifts, that's what I've noticed, that there are gifts of the survival mode we really talk about how the negative, you know, the stress is and survival state is. And I think that that's important.

And I think it's important to call it out and say [00:06:00] that these things are hurting our bodies and our nervous systems and all of that. It's true for me right now. Like I. This is something I cannot stop until I get the treatment, right? So, I'm in this holding, waiting, pause period where, yeah, I am stuck in a survival state and I'm doing the things I can do, as much as I can do to get through it and on my own, but there's just certain things I cannot change about it.

So, From that state of acceptance, I [00:06:30] recognize that there are days that I'm alright, I have a decent amount of energy, I can get through. And there are days that are, like, I don't have a lot of energy, and I can't really get through it. I do get through it, but not the way that I would like to. And that has allowed me, and taught me, and reinforced to me the importance of just being present.

Before I got the official diagnosis of sleep apnea, I didn't know what was wrong with me. I just felt so exhausted, so stressed [00:07:00] out, and I couldn't figure it out. And when I finally got that That you know, the actual diagnosis, it was like, ah, that's it. And I noticed that I could just offer myself this new level of compassion and understanding.

Oh, it makes sense. It makes sense that I'm feeling this way. And that meant that in the heated moments or the stressful moments where my kids were having a hard time and I knew that they needed something I couldn't really give them. They needed to go outside and play. And I didn't have the [00:07:30] energy. They needed, you know, more regular snacks and meals that were prepared, you know, with, with more intention, right?

That they had more, better offerings on a more consistent schedule. And I couldn't offer that because of my just tired exhaustion, right? They needed less screen time, but again, there's just only so much that I could do. And so before I had the diagnosis, I would just beat myself up. I don't know what's wrong with me.

I'm just, I'm having such a hard time. And I guess I'm just failing them and I'm failing [00:08:00] myself and, you know, I just need to snap out of it. But after the diagnosis, it's like, Oh, this makes sense. Okay. And then that allowed me to be present more, right? Cause I wasn't wrestling with this past and this future and what this all means.

Instead it's, I'm here right now. What can I do for me? What can I do for them? What can I offer them? And what do I just need to let go of? Because the reality is the fantasy of the mom that I, [00:08:30] wish I could be, hoped I would be in these moments. It's not reality. The fantasy of a mom who has the Pinterest perfect homeschool lessons and all the meal planning done and everything prepped and all of the stuff out and the house that's perfectly clean.

And that's a fantasy. It's not my reality. So if that's not my reality, then what, what am I going to do? What is the reality? The reality is, I have two kids in [00:09:00] front of me who need to eat right now, right? They're hungry. And I have a limited capacity.

What do I have in the house, right? What can I offer them? If it doesn't need to be Pinterest perfect and, you know, whatever, I'm going to win awards or something that I can put on Instagram and take a photo of. You know, if it's not going to be that, then what's it going to be? What's my reality right now?

And that [00:09:30] is a gift to be able to hone that skill of presence because on the good days, when I do have more energy, I can tune back in. It's like I've got muscle memory of this is what it's like to be present. Okay, what can I offer myself right now? What can I offer my kids right now? And Yeah, and I think that that's really, really important when we're talking about breastfeeding and extended breastfeeding, and I am still breastfeeding my [00:10:00] four year old.

He breastfeeds, right now, he breastfeeds probably four times a day, maybe once overnight occasionally. He's been sick. We've all had been sick on top of everything, so it's been a little bit more challenging, but Yeah, and I've used and leaned on that breastfeeding as a tool to support me, right?

When he needs to rest, when he needs to have that connection, and I can't offer anything else, I lean on that. So, that [00:10:30] is like my little behind the scenes on my life at the moment. And I just, I want to offer you that if you are in a survival mode state, There is a gift in killing the fantasy of what you hoped and dreamed that your life would look like, and it can feel painful.

I've had a year of accepting this. So if you're just getting introduced to that idea and you have a lot of resistance or it feels a ton of emotion with it, I get it. But It's not your reality. It's not [00:11:00] reality. So if you're stuck in that fantasy, then you're not here. You're not in the present. You're not actually with your kid right now.

And it's really painful to be Teetering between the two when you're like, just feeling all this like pull towards the fantasy and it's not that. It hurts. That's when the guilt, that's when you feel the guilt, the mom guilt, right? It's when you're not present with reality. When I could be present with reality, then it's okay, what are our needs right now?

One day I got in the car, I, my husband was home thankfully, and I just was [00:11:30] feeling so out of sorts, anxious and just off. I couldn't figure it out and I felt like I just needed something to focus on. I needed like a task to focus on so I went to the dollar store and I got a paint by numbers and I got a few for my kids too.

They have like kid ones and they have like an adult one and I painted, I had had a really hard day up to that point. No energy, feeling really awful, just out of sorts. And I, I grabbed that paint by numbers and I did that for, I don't know, an hour. My kids did theirs and it was what I needed. It, that [00:12:00] was the focus task of just, you know, this repetitive painting.

It could have been a puzzle. It could have been anything, but that, that just drew my attention at that moment. And I did that and it was wonderful. Right. A lot of times we feel like we need to have, or at least I felt like this. Like I need to have my perfect week scheduled out where I have every need perfectly met.

And I'm working out and I'm meal planning and I'm doing all of those things. And it just feels like, okay, as soon as I get enough energy, that's what I need to do. That's what I need to do. I [00:12:30] need to plan everything out perfectly and just do that exactly. Like, you know but what I've found is this gift of just being present and noticing the needs that are right there in the moment.

When I do have enough energy, I'm not burning it on trying to plan everything. Of course, planning is great, and I do support that and I do like to have my kind of week mapped out a little bit and that kind of stuff. I'm not saying that that's bad or wrong, but this gift of notice of being flexible and noticing the needs that are [00:13:00] there and what, what do I need right now?

Like, what can I offer myself? What can I offer my kids? It's been really, really Beautiful. Amidst the stress, amidst the chaos, amidst the exhaustion, amidst all of the emotional intensity. Okay, I think I've rambled enough for today. I will be, like I said, dropping these little bit smaller episodes.

Hopefully they're a little smaller. I don't talk forever. But peeling back the curtain and talking about my life right now, as well as my experiences in my extended [00:13:30] breastfeeding journey up to now. So come and hang out with me on Instagram. I'm going to be hopefully posting a little bit more. Because, yeah, I've been a little bit, it's been a little harder to do that because I, I'm used to posting more educational information and that takes more energy.

Peeling back the curtain a little bit, being honest and real about my life right now, that I can do. So that's what I'm doing for January. Hopefully I will get the sleep apnea treatment soon and be able to shift gears and For a little bit more of the educational piece soon with more planning, [00:14:00] more intention, more research, all of that.

So come over, hang out on Instagram, send me an email, do all that fun stuff. And I hope to yeah, catch you next week.