Maya Luque is a strategist. She helps businesses craft smart, perceptive ways of communicating. The focus of her work is to help businesses build strong, long-lasting relationships with their customers. She has an M.F.A. and has created over 100 sculptures and installations. Her background as an artist helps her guide people towards an emotion; to help them feel connected. Art is great for strategy because art history is full of telling and re-inventing stories, themes, emotions. Maya has a passion for observing the ever-shifting puzzle of trends, human nature, and people. 
Maya is also the author of The Heart Of The Matter: EMDR Through An Adoptee's Eyes. She shared her book with me on social media asking if I would be interested in sharing it with my audience. I immediately knew I didn’t only want to share the book, I wanted to share Maya’s voice and entire story. I asked Maya if she would be up for this interview. I’m so honored that she said yes. Her book and her story are so important.
Listen in to hear Maya share:

Her journey of being abandoned outside a police station in China during their One Child Policy to living her first 11 months in a Chinese orphanage to being adopted by a single mom in the US

The lasting impact of her abandonment and how that trauma impacted her ability to cope as a child

How she vacillated between extreme perfectionism and testing her mom to see if she would always really love her

Her lifelong patterns of trying to prove her worth

How she got started in EMDR therapy

What EMDR is and how it helped her recover from her trauma

How EMDR allowed her to finally find herself lovable

Why she wrote The Heart of the Matter in a really approachable way so all ages could use it as a tool

Links mentioned:

Maya’s Book: The Heart Of The Matter: EMDR Through An Adoptee's Eyes


Connect with Maya

Maya on Instagram

 Color for Charity Coloring Book

Thank you to our sponsors:


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537: Maya Luque: The Heart Of The Matter: EMDR Through An Adoptee's Eyes

Hosted by the notoriously real and raw Sara Dean, The Shameless Mom Academy is a top-rated podcast for moms who are looking to gain confidence, improve relationships, build better boundaries, cultivate resilience, create joy, and position themselves as a leader in their households, communities, workplaces, and businesses. The Shameless Mom Academy provides inspiration, learning, and stories that guide moms to become more confident and courageous decision-makers and action-takers.  With a deep commitment to truth-telling, Sara and her guests share vulnerable stories that are not often shared between mothers.  You can expect your head and your heart to expand a little with every episode. If you’re ready to overcome mom guilt, reject imposter syndrome, and quit perfectionism, you’re in the right place.  You can count on The Shameless Mom Academy to provide practical advice and simple strategies to make your life a little better starting today. Warning: Sara is known to make listeners laugh and cry and walk away feeling like you just spent time with a new best friend.

Kids & Family

Parenting

Health & Fitness

Mental Health

How are you at holding space for tension? The discomfort of tension in our lives can make us rush through a trying moment to get out of discomfort as quickly as possible.  
What would change for you if you could embrace discomfort and sit in it for a minute?
In this Greatest Hits episode, I talk about an interview with Oprah and Steven Pressfield for SuperSoul Sunday. They were talking about resistance - and that resistance MUST exist in all opportunities that provide growth, evolution, and magic.  
Steven said, “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the life unlived within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” 
Wow, if that doesn’t speak to my soul.
I see so many Shameless Moms working to hold space for tension and practicing embracing the resistance. It is in these spaces that some of life’s most powerful lessons and moments come to exist. It is profound and life-altering.  
And I see Shameless Moms who feel the resistance and take it as a sign that something is not meant to be. 
Mama…. NO.  
I want you to lean into the resistance. See it. Embrace it. Own it. Walk through it. It will change you - in all the BEST ways.  
Listen in to hear me share the 3 phases of holding tension that will allow you to walk through resistance, find your power, and declare a magical VICTORY on the other side. 

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: https://shamelessmom.com/sponsor
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866: Embracing the Tension Between Magic and Discomfort

The day you became a mom you were catapulted into a new leadership role with no training and dire consequences if you couldn’t rise to the occasion. For months, you stumbled, fumbled, and slowly figured this new leadership role out. You learned new skills, you learned how to take care of those you were leading, and you advocated for those in your care at every turn. You felt protective in a way you have never felt protective before. You knew it was on you to figure this out quickly. And, you did it.  
Over the last couple of years, as I’ve had conversations with women in new leadership roles, I‘ve heard over and over about how hard it is to step into a new leadership role with little or no training. It’s overwhelming, disorienting, and exhausting. There are so many things to figure out - some inconsequential and some largely consequential. In many instances, folks who were once your peers are now the people you have to give hard feedback to. You have this sense that all eyes are on you - and maybe, just maybe, some folks would be happy to see you fail. So, there is no room for mistakes. And, it seems, no room to give yourself grace.  
As I stepped into community leadership roles over the last few years, I was excited to give back, make a difference, and have a voice. But having a voice feels scary AF when you go to open your mouth for the first time in front of a new audience. How can you instill quickly build trust and demonstrate integrity? How can you solicit support while sharing new ideas and opinions?  
Most opportunities to lead come too fast. You feel ill-prepared. You question if you are the right person or the right “fit” for the job. You are. You’ve been here before. You’ve figured it out. And, you’re sure as hell going to figure it out this time too. 
In this episode, I talk through why owning the title of leader might feel conflicting to you, 3 key responsibilities in any leadership role, and what to do when you find yourself in a leadership role that you don’t feel totally prepared for.  

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: https://shamelessmom.com/sponsor
Interested in becoming a sponsor of the Shameless Mom Academy? Email our sales team at sales@adalystmedia.com
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865: You’re A Leader, Now What?

The mental load of motherhood is the invisible yet relentless responsibilities, from managing household chores to coordinating family schedules, which often fall disproportionately on mothers. This burden not only involves physical tasks but also includes the (often more exhausting) emotional and cognitive labor of anticipating and attending to the needs of their children and family members.
The Motherload (aka the mental load of motherhood) includes the 175 running lists you keep in your head in every single moment of #everydamnday.
It includes:

every school form you need to sign tonight

how much creamer you have left in the fridge

how many rolls of TP you have in the house

when you need to call your mom

what bills you need to pay by next Wednesday

when the kids have their next day off school

every single email you need to reply to today and which ones can wait until tomorrow

what time the babysitter is coming on Friday

which hotel you need to book for spring break

which of your kid’s friends can’t have peanuts

which of your kid’s friends you need to buy bday gifts for

which socks your kid will NOT wear

how many pairs of clean undies every single person in the household has left before you have to do laundry again

what you’re having for dinner tonight and tomorrow and the next night and the next night and the next night and the next night

which kid will eat crusts

which kid will eat carrots

Have any of the children had any water today?


You are a living, breathing library of information. You are basically hosting an entire internet system right inside your head.
It’s a lot. Too much. So overwhelming and often maddening.
And sometimes downright unfair.
The Motherload is exhausting on so many levels.
I want to give you some hope. But I’m going to warn you that this will require some work (I promise to keep it simple!) on your part. But the work will be REWARDING. The work will lessen the load!
When it comes to The Motherload, we tend to make it really hard on ourselves. We get in our own way over and over. We get stuck in perfectionism and martyrdom, making ourselves completely miserable.
Listen in as I give you 4 methods to manage the madness. These simple methods are going to dramatically improve your life and create space in your head (who doesn’t need more space in their head?!)

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: https://shamelessmom.com/sponsor
Interested in becoming a sponsor of the Shameless Mom Academy? Email our sales team at sales@adalystmedia.com
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864: Permission to Unload the Mental Load of Motherhood

Julie Neale is a life and leadership coach, mom to two neurodivergent boys, and creator of Mother’s Quest, the Mother’s Quest Podcast, and the Live Your EPIC Year Planner. Started in 2016, Mother’s Quest provides inspiration, coaching, and community for mothers who want to live their version of an E.P.I.C. life while raising their children. At the age of 50, Julie received a diagnosis of ADHD, realizing that she is also neurodivergent. The diagnosis explained a lot and has provided a window for her to understand better what it’s like for her children to embrace their differences while finding strategies to address the challenges. This year, Julie is serving on the UCLA Parents' Council. She looks forward to working alongside her son Ryan, from a parent perspective, to support neurodivergent students and their families at UCLA.
Ryan Neale is a neurodivergent sophomore at UCLA, planning to double major in Communication and Disability Studies with a minor in Film Studies. He is part of the College Scholars Program at UCLA and recently was selected as part of the 2023 Chancellor's Leadership Program cohort. He is passionate about neurodiversity advocacy and sharing his own experiences to pave the way for others. He is currently a staff member at the Bruin Resource Center, where he is a student lead on a new campus-wide neurodiversity initiative to make UCLA more inclusive for students like him. This summer, he served on staff for the Stanford Neurodiversity Project - Research, Education, and Advocacy Camp for high schoolers wanting to create neurodiversity advocacy projects. He was also a speaker at the 2021 Stanford Neurodiversity Summit and has been a guest host on the Mother’s Quest Podcast. Ryan was diagnosed with autism at the age of 18 months old and also identifies with ADHD and anxiety.
April is Autism Awareness Month. April 2nd is Autism Awareness Day. I was so honored to have Ryan and Julie here to talk about neurodiversity, including autism, and all that Ryan is doing to build inclusive spaces for kids like him on college campuses.  
Listen in to hear Ryan and Julie share:

Ryan’s optimism around the neurodiversity movement, esp in collegiate environments

Ryan’s autism diagnosis at 18 months and his experience of learning of his diagnosis at age 13

Ryan’s disconnection from his diagnosis given his propensity for rich connections

How Julie was diagnosed with ADHD when going through menopause 

The difference in the ways Ryan and Julie accepted and integrated their respective diagnoses

What Ryan’s transition into college life has been like

How Ryan has leaped into neurodivergence advocacy at UCLA

Links mentioned:

Connect with Julie: https://mothersquest.com


Connect with Ryan: www.ryanjneale.com 

Mother’s Quest on IG: www.instagram.com/mothersquestpod


Ryan on IG: www.instagram.com/ryan.neale04


Ryan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-neale-031112176/


Autism Story Telling Project in San Fransisco: https://www.autismstorytellingproject.com/ 


Spark Course about Ryan’s college experience 

Mother's Quest Podcasts with Ryan related to neurodiversity:

https://mothersquest.com/ep-93-learning-outside-the-lines-in-college-with-neurodivergent-advocates-ryan-neale-jonathan-mooney/

https://mothersquest.com/embracing-neurodiversity-and-being-an-adult-with-julie-lythcott-haims-and-ryan-neale/

https://mothersquest.com/ep-18-yolo-you-only-live-once-and-other-milestone-reflections-with-ryan-neale/


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863: Julie and Ryan Neale:  Mother & Son Neurodiversity Advocacy on College Campus

A few weeks ago, my dear friend Dana shared a post to her IG stories that said, “A year from now nothing will be the same.”
I immediately took a pause. Dang. What a true statement that I hadn’t previously considered. When I think about where I was this time last year, there are so many things I couldn’t have predicted happening over the last year. My husband’s layoff, a layoff that is still enduring 10 months later. Going to grad school. A number of professional opportunities. A handful of personal breakthroughs, as well as some losses.
When I think about what life could hold a year from now, I realize that there is so much coming that I don’t know about. Yikes! Or… Yay??? I’m not sure which. Maybe a bit of both. 
Wherever you are today, the moment you are in will pass. The things that are hard today will be different a year from now. The things that are great right now will have shifted and evolved - maybe gotten even better, maybe disappeared. And, there are a whole bunch of things coming your way that you don’t know about yet. Big things. Great things. Hard things. 
So, how can you hold space for what’s to come so you’re not devastated by the hard things or unable to engage in the great things? In this episode, I will walk you through 3 ways you can stay open to possibility as life gets ready to life all over you over the next year. 

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: https://shamelessmom.com/sponsor
Interested in becoming a sponsor of the Shameless Mom Academy? Email our sales team at sales@adalystmedia.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

537: Maya Luque: The Heart Of The Matter: EMDR Through An Adoptee's Eyes

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