109: Healing After Postpartum with Graeme Seabrook

How do we, as mothers, keep ourselves centered while raising our little ones? It’s a tough question to answer, but it becomes even more difficult when perinatal mental health is in jeopardy. Many times, we think that dealing with the crisis is the most important focus, but it’s the time period that follows the crisis---and the healing--that deserves big attention. Don’t miss today’s conversation covering these important topics.    Graeme Seabrook is a Motherhood Life Coach whose approach to coaching is that YOU must be a priority in your own life in order to thrive. Following a traumatizing birth experience that left her with PTSD, and surviving postpartum depression and anxiety, Graeme began a healing journey as a mother and a woman. That healing journey led her to train as a life coach and to create spaces where mothers can come to be witnessed, nurtured, inspired, and supported, so they can integrate motherhood with personhood and not the other way around. She does this work because she believes we are living in a global culture that treats mothers as if we are inhuman and expects us to be superhuman. Graeme’s work is dedicated to helping mothers reclaim their humanity. Today we discuss her work in helping mothers recover from recovery, the stabilization after a perinatal mental health issue, and the way to build resilience after the crisis passes.    Show Highlights:   How the conversations are now happening to help those who are “in it,” but still have active triggers Why we don’t talk about how your life may be changed for years or even decades Carrying the guilt and pressure to be “the perfect mom” and “make up” for what you’ve put your family through  Readjusting and cleaning up after the “storm” has passed How Graeme is using the pain and anger as a catalyst to tell her story and do her advocacy work The process of “recovering from recovery” and how Graeme borrowed the phrase from a therapist who helped her How Graeme figured out the next step in recovery: resilience Recognizing triggers and going through the checklist to make a totally different experience in the process of healing Explaining the process of recovering from recovery: when you have made peace with your journey into motherhood The grieving process inherent in motherhood over what we thought it would be Learning to be a mother in the storm of mental illness trauma The tendency to neglect self-care as we recover after the crisis Our underlying drives and how we deal with them How to cultivate resilience: learn to prioritize, make connections, and learn what “balls” to juggle and when Graeme’s program of online coaching: 12 weeks, with no more than 10 people at a time, for moms who are out of the crisis period Graeme’s passion-filled and heart-centered work, which is what she was looking for a few years ago The power and potential connections through the internet Success stories of how moms have transformed with Graeme’s help and become more in control of their lives   Resources: Website: www.graemeseabrook.com Twitter: @graemeseabrook Instagram at @Graemeseabrook