The postpartum shift – is the moment you awaken to and accept the fact that you are no longer the woman you once were and decide to embrace the new you. 

I have two children. My Prince is 27 and my Princess is just a few weeks shy of 2 years old. 

Yes there is just about 30 years between my children. 

I know what you are thinking – why did I start over?  

Well when you are granted a blessing do you question it? 

What I do know is my daughter is the second most precious gift I have ever been given. 

Yet despite all the joy she awakens in me, some things were just different this time around.

SETTING GOALS

If we start with the basics physically I was super fit when I conceived my son. I was preparing for basic training when I discovered I was pregnant. So I just kept up with my daily runs. 

I conceived my daughter Zoe in my early 40s -- still pretty healthy and active. Yoga and healthy eating were a way of life -- but I was tired a lot. Getting up to go to the bathroom was so tiring in those later months that I considered getting a port-a-potty. 

With my son I never asked myself the questions: how do I want to show up for him or what type of woman and mom did I want to be? At 43, when I conceived Zoe I was consumed with these questions. 

What I knew for sure was this: 

1. I desire to be with her as much as possible. No day care for her. I wasn’t missing out on her formative years chasing other people’s dreams and expectations for me. 
2. I desire a vocation that I could bend to MY priorities. Flexibility in scheduling was a must. And of course, my vocation had to pay more for the time I put in—I wanted to set my own fees. Taking survival jobs just to make ends meet that left me exhausted and unavailable to her wasn’t a long term plan. 
3. I desire to show up as both the professional creative ambitious woman I am and be the type of mother I imagine.

These goals were influenced by the age at which I gave birth to Zoe. I am now older, more settled and have more skills and resources and the severe postpartum depression I experienced with my son.

I missed out on a lot of his first two years. I share a bit of my story in Ep 1 The Black Side of Postpartum. Check it out if you haven’t.

The biggest influence to my mental shift is something we often overlook -- spirituality.  I never felt more connected to my feminine essence and what I know to be God than when I carried Zoe. 

I thought obsessively about the role model I wanted to be for her and the generational pathologies I needed to shed from my own conditioning so I could achieve it.

But to create this life I HAD TO CHANGE.

FEEL THE FEAR AND MOVE TOWARDS CHANGE

Deep down I had a knowing that things would not be the same because I was not the same.  I was fighting against the changes I needed to make because I was afraid. I think when we fight against what intuition tells us it adds to the depressive symptoms we may experience. 

Postpartum depression is a symptom that manifests from many factors but one that is often ignored is the FEAR we experience when we know we have to become our BETTER selves. 

We have to move forward and let go of who we were. And often release toxic patterns we have developed. 

As a black woman I had to let go of the unhealthy self-sacrifice habit  and being the fixer in my world. I had to let go of my I can do it by myself attitude ...

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