Welcome to the happy mama movement podcast.

I'm Amy Taylor-Kabbaz.

I would like to start by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the aura nation

on which this podcast is recorded as the traditional custodians of this land.

And pay my respects to the elders past, present and emerging.

And as this podcast is dedicated to the wisdom and knowledge of motherhood, I

would like to acknowledge the mothers of this land, the elders, their wisdom.

Their knowing and my own elders and teachers.

Welcome back Mamas.

I remember when I brought Scarlet, my first child, home and those first

days, weeks were the hardest time of my life, or so I thought at the time.

And I would hear that inner mean mama mantra of I can't do this anymore.

I can't do this.

I can't do this.

I can't do this.

And it consumed me.

This voice in my head saying the same thing over and over and over again.

I didn't know how to get out of that space.

I didn't know how to turn it around.

I didn't even know it was possible at the time to turn those thoughts around.

That mantra of, I can't do this anymore, has stayed with me for many years.

But it's been one of the greatest gifts of my life.

Because to have such a clear defeatist voice in my head so easily heard in every

moment has been the greatest opportunity of my life to turn things around.

I find myself even now, going back to that, when things get hard.

When the third child, is confirmed positive for COVID

six weeks after the first child.

So it feels like it's this excruciating rolling experience.

What's the first thought, I can't do this again.

I can't do this anymore.

Why is it that we have these voices?

They continue to dominate us, even when we know it's not true.

Because that's what I've actually discovered about

myself, in my last 45 years.

Is that actually, no matter what I am presented with, I fricking can do it.

I can.

I do it every single day.

I did the early years of motherhood.

I did the early years of my career.

I've been through separation and divorce and COVID and pandemics and

all of the things I can do this.

And yet there's the voice every damn time.

What I love about understanding how our brain works and our thinking works

is that it's just a habit of thinking.

It's just a habit.

A belief is something.

That you think that you've turned into a habit of thinking.

So what are the beliefs that you have right now that you've

turned into habits of thinking?

Perhaps it's belief that you're messing this up.

Perhaps it's a belief that your body will never be the same.

Perhaps it's a belief that you'll never feel supported or

seen, that it's always up to.

That is not our truth.

It's not.

But the more we sink into that truth as we think we know it,

the more we will perpetuate it.

So how is it possible after so much challenge when we are hearing that

voice over and over again, when we are telling ourselves I can't do

this anymore, can we actually find that trust within us that we can?

We going to be okay.

We can do this.

When I think about this, the only answer I find is daily practice.

Daily practice.

A deep commitment to riding the wave of hearing that voice in my head.

Not judging it, not rejecting it.

Not hating it.

But hearing it and riding like a surfer on a wave.

Yep.

There it is.

And now it's going to go back down again, not denying any of the steps,

even the awful mean ones in my head.

And then I come back to what I have had to really consciously create

as a belief because I've turned this way of thinking into a habit.

Look how much I've already been through.

When I was 15, I went to Japan as an exchange student.

At the time I was in a lot of trouble at home.

I was a completely rebellious teenager.

Underneath the surface, I was a completely self-doubting unhappy, lost teenager.

And I tried to find my way in the world by hanging out with the bad boys and

the bad kids doing the bad things.

And yet there was a part of me that also really wanted more.

I wanted to be a journalist, even at that age.

I also wanted to be a dancer.

I wanted to travel the world.

I wanted to do more.

I just didn't believe in myself enough to think that that

was what was possible for me.

And yet by some stroke of luck, in other words, divine universal guidance.

The company my father worked for at the time offered a scholarship, only three

in Australia to travel overseas as an exchange student for a whole 12 months.

My dad came home knowing that I was completely lost and hanging out with all

the wrong kids and encouraged me to apply.

I did not ever think I would get that scholarship.

This was a multi national company.

This was a huge company within Australia.

How could I possibly be one of those three?

And yet I turned out to be one of those three.

And before I knew it, I found myself completely plucked out of my comfort

zone, yet terribly toxic environment with my friends, and dropped into a family

in Japan that spoke no English and was enrolled into a local girls high school

where I was the only foreign student in the whole school for 12 months.

When I hear that voice in my head that says, I can't do this anymore.

I say to myself, if I did that, I can do this.

I remember learning how to breastfeed Scarlet my first child and finding it so

incredibly hard because she was so unwell.

And we didn't fully understand how unwell she was and how much in pain she was.

And just thinking, I can't do this.

I'm failing, I'm failing.

And it was my beautiful sister who said to me, Amy, remember you're the

15 year old who went to Japan on her own and lived with a family who she

couldn't communicate with and went to school every day at a school she

couldn't communicate in and live there for 12 months and came home fluent in

Japan, a completely different person.

You did that.

You just need that resilience to do this.

And that's still what I use.

My resilience list I lean on now is more than just when I was 15 in Japan.

It's now going back to Japan again, to study at university when I was 20.

It's now my three children.

Labor, endless nights of no sleep, learning to breastfeed, juggling

these three kids, it's moving across the country on my own without family.

And yes, it's going through the pandemic.

It's my marriage crumbling before my eyes, even though that's not what I wanted.

And the heartbreak of realizing that he had pulled away towards

someone else, it is all of these moments that I have survived.

That allow me to say when that voice kicks in, again, I can't do this today.

I take a breath and I say to myself, if I did that, I can do this.

There is strength in us that we don't see.

Not always strength that requires us to push on, but a strength that

requires us, I believe in just backing ourselves and trusting ourselves.

We're going to be okay.

Did I get all of those moments and challenges in my life?

Right?

Hell no.

I was messy and got it wrong and was a big part of some of the problems

and all of the things, but I did it.

I'm here.

I'm okay.

Actually I'm happy.

So Mama, whenever you doubt yourself, whenever you

question, how can I trust this?

Think about your resilience list.

Think about the moments where you found something in you that got you through.

Not in a perfect way.

In fact, most of those times are never perfect.

It's a knowing within you.

It's a knowing of who you are.

It's a knowing of who you are on the other side of it.

Did I know who I was going to be in those months in Japan when

I could not understand a word anybody was saying around me?

Hell no, scariest, hardest thing.

But I know for sure that on the other side of that scariest,

hardest thing, I was a new person.

And if I did that, I can do this.

That's what we remember in these moments.

This is scary and hard, and I don't know what I'm doing, and I

can't even understand the language around me, but I know on the other

side this'll be the making of me.

Because if I did that, I can do this.

I hope that lands in your belly and stays in your mind when you need it.

Thank you for being a part of this conversation, Mama.

We change the way mothers are valued and seen in our society and our world

by bringing these conversations to light and spreading the whispers of matresence.

And so I ask you to be a part of this movement now.

Speak to others around you about matresence.

About your experience of motherhood.

Let's bring it to light together.

To find out more about my matresence.

Go to amytaylorkabbaz.com forward slashmatresence.

And receive your free ebook the matresence map.

So you can understand it even deeper.

Thank you for being a part of this.

Until next week.