Dopamine Diaries

Anger isn't the thing that's uncomfortable, the suppression of it is.  Kinda like when you try to hold in a fart...kidding..but keep reading.

I got restricted on instagram the same hour I announced Unhinged.

Daddy zuckerberg really said not today.

Anyway, I  was mid-DM with a mom this morning who told me she’s done therapy, couples counseling, EMDR, career changes, breathwork, all of it & still feels lost, still feels out of control with her anger, & still doesn’t feel like herself.

I just had to get on here and say what I said to her because I think we have this completely backwards.

Anger is not the thing you regulate through, it's the thing you listen to.

It’s an emotion, like fear, like happiness, like grief, all of those emotions run on a cycle and that cycle has to complete itself. When you cut it off, "because it’s not appropriate", because it makes people "uncomfortable", because you’ve been called "hysterical" one too many times.....it doesn’t go away, it just builds. It leaks out as depression, numbness, fog, resentment, snapping at your kids, silently losing your mind.

Here's what I rant about in today's episode.

• why you’re probably not actually angry, you’re frozen
• the boohoo tuba (Hello HBA'ers)  & why it exists in the first place
• anger as information, boundaries, voice, and action
• why the entire nervous system industry has it backwards for women
• mom rage is not something to regulate, it’s something to listen to.
• why I asked women to scream in their cars during Wired and what happened after
• what anger actually unlocked for me this year

And finally, because instagram might now show you it: UNHINGED

If you’re a good mom who still feels like a bad one... this one’s for you.

I shared this with the women at my retreat last weekend & one of them said it changed everything about how she sees mom guilt, so i’m giving it to you too.

Plus the retreat recap... a u-shaped couch, a fireplace, seven women who’d never met, staying up till 1am telling each other things we’ve never told anyone....no awkward silences....just the kind of conversation that makes you feel seen, normal, & ragey.

come yell with me on instagram @that.angry.mom

I was cuddling with my daughter during quiet time and it hit me, I'm at peace, genuinely, suspiciously, & kinda uncomfortably at peace with the missed launch, the lost income, almost six weeks of no childcare, all of it.

I got curious and asked myself why & the answer was ANGER.

The real kind, the kind that gave me my voice back. That made me tell my husband what I needed instead of resenting him for not reading my mind. That put up a boundary with our sitter before my brain could talk me out of it. That got me to start my medication in July. That kept me from missing a single training run while being a full-time mom with zero childcare.

My anger ironically opened the door to having the best summer of motherhood I've ever had.

In this 20 minute chat, I talk about:

• what was actually underneath all that "frustration" 
• the 5-6 ways I've been supported this year & why that matters
• using your voice in your relationship and& what changes when you finally do
• why being disconnected from your anger is the most dangerous place to be
• peace feels really fucking weird

Go flip a table friends, you'll feel better.

Love you, bye.

IG: https://www.instagram.com/kate.liz.h/

I'm done pretending to be a calm mom, & you should be too.

My kid had a 45 minute meltdown in my backseat on the highway during rush hour because I wouldn't hold her hand while driving 70mph....torture.

While I was completely losing my mind, I finally figured out why the calm mom thing gives me the fucking ICK every time I see someone say it online.

Calm is not where you start. it's where you end up....AFTER the rage, AFTER the grief, AFTER you stop pretending everything is fine when it absolutely is not.

You don't get to leapfrog to the top of the ladder just because some girl on the internet told you to regulate yourself. That's not how a nervous system works.... that's not how any of this works.

Trying to be calm when you've spent your whole life swallowing your emotions so nobody around you gets uncomfortable? That's good girl, patriarchal conditioning with a #momlife hashtag at the end.

Hard fucking pass.

What we get into today:

• the ladder nobody's talking about
• calm as regulation vs. calm as a performance you're exhausted from giving
• why screaming in your car is actually the move
• crashing out WITH my toddler & why I'd do it again
• what being unhinged & angry actually means (hint: it's not what you think)
• going through the motions? you're numb...we need to talk.

I am NOT a calm mom, but I am an honest one.....proudly.

IG: https://www.instagram.com/kate.liz.h/

I started an antidepressant.

I didn't write notes for this one, didn't organize my thoughts, I just hit record on my voice memo app like I always do when I get the feeling that something needs to be said out loud.

If you saw my post yesterday you know I made the decision to start an SNRI.  There is no way to say everything that led to that decision in an instagram caption or a 30 second reel, so... here we are.

I've been living in this really confusing duality for a long time now. genuinely, deeply happy. and also the saddest I've ever been. both true at the same time. and I've spent this entire year trying to get to the bottom of it: HRT, trauma therapy, coaching, rest, pulling back on my business, all of it. I've exhausted every single tool in my toolbox except one.

This episode is about that one.

what we get into:

• the duality of being the happiest and saddest I've ever been at the same time
• complex PTSD, PMDD, postpartum depression, and what happens when you've tried everything else
• what my coach said to me mid-flare that finally made something click
• why I was against medication for so long and where that belief came from
• the moment — back to back family news in one day — that was my threshold
• the cycle I didn't realize I was repeating by staying stubborn about this
• why 100+ women commented on my reel saying they feel the exact same way (and what that means)

This isn't me telling you what to do, it's just me telling you my story.

If you see yourself in any of it... that's why I put it out there.

FREE Stress Tool

I did a 30 minute boredom experiment… no phone, no book, nothing in my hands, nothing to listen to… just me in a chair on my back deck and i thought it would be easy.

It was not easy.  The first 10 minutes my brain did everything in its power to avoid being still… planning, brainstorming, anything but the chair. and then somewhere around minute 10 something shifted and i started noticing things i hadn’t noticed in years… the birds, the wind, the smell of the flowers, my favorite tree. and i got kind of emotional because i realized how much of my life with my daughter i’m not actually present for. not because i’m a bad mom… because my brain doesn’t know how to turn off.

This episode is about what happened in those 30 minutes, why presence is so uncomfortable we avoid it without even realizing it, and why one of the brain games inside wired is literally just a 3 minute version of this. if you can’t sit with nothing for 3 minutes, you’re probably not as present as you think you are with the people you love. 

GRAB WIRED

this one's got a little bit of everything... money blocks, marriage secrets, a solo trip glow-up, and my favorite new phrase, "you're glitching again."

Kayla sat down with me post-Wired and just started unloading the good stuff. First the money thing, she didn't think she was worth spending on herself, even though she'd casually drop the same amount on a family trip without a second thought. We dug into that for a minute (round of applause for her honesty).

Then she tells me about a trip she took with her childhood friends... no kids, no husband, and for the first time ever, no anxiety either. No shutting down, no leaving early, no upset stomach. Just an actual good time.

oh and she didn't tell her husband she signed up for Wired. at all. until he started noticing the difference himself.

in this one:

• the "world's on fire" urgency and what it actually quieted into
• the belief that she wasn't worth spending money on herself
• a solo trip with zero anxiety, no upset stomach, no early flight home
• the random brain stuff remembering numbers, finishing her sentences
• what she'd tell a mom sitting in that "I don't deserve this" feeling

her line that's been stuck in my head: "I'm still safe with going slower."

GRAB WIRED

Dr. Katie Brockert shares how she found herself reaching for her phone during every quiet moment, at home, in social situations, and most painfully, while her young son played beside her. After installing app blockers that she'd immediately override, she knew something deeper was going on.

Through the Wired program, Katie had a breakthrough realization: she wasn't just scrolling mindlessly, she was using her phone to suppress emotions, a pattern she'd carried since childhood. That moment of awareness, she says, felt like "water being splashed on my face."

In this episode, we talk about:

• How postpartum life amplified her relationship with her phone
• Using scrolling as emotional avoidance, and the moment she connected the dots
• The shift she noticed in the 4–8 PM witching hour with her son
• How her son's behavior changed as she became more present
• Why she believes everyone thinks they don't have a phone problem, and why they're wrong
• Finding the "happy medium" with technology instead of going all-or-nothing

Favorite quote: "I don't know anybody who's like, 'I feel amazing after they've doom scrolled for two hours.'"

If you've ever wondered whether your phone use is quietly pulling you away from the life you actually want, this one's for you.

GRAB WIRED

Connect with Dr. Katie, a postpartum focused physical therapist that works with moms through her program, StrongHER Core.

Okay you guys, this one is so good and I think it's going to hit for a lot of you.

This episode was inspired by a conversation I had with one of my clients, and honestly? The awareness she showed blew me away. We've been working together on identifying the emotions that are actually driving her actions throughout the day, and what she shared with me was just chef's kiss in terms of how much she's grown.

We're talking about the two to three day benders. You know what I mean. The doom scrolling, the eating like garbage, the canceling plans, the not wanting to do anything. And I'm going to tell you the same thing I tell everyone, your phone is not the problem. The apps are not the problem. The problem is the emotion underneath all of it that nobody is actually helping you identify or deal with.

Blocking apps, locking your phone in a drawer, deleting Instagram for a month none of that is fixing what's actually going on. And I think deep down, most of you already know that.

We're getting into:

• Why your scrolling habit is really just an unmet need in disguise
• What my client's story taught me about the power of self-awareness
• Why willpower-based fixes will always make the urge worse
• What it actually looks like to have a neutral relationship with your phone

There is nothing wrong with you. There is just an emotion that nobody has helped you figure out yet. Let's change that.

Grab WIRED.

Okay… this is gonna be a little unhinged, because I had this realization like… oh.
I didn’t not do the work…

I just did a shit ton of work that didn’t actually change anything.

Like I could explain all my patterns, I could connect every single dot imaginable AND tell you why I was spiraling.....

while....actively still spiraling.  LOL So this episode is me basically calling that out.

I talk about:

•  how I spent years being “self-aware” but still stuck in the same cycles 
•  why healing actually feels like shit (and the second it does, we go find a new thing to try) 
•  the difference between understanding yourself… and actually not letting your emotions hijack you 
•  and how my brain STILL sometimes freaks out when I’m resting like “hi yes something is definitely wrong???” 

Also I said something in here that I can’t stop thinking about:

it used to feel like my emotions would grab me by the ponytail and just drag me around all day, & now… they show up…but they don’t have hands anymore.

Which sounds nice…until you realize you now have to SIT THERE AND FEEL IT.

Anyway.

If you’ve been on a “healing journey” for years and you’re like “why do I still feel like this???”

Hit play & spend 15 minutes with me today.

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