SPEAKER_02 0:00

Dear listeners, there is a moment in early motherhood that almost no one wants you about that. The baby is in your arms. The world calls you a mother now. And somewhere in the quiet of a 3 a.m. feeding, a question shows up that you were not expecting. Who am I now that I am someone's mother? It's not a crisis, right? It's not depression, it's something quieter and harder to name. And it's the sound of an old self being asked to step aside, and a new self that hasn't quite arrived yet. And in that gap, most of us reach outward. We Google, we read, we ask experts, we try to find safety in answers. But everyone's life corners us into doing something braver. Looking inward instead, building safety from the inside out. Yes. Welcome back to another powerful episode of Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. I'm your host, Ravek, and today's conversation is for the mothers and honestly for anyone who has ever felt themselves dissolve and reform inside a major life transition. So we are going to talk about what becoming a mother actually asks for of a woman beneath the surface. The way it gently, sometimes brutally invites her to rebuild her sense of safety, trust, belonging, not out there, but in there. So, dear listeners, please welcome my guest, Mandy Chine. So, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Hi, Adik. Thank you for having me, and thank you for such a poetic introduction.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Thank you. Thank you so much, Mandy. And dear listeners, before we delve deep into the discussion, I'd quickly love to introduce you with Mandy. So Mandy is the founder of the New School of Motherhood, someone whose work meets women at exactly this threshold. Not as parenting expert handling out answers, but as a guide, helping mothers find their own. I will not take much of a 10-way listeners. Let's get started. And Mandy, welcome. I'm really, really glad that you are here today.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

I'm glad to be here. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Amazing. Amazing. So, Mandy, like I want to start gently with, like, because I I think there's a misconception sitting at the center of how the world talks about motherhood. The dominant story is that becoming a mother is something that happens to a woman. Like a role, like a role, right? She steps into checklists, she follows, a phase she gets through. But I have a feeling the real version is far more interior than that. So if you can, if you can, I mean, share like what do most people fundamentally misunderstood about what becoming a mother actually is under the rule of it.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Wow, what a beautiful question. I think what I would love to say about this is that I grew up in between two very different cultures. I am Chinese. I was born in China, but my family immigrated to Australia when I was seven years old. And so I grew up being Chinese, but also quite westernized as well. And I think that kind of being in this intersection of East and West, you get to see and understand motherhood from very, very different perspectives. And it's interesting because I think before I became a mother, it seemed like it was a concept that was so foreign to me. I also didn't grow up with my own mother. And so for me, it's it seemed like it was extremely sacrificial. It seemed like it was, of course, like we all understand that it's one of the it is the most important job in the world. But yet it felt like to me growing up with I considered myself to be more westernized growing up. And it really made me think of myself more as an independent woman. I was an individual. And so this idea of becoming a mother, this kind of expectation of becoming a mother, especially coming from the East, was something that I really felt like there was a disconnect with. And I'm speaking mostly from experience here.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

So I mean I mean, first of all, definitely thank you so much for sharing that. And I'd also love to ask you about like the women who come to you. What is the first sign that they have started to feel this deeper shift, but don't yet have words for it? Anything that you want to share?

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Well, actually, most women come to me because of fears they have around the birth process, fears they have around what's to come. But very few of them are able to name that it is the journey of becoming a mother, is what they're missing. So much of our culture is focused on the birth of the baby, the preparation of the room, the nursery, of the baby gear, everything is so centered on the baby. Of course, the mother is going to be lost. This is the biggest transformative experience of a person's life, the biggest identity shift. You are being asked to mature and grow so quickly in order to be able to truly care and nurture for to nurture another human being. And to be honest, we live in a society, it doesn't matter which culture you come from, we now have had generations where mothers have become very disconnected from the basic ideas or basic foundations of what nurture and care is supposed to look like. Most of the women that I that I work very deeply with are women who essentially didn't grow up with great mothers. And it's a little bit of a harsh realization, but that's also the truth. And so for women who didn't grow up with strong maternal figures, it's you have to work so much harder in order to provide that same nurture and care.

SPEAKER_04 9:32

Well, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

But actually, that's just one perspective. I think that it is actually the biggest opportunity women have to really align themselves with the truest, most authentic versions of themselves. Because you, from a physical level, have so much less capacity to engage in things that drain your energy mentally and emotionally, it's the same. And so what it's really asking of you, what motherhood is really asking of you, what it's such a what it's presenting really great opportunities for, is for us to really take a look at our lives and go, what do we want to keep? What is worth keeping? And sometimes if we've spent a lot of our lives, you know, most of our lives, if we've spent, if we've spent most of our lives numbing and disconnecting and overriding what feels true to us, then when we go through motherhood, I do believe that we do need to experience a loss of more things. But loss is also an opportunity because we also get to gain so much in return. So I think it's this narrative that of, you know, women must just kind of disappear. Or this narrative of women disap women disappear when they enter motherhood, I don't think is entirely accurate.

(Cont.) The Motherhood Identity Shift: Matrescence and Rebuilding Yourself with Mandy Cai

SPEAKER_02 12:19

I agree with your point. Yes, definitely. Obviously, people think uh sometimes in different ways as well. But yes, what you mentioned is also definitely have a value point as well. So if we just go a bit deeper, right? Uh because I think is that motherhood reaches into much older question about safety, trust, and belonging. Like things that most of us thought were settled long before the baby arrived and suddenly are not. So, I mean, if you if you also talk about that, like when a woman becomes a mother, what actually gets tied up underneath? Like in those deeper places uh we don't usually look at.

SPEAKER_04 13:04

So I wonder if we can share something.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

I believe that ultimately this idea of trust, safety, and belonging, it should be something that should be very intrinsic to everyone, right? It should be just how we feel. But actually, as women, we feel very little of all of these things before we even enter motherhood. And so if we think about how important it is for a child of any age to experience these three things: trust, safety, and belonging, in order for them to receive that, the people taking care of those children need to have that themselves first. And what is really happening at the moment is that sometimes that doesn't get passed along. And that comes from this, I think this culture where we've just been very disconnected from these three things. And as women, especially as mothers, we have to work really hard in order to be able to find those feelings within ourselves, to feel safe, to trust, to feel like we belong. So then then that so then in turn, we can give those things to our kids. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Makes sense, makes sense, definitely. Definitely makes sense. And so I was also thinking, like, what does motherhood quietly ask for? I mean, ask her to revisit about her own inner foundation. Anything that you want to share?

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Right. Oh, it asks, I think women are asked to examine every single part of themselves. And I think that's what is really hard. Beyond something that I feel very strongly about is, you know, there's a lot of narrative about the mental load and about the lack of support and all of these things, that's that's very much a central piece to what we see on social on social media. But what I've also witnessed is that in more affluent communities where women do have that support, where they do have people that can help them with the mental load, that sense of not feeling anchored in motherhood is still there. Because in this journey to grow into a mother, you have to first understand that it's happening, that you have to grow, but where no conversation ever really happens around that. Everything is, of course, centered around the baby. And so we have this situation where it's, you know, sometimes motherhood gets compared to this idea of running a marathon. It's like you get to the marathon and you didn't know that you had to train for it. So then, of course, in this process of completing the marathon, everything feels like it's extra difficult. And so what motherhood is really quietly asking of us is to really examine the culture in which motherhood is happening. It's insane that we have education for almost everything under the sun, but we don't have it for the most important job in the world. And so what we really need to learn to do is to really understand what that gap looks like for us. It's when we become really aware and honest and open to the idea that, okay, maybe I didn't have the best upbringing in terms of being nurtured. I have this desire that I want to be a great mom and I want to nurture my kids. How can I build that bridge? What is that gap? What does that gap look like? Is it an ocean? Is it a river? Is it a creek? Does it have boulders? And right now we don't have that clarity. We just go into it thinking that, okay, we everybody has babies, it can't be that hard. And then we get there, and of course, it's really hard. And then we just keep going because the common narrative is that having kids is meant to be hard. But there's no deeper conversation or deeper examination to understand exactly why it's hard for us. And I think that so much of this, when we focus too much on the mental load or the lack of community support or how, you know, society should be different. And I'm not saying that women shouldn't have support. I absolutely believe women should. And I do also believe that we lack societal structural, familial support. I agree with all of those things. But if we just keep looking to the outer and waiting for the world to change, it's not going to shift our current circumstance. It's not going to shift our current reality. And so the only way to really get through that is to be really real with ourselves and to take back that agency and go, hey, how can I have a better experience of motherhood today? How can I have a better experience of motherhood so that I can actually enjoy it? So that I can find power in this process so that I don't see it as a sacrifice and I see it as a growth opportunity for me.

SPEAKER_04 19:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Very, very well said, yeah, definitely. I mean there's something in what you just said. I mean I need to hold for a second, definitely, because yeah, it's it's uh very well said, and people should be I'd say it like uh whosoever is listening right now, or maybe you'll be listening later as well, or if you are have just become a mother, you should be listening to this episode to your lessons, I'd say. And uh along with this also, I'd uh I'd love to ask, like I mean basically I want to lean into something that you said in your topic, Mandy, that the part about constantly looking out for answers, right? Because we live in a world that's louder than ever about how to mother, right? Kind of algorithms, experts, communities, strangers with opinions, and I think modern mothers are quietly drowning in input. So according to you, why is the outward search such a trap? Like, especially in early motherhood, and at the same time, if you can also share like what does it actually mean to begin trusting your own inner answers instead of Oh, I love this question so much, and I love it because I believe that as people, as human beings, our needs are so simple.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Our needs are really simple. All we need, forget about kids. If we just look to ourselves, everything we do is about what you said before. Our sense of belonging, our sense of safety, and being able to trust that we're going to be okay, right? Ask anybody that's gone to therapy at the root, it's because they're missing these things, right? And we live in a world where we keep looking to the outside because we've forgotten how to connect. With our inside. And if we're really honest with ourselves when we look inwards, we would understand exactly where we became disconnected from this sense of safety, where we were disconnected from this sense of belonging, where we were disconnected from this sense of trust that we're going to be okay. And I think that it's not that looking outwards is not helpful. I don't think it's helpful if we haven't already done the work of looking inwards first. Everything that exists outside of ourselves, I believe, are strategies. They don't, it's like throwing spaghetti at the walls. I think when you are very clear on exactly what you want to give to your children, the version of motherhood you want to experience for yourself, the type of mother you want to be when you're, you know, the type of mother that you want your kids to remember when they grow up. When you know exactly what that is, you can then use all the external advice and tools, and you can try different things. Because then those things outside of yourselves is in service to something that is so much deeper within you. And I think that that's what we need to really start with. That's what we really need to begin with. Because ultimately, you know, one thing that I always try to remember for myself is someday my kids are going to be my age or maybe even younger before they look at me and go, wow, I'm an adult, same as my mom. And at that point, there's going to be a realization of whether or not I'm someone they respect, or whether I'm going to be someone that they're going to try to not be. And when we consider it from that perspective, we have when we consider it from that perspective, we can really see that we have to go on this journey to grow from the inside, to reclaim these parts of us that do trust, that do have a sense of belonging, that do that, and that does feel safe. Because when we have those things for ourselves, we're not going to look at our kids through that lens of the world isn't safe. I must keep you safe. We're not going to look at our kids through the lens of you can't trust people. You can't trust that you're going to be okay. And you have to keep performing and you have to keep doing all of these things to make up for the lack you feel inside. And we're not going to be able to then, sorry, and then the last thing that I wanted to say was we're not going to look at our kids through the lens of you will not belong if you are not a certain way.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Very well said, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And and here, here, see, with the with the same thing only, just uh want to ask you like for a woman who's spent her whole life being told that she cannot trust her own knowing, how do you gently help her find her way back to it?

SPEAKER_04 25:55

So what do you say?

SPEAKER_00 26:00

I believe that in order for women to find their way back to themselves, I think we have to have very honest conversations first, to s to start to decide and to say, hey, you know what? I don't know my way. I think it always starts there. That humble kind of decision, that humility to say, I don't know. I don't know, but I want to. And have that willingness, that desire. I think it starts there. Because I believe in the serendipity of things. I believe when we're open to it, when we decide, when we have that humility for ourselves to go, hey, I'm not there, but I'm willing. We inevitably then start having conversations with other people who may be on that path. And they just gently open the doors and show us the way, or magically a podcast episode like this gets shown on your social media feed or get suggested on Spotify.

SPEAKER_03 27:16

And then you listen, and that's how the journey begins.

SPEAKER_04 27:27

True. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

And that's a part most parenting conversation miss completely. And I definitely want to thank you for that because of bringing this and because they keep adding more information, more strategies, more frameworks, and you are just actually saying it, what actually happened. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Yes, thank you, Abik.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Yeah, and uh also like I would give it a space for the listeners, like because the work that you do and the inner rebuilding you are describing, I mean it's it's a long, quiet practice that unfolds over years. The baby grows, the seasons shift, the questions evolve. So, how does a mother sustain this inward life over time?

SPEAKER_00 28:27

I think once you realize and understand the importance of it, and once you start seeing how it changes so many aspects of your life for the better, even when it's hard, there's no way not to continue. You can't unsee what you've seen, you can't unfeel what you've felt. And there's so much beauty in the world, and I think sometimes we forget to shift our perspective on that. And when you engage in this kind of inner work, you see the conversations you have with your children when they get a little bit older, the depth of honesty you're able to have with them, the level of connection.

SPEAKER_04 29:20

And you can't go back from that. Amazing.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

And Mandy, like if you have to give one advice to the listeners today, what that could be don't Google things at 3 a.m.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

in the morning or chat GPT now. I think it's it's it's time that we really instead of Googling everything, instead of chat GPTing everything, as much as it they are wonderful tools, I think we need to just spend a little more time just pausing and a little more time just asking ourselves those questions and allowing ourselves to get really curious about what is going on within our thoughts, within our hearts, within our bodies too.

SPEAKER_04 30:26

Yep. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

And if listeners want to connect with you, what would be the great medium to connect?

SPEAKER_00 30:35

I have a podcast named The New School of Motherhood. I can also be reached on social media. Also, my handle is The New School of Motherhood, and also my website, www.thenewschoolofmotherhood.com.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

Amazing. So, Delizers, what I'll do is I'll put all the links and the details into the show notes for easy reference. And with this hope, I have to say that thank you so much, Pandy Jane Willie. There's definitely a softness to your way of speaking that I think this conversation was needed. And I have a feeling that it's going to find exactly the woman who needed to be met this way. So that's a very beautiful thing. And for everyone who is listening, if something here moved something in you, then don't rush past it. Especially if you're a mother in the middle of becoming the part where nothing feels solid yet. Right? So you are not falling apart, you are being rebuilt from inside, and uh that takes longer than the world has patience for. So be gentle with yourself today and share this with another mother who might need permission to stop searching outside and start listening inside. Well, with this hope, this is your host of week, and this is Hindi Manhit Raif. We'll meet you back here soon, and until then, trust the quiet inside you. It's been waiting to be heard. Thank you so much.