Before we dig in I think it’s important to share a little bit about my why.

Why is it that I’m so passionate about mommy’s mental health? I’m going to start in the beginning, where my unPERFECTED path really started. This was college for me. 

My senior year of college I unexpectedly got pregnant with my first born Camden who is now 19 years old. That was definitely not part of the family plan, but boy oh boy did he save my life and get me on the straight and narrow! 

it was during this time that I thought “okay - i definitely need to get my shit together.”

I needed to get an internship, a stable and steady career that I could grow in, and benefits, because I knew pretty quickly into this pregnancy that I’d be a single mom who was primarily supporting this kiddo. So I went to the career fair and fell in love with the fun and bubbly people in red and khaki.  I was IN, as I fell in love with the leadership opportunities and stability that this career could provide for me and my baby.

Fast forward and I spent a decade climbing that corporate ladder, basically burning the candle at both ends. 

You see, even though I had a big demanding job, I wanted to be the “perfect mom” as well. 

So I spent my days off volunteering in the classroom, attending every cotton-picking-practice and performance, and tried my best to keep up with the SAHMs. 

It wasn’t until a massive community trauma happened across the street from the store I was running in 2012 that tragically affected my team and the community that I woke up to this unhealthy way of being.  I go more into detail about what happened in the episode but the long and short of it is that this trauma triggered my past trauma even though they weren’t related.

And my trauma memories came flooding in while I was on a beach in Maui for my honeymoon.

I knew it was time for a major pivot, and I made the scary decision to leave the stability of the corporate career. I knew I had to get right with myself. I began to shed all the freaking shoulds I had let rule my life.

I took 6 months off to heal and to remember who the fuck I was, and I acknowledged that what had happened in that community crisis in my store had really brought me to my calling of being a therapist and helping professional. 

I went back to school, got my graduate degree in Counseling Psychology and launched my practice two days post graduation. 

so many times really hard things in our lives kickstart the most badass transformations. 

I wanted to grow my family and my business at the same time and prove to the world that as women we shouldn’t have to choose one or the other so 5 years ago we brought our precious daughter into the world and now our family is complete.

After having Chloe, I got hit super hard with Postpartum Depression and Anxiety and it was during this time that I became keenly aware of Mommy’s mental health, and lack of resources and conversation around the very real and scary struggles.  In raising Chloe I noticed the standards and expectations were way higher than when I was raising Cam.  

We used to have to keep up with the Joneses and now we have to keep up with the Kardashians while trying to achieve this ever-elusive perfectionism.

The perfect body, the perfect parenting, the perfect marriage, the perfect leader. We are just drowning in feelings of “not enoughness”, drowning in depressive episodes and anxiety attacks and shame spirals, and mom guilt, and resentment. This is how I became so passionate about supporting moms.

We need to stop making ourselves sick trying to keep up, and this podcast is designed to help you with just that.

Take care of yourselves and therefore each other!

xo, brooke jean