Amanda Weber is a Certified Meditation Instructor & Intuitive Mentor. Following a successful but highly stress-filled corporate career, she decided to do a 180 and follow a deeper passion. Today Amanda supports women in noticing their limiting stories - with open curiosity - and exploring what they want to experience. She’s also a mom of 3, a world traveler, and one of the most supportive and caring women I know.

This episode is so full of great stuff. We talk about:

• Amanda’s experience living in Spain during the early days of the pandemic and how going back to the basics of meditation helped her get through lockdown,

• The synchronistic event that took her on a journey from corporate executive to meditation teacher

• How mindfulness and meditation made her a better parent

• The science-backed benefits of meditation and how it changes our brain

• Her favourite tool for meditation newbies

• How to find the mindfulness practice that works well for your life

• Why she says meditation is like Doritos!

I absolutely loved chatting with Amanda, she is just so down to earth, and as a fellow people pleaser, I so appreciate her honesty about her own struggles with boundaries and how she uses self-care as a tool for self-love.

Jessika Marie is dedicated to serving women and mothers as they move through the always-evolving call to create a compassionate, empowering, and embodied relationship with themselves and their community. She is professionally trained in the areas of Functional Medicine and Coaching, Reiki, Holistic Nutrition, Birth and Postpartum, Family Constellations and Yoga/ Meditation and has woven these modalities together over the last decade to create deep-dive sessions with both her group coaching and 1:1 clients. A lot of you will likely know Jessika from her in-person and now online Mavens for Mama community, or her popular online UnShame My Story Course.

We had loads to talk about when it comes to motherhood, including:

• How she learned to trust her intuition and why it is so difficult for new mothers to trust themselves,

• The power of women gathering in circles and reclaiming their mind, body, and spirit after motherhood.

• Her work on shame and self-worth - she explains what shame is and why it stifles our creativity, our sense of worth, and our inner knowing.

I really enjoyed it and know you will too!

 

I’m talking with Lindsay Ford, parenting mentor and the author of The Positive Parenting Framework. She helps moms interpret what their child is really saying when they act out and gives them the strategies they need to restore a sense of calm and cooperation back into their homes.     Here’s what we chat about:

• What positive parenting is and why it works.
• How successful parenting very often comes down looking at our own stuff (how we were raised, our unconscious beliefs, how we see our children as a reflection of ourselves, whether we are engaging in self-care etc)
• Using your intuition as a parent
• How to know if you’re letting your child get away with too much
• Why kids engage in power struggles
• How to handle power struggles so that it ends in a win-win

Positive parenting just feels so much lighter than old-school forms of discipline, and parenting with this framework has helped me to weather the ups and downs of kids with a little more grace.   I think you'll learn a lot from this episode. Enjoy!

The topic of mental health continues with Dr. Melissa Bingeman. Melissa is a Naturopathic Doctor and founder of Fine Fettle Tea, who strives to empower her patients to achieve optimal health through lifestyle-based medicine and research-driven supplementation. She's also a mom of two young boys, and in this episode, she talks candidly about her experience with postpartum depression with her youngest son who is now 16 months old. Not only is Melissa very open and honest about her mental health struggles and the challenges of motherhood during the time of COVID, but her professional expertise as a Naturopath means that she has a ton of knowledge to share around the causes of postpartum depression and strategies that moms can use to move through it.    In this episode we talk about:

• The thoughts that were going through her head during her depression and how she doubted herself as a mother
• The power of reaching out for help
• The difference between postpartum blues, depression, and psychosis and the prevalence of all 3
• Why women are hesitant to share how they’re feeling during the postpartum period
• The strategies that she used and that she uses with clients who are suffering from depression or other mental health challenges.

If you’ve suffered or you know anyone who has suffered from postpartum depression, this is a must-listen. And please share this with all the mothers and potential mothers in your life, because the more we talk about this openly, the more we normalize it.   And now, enjoy the episode with the absolutely lovely Melissa!

Dajana Beckman is a local entrepreneur and  founder of Exhale Therapy, a counselling centre here in Kitchener-Waterloo. Dajana is passionate about ending the stigma around mental health, and removing the barriers to accessing mental health services. 

Dajana talks with me about 

• How exhale came to be, and what her focus was when opening the business

• Her passion for mental health and why women are hesitant to discuss mental illness

• How therapy can help women feel comfortable in reaching out and why taking care of your mental fitness is as or more important than taking care of other areas of your body

• The unexpected difficulties moms experience during the postpartum period

• How your therapy can actually benefit your children

• Her own personal struggles with self-worth and the challenges she’s experienced as a mother.

I did not know Dajana personally before our chat, but as soon as the interview started I felt like I was chatting with an old friend. Dajana is clearly extremely passionate about what she does, and her warmth and kindness shine through in our discussion. I can’t wait for you to learn more about her and the valuable contributions that she is making in our community.

Teri Lane is a therapist and social worker, and founder of Thriving Families counseling, where she provides services to families with adolescents and children over 8. She supports parents in better understanding the why behind their child’s behaviour and to learn new ways of responding and interacting that foster positive communication and healthy family relationships. And this interview feels like a private therapy session as Teri provides her insight and advice on what we can do to help support our kid’s mental health during these challenging times.

We covered so much in this interview:  

• The positives and negatives that she has seen come out of the pandemic when it comes to kids mental health

• Why we need to take care of our own stress levels in order to be there for our kids

• Whether we should be concerned about instilling fear in our children

• Signs that parents can look for to tell if our kids are struggling

• Why it’s important to admit to our kids that we don’t have all the answers

• The BIGGEST thing we can do to support our kid’s mental health (hint: it’s not solving their problems for them!)

One of the big themes of our conversation was that when we as parents look after ourselves, we are in a much better position to provide support to our kids.

I really enjoyed my conversation with Teri and I learned so much. She has such a calm and reassuring vibe and is extremely knowledgable and I really hope to have her back again soon as my regular child and family expert.

Enjoy!

My pandemic series continues with today’s interview where I am talking with Melissa Melnychuk. Melissa is a certified holistic health coach, former fitness athlete, mother of 3, and has worked with women and men from all walks of life From those who may be on a new health journey, entrepreneurs, traveling executives, stay at home moms, former fitness competitors, professional athletes and more. And we actually talk more about her various roles in the interview.

The central message that Melissa shares with her clients is that “there should be a love for YOU in any shift or pivot you make in your life.

We cover a wide variety of topics in our chat:

- How the pandemic came in like a tornado for her and turned her life upside down very quickly.

- How being a single mom has presented unique challenges for her during this time.

- Her divorce and how she worries about the effect it’s having on her kids

- How her understanding of racism has changed since becoming the mother of bi-racial children,

- Her experience in being bullied in school and why it motivated her to lift other women up.

And we talk about her Love, Move, Vibe group and individual coaching program for women.

Enjoy the interview with this inspirational mama!

As my pandemic series continues, I’m interviewing Dr. Martha Linkletter, a Pediatrician practicing in KW out of Grand River Hospital. Martha’s husband is also a doctor, working as an anesthesiologist and intensive care doctor at St. Mary’s and Grand River Hospitals, putting Martha and her family very much on the front lines of this pandemic. PLUS they’re also managing their 3 young children. Needless to say, the first few weeks of the pandemic were very intense and she is very open about sharing the struggles they went through and how she coped.

And we cover so much more in this episode:

• How her kids were first introduced to COVID and how she talks to them about it now

• Why she decided NOT to homeschool during the last few months of school

• Her opinion on school reopening in the fall

• Her struggles with wishing she was able to spend more time at home with her kids

• Why the reopening phase has been difficult

• Her work providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth in our community.

Martha is smart, passionate, and wears her heart on her sleeve. She’s lovely and our community is so lucky to have her looking out for our kids, and I’m lucky to have been able to chat with her.

Enjoy the episode!

I’ve got Ajoa Mintah on the podcast this week, chemical engineer, mom of two and the founder of Four-All Ice-Cream…one of the most popular foodie destinations in K-W these days, especially since the recent opening of their Scoop Shop in uptown Waterloo. I wanted to interview Ajoa because not only is she an inspiring mama and entrepreneur, but I really love how she’s grown her business via word of mouth and strategically focusing on supporting local businesses through her many partnerships. I’ve been so impressed watching Four-All’s ability to quickly pivot their business during this crazy pandemic time, and Ajoa shares how they were able to do this.

I loved getting to know the mom and woman behind the ice cream. In this episode, Ajoa talks about:

• Motherhood (of course) and she shares how empowering her kids have helped her maintain balance during the past few months

• How hard she can be on herself as a parent and how she has to be deliberate about carving out time to be the “fun mom"

• The amazing story of how she created Four-All and how the K-W community has supported her and her business over the past few years, including during the pandemic

• How race has impacted her business overall, why racism feels scarier here in K-W than it does in the U.S., and why she doesn’t want people to support Four-All just because she is black.

It’s a great conversation and  I’m so excited for all my listeners to learn more about this smart, creative and inspiring local entrepreneur.

      Pulling together as a community during a pandemic with Ajoa Mintah Sarah Bester  

Links and resources from this episode:

Eby Manor Dairy Farm
Dixon’s Distilled Spirits
Herrle’s Farm Market
Snyder’s Maple Syrup
Nith Valley Honey
Uptown Waterloo Open Air Market

“[I had to] accept that this isn’t going away, so let’s do something. And it doesn’t have to work, but I need to do something.” — AJOA MINTAH

Find Ajoa online here:

Website: www.fourall.ca
Instagram: @fourallicecream
Facebook: facebook.com/fourallicecream

From the outside, it probably looked like I had the ideal situation during the pandemic. With the flexibility to spend the time looking after the kids while Jon worked, and the time to plan all sorts of fun activities to keep us busy, I’m sure people assumed that I had it easy. But the reality is that I was struggling. Big time. In fact, the first few weeks of the pandemic were some of the toughest weeks of my life, as I battled depression for the first time. 

This week on the podcast, it’s just me, a microphone and my pandemic story.

I share what I went through, how I got to the other side and what I learned along the way. Sharing all of this wasn’t easy. But I did it anyway because we all have struggles, and I know that by being vulnerable, I give other women permission to be vulnerable and authentic right there along with me.

    Gaining strength from struggle during a pandemic with Sarah Bester Sarah Bester  

Links and Resources from this episode:

Episode 9 with Kate McCrae Bristol

“Asking for help doesn’t make you weak. Asking for help is actually really brave.” — SARAH BESTER

Find the Shine Mama! podcast online here:

Website: www.shinemama.ca
Instagram: @shinemama_sarah
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shinemamapodcast