6 Reasons Why Moms Make the Best Leaders
Read about why Brooke believes moms make the best leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals.
By Brooke Jean, MA, LPC
Becoming a mother has been the most transformative transition of my life to date, and it has put me face-to-face with aspects of myself that help me kick ass in business.
And as a therapist and coach supporting mostly working moms, I have a front-row-seat to their strengths and struggles and I am here to say — they kick ass too!
As mothers, I feel we have a duty to co-create the new normal we want to live, work, and thrive in. As employers, we have a duty to figure out how to offer flexible work schedules and conditions to accommodate what I believe are some of your best and most strategic hiring moves.
here’s why i believe moms make the best leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals.
We have an unfuckwithable source of strength buried deep inside of us that we get to meet and greet when becoming a mother. Whether it’s hearing “it’s time to push” after being in labor for 48 hours, or making it through another day of summer after not sleeping for three days, being constantly over-stimulated and not taking a moment to collect yourself, we tap into some animalistic strength that’ll surprise the living shit outta you. It certainly surprised the living shit outta me. Once we know we have that source of strength, we can harness it and use it for good and to make shit happen in other arenas.
We’re deeply intuitive and this, as our super power, deserves solid recognition as well as celebration. You know what I can do since becoming a mother? I can sense what’s not being said in a room, I can tell who’s had a rough morning, who fears the next roll out, who’s in conflict with each other and who’s thinking about quitting. All just by paying attention, being present, and trusting my intuition. Knowing what’s not being said and addressing it saves companies and teams time, trust, and straight productivity. Often the things holding a team back are outside the awareness of the folks involved, but moms — we sense that shit and will work through it. In addition to being intuitive, we’re energetically sensitive, compassionate and empathic. Having these gifts allows us to build authentic and long-lasting relationships which I believe is the vehicle to any forward movement, change or success.
We’re kick-ass relationship builders, amazing connectors, and therefore collaborators. Connection is the foundation to any business venture you have. Without it, not much will get done or remain impactful. Mothers go through brain reconstruction that allows them to attune like crazy to their babies. For example — we might lose some vocabulary temporarily, but we gain being able to hear our babies cry two miles away. This attunement to our kids can be transferrable to others. Attunement is key in making people feel seen and heard and creates safety amongst teams. This feeling of safety opens channels of communication sparking innovation, creativity, and creative collaboration. Attunement is key in nervous system regulation which enhances health and wellbeing and is something leaders need to be paying attention to these days. If you are not creating a safe culture, your people will not be bringing their best to work. We do this naturally.
Moms are the ones you want running the show, especially in a CRISIS. Why? Well, partly because we are already doing this in our day-to-day lives. Have you ever tried to get three kids out of the house and off to their things every morning? Next time you’re at a five year old’s birthday party, observe what mom is doing and then what dad is doing. Mom is clearly in charge, running the show and making sure everyone is having the time of their lives. Dad is drinking a beer and appears to be one of the party attendees, rather than a parent in charge! Moms go into business-handler mode without thinking and we consider all the people around us. We face the hard things, make challenging and scary decisions, and make shit happen. As leaders, we are not afraid to step up in a crisis. I’ve been that leader and seen those leaders in action.
We are time-management masters. What a mother can accomplish in four uninterrupted hours is the equivalent of what their counter-parts can do in eight hours. Why? Again, because we have experience juggling forty-seven balls all at one time and being the safety net should any ball fall. We tell others what they can take off our plate, because we are managing all the things. We also have perspective on life becoming a mom so we know what’s important and can leave the rest. We have a strong desire to get back to our kids so we have this fierce, intrinsic motivation to get shit done. We are mama bears wanting to provide for our cubs so we want to get it done right the first time while delighting our clients, teams, bosses, etc. We are living in a constant state of change - right now adjusting to the summer schedules so we become more comfortable with change and grow in adaptability, resilience, and resourcefulness.
This one is important because I believe one of the biggest blocks leaders have is their pain, their trauma, and the avoidance of their healing. This stuff becomes a hot wet blanket holding them back from seeing and believing in their potential but are often in denial. Mothers, because we want to be the best for our kids, are willing to do the inner work. We tend to lean toward “what can I do and how can I be better.” We tend to be more okay with vulnerability and reaching out to community for support. When we heal ourselves, not only do we remove energetic barriers for our success — we also become more authentic and relatable to others. We perpetuate compassion and empathy and deepen our relationships. We see and know our worth which fuels our self confidence.
When I think about what mothers doing their healing can do as leaders in this messy world, I get the goosebumps. I feel hope. I feel optimistic.
We have a real responsibility to make space for working mothers in the work force and in leadership roles. We don’t need eight hours a day, five days a week, Monday through Friday to create movements, lead teams, drive change, and come up with solutions to complex problems. What we need is to ditch and dismantle the outdated structures and systems that hold us back, limit our potential and expression, and make teams feel untrusted.
Out are the days where anyone needs to be micro-managed and that we force grit or discipline and action-plan the living daylights out of things. In are our innate feminine forces where we tap into our intuition and our ability to connect, conspire, and birth new ideas out into the world. Where we use energy and find flow to remember the true nature of who we are and humanity at large.
this is what the world needs right now.
I shared more on a recent episode of my podcast for working moms — The Unperfected Pod — where we normalize normal and find freedom through a life unperfected. Learn more here!
To follow more of my thoughts and real-life shenanigans, check out my Instagram!
with BIG love,
Brooke Jean, MA, LPC
How to Start a Journaling Practice
Read how you can leverage journaling for your emotional, mental, and physical wellbeing.
By Brooke Jean, MA, LPC
A tried-and-true tool that I share with clients every single day as a therapist and coach that has also transformed my own life is journaling.
I often get asked, well how do I start? What do I do? What’s the purpose?
Here is my quick overview and spiel on why and how you can leverage this tool for your emotional, mental, and physical wellbeing.
First - invest in a beautiful journal that excites you just to look at, and a pen that you absolutely freaking love to use.
Having nice things motivates us to continue the practice. Also, you deserve nice things. That’s important to allow in and remember.
Next, you’ll need to set aside time for your new practice! Studies show that when we determine what we are going to do along with WHEN and WHERE, we are much more likely to do it. So, when and where will you journal?
i journal as part of my morning ritual.
Y’all know I am OBSESSED with a good morning ritual, honey! This daily practice has completely changed how I start and therefore experience each day. Here’s a quick download of my morning ritual:
I get up before the motley crew in my home, usually between 5:30am and 6:30am, and I start boiling water for my hot lemon water. While that’s cooling down I do a 10-15 minute meditation which I choose based on what I have going on. Then, depending on what came through in the meditation, I journal and create. Having this morning ritual has me feeling like I have already accomplished the world by 7:00am and its all gravy from there!!
How you start your day sets the tone for your day and this has me vining high right out of the gates.
We must remember we are not an unlimited tank of gas energetically, so starting your day by filling your tank will help you have energy throughout the day for the things that matter most. So ask yourself — when and where will I make this happen??
put it in your calendar. communicate to your people that you’ll be doing this.
Next, set your intention with that you want to get out of this practice. What are wishing to feel and experience from this practice? What is it you are needing? How do you want this to serve and help you? Set your intention and write it out. It could look a little something like:
“Journaling every day will bring clarity to my life.” Or — “Spending time on myself each morning will charge my battery.”
Notice that I’m speaking in the present as if that shiz is already happening.
Because it is!
Finally, sit your fanny down and just start brain-dumping.
write anything you want. scribble. draw images. put pen to freaking paper.
I like a little structure to my journaling, so I break my entries out into three categories:
1. I write out what’s coming up for me.
This is where I process shit. What feelings am I feeling? What am I struggling with or wrestling with? What am I working through? What’s happening in my life that I need to get out?
If you’re not sure, start by asking yourself — do I feel pleasant or unpleasant? Good mood or bad mood? High energy or low energy? What sensation am I feeling in my body? What am I noticing? This is all building your trust muscle in yourself and opening up channels of communication which will allow more information to flow later in time.
Just check the heck in. If all else fails, just write — I am not sure what I am feeling. Just begin. That’s half the battle people.
2. Here is where I list out my intentions around the WHO I want to BE to have the life I want to have, and HOW I want to FEEL.
This allows me to remember my bigger why and re-commit daily. This is where my manifestation practices come in. Lately I’ve been wanting to feel more energized and happy, so here is where I write about that. What’s working, what’s pulling me away from the way I want to feel. Here is where I ask — how DO I want to feel? Who do I want to BE? What big dreams do I have for myself?
I also do a little visualization in my meditation before journaling, where I pull up an image of me embodying how I want to feel — living my best freaking life. That builds up energetic momentum for this portion of journaling. I get emotionally and energetically connected to this becoming, to this manifestation, to my future, my goals, and my dreams.
3. I write out steps I am taking today to move toward how I want to feel and who I want to be.
Here is where I list out the aligned action I’m taking to bring things to fruition, which holds me accountable to my goals. Not only does it keep me on track — it allows me to look back and monitor my progress which releases feel-good hormones that motivates me to carry on.
Here is where you move the needle and remember that to create the life you’ve always wanted, you have to get off your fanny and make magic happen. Here is where I celebrate the effort and consistency in how I show up for my dreams. Here is where I repeat the mantra I am proud of the work I have done.
setting this time aside for you, to check in on you, is extremely powerful.
You are sending a message to the Universe that you matter and that you are worthy of self care, while also sending a message to yourself that you’ll continually show up for you. This is extremely healing and therapeutic because all too often we have abandoned ourselves and lost that trust, such that our bodies and intuition have actually stopped trying to communicate with us. This practice opens those channels, rebuilds the trust, and allows you to get to know yourself on a much deeper level.
It is here that you begin to process things that are happening in your life.
Where you move emotion through your body.
Where you begin to heal.
Where you access parts of your being that you didn’t even know exist.
Where you download brilliant ideas and clarity from your internal guidance system, your intuition.
Where you can connect spiritually and receive beautiful guidance, the experience of being held.
And all of this, my friends, supports your mental health and wellbeing. May this practice support you in such meaningful ways.
Take care of yourselves and therefore each other,
XO brooke jean
Perfectionism as a Conditioned Trauma Response: My Journey Toward Integration.
Read about Brooke’s perfectionism, trauma response, integration, and transformation.
By Brooke Jean, MA, LPC
2012 was a massive, game-changing, kick-you-in-the-ass year for me.
At the height of my corporate career while raising a son for the past ten years, my work community was hit with a massive collective trauma. Half of my team was in the movie theatre seeing Batman the horrific night of the Aurora Theatre shooting. What unfolded next was nothing short of true terror. We shockingly and devastatingly lost a team member that night.
That same year, I married the man who I had met and began dating eight years prior. The solid, loving, loyal and stable mid west boy who showed up in our store in Longmont, CO transferring from Wisconsin. We worked together and while I wasn’t ready for a serious thing he waited patiently and ultimately broke through my thick walls. We waited eight years to get married because, well, to be frank after being royally fucked by the last man, the father of my child, I was hesitant. I needed to make sure he was good for my son and I. And friends, he sure was and is.
We got married and headed to Maui for a ten night beach-front stay. This was the first time in a decade I had actually relaxed. I had my son in college and had been climbing the corporate ladder, trying to build a future for my son and I.
I was endlessly busy, but here is where my nervous system regulated just enough for my psyche to reveal to me what I had been suppressing since I was a child.
In came a flooding of memories from my childhood that were disturbing. Traumatic. In came the surge of anxiety as I had my first panic attack thinking I was suffocating from over-eating quietly in bed as I didn’t want to disturb my partner. In came the body sensations I had pushed down for decades. Even though I could compartmentalize, shove shit down in layman’s terms and enjoy many parts of the honeymoon, it was on this trip that I knew it was time for a major life overhaul.
this is how i discovered that often the most brutally intense experiences open us up for the most bad ass transformation.
The trauma of the community crisis, although completely unrelated, triggered my childhood trauma. Thats how grief and trauma work.
I did a scary thing and left my stable corporate career to start my healing journey, knowing there simply wasn’t enough space for the big job with lots of pressure AND the personal development work I was going to do.
Once I started doing the healing work, I learned that the perfectionism, the constant strive for more, for better, for high achievement was actually a conditioned trauma response.
One that gave me an illusion of control. That hid my wounds keeping me distracted by titles, bonuses, big responsibilities and big material rewards. Dopamine hits all day long. Anyone who works in corporate America can probably relate to those high high’s and low low’s. I wore this badge of honor proudly with a “look at how good I am” smirk.
Taking that armor off, I met my inner younger version of myself who was pissed off.
Boy oh boy did she have some rage to express and here’s why. One of my deepest wounds was that no one protected me as a child from the circumstances that led to the traumas. And this is not about blaming parents, thats not healing or purposeful. This is what generational trauma looks like.
We don’t know what we don’t know, we do the best we can and we can never fully protect our kids from harm or from being kids. This IS to acknowledge that my inner child did not feel protected or validated in her big feelings.
And here I was as a young adult re-enacting this reality. Not protecting myself by way of an eating disorder, tolerating bullshit men and their bullshit treatment, one of which I had a child with who cheated on me the whole time. Drinking, drugging, and putting myself in reckless situations to be hurt or hurt someone else.
That rage was my inner younger self screaming from the rooftops “You are supposed to be my protector now and you are not protecting me, wtf are you doing”? I understand now why I was so angry. Why all the outbursts.
It took me too long to hear her. Why? Because I was busy doing, perfecting, performing, producing. Chasing safety and control in achievements. Running away from myself because somehow I knew deep down it was too scary a place. This is how perfectionism made me sick - it covered up what needed tending to and perpetuated the incessant experience of not enough-ness.
The healing has been a discovery back to my most authentic self and all my parts. It’s been a shedding of layers I built out of protection or seeking approval.
An exploration of self, what lights me up what doesn’t and what I am passionate about. It’s been about asking myself hard questions and being brave enough to listen to the answers.
And now here I am, on the journey still but living a completely different life. One where I show up for myself and protect myself in all the ways I didn’t before. Following my bliss, I went back to school got my masters in counseling psychology and launched a private practice seven years ago that has grown and is thriving. I grew my family, bringing my precious daughter into the world five years ago. I allow myself to dream big, as I have an unwavering belief in myself and my abilities now, honing my gifts.
You see, all this yuck. The trauma. The broken parts and missing pieces. My shadow. My pissed off younger parts. The journey itself. It all adds up and helps me know what the fuck I am made of.
She’s a bad mama mama folks and this is what organically propels me forward. To be who I authentically am. To live in alignment with my soul’s deepest desires. To work and live in a way thats rich and meaningful to me. To accept myself and be more than okay always being a work in progress as not all parts of my lived experience are where I want them to be.
It’s all part of my story and is preparing me for this very moment which I can now be present for because I am no longer buried under the pressure of who I thought I was supposed to be. Buried under my hurts trying to out perform the pain and for that I am so deeply grateful.
i am at peace knowing i am making my inner younger self feel safe and proud.
Honoring her, giving her a special seat at my life’s table and checking in with her often. Valuing her and knowing her big feelings are actually my superpowers.
Lately I have been sober curious and taking breaks from alcohol as this was a major culprit in my self-harm, self-sabotage and not protecting myself. I am sixty days AF today and in my journal was reflecting on how emotionally stunted I was and in some ways still am. I am just now learning to regulate myself and to express my emotions.
I finally have true self-respect as I used to have a swiss-cheesy foundation of self-worth where the holes were the parts and pieces I left behind in each trauma. I’ve gone back and patched those holes up to build a steady foundation. Pulling all the pieces of me back into Self to be more whole. Especially the parts that were absolutely fucking reckless just trying to survive. She did the best she could to hold it all down but it was just too much. I was slowly burying her but I’ve pulled her up from under the water, given her a towel, warmed her up, looked her deep in her eyes, thanking her, assuring her I can take it from here.
***This is what my journey of integration looks like***
What might perfectionism; the over-doing, over-achieving, over-controlling be covering up for you? What kick in the ass are you experiencing from the Universe thats trying to get on a different path? What parts of you can you face, meet with grace and compassion and allow in?
Where are you along your journey back home to Self?
Take care of yourselves and therefore each other,
XO brooke jean
I’m participating in Dry January because booze is a sledgehammer to mental health.
Read about Brooke’s journey to alcohol-free clarity.
By Brooke Jean, MA, LPC
Like everything else I do, have done and most likely will continue to do in my life, I take the most messy unperfected path.
As an overwhelmed, over-stimulated, busy working mama just trying to do life while healing her own damn wounds, I have adopted some pretty shitty ways of coping over the years.
How do I deal with all the forces coming at me all day needing things from me? The loud and painfully noisy “mama, mama, mama, mama”? The pressure to be the perfect mother, professional, neighbor, class volunteer, yogi, you name it? How do I decompress from a heavy day, forget my problems and find the energy for what I call the second shift in parenting which consists of school pick up, playtime, sports, dinner, bath, books and the ridiculously long and drawn out bedtime routine?
VINO. That’s how.
Unfortunately for me, one glass always leads to many more, to later be combined with a full plate of brie cheese and crackers and some mindless shopping online. The result is shitty sleep and waking up the next day in yet another shame spiral.
How was I navigating that relentless shame spiral? You guess it, more food, booze and Amazon Prime. Fuck me.
Being on a never ending personal development and healing journey, I have faced that this way of existing might not be serving me and my highest good (insert heavy eye roll here due to my sarcasm). Like I know deep down this shit isn’t serving me, but turning awareness into long-term action is freaking HARD.
I have been sober curious for around two years now and have taken many breaks from the booze just to fall back into old patterns.
In my practice, I have been yappin’ my trapper all month long about setting holiday boundaries and about how the holidays are full of opportunities for self-sabotaging our intentions, goals, dreams and desires.
In looking at my own life, because all too often the messages we are sharing with others are the ones we need to hear the most, I have come to the realization that my coping combo (food, wine and Amazon Prime) are self-sabotaging time sucks that quite literally demolish my mental health.
Every year, I join the Dry January movement as I believe big alcohol negatively affects many people and I want to be part of the movement toward better health and higher consciousness. This time around however I feel it may be a longer experiment as I have big dreams to fulfill and when I am really honest with myself, they don’t have room for hangovers or really any low vibe shit.
Let me say it loud here:
I no longer engage in mindless and soul-crushing time sucks anymore.
My journey to this clarity has been anything but linear and clear. It’s actually been so freaking messy. I’ve gone back and forth and ran back into the fire a million times over just to ditch my intentions all over again. But that’s life, and apparently how I roll.
Can we normalize the struggle to ditch our crummy coping mechanisms? Even when we are a helping professional who damn well knows better but still finds her / himself in the traps of despair from time to time?
Yes. I am a human just like the rest of us. And this is my unperfected path to unlearn everything I have been conditioned to believe is stress-relieving, fun and joyful. To make space for new ways of being that don’t take a sledgehammer to my mental health but actually build me up.