Essential Stepmom Podcast

Happy New Year to you, wherever in the world you're listening from. I am partway through a holiday experience unlike anything I've had in 13 years of blended family life. It took us a long time to get here, but that only makes me appreciate it more! If I can give you one single piece of advice, it would be about overstepping.

Leave a private voice message for me right here: https://anchor.fm/essentialstepmom/message

This is just a quick message about opening your heart, taking the high road and being the better person. It's the holidays, after all!

What do you know about Disengaging? Here's a "start where you are" guide to finding your way to better stepfamily relationships via a detour from the path you thought you were supposed to take!

Connect with me at essentialstepmom.com. I'd love to hear from you!

In response to a listener request, I interviewed Sonia Richter - artist, stepmom and blogger. Sonia opened her personal struggle with childlessness to the public when she wrote a blog called Raw Brutal Honesty On Being a 44 Year Old Childless Stepmom Artist.

You can read that at soniarichter.com

I want to hear from you, especially if you resonate with this topic. Drop me a line at my personal and private email, [email protected]

If you'd like to get a sense of what it might be like to have my personal support on your stepmom journey, go ahead and book a phone call. There's absolutely no obligation and no charge, just a few minutes of free advice:

I was astonished to learn that one of my stepmom tutorial videos was outperforming the others by 100 to 1. What was so special about my message in that video that had stepmoms flocking in droves to watch it?

Spoiler alert - it's about not liking your stepchild. 

Grab my free download about dealing with problem kids here:

I am a recovering control junkie and not afraid to admit it. I now get my fix minding my own business and controlling the only thing I really can, which is my own actions, and my reactions to things.

If you're an Ontario stepmom, like Anna and me, drop me a line, I'd especially love to hear from you. I know there are listeners all around my home town of Kitchener in Brantford, Stratford, Guelph, Cambridge, Hamilton, London, Harriston, Woodstock, Georgetown, Newmarket and even Toronto. Hit me up at [email protected] and let's chat!

I am acquainted with burnout, like many other high performing women. I've burned out once as a wife and once as a stepmom. Luckily, I've been developing a rich support network around me to help me cope so that I don't get all the way to burn out ever again. One of my most important supporters is Tania Heinemann, a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Certified Lactation Consultant - really sorry I didn't have her around when I had my own breastfeeding woes!

You can connect with me at [email protected]. I'd especially like to hear from the stepmoms listening in from Kirkcaldy, Scotland, from Sunbury Australia, and Seville, Spain. Drop me a line!

Follow Tania on Instagram @yellowoodnutrition and via her website, www.yellowood.ca

...and other cute things stepkids say. In this episode, I chat with Tania Heinemann who I invited onto the podcast to talk about recovering from burnout and specifically about healing adrenal fatigue. Fortunately, we got carried away with a discussion about her family, how her kids are coping with loss, her co-parenting relationship with her ex, and their parenting dynamic with her new husband, the stepdad. You'll have to wait until next week for the part about adrenal fatigue, so hang on a few more days!

Do you feel invisible sometimes? Like, your stepchild acts as if you don't exist? Or your parenting input to your spouse is ignored? And what about a biomom who doesn't acknowledge all that you do for her child? This episode is for you!

We'll talk about the difference between FEELING invisible and actually BEING invisible - taking charge of your own presence to decide for yourself when you can achieve your belongingness goals by temporarily getting out of the way. I'll give you some precise strategies and some mindset tweaks to help you over this common hump in your stepmom journey.

Please take a moment to rate or review this podcast on iTunes - that's the best way to help other stepmoms to find this program in a sea of podcast offerings.

I'd love to hear from you! If you're listening on anchor.fm, leave me a voice message. You can send me an email to [email protected]. It will go straight to my personal inbox.

BOOK A FREE CALL WITH TRACY!

Duda Baldwin is the creator of the Little School of Buddhism and she's a life coach who brings a spiritual edge to learning to crush your goals while staying true to yourself.  You can learn more about Duda at kickassmuse.com.

Tracy's articles have been published in ThriveGlobal, Medium and Elephant Journal. Send your comments or questions to her via [email protected].

If you're not already part of her Facebook community, send a join request to The Spectacular Stepmom.

Grab this free resource - Healing Stepmom Burnout: A Quickstart Guide