HERself Podcast

27/06/2024

24/06/2024

Whether you’re a teacher, a nurse, or a therapist, professional burnout is real. Our guest today, licensed psychologist and mother of two, .nancygrechko , specializes in supporting women therapists and women working in the mental health field. And while Dr. Grechko’s main focus is with women in the mental health field, they are usually also mothers. The tips she offers in today’s episode are really relatable as busy mothers who want a healthy work/life balance.

As mothers, we are caregivers. And sometimes it can be easy to over commit ourselves in our personal and professional lives to help meet the needs and care for the other people in our lives. We can squeeze in that play date on Thursday evening with friends, right? And we can squeeze in one or two more clients on Wednesday morning too? Well, Dr. Grechko tells us today that overscheduling can cause increased stress and resentment over time leading to burnout. It’s important for us to recognize our limits and set boundaries to prevent burnout from occurring.

A lot of us have flexible work hours or are able to work from home some days. However, this can make it harder for us to “turn down the volume” of work when we can see emails popping into our inboxes. Dr. Grechko reminds us that we need to be more mindful of being in one place at a time and create more separation between our work and home lives. She has some wonderful teachings to help us create that mindful space.

Overall, the importance of recognizing, honoring, and communicating your limits to prevent burnout is what we want you to take away from today’s episode with Dr. Nancy Grechko. And remembering that we weren’t meant to do this motherhood journey alone. There are several tangible tips in today’s episode to help you work through things internally, with partnership, and with a greater support community.

20/06/2024

Really though where are they hiding 🙃🙃

17/06/2024

We (Amy and Drew, Abby and Colin) just got back from our amazing trip to Kaui, Hawaii to celebrate our 10 year anniversaries. We had such a great time vacationing as separate couples exploring North Shore Kauai, and then also as a group enjoying the South Shore. The best of both worlds!

Coming home from Hawaii, we felt compelled to record this episode and talk about friendship. As busy moms, wives, and entrepreneurs, our schedules are pretty full. Which makes the time we dedicate to friendships very sacred. We have learned over the years that not only is time precious, but who you keep in your inner circle is just as important. Are you okay with the habits and behaviors of those friends and their children rubbing off on your kids? Do their values line up with yours? It’s important to choose wisely which friendships you nurture. Choose ones that will build you up and leave you feeling energized and happy instead of drained.

Enriching friendships takes a lot of work. A new friend can’t be a best friend immediately. Maintaining surface level friends is okay, but digging deep, asking questions, and spending quality time together can get you to that best friend level. Being open to new friendships in our 30s and 40s may bring a new best friend (or two!) to walk through life with. We are so thankful to have developed our great friendship over these past years and witness each other’s vow renewals in Hawaii. We encourage you to keep an open heart to new friendships as they may provide you with joy you didn’t know you were missing!

13/06/2024

🐙🔑🐙🔑😂😂😂

10/06/2024

We have some news to share today… Pursuing HER Purpose, our other business focused on helping entrepreneurial moms with our friend Kat, is officially closing its doors. As we mention in today’s episode, while PHP may be ending, we are bringing over the best of that brand to the HERself platform! Our consulting services and coaching courses will still be available on our website.

In honor of one season ending and another beginning, we thought we would replay one of the most listened to episodes from the PHP podcast titled “The Episode You Need if You Are About to Return From Maternity Leave” for you today. The season of your maternity leave ending can be bittersweet. It can seem daunting to leave your infant just as you were getting the hang of being a new mom, or new mom again! In this episode we go through many tips and tricks to help you during this transition like what to wear to pump at work, how to prepare the night before for a smooth morning and daycare drop off, as well as how to lean on your partner during this season.

Beyond the physical things we can do to prepare to go back to work, we encourage you to embrace a mindset change too. Instead of feeling guilty for needing to step away from work for 15 minutes to go pump, changing your mindset to “I’m doing this for my baby” can help you stay motivated and empowered to go pump. Going back to work can be stressful, but reminding yourself that your role of providing for your family is important and your kids will be so proud of you for doing so! To wrap up, Kat shares with us a heartfelt letter she wrote to her children when her maternity leave was coming to an end.

If you are coming over from the PHP podcast, thank you for your support over the years and your continued support here at HERself!

06/06/2024

That’s it…we’re changing our name. 🤯😶🫨

05/06/2024

We wholeheartedly believe this, and it’s why we put so much thoughtful energy into bringing the very best experts in parenting onto our podcast. ❤️

Did you catch this week’s episode with on how to talk to your kids about s*x? It’s a much-needed conversation for parents with kiddos of all ages.

If you’re a parent looking for supportive conversations with more experts in the child development space, be sure to check out these episodes below too!

🎧 Episode 98 - on Debunking the Myths We Hear as Parents

🎧 Episode 146 - on How You and Your Child Can Feel Good Inside

🎧 Episode 171 - .annlouise.lockhart on How to Support Your Child through Fears, Anxiety, and Prepare Them for Challenges

🎧 Episode 178 - Discipline, Fostering Resilience, and Finding Your Confidence as a Parent with

🎧 Episode 187 - on How to Raise Compassionate, Anti-Racist, Justice-Minded Kids

04/06/2024

Midwest mom truth: We love summer. 💫💫

AND, now that our kids are out of daycare and in school, it brings new schedules and routines to adjust to and more logistics to navigate. As working moms in the summer, the shuffle can be real.

We want to know: what’s your peak ⛰️ and pit 🥑 of your transition to summer?

30/05/2024

We know we have a lot of teachers in this community, and we couldn’t appreciate you more! Tag a teacher below and root them on to the finish line. ❤️

29/05/2024

What’s ONE thing on your list you can take a break from this week? We’re rooting for you. ❤️

28/05/2024

For today’s “Greatest Hits” episode, we are revisiting our interview with . She joined us for episode 162 and episode 190. This episode we are focusing on how we take care of ourselves as mothers; how do we feel good inside motherhood? So many of her answers spoke directly to both of us.

In her book, Love Your Kids Without Losing Yourself, Dr. Morgan explains three core concepts moms face. She chats with us about these concepts including what we can do to help ourselves with the conflict of sacrificing our own identities in motherhood. We also discuss the core concept of idealization of motherhood and how intense our standards are on ourselves as parents.

Ever feel like your needs aren’t being met by your partner when it comes to sharing the load? Do you ask them for help but it never seems to go anywhere? Dr. Morgan shares actionable steps you can take when our own needs are not being met. She talks about how you can best manage all of our commitments and why that means you can’t be 100 percent committed to everything at once.

If the HERself podcast has made an impact on your life we would love it if you could help us in return. Leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts and while you’re there also hit the follow or subscribe button. That way we will land in your inbox every single Monday!

23/05/2024

It’s wild out here. 🦖🦖🦖

22/05/2024

Have you been there?

You’ve navigated the night with patience, calmly giving reminders and managing a few squabbles and a meltdown. You’re keeping it all together - maybe even literally being the calm in their storm. 🌩️

And then…you crack. You run out of patience. You’re overstimulated and exhausted. And you lose it.

We get it, because we’ve been there. Our mission is to give you some solidarity and also help get you one step further in your parenting journey, while also recognizing that none of us are superwoman.

This week we hosted .parent to talk about supporting our kids through anger. We have more episodes that speak to the mom who feels exhausted from scripts that don’t work with their spirited kiddos, so be sure to check them out!

🎧 117 - on Overstimulation in Parenthood

🎧 157 - Real Parenting: What to Do When the Script Doesn’t Work with

🎧 158 - How We Parent Our Big Reactors

21/05/2024

What would you add? Share with us below. ⬇️

20/05/2024

We’ve all experienced the feelings of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, etc. And if you are a mom, you’ve seen your children experience all of these emotions too. But why is it that when our children are displaying anger, it makes us so uncomfortable? Today we are talking with Certified Parenting Coach, Leda Rawlins, about why anger in children is normal and what we, as parents, can do when our child is angry. Leda will walk us through how, and when, to teach our children how to react in a frustrating moment.

We know that angry behaviors from our kids at home is stressful enough, so it’s normal to worry about those same behaviors while they are at school or extracurricular activities. Leda will explain when and who we should collaborate with to make the best team to support our child in those settings.

Sometimes as parents it can seem daunting to change our own behavior when responding to anger from our child. Leda acknowledges that the help of professionals can be beneficial and sometimes necessary to teach us the tools and strategies we need to help our child succeed. The main thing we want you to know is that it doesn’t take a perfect parent to implement the strategies Leda teaches us today. It’s about being better, and that’s what’s important! You’ve got this, mama!

16/05/2024

And the other 10% is….

15/05/2024

What would it be for you? Share with us below. ⬇️ ❤️

14/05/2024

I was in a conversation recently with and she used the phrase, “Where is the margin?” as we talked about the modern mom and her relationship with productivity.

She said, “How overwhelming would it be if a book or newspaper had no margins? Every page was just completely full of words. How can we expect ourselves to live with no margin?”

I’ve found myself in more conversations than I can count with moms that have put all their own interests and hobbies aside. Even saying things like, “I’m not even sure what to do IF I had any free time.”

I get it. Life with young children can be so full that we actually COULD never stop. Between the kids, the household, work…our time could be completely spoken for.

AND, that’s a really hard place to live. How could we expect that from ourselves? That might be why ONE extra or unexpected blow can feel SO HARD - we didn’t leave ourselves any margin.

I hope we encourage you to find a little space this week. And then I hope you do it again the next week and the next. ❤️

Xo.

13/05/2024

Have you ever gone through a rough stretch and it’s made you take a look at your life from a zoomed out perspective? Well that’s exactly where we’ve been lately. Both of us have gone through a stretch of illnesses for both ourselves and our kids that has made us reflect on what we want to stay in our lives and what we want to leave behind. And sometimes it takes going through a really hard period to notice these things.

In this episode we talk about how most of us live such busy lives that we don’t have any margin for sick days. And that includes for ourselves. We talk about what we call the “10-minute” support person and how neither of us have that. But instead of wishing we did, we share how we have the necessary conversations with our partners and friends, so that when we do get that call from school saying our kiddo is sick, it isn’t always falling on just us.

We want this episode to be the push you need to do some reflecting on your own life. What can you let go of? Where can you ask for help? What are your values and what can you do that is going to help you live in more alignment? Do you have the necessary margins that you need so that when something does come up, you’re set up to handle it in a way that feels best for you?

09/05/2024

As women who love our sleep…we feel this. 🫶🏻 What’s your preferred grown-up bedtime?

08/05/2024

No truer words have been spoken. 😴

Adult friendship is a topic we cover frequently on the podcast, because we know how hard it is AND how crucial it is for us as moms and women. In addition to this week’s conversation with , check out our other episodes with female friendship experts:

🤍 Episode 59 with
🤍 Episode 145 with
🤍 Episode 159 with
🤍 Episode 221 with

07/05/2024

This week on the podcast, we talked openly and honestly with about the power of female friendship and also how to navigate tough friendship situations as women. One thing that came up that we know affects this community: how to handle being left out of social situations. Too many of us know this feeling all too well, and if you’re currently feeling the ache of it - we see you.

If you’ve navigated this before, what’s your best advice for other women experiencing the same feeling of being left out? We’d love to hear your words of wisdom below. ❤️

25/04/2024

Tag a mama who needs this reminder. ❤️

24/04/2024

Yes and yes.

18/04/2024

Who’s gearing up for another weekend of scrambling?? 🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏾‍♀️🙋🏾‍♀️🙋‍♀️

15/04/2024

Are you in a phase of your relationship where your partner feels more like a roommate? We know this is a challenge that many of our listeners in this community face. Today we are excited to have Sheina Schochet of back on the show. If you haven’t already, be sure to go back and listen to episode 170 when we first had Sheina on.

Today’s discussion is infused with so many tips on everything from what to do if your partnership doesn’t feel like it’s in a strong place to some actions you can take if your partner isn’t open to going to therapy. Since Sheina’s last visit on the show, she has become a Gottman Bringing Home Baby educator and the insights she’s gained from this are tangible throughout our conversation.

What we want you to walk away with from our discussion with Sheina is that being in a rut in your relationship is super common and it’s something that isn’t talked about enough. So if you’re feeling like you are in a low place right now, tune into this episode to learn how to reconnect with your partner and get back to a place where you are able to find the friendship & intimacy in your relationship again.

11/04/2024

Tag a mama who’s doing an amazing job. ❤️ .to.anna

10/04/2024

As we both navigate demanding work schedules along with sick kiddos this week, we know this is a conversation worth having. Sometimes family help is farther than a just a phone call away. ❤️

What’s your best advice to a mom whose family lives far away and who needs to build her village? Share with our community below. ⬇️

04/04/2024

Leave a ❤️ if silence in your house also makes you raise an eyebrow.