Sheltering in place during this pandemic is especially hard for mothers who are introverts, especially when your kids are very small. You just.want.to.be.alone, but that space and quiet is really hard to come by.   In this Summer Break re-run episode, I share a bit of my own story, finding my way as an introvert and a stay-at-home mother. I also offer suggestions for how introvert moms can better care for themselves and be more calm, recharged and focused by practicing self-care that gets right at the need for quiet and alone time (even if your family never leaves you alone).    In this episode:

• what it means to be introverted and why at-home mothering hard for this personality
• how to learn your own signals for needing a quiet break
• five introvert-specific self-care ideas that you can apply now

  Links for this episode:   Complete show notes for Episode  Connect with Doña on Instagram Get the Get Back In Control Of Your Life workbook and get regular updates about the podcast Work with Doña - email me a note with what is currently frustrating you and how you'd like your life to feel. I'll reply with the next step in the process.   

 

 

This summer break-re-release is an episode where I break down the philosophy behind the KonMari method, and how to apply it to more than just your house. After you listen, I want you to review what is - or was - in your life pre-Covid, and what you WANT in your life now.   There is so much we want but still can’t have. But what are you actually relieved to no longer be doing? When you get to start doing all the things again, which are the ones you really want, and which do you just think you should go back to? What do you want to keep from this period of being forced into being slow and small? There might be a lot.    What you’ll hear in this episode:

• an overview of the KonMari method and why this applies to more than just your closet
• some of the ways it feels in your body to feel joy
• other places in your life you can ask “does this bring me joy” and edit what doesn't
• why developing the skill to recognize your joy will allow you to unhook from the weight of things that make other people happy - but not you

  Links for this episode:   Complete show notes for Episode  Connect with Doña on Instagram Get the Get Back In Control Of Your Life workbook and get regular updates about the podcast Work with Doña - email me a note with what is currently frustrating you and how you'd like your life to feel. I'll reply with the next step in the process.   

 

Being turned on means to be ready. Not, in this case, for sexy stuff, but to be ready to invite life in. Do you feel open to that invitation? Or are you instead worn out, exhausted, and touched out?    Motherhood - life - doesn’t have to feel this way. But if you are waiting for someone to swoop in and fix it, you might be waiting a long time.    This week’s episode (#64) is about how you can reconnect with yourself, reconnect with the world, start to feel alive and vital again. It is about how you can light yourself bak up again.    In this episode, I explore what it means to turn yourself back on - to life, to connection, to fun, and yeah, maybe for sexy stuff, too.    What you’ll hear in this episode

• Why you being turned on is important
• Prompts to figure out what your personal turn ons are
• 8 ways to get yourself turned back on

  Links for this episode   Complete show notes for Episode Connect with Doña on Instagram Get the Get Back In Control Of Your Life workbook and get regular updates about the podcast Work with Doña - email me a note with what is currently frustrating you and how you'd like your life to feel. I'll reply with the next step in the process.   

In this summer break re-release, I get personal about how I tended to myself in a particularly hard season; what worked for me, where I set boundaries, what I did to nourish myself.    I hope you will hear some ideas here that you can implement in your own life. Ideas that make you think, "Huh, I hadn’t thought of that as self-care!” But it is. It totally is. And the effects will last a lot longer than a bubble bath, too.   What you’ll find in this episode: 

• the secret to how I menu-plan
• how I’m building my village
• questions to ask yourself to find out what you really need
• ideas about how to build your own super personalized self-care practice

Links for this episode:   Complete show notes for Episode  Connect with Doña on Instagram Get the Get Back In Control Of Your Life workbook and get regular updates about the podcast Work with Doña - email me a note with what is currently frustrating you and how you'd like your life to feel. I'll reply with the next step in the process

How do you talk to your kids about the hard stuff? Illness, death, violence? Racism?    If you feel completely unprepared for these conversations, this episode should help. While there is no one script to cover all the different conversations, there are some general guidelines that will help you feel more confident and brave, no matter what the topic. In this episode I share a rough framework that will help you prepare for and have a conversation with your child - at any age - about those more tricky or emotional topics.     What you’ll hear in this episode:

• How to approach your child about a hard topic - whether they are 3 or 13. 
• Why you don’t actually need to know all the answers.
• The most important part of any hard conversation, with any child. 

Links for this show   Complete show notes for Episode  Connect with Doña on Instagram Get the Get Back In Control Of Your Life workbook and get regular updates about the podcast Work with Doña - email me a note with what is currently frustrating you and how you'd like your life to feel. I'll reply with the next step in the process.

Do you feel like a good parent every day? Or do you snap and get frustrated, say things you regret, and wish you had different kids?:  

1. Welcome to being human during a pandemic, so give yourself some grace.
2. You don’t have to be stuck here. Doing your own personal work - increasing your awareness, mindfulness, and self-care - can change everything about how you parent.

  My guest for this episode, Casey O’Roarty, has been training and coaching parents since 2007, and credits her commitment to her own personal work to helping her get through some pretty intense stuff - not even including the current world crisis. Her work encourages parents to discover the purpose of their journey, while also providing them with tools and a shift of mindset that allows them to deepen their relationships with themselves and their families.   Links for this episode   Complete show notes for Episode  Connect with Doña on Instagram Get the Get Back In Control Of Your Life workbook and get regular updates about the podcast Work with Doña - email me a note with what is currently frustrating you and how you'd like your life to feel. I'll reply with the next step in the process.   

 

Uma Girish believes that this pandemic is here to teach us something important. Uma is an author, speaker and life purpose coach, and she believes that you are here, at this moment in time, on purpose. What can you learn from this experience? How can you support and usher your kids through it so that it has greater meaning than just being paused?    What you’ll hear in this episode  

• Why this pandemic is happening now and what we can learn from it
• Why the global scale and interconnectedness of this experience is so important
• How to support yourself and how to support your children in their experience during this time.
• An exercise in softening your anxiety

Links for this episode:   Complete show notes for Episode  Connect with Doña on Instagram Get the Get Back In Control Of Your Life workbook and get regular updates about the podcast Work with Doña - email me a note with what is currently frustrating you and how you'd like your life to feel. I'll reply with the next step in the process.   

“I need help following through on doing things that are good for me,” is what she said to me, but what she really needed was:  

1. permission to be ok with choosing her self-care time over chores
2. identifying some hidden inequality in her partnership that she could address
3. unearthing and questioning her expectations of herself and her definition of “good moms do…"

    In this live coaching episode, I help Dacy dig in to what was REALLY going on, what she really WANTED - and it was not at all what she thought she was after. It was so much more far-reaching!   What you’ll hear in this episode  

• How what’s going on on the surface might be masking the real issue
• How to identify subtle inequalities in your relationship
• Why you get to define what an “organized mom” actually does (not Pinterest)

Links for this episode   Complete show notes for Episode  Connect with Doña on Instagram Get the Get Back In Control Of Your Life workbook and get regular updates about the podcast Work with Doña - email me a note with what is currently frustrating you and how you'd like your life to feel. I'll reply with the next step in the process.   

Last month, life shifted for everyone. I expect you are feeling the deep impact of that right now. I’m personally writing this five weeks into sheltering at home, a month into school closures and my partner working at home, and no end in sight.    Every woman I’ve come in contact with is feeling the strain of this massive shift in our time, income, and the ways we emotionally support ourselves and our families.    Carey Osenbau’s life is no different. She’s the mom of 3 kids and owner of a boutique branding business. Normally, her husband travels extensively for work and she balances the needs of her young daughter and teenage sons, while also supporting her business. But right now, she’s homeschooling, sharing her tiny office with her husband, who is not traveling at all but working full time remotely. And still running her business, because her clients still need branding! Carey also has a chronic illness that flares with stress, so she has to be super intentional about managing her mental health.    In this episode, Carey shares how the systems she used to run her business and balance her work and life in the before times allowed her to shift into this new experience.    If you are struggling to find your way in this new world, I hope you will pick up some ideas from Carey’s experience so that you can focus, balance, and find a bit more grace in this pandemic life.    What you’ll hear in this episode

• a simple system that you can use to help you adapt during this challenging and changing time
• why a morning routine is so important for you right now
• what intentional stress management looks like

  Links for this episode   Complete show notes for Episode Connect with Doña on Instagram Get the Get Back In Control Of Your Life workbook and get regular updates about the podcast Work with Doña - email me a note with what is currently frustrating you and how you'd like your life to feel. I'll reply with the next step in the process. 

Today’s guest is a song doula. You’ve probably never heard of that. I hadn’t either!    Chelsea is a singer and songwriter who works with women to begin to write their own songs, But that process, as she will describe in this interview, is so much more than learning how to place the chorus and the verses or how to set a story to music,    it is about learning how to dig into what’s really true, what’s real, and as she says in this interview, sometimes that truth can be really not pretty, and has to be reckoned with. And that’s the place where her work and mine intersect, and why I wanted to bring her perspective to this show.    What you’ll hear in this episode

• why writing a song is a metaphor for finding your voice
• why performance is such an important part of this process
• how finding your voice can shift everything in your life. 

  links for this show:   Complete show notes for Episode  Connect with Doña on Instagram Get the Get Back In Control Of Your Life workbook and get regular updates about the podcast Work with Doña - email me a note with what is currently frustrating you and how you'd like your life to feel. I'll reply with the next step in the process.   

We are in a period of time like none any of us have experienced before. It feels overwhelming, scary, and stressful. There are so many decisions we are trying to make every day, in an environment where we have never made decisions like these before.   So how the heck we figure out what we should do when we are uncertain? When everyone has an opinion and they don’t necessarily make sense, or they might even contradict each other. What should you do when you are afraid, or when everyone around you is afraid? What should you do when even our leaders don’t make sense? What should you do when you find yourself in a situation where you have no experience to guide you?   What you’ll hear in this episode

• How to make clear and confident decisions when you don’t feel clear at all
• The three steps to take before you make any decision
• Several free resources from me to support you in this uncertain and stressful time.

  Links for this episode: Complete show notes for Episode Connect with Doña on Instagram Get the Get Back In Control Of Your Life workbook and get regular updates about the podcast Work with Doña - email me a note with what is currently frustrating you most. I'll reply with the next step in the process.