Alison E. - Connection & Compassion

This week, Alison, a pediatrician and author, discusses the challenges of modern parenting and the importance of connection and compassion. She discusses the concept of the 'should storm,' which refers to the overwhelming pressure and expectations that parents face. She introduces her book, Sigh, See, Start, which encourages parents to pause, observe, and take action in a mindful and compassionate way. While I typically don’t endorse any specific programs or methods other than consulting your PCP and finding a good therapist, Alison’s expertise and experiences certainly resonated with me, as I hope it will with you. 

You can find Alison's book HERE.
To learn more about Alison, visit her website, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube Channel.

Takeaways

• There is an epidemic of anxiety in parents and kids that needs to be addressed.
• Cultural factors play a significant role in the rise of parental anxiety.
• Parents face immense pressure and a constant 'should storm' driven by societal expectations.
• The lack of support for families, especially in terms of family leave policies, contributes to parental anxiety.
• It is important to process and validate the trauma and challenges experienced during pregnancy and delivery.
• The shift from old school parenting to intensive parenting has created additional anxiety for parents.
• Social media has exacerbated the pressure and anxiety felt by parents.
• The breakdown of community and support networks has further isolated parents.
• Re-parenting ourselves and challenging old beliefs and expectations is necessary to break free from the should storm.
• A three-step method can help parents step out of the should storm and focus on what their child truly needs: connection and their own intuition. Modern parenting is often characterized by overwhelming pressure and expectations, leading to the 'should storm' phenomenon.
• Parents need to re-parent themselves and find a balance between warmth and authority in their parenting approach.
• The Sigh See Start (Psi C Start) method encourages parents to pause, observe their child's behavior, and take action in a mindful and compassionate way.
• Rupture and repair cycles are important for building a strong parent-child relationship, allowing children to practice managing stress and learning from mistakes.
• Self-compassion is crucial for parents to provide compassion and connection to their children.

Transcript

Chelsea (00:02)
Welcome to Quiet Connection, a podcast dedicated to ending the stigma around postpartum mental health. I'm Chelsea. In today's episode, Allison, a pediatrician and author, discusses the challenges of modern parenting and the importance of connection and compassion. She discusses the concept of the should storm, which refers to the overwhelming pressure and expectations that parents face.

She introduces her book, Sigh See Start, which encourages parents to pause, observe, and take action in a mindful and compassionate way. While I typically don't endorse any specific programs or methods other than consulting your primary care physician and finding a good therapist, Allison's expertise and experiences certainly resonated with me, as I hope it will with you. Let's hear from Allison.

Chelsea (00:56)
Hello, today we are here with Allison. Allison, how are you?

alison (01:03)
Good, so nice to be here.

Chelsea (01:06)
I'm so happy to have you and it's nice to meet you. I chat so much with my guests through email that it's nice when we finally get to put a face to a name and to a to a internet persona. I think we'll just we'll dive right into things. I love to ask my guests to

alison (01:21)
Absolutely, Chelsea.

Chelsea (01:30)
sort of let me know who you are, but more importantly, who you were before you became a parent.

alison (01:38)
Well, I'm a pediatrician and a mom on a mission to do what I can to help with the epidemic of anxiety in parents and kids. That's where I am now. But yeah, before I was a mom, I was always so interested in people and how they worked and why they did what they did. And it took me a long time to realize that that was the theme.

Chelsea (01:50)
Mm -hmm.

alison (02:07)
for me, so at first it didn't make sense why as an undergraduate I studied intellectual and cultural history at Princeton, which is the history of ideas and how ideas can pop up in a culture and then cause massive change in history. But also those ideas that people take for granted that really define their lives and we never question.

And then somehow I end up at medical school because I really want to help people and I want to help people in the here and now, just not just like in the past. So, and then I fall in love with pediatrics because there's just no place for me where there's more joy and more of a sense of a really meaningful purpose than the care and...

Chelsea (02:35)
Ha ha ha!

alison (02:58)
fostering of healthy children as being, you know, as being a partner with their parents. And people forget that pediatricians don't just do babies. We do all the way up to teenagers. My first practice, we saw them into college, you know, so it was just really wonderful, wonderful work. But I would say that I was also very much thinking about, you know, what it might be like.

when I became a parent and my first couple years in practice, I was just astonished by how anxious the parents were. And part of it is what medical training does to you, right? So I...

Chelsea (03:36)
Mmm.

alison (03:41)
I finished my medical training, you know, I got to train at places like Duke and University of Chicago where I saw really intensive medicine, really complex, rare diseases. I was in the pediatric ICU toward the end of my training, so actual life or death. And then I'm in my first practice and suddenly parents are really, really worried about the exact order their kids' teeth are coming in.

or whether what the specific right diaper would be or the specific right toy to buy to foster their child's development. And I was really unprepared for that because in training we didn't focus on that. And I, so I would ask my older colleagues, you know, and they would just, they didn't really have a lot to help with. They would just shake their head and say, these parents these days, they just get more anxious every year.

Chelsea (04:11)
I'm gonna go.

alison (04:40)
but at some point I start thinking, why? Why? Because it's not one or two parents. Like all the parents are worried about these things. And I had this training before medical school and I'm like, wait a minute when something like that's going on, that means there's something going on in the broader culture. It's not just one family or two families. There's something going on here.

Chelsea (04:40)
my gosh.

alison (05:06)
but I didn't have a lot of time to figure out what was going on because then I had my own kids. And that was a life change for sure.

Chelsea (05:13)
Hahaha!

Yeah, I was gonna, you like skipped right into bullet point number four. I was gonna, no, it's totally fine. Well, I mean, yeah, so I guess we can back up a little bit. had you always envisioned yourself having your own kids?

alison (05:23)
Well let's go back through your bullet points, let's not rush ahead.

Yes, I was the oldest sister of two younger brothers and I grew up in a neighborhood. You know, I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so you know that that group of us that used to go out on our bikes until dark. But in middle school we moved to a town where my whole neighborhood was boys and I ended up being the big sister of all these boys, right? And I was just one of those kids that just.

Chelsea (06:02)
Mmm.

alison (06:07)
I would watch what my parents do and I would sort of be taking notes like starting in fifth grade like, maybe I'll do that differently someday. Maybe I'll do it this way. I was planning on how I was gonna be a parent from a very young age. But I think part of that was just being in that big sister role. So I was already, and back in those days when you were the oldest, you were put in charge a lot. We don't do that as much with our kids now.

Chelsea (06:32)
Mm -hmm.

alison (06:36)
which I think is for the best because I think that old school way, it gave me an opportunity for leadership, but it really kind of disempowered my brothers. So I feel like it's better to treat kids more equally and say, no, the parents are the parents, you know? But that being said, yeah, I was definitely put in charge a lot, you know? And so you start thinking about those things.

Chelsea (06:55)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, I 100 % relate. I am also in that elder millennial generation and an oldest child. So I feel that 100 % that we take on that caretaker role, whether we want to or not. So what did the journey into parenthood look like for you? You were already practicing as a pediatrician, it sounds like.

what was that decision making process like? And yeah, that journey.

alison (07:35)
Yeah, I mean, for me, it was really, I had always wanted kids and probably it looked a little different than a lot of other people because I had gotten married in medical school. So I already had like, you know, my partner picked out and you know, and we'd already been married for like six years, I think by the time I started in practice. So I had that stable relationship and,

Chelsea (07:51)
Yeah.

alison (08:05)
you know, I had a timeline in mind and I was fortunate enough to have that because I was already married. Not everyone is able to find a partner they want to raise kids with that young. So I wanted to get to have babies before the risk of genetic syndromes went up as you get older. So I had a goal. I wanted to, I want to have my kids before 35, which isn't possible for everyone, but that was possible for me.

Chelsea (08:16)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. and you have two kiddos, correct? I have two boys. I have two girls. I thought I was gonna be a boy mom. I don't know. The -

alison (08:37)
Mm -hmm, I have two boys, yep.

I always envisioned having one of each because I grew up with brothers, but in the end I feel like that neighborhood full of boys was training for me. It was perfect.

Chelsea (08:53)
Yeah! my gosh, yeah! So when we were sort of like chatting back and forth through email, you had mentioned that your second, not necessarily pregnancy, but the delivery process did not go the way you imagined it.

alison (09:15)
Yeah, that was rough. So I have asthma and asthma in pregnancy is a tricky business because 30 % of pregnant women, like it's about a third, third, third. So a third of women, their asthma gets better during pregnancy. A third, it stays about the same. And then a third get worse. And so my first pregnancy was affected by asthma, but it wasn't that bad. But the second, it was brutal.

Chelsea (09:44)
Mm.

alison (09:44)
I had very bad asthma, but like so many women in the U .S., I didn't have good, I was at a small company so I wasn't protected by any family medical leave. I had unpaid maternity leave, but even unpaid, I only had a certain number of weeks. So I kept working through it because I was so afraid of losing out on my time with my new baby. Even,

Chelsea (10:11)
Mmm.

alison (10:12)
And even though my doctor would have preferred that I had taken at least partial time off, but I was so afraid of doing that and then using up my maternity leave, which I wasn't even paid for, just, and then having to like leave my baby, you know, at a month old or something. So I worked through it. I ended up on very high doses of steroids for the last three months of pregnancy.

Chelsea (10:27)
Right.

Mmm.

alison (10:42)
to the point where the high -risk OB doctors were saying, yeah, we have no idea what this will do. But we know that not taking the medicine for your asthma will definitely hurt the baby because then you have even a little bit of low oxygen is super bad for the baby. So we knew, I'm on drugs that could be risky, but the alternative we know is very bad.

Chelsea (10:49)
my gosh. Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

alison (11:10)
and we don't have a lot of science to say whether this would be bad. And then the delivery was hard, you know, I was, I was induced because he wasn't looking so good on that. You know, I went to the, this is funny, I'm gonna back up and tell the whole story. So.

Chelsea (11:11)
Mm -hmm.

Okay.

alison (11:31)
I had one day off a week when I wasn't in clinic, because I worked a lot of weekends too. And so it was my Wednesday off and I had my OB appointment, but my older son had just jumped out of his crib for the first time. And we had planned to move him to a bed months after the baby came so that, you know, he didn't feel like, we took his crib away and gave it to the baby, right?

Chelsea (11:57)
Mm -hmm.

alison (11:58)
But all pediatricians will tell you that the moment your kid jumps out of the crib, you move them to a bed right away because they're very likely now to do it again and break an arm or a collarbone or something like that. So I was at the mattress store on my way to the OB trying to get a mattress to put my older son on.

Chelsea (12:13)
Ha ha ha ha!

alison (12:20)
And of course the mattress store was inexplicably closed and it had a sign on the door saying they were doing like a training or something. And I'm like waiting by the mattress store and then it said they'd be back at a certain time, which still gave me time to get to my OB, right? But of course they're not there, they're not there, they're not there. And then finally like a half hour after the time they say they're gonna be there,

Chelsea (12:38)
Mm -hmm.

alison (12:45)
the guy kind of saunters up and opens the store and there's another couple there, but I'm like, I've got to get to the OB. And so I kind of just decided to, and I was on steroids. I think if anyone's on, my gosh, if anyone knows what that feels like, my gosh. So I just basically pick out a twin mattress as quickly as possible.

Chelsea (12:59)
So you're all jacked up. Yep.

alison (13:12)
because we were just going to put a mattress on the floor so that the kid could, you know, fall out of it and not get hurt. And we'd figure about furniture later. And the guy is just like acting like I'm super weird, but I'm trying to explain to him, like, I have a doctor's appointment. I need to go. Right? Like, so we arranged to get the mattress delivered the next day because they had overdyed delivery. And then I just make it to my OB appointment.

Chelsea (13:29)
Yeah!

Mm -hmm.

alison (13:38)
even though my OB always ran an hour late. So I made it in time to wait an hour. And then they did the biophysical profile on my baby and he wasn't looking so good. So she sent me right over to the hospital, which was only a couple of blocks away. And I think I had known because I had my hospital bag in the trunk. So I think I had a funny feeling. So I was there for a long time. They induced me.

And they used an epidural so that, you know, I wouldn't have to work as hard because my asthma got really, really bad during that time. And so it was really important to decrease my physical work of labor because my breathing was so bad. And fortunately, you know, I labored down and he was really getting ready to come even through the epidural and everything.

Chelsea (14:13)
Mm -hmm.

alison (14:33)
Actually, there's some evidence that with an epidural, because it reduces the pain, the pelvis actually relaxes enough that it can actually make labor easier. There's a lot of myths about painkillers in pregnancy, but a lot of people don't know that. A lot of people think an epidural blocks labor, but it's actually quite the opposite. In many cases, it actually enhances it. And so the time came to push.

Chelsea (14:44)
wow!

Yeah.

alison (15:02)
and I pushed once and I could not get any air back in. And during this time, by the way, I was hooked up to the wall, the oxygen outlet to the wall of the hospital with a mask on, with continuous asthma medicine treatments going through my mask. So I'm on oxygen and oxygen and continuous medicines to try to breathe and I cannot get the air in.

Chelsea (15:09)
god.

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

alison (15:31)
So they had me push three more times and this whole time I simply cannot breathe. The air just will not go in. And I'm thinking to myself, I don't remember any definite thoughts. I just remember being like, I can't breathe. I can't breathe, right? And feeling that sense of I'm in serious danger here. And so the baby came out. I think they had to,

Chelsea (15:50)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

alison (16:00)
I think he was a little down at first. I think they had to do some things to wake him up, which is not a surprise. But I was kind of out of it because I could not get my breath. What's amazing about asthma in pregnancy is usually right after you deliver the baby, there's shifts in your hormones and often it can correct. And so I was able to start breathing fairly quickly. But I left that room.

Chelsea (16:13)
Yeah.

alison (16:30)
with a sense that I had been in life -threatening danger. And I remember that after everything was settled out, my OB came back in and she was very experienced, which is why I would wait an hour for her at all those appointments. And I remember her just looking at me and saying, so we have to have a serious talk if you plan to get pregnant again, because your body in pregnancy, my gosh. And that was enough for me as a doctor to know what she was saying to me.

Chelsea (16:33)
Yeah.

I'm gonna go.

Mm.

Mm -hmm.

alison (16:59)
And it was funny because for a while I wondered if I had overcalled it. Was I being melodramatic? Was it not as dangerous as I thought? And years later, I talked with some of my colleagues in obstetrics about it and they were like, no, no, asthma is a killer during delivery, you know? So it was just, it was a powerful experience. Unfortunately, because I'd been on the steroids for so long,

Chelsea (17:17)
Wow.

alison (17:27)
I developed something called Cushing syndrome. So I developed a hump on my back. My face turned into a big moon. My belly was a big beach ball. And my adrenal glands shut down. So it took almost a year of working with an endocrinologist to slowly decrease the medicine safely so that my adrenal glands would come back online. But the alternative would have been...

Chelsea (17:34)
Mmm. Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

alison (17:55)
putting my baby at risk, right? And as a mom, obviously I was much happier to have any risk to my own health than to his. And fortunately, he's okay.

Chelsea (17:57)
Yeah.

I know and you say that with a big smile on your face obviously you're thankful for that. Two things strike me about what you just said and how you explained it. One was that doubt that you had in yourself like maybe this wasn't that big of a deal and that invalidation and that it took the OB talking to you for you to feel validated in your trauma.

Because we do, I mean, so many of us second guess ourselves and you are a doctor. You understand these things and you were still like, well, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal. And then also, again, saying like, I would do anything for my baby. I'm so happy that my baby's healthy. And also understanding that that does not invalidate what you felt. You can feel both at the same time.

You can be scared as hell and not want to do that again and still so thankful that you have a healthy baby.

alison (19:08)
That's right. And I really believe in the importance of trauma processing. So I actually, once I was healthy enough to do it, I did process that with a therapist because I think that's really important. But what was interesting is I've processed that with a therapist years before I had that validating conversation with my colleagues that said, no, no, you really were in as much life risk as you thought you were, you know?

Chelsea (19:15)
Mm -hmm.

Ha ha ha!

alison (19:37)
Mike.

Chelsea (19:39)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, that's an and that was it's gonna be another one of my questions like

So being a pediatrician, having your medical background, do you think that that served you during your pregnancy? Or do you think it created more anxiety?

alison (19:57)
I would say that overall my perspective has been over the years and I've said this to so many parents because especially when I had my first baby so many of my my patients parents would say this is great you're not gonna worry like we do because you're a pediatrician you know everything and I'm like no no no no it's just that we pediatricians worry about stuff you haven't heard of so we don't worry about

Chelsea (20:22)
Yeah!

alison (20:25)
the exact right developmental toy because we know that an open, one open cabinet in the kitchen with some Tupperware is pretty much good, right? That's, baby needs your love and some things to mess around with,

Chelsea (20:33)
Mm -hmm.

alison (20:37)
So for instance, on my first son, a freckle came out and I thought, no, he has neurofibromatosis. no. Right. Right. And so those are the, it's, it, the worry is not less. In fact, I was astonished that all my training had not prepared me for what felt like a wave of anxiety as a mother. And I worried about a lot of the same thing that.

Chelsea (20:45)
I actually know what that is.

alison (21:05)
that other mothers worry about too. Like, would my kids be damaged if I didn't breastfeed effectively? And breastfeeding, breastfeeding was a mess with both my kids. My first one had a rare type of severe food allergies. And so I practically killed myself going on a extremely restrictive diet that eliminated eight different proteins he was allergic to, right?

Chelsea (21:13)
Mm -hmm.

Mmm.

my gosh.

alison (21:35)
and then didn't stop breastfeeding him because I was so worried about breastfeeding. I didn't stop breastfeeding him until I started fainting from the low protein. Right. And then my husband's like, you have to eat something. Eat a hamburger. And we had to go to the, you know, super expensive, smelly, hypoallergenic formula that insurance wouldn't cover that.

Chelsea (21:44)
my gosh.

Yeah!

alison (22:01)
was he was on it for years and it's the reason that he grew and kids who don't get that formula but have that disease, they don't thrive and some of them die, right? So, you know, like, but yet I blamed myself for not continuing breastfeeding, right? My second son, I was only able to breastfeed for a week and a half and then I got some weird infections because I'd been on steroids so long and I had to go on antibiotics that were bad for the baby.

Chelsea (22:11)
Yeah.

Mm. Mm -hmm.

alison (22:26)
and I was extremely sick and my doctors were like, you need to stop breastfeeding because you need whatever sleep you can get, you know? And I stopped and he had to go on the special formula too, cause he also had the allergies. But it took me years, years, probably over a decade to really let go of that guilt and to stop having that spike of shame, right?

Chelsea (22:34)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

alison (22:52)
And then you get into the years of school and development and you know, as a high achieving student myself, it's super hard for me not to get drawn into all the, my gosh, what do you need to survive? What do you need to make sure you're thriving? Like, you know, all that stuff, right? So we all get pulled into that. It's a culture I call the should storm. You should do this, you should do that. You should never do that other thing. If you don't, if you make the slightest error, you're going to mess up your kid for life.

Chelsea (23:08)
Yeah.

alison (23:21)
You know, and my own journey as a parent and then, you know, really looking at our culture was how I started to realize that it's not just our individual anxiety. There's this culture around parenting that's really driving that. And it's really just beating us up all the time.

Chelsea (23:39)
I love that expression you used, a should storm. I have heard the expression don't should all over yourself. And I just, I love it. But that is, so DBT, I mean, I, that's a whole other subject we could go on and on about, but DBT therapy, one of the cognitive distortions is the concept of shoulding all over yourself. And I feel like in...

becoming a parent, everything becomes, well, I should be doing this, or I should have been doing that, or I should. And you're right, I think it is the culture. I think we feel so judged. Because I'm curious what your take is on it. Because not only are you a parent, but you also see parents with little ones all the time. What I keep hearing from a lot of my guests is that media and social media,

portray an image of becoming a parent that is just not reality and our doctors, our doctors are even telling us, well we don't want to scare new moms. We don't want to scare new moms so we're not talking, that's why we're not talking about this.

But then we all are feeling shame and guilt and fear over what we're doing. I wonder what your thoughts are on that.

alison (25:02)
That's interesting. I must've been in the minority because I was the doctor that would say, you know, the parents, cause parents are shocked by how, how, just simple things like how often your kids are sick while they're little, right? You know, like my kids were in daycare, so they were sick literally every two weeks, right? Which meant that me and their dad were also sick that often, right? And people would just act, some people would,

Chelsea (25:15)
Yeah!

Yes!

Mm -hmm.

alison (25:30)
in their stress about it, because people have to work too. And in America, we have terrible policies for supporting families, right? So there's no support for missing work because your kid's sick. And so people sometimes would express anger or outrage or a sense of why is this happening to us, right? And I would just tell them the truth. Like this is how the immune system works. It's before COVID.

Chelsea (25:39)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

alison (25:58)
changed the way we view a lot of these things, right? I would say like, it's really important to educate the immune system. They need to be getting all these colds. And so, you know, but this is how it's going to be. And if you don't do it in daycare, you're going to do it when they start kindergarten. And it's about two years of this, right? In each kid. But nobody had ever told them that, right? And so, but to get to the broader issue, you know, I couldn't diagnose the problem and then not try to do something about it, right? And so,

Chelsea (26:01)
Whew, yeah.

Yep.

Right. Right.

alison (26:28)
The larger solution to this is, you know, this culture is present all over the world. It's not just in the U .S. When I started talking about this, I did a TEDx in 2017. I had people writing to me from Japan, from Bahrain, from India, of course from UK and from Australia and Germany, like all just saying, yes, yes, yes, we have this should storm. Yes, yes, yes, this is what it feels like.

Chelsea (26:54)
Yeah.

alison (26:56)
But I think in America, it's especially hard because we have the worst family support policies in the world. Yes, yes. that's why I wrote a book. And the book is called Sigh See Start.

Chelsea (27:04)
of all developed nations. Yes.

alison (27:13)
how to be the parent your child needs in a world that won't stop pushing. And the introduction of that book, which is really the first chapter, goes through my take on the history of the last few decades and what started to shift in parenting culture from what I call old school parenting to the hyper worried intensive parenting that we do now.

Chelsea (27:18)
Yeah.

alison (27:40)
You know, even parents who aren't strictly helicopter parents, we are still all intensely invested in our kids and intensely worried about it. And it's my belief that social media accelerated and exacerbated the stress because it's now in our face all the time. But the change in the culture, the change in beliefs started in the 90s.

Chelsea (27:40)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

alison (28:10)
So this was there. And before it was on social media, this culture was still there on TV. It was in our friends, it was in our neighbors, it was in our parent networks. It's just that social media brings that right into your face 24 seven. Yeah.

Chelsea (28:10)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, and it's interesting that you talk about our friends and our parent networks and things like that. And maybe you do discuss this in your book. I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I've got such a long list. I've had so many guests who have written so many amazing books. Once you become a mom, you just should write a book. But anyway, I wonder what your thoughts are.

in terms of that shift and maybe before the 90s, having that culture of having family around, having friends around, having a community physically be there, and now that's not happening.

alison (29:09)
That's right. So that's another huge factor is the way we are increasingly isolated in parents as parents, you know, and I just saw a couple recent studies that were just so upsetting about how lonely parents are now and how burnt out. Cause there's a specific type of burnout that we call parental burnout, which I also discuss in the book. But,

Chelsea (29:34)
Hehehe.

alison (29:35)
The problem is, on the one hand, yes, there's that breakdown of community. But on the other hand, the belief shift made it almost inevitable because before, under what I describe as old school parenting, there was still a generally held belief that most everybody in the community agreed about so that you could count on your neighbors, relatives, friends.

Because everybody generally agreed on the rules, including that your neighbor was allowed to spank your kid, right? then everybody realizes, whoa, spanking is a problem. Maybe we need to change that, right? So then you can't like, now you can't just trust your, your, your, your own parents to watch the kids anymore because they're going to hit the kids, right?

Chelsea (30:08)
Yeah.

alison (30:28)
but there were other things there too. Like, we learned a lot more about child predators. So suddenly we don't feel comfortable just letting our random neighbor, you know, watch our kid, right? Or letting our kid just go over and help our random neighbor with household chores. Right. and, but the biggest one was that, that shift, where,

Chelsea (30:28)
Right?

Mm -hmm.

alison (30:53)
there was what was being found out in the research studies about how children thrive best that was very important, including findings like, yeah, you know, beating our kids is probably not the best approach. Like, turns out a loving, affectionate relationship with boundaries is important, right?

Chelsea (31:15)
Yes. Yes.

alison (31:16)
But what happened was a style of parenting became super hot and trendy and it was called attachment parenting. And I give a clear rundown in my book of how the authors of attachment parenting claimed it was based on science, but they didn't use the actual science. They made it up. And what they did was create this whole thing that we still see now under other names where,

Chelsea (31:26)
Mm -hmm.

Mmm.

alison (31:43)
Your baby's gonna be damaged to life. If you don't sleep with them, wear them all the time, comfort them instantly, and immediately tend to all their needs because otherwise they'll be traumatized, right? And we've heard this under a million different names, but that's the belief, and it's powerful, and it's still there, and it works. it ties us up all in knots. And even if we know that, no, that's not quite right. I need to give my kid a little more autonomy than that.

Chelsea (31:53)
Mm. Mm -hmm.

alison (32:12)
we don't know quite how to navigate it in the middle of that should storm. So that's why I developed a three -step method that's really easy to remember even when you're overwhelmed with anxiety, even when you're in the moment. and I was also thinking not only about what would work for all parents, but especially what would work for neurodivergent families as well. So what would you remember if you are,

Chelsea (32:16)
Yeah.

alison (32:40)
if you're a parent with ADHD or you're working with your child who has autism who's having a massive meltdown, right? So these three simple steps that you can remember and apply to step out of the should storm and give your kid what they really need, which is your connection and your own sense of what is the right thing here.

Chelsea (32:47)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah. I think, I love this because it's taking, these are my favorite episodes. They're taking directions that I didn't anticipate and I freaking love it. again, I'd love to know your thoughts on this, but like, do you think that part of the anxiety and part of the should storm is because we are having to reparent ourselves because we were part of that?

old school parenting generation. We were parented that way.

alison (33:35)
Absolutely. And you know, and the thing is, like with any major cultural shift, you know, cultures don't usually do nuanced, moderated change, right? Cultural shifts happen with big pendulum swings, right? And so then we end up with the helicopter parent, which we know, okay, so we know old school parenting wasn't good.

Chelsea (33:49)
Yeah.

Yes.

alison (34:00)
you know, saying like, you expressed a feeling that I found inconvenient, go stand in the corner for 10 minutes, right? Like, get over that and move out and shut it down, you know, deal with it, right? Like all that stuff, you know, that really wasn't great for us. So yes, we are currently reparenting ourselves while trying to figure out how to parent our kids. And then the dominant...

Chelsea (34:09)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah!

alison (34:29)
example of parenting in our culture, we know isn't quite right. We know it's driving us crazy, but we're not sure what to do because the dominant cultural version is the helicopter parent or these days I think they're calling it the Saran Wrap parent or you know like you tie your kid, you wrap your kid up in bubble wrap and you know like so but we know that's not quite right either but that's what everyone's doing.

Chelsea (34:36)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

my God, I don't even, I haven't heard that one. my gosh.

alison (34:57)
Right. And then you see people getting really polarized. So people are like, you know, people who are into, the intensive parenting are telling everyone else that you're all neglecting your kids and traumatizing them. And then we have plenty of people who are still doing old school parenting or saying you're, you're making all your kids soft and weak and you're coddling them and right. And, and the truth has always been somewhere in the middle. And the middle is.

Chelsea (34:59)
Yeah.

Ugh, yes.

Mm -hmm.

alison (35:27)
I value you as a separate person from myself. And that means that I want to help you learn how to manage your feelings, understand where you're coming from, not punish you for something that is a neurological thing for you and not, right? Not call you bad because you have ADHD and you can't pay attention in school, right? Help bring you along.

Chelsea (35:45)
Right.

Yeah.

alison (35:56)
and provide you what you need to get there yourself. But I also want you to get there yourself. And I want to, you know, comfort you and help you with your feelings without smothering you, you know, and making it where I take over your feelings. Right. Like I want you to have space to develop as who you are. And part of that means that I'm going to hold you to responsibility. So.

Chelsea (36:03)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

alison (36:24)
you had a meltdown and wouldn't wash the dishes before the family we went out to dinner. Well, I know you don't want to wash them at 8 30 at night when we all get home, but guess what? You know what? We understood that you had to finish your meltdown, but now you're going to wash the dishes before you go to bed, right? That's the kind of holding expectations with respect and gentleness that we're going for. I don't need to.

Chelsea (36:43)
Exactly.

alison (36:51)
bend you over my knee and spank you because you didn't wash the dishes immediately. I can teach you that it's still an expectation while showing respect to the fact that you had a rough night, you know?

Chelsea (36:54)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, and this sounds like such a beautiful sort of like union of all of the things that you were studying back in your college days. But how did this thinking and understanding come to you? Was it through experience? Like with your own kids? Or were you having these sort of ideals before you even had your own kids?

alison (37:28)
I mean, I think the ideals I just expressed is essentially what the last 50 years of child development science has found. Okay, we call it the authoritative parent. The parent who is warm and affectionate, but also holds authority. Okay, as opposed to the permissive parent where it's like, it's all about what you feel and I'm not gonna hold.

Chelsea (37:40)
Yes.

Mm -hmm.

alison (37:58)
you to rules, right? Or what we call the authoritarian parent. And that's where it gets confusing because authoritative and authoritarian sounds so similar, but authoritarian parent is the old school parent. Like you do it my way or you hit the highway and don't you dare, you know, express, don't cross me or I'll spank you. Right? Like, so that's the authoritarian parent.

Chelsea (38:00)
Mm -hmm.

Yes.

Don't cross me. Yeah.

alison (38:24)
And so, but you know, authoritarian parents, not all spanked. A lot of them used verbal shaming, right? So, well, why can't you do that? Like your sister, what's wrong with you? Right. You know. the sweet spot where kids thrive is the authoritative parent. And I don't know that there was a time I wasn't aware of that science, like through my, through my educational development. So I can't say it was like a unique insight to me. Right.

Chelsea (38:32)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

alison (38:49)
On the other hand, getting to the point where I had a diagnosis of our culture and then a clear three -step method for parents to use, that came because once I realized there was a problem, I hit the books and I hit the books looking for the parenting book that all my families needed, right? Because you get 15 minutes with your patients. So you don't have time to have a deep...

Chelsea (39:06)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

alison (39:18)
Thoughtful conversation, right? We did but you know, like it's very limited what you can cover So I was looking for that book that they needed that I needed and all I found were Books full of shoulds, you know And some of them were the thing about the should storm. That's so confusing. It's just like, you know the best The best lie is the one that mixes truth with lie to the point where you can't tell the difference, right?

Chelsea (39:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

alison (39:46)
That's the thing with the should storm. There's a lot of good parenting advice out there mixed in with bad parenting advice. And it's all coming from different directions and all the people speaking disagree with each other. So, and so, yeah, so I couldn't find what I was looking for. And then I did find some good books that I really respect, but I found them personally too complex for a person who was working a doctor's hours.

Chelsea (39:56)
Yup.

alison (40:15)
with two young kids. I couldn't remember all of their detailed advice in the moment. I needed something that worked in the moment. And even with all that good advice, the problem with those books was I was still looking to them to be my leader. And there was a sense in me that I knew that what my kids needed was for me to be the leader. So Sigh See Start allows a parent to...

Chelsea (40:21)
Right.

Mm -hmm.

alison (40:44)
Use mindfulness techniques to center into themselves, calm down out of anxiety and come into the moment with their child so that they can use leadership. And then, so you sigh, you take a deep breath and you blow it out long and slow leading to that calming in the body. You see, you take a moment of mindfulness and just observe what's going on with your kids and try to understand.

what you're seeing, like what's going on in the background? Do you have a kid with sensory problems and there's like really loud construction equipment outside? Maybe that's why your kid's acting up right now, right? What's your kid's body language? What are you seeing? So that instead of immediately reacting with the should in your head, you're taking that sense of connecting to the moment, seeing and mindfulness. And then you start. And start is my favorite part.

Chelsea (41:26)
Mm -hmm.

alison (41:42)
because start is where you don't have to be like, I'm a leader that knows what to do yet, right? You start doing whatever seems in the moment to be appropriate. Maybe it's some advice you read somewhere that you think applies. Maybe it's an idea of yourself. And if it works, you've learned something and that's great. And you start to build confidence. And if it doesn't work, you've learned something and that's great.

Chelsea (42:08)
Hahaha!

alison (42:10)
And maybe you start having a should like, I shouldn't have done it that way. I should have done it this way. I can't even use the simple Sigh See Start method, right? But we know what to do if we feel a should, which is we sigh see and start again. so it becomes this continuous cycle of being present, starting to learn your child and then trial and error, learning what works and what doesn't for you and your child. And parents tell me that.

Like I didn't expect the results we got. I, you know, I, I, I hoped it would help. I didn't expect people to start coming back and telling me it's transformed my home. Two weeks later, my relationship with my child is completely different. Like I, I all before all I had was anxiety. Now I have confidence, right? I didn't expect it to work as well as it did. And so, but it's hard too, because I'm doing something.

Chelsea (43:02)
Yeah.

alison (43:07)
that is different from our culture. I'm asking you as a parent to really get in the driver's seat. And that's anxiety producing. And sometimes it's easier for us to just keep looking for the right should And that's why the number one piece of feedback that cracks me up about this for people that have been using it for a short time, because once they use it for months, it starts to really change things. But they'll come back and they'll say, hey, I find that really helpful.

Chelsea (43:16)
Yeah.

yeah.

Mm -hmm.

alison (43:35)
But what specifically should I do in this scenario?

Chelsea (43:40)
They put should right in there.

alison (43:42)
Right, and I'm like, that's the thing. It's hard. It's hard in this culture of anxiety where we're told there is one right answer to ask ourselves as parents to tolerate that little bit of uncertainty, to say, you know what? I'm going to try to figure it out. And I'm not telling parents to stop reading other books. Like the great thing about the Sigh See Start method is it enhances any parenting technique you're using.

Chelsea (43:55)
Mm -hmm.

alison (44:08)
Or like if your kid gets occupational therapy for instance and you're learning, you know to think techniques from them Sigh See start helps you apply them better, right? So it's also meant to Really empower parents whatever their approach But fundamentally it's saying you get to be the leader not the should storm

Chelsea (44:08)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think what, what I'm taking away from it most too is taking that beat, taking that moment to pause. because the should storm obviously is such a big deal and just the act of taking that pause, the sigh, the sigh, like you have to take a moment and be like, okay, start fresh, clear my mind, start fresh.

then observe, right? Like, I think we as parents get so caught up in one, our mental load and two, our over stimulation that yeah, that should storm. It's always, it's always there. And then when you're then when something triggers you, you get activated, and it's really easy to just succumb to it.

So what I'm really liking about this is I know you said you like step three, but I really like step one because it does it. have to intentionally take that moment and pause.

alison (45:41)
Well, step one, I love that too. And a lot of parents want to rush past step one. And I'm like, no, you cannot skip step one, right? Because step one is, it's, it's, you know, it's the only built in breathing technique, that actually calms our nervous system. So when you breathe out long and slow, it actually sends us a message of safety to the vagus nerve and you start to calm down. but,

Chelsea (45:44)
Hehehehe

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

alison (46:09)
The reason I emphasize step three is there are a lot of other parenting techniques out there that do talk about taking a pause and noticing your child. So that element is not entirely unique except that I chose sighing. And there's a reason I chose that. Again, it's that built -in mechanism. And parents tell me, doc, I can remember that. I say it my kids all the time anyway. But step three is where it gets unique.

Chelsea (46:17)
Yeah.

haha

alison (46:39)
because mine is the only method I know of where I'm really encouraging parents to act like a scientist. And the thing is it totally changes your relationship with perfectionism. So the more you do it, the more you say, hey, it's not about what I should or shouldn't do or getting it right or wrong. It's about constantly growing and learning along with my child. And then look what you're doing.

Chelsea (46:54)
Yeah.

alison (47:08)
Now you're creating that space for your child. Your child's like, mommy can say, hey, I'm learning. I tried this. It didn't work. I'm going to try that. It didn't work. Hey, that one worked. And now that gives your child space to do that too, because the kids start getting the same should storm we do. And it gets really intense starting an elementary school. And so you're also providing a model.

Chelsea (47:30)
Yeah.

alison (47:34)
And it's even better as they get older, you're very explicit about saying what you're doing that allows the kids to at least have an alternative to their own should storm

Chelsea (47:46)
yeah. I'm seeing so, I think, I would like to think that my partner and I do a lot of this with our oldest. I have an almost nine year old and an almost two year old. But I'm also thinking about...

a lot of my listeners are really in the thick of the postpartum period and my listeners that are experiencing perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and just how impactful it's obviously not going to cure you of your... you should still seek medical advice, you should still see a therapist, but just taking that moment in those...

very, very anxious moments in the wee hours or whenever it is. Taking that moment, giving yourself grace, taking a sigh, taking a pause, noticing your surroundings and then acting. How impactful that could be for them as well. Like...

alison (48:50)
Well, those were the parents I was originally thinking of when I first developed this method. And the first person I shared it with was a postpartum mom, right? And I never wanna send the message that it's too late, right? Cause it's never too late to start using something like this. Even if it's sort of already what you're doing, a way of formally embodying it so you can be more powerful as a parent. But honestly, it works best if you start it with your baby, right? And it can be...

Chelsea (48:58)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and you're kind of, you're kind of doing it for yourself as well as them. I mean, all along the way, but, but in those early days, cause your baby, your baby at that point is just survival. Eat, sleep, poop. But for you, for you, it's, it's more of an emotional thing.

alison (49:20)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right. That's right. That's right.

It's very emotional, especially if we're told things like, how could you let your baby cry like that? You know? so, you know, I think sigh see start is, is very, very helpful in the newborn period. The other, the other group I was thinking of, and it's really interesting because, while I was working on the book, I was really wanting to make sure that it included parents that aren't usually included. so parents who,

Chelsea (49:42)
Right.

alison (50:05)
don't have endless energy and patients, right? Who are working three jobs to make ends meet or who are dealing with their own illness and chronic illness and, and challenges like that, or, you know, single parents, because, most books kind of assume you have a partner. and, but one of the interesting things was in all of those intentions, while I was working on the book, I then got COVID.

Chelsea (50:17)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

alison (50:35)
So I developed pretty severe long COVID myself and I went from the type of mom that I didn't feel like a super mom, but a lot of people identified me that way, right? Cause I was a pediatrician, I was raising my kids, I was writing articles for Forbes, I was doing speaking, I was doing all this stuff and then I get sick and now I haven't been able to work as a pediatrician for two and a half years.

Chelsea (50:52)
Yeah!

alison (51:01)
I basically spend almost all my time at home except when I go to doctor's visits. I get very easily exhausted and we won't go into the whole litany of miserable symptoms involved in long COVID, but you know, then there've been months at a time and it just happened the last two days where, you know, I will go through a flare up or crash and I'll be...

Chelsea (51:14)
Yeah.

alison (51:28)
in and out of consciousness, you know, for days at a time. And so I'm barely even there for my kids, right? And my kids have had to learn how to bring me food in bed because I can't get out of bed sometimes. So does the method work when you're sick, when you're disabled? And at least for myself, you know, obviously not when I'm actually unconscious,

Chelsea (51:30)
Hmm.

Right.

Mm -hmm.

alison (51:53)
Yes, I found that Sigh See Start was one of the only things that I could actually hold onto and apply as a parent during such times of difficulty. And it really honed in on me that my theory that the connection with your kids is the most important part of being a parent has been true. And it's proven it to me that even during months at a time of being bedridden,

Chelsea (52:17)
Yeah.

alison (52:22)
I've been able to be present with my kids, even when my mind is wandering and I'm working hard to process what they're saying because I'm having trouble understanding their words, you know? And I know that sounds hard to understand if you haven't been there, but yeah. And so, I mean, again, people have to decide for themselves. What I would never want to suggest is that I've found the one solution, right? That is...

Chelsea (52:33)
Yeah.

She solved it!

alison (52:49)
That is literally the should storm right there. But I do think it's a useful tool that helps put us back in the driver's seat. And I guess I just really want parents who are postpartum and exhausted and can't even see straight to know that I know what that feels like and I've been there. And those of us who are really struggling in our lives right now, like this...

Chelsea (52:52)
Yes!

alison (53:18)
will be very helpful for parents who are physically healthy and out there being go -getters, but this will also be helpful for the rest of us as Because less the...

Chelsea (53:28)
that's such a beautiful way to put it. For the rest of us.

alison (53:31)
hahahaha

So, you know, and I actually, it's funny because sometimes people they're like, you don't sound sick. But, you know, these are things I've been thinking about for so long. It's like muscle memory for me.

Chelsea (53:50)
Yeah.

alison (53:51)
If we were talking about a new subject, I'd actually be really struggling right now. And this is my special thing for the day, getting to spend time with you and your listeners, because I'll need to nap pretty much the rest of the day to make up for this. But it's so fun to spend time with you. Yeah.

Chelsea (53:56)
Yeah.

Noooo

I 100 % understand that. I'm so glad. And I can tell how passionate you are about it. And I had all of these silly little questions that just seem so unimportant now. Like, for real though, like, like little, like, how did you find the time to write a book while you were also parenting? And like, and I just, I just keep going back to like, that's not even...

That's not even the big deal. What you're talking about through this whole thing, through your birth story, through your early parenting days, through your work as a pediatrician even before you had kids, is connection. Making that connection. So yeah, where am I curious as to how you found the time and energy to write a book? I most certainly am because I don't think I could do it right now.

I write articles for a local mom blog and I can barely find time to do that. But I don't want to detract in any way from this wonderful message of like at the end of the day, what matters and what is going to be most significant in the impact that you have on your relationship with your child is that connection. And it doesn't have to be perfect.

and it's not gonna look the same for everybody.

alison (55:38)
no, in fact, moments of imperfection are really important in child development. And so the whole, there's a lot in the book because yes, I've said, we're going to throw you in there and you got to, you got to now sigh see start and figure things out. But that being said, there's several chapters with like key things. Like here's how co -regulation works. Here's how to, you know, have a family meeting and here's how you can use sigh see start with what we call.

Chelsea (55:53)
Ha ha ha!

Right?

alison (56:04)
collaborative problem solving where you've got a sticky problem with your kid and you actually work together to solve it, right? But one of, the things that's in the book is how to apologize to your kid and how to, we call it, in child development, we call it rupture and repair cycles.

Chelsea (56:11)
Mm -hmm.

Mmm.

alison (56:23)
which are times where you're out of sync with each other or you even hurt each other's feelings and then you repair that relationship. And that's very, very important because when kids are with us, with their parents, we're the ones that love them and are committed to their welfare no matter what, or we should be. And therefore we are the safe relationship where they can practice.

Chelsea (56:44)
Hehehehe

alison (56:54)
what it's like to manage their stress when they feel out of sync or when we've hurt their feelings and then see how to come back from that. And they practice that with us so that when they get out in the real world where people are not devoted to their wellbeing, they have the skills they need. So we, first of all, obviously we cannot be perfect parents, but...

Chelsea (57:02)
Yeah.

alison (57:23)
It would also be actually not great if we became the perfect parent where we instantly met our kids emotional needs at all times because then they don't get any practice and they need that practice. The key is that we are committed to their welfare, which means that we say like, Hey buddy, I blew it there and I said something rude to you and hurtful and I am really sorry.

And then we go through in the book, you know, how to give a full apology so that you really repair because, a lot of us were taught to apologize in a way that is, really not a true apology. I'm sorry, your feelings were hurt. You, you, you thing with your weak feelings or whatever, you know, so there's lots.

Chelsea (58:05)
Mm -hmm.

Mmm... Mmm...

right? Or like, I'm sorry that I'm sorry you feel that way. I hate that. I hate that. Yes.

alison (58:18)
Right. Right. And so there's lots of skills in the book about but yeah, just to know that if we can embrace that we are humans and honor our own humanity, both by accepting our mistakes, but also taking full responsibility for them.

then we honor our children as well and we honor their humanity. If we can't admit our mistakes, then we're not leaving space for our kids to be fully human either.

Chelsea (58:48)
Yeah.

Mm -mm. No. And it's perpetuating this guilt that is built inside of all of us that we're not perfect.

So typically when I end an episode, I end on one of two questions, but I have loved the direction of this conversation so much that I'm gonna tweak it a little bit.

We talked a lot in the beginning about that anxiety, that anxiety that you were seeing in the parents that were coming in with their little ones, the anxiety that you found yourself feeling, it may have been for different reasons, and that you're realizing as a culture is just kind of ingrained in us as parents right now. I want you to put yourself and you...

You were here at one point, but I want you to put yourself in that pediatrician's office as the new mom, as the new dad, feeling all of this anxiety and shoulding all over yourself. What do you want to hear from that doctor when you're in that?

alison (1:00:08)
Well, the first thing is I want you to stop using the phrase, shoulding all over yourself, because that blames you.

Chelsea (1:00:16)
no, you don't like it?

alison (1:00:20)
that blames you. And yes, it's true. We all internalize the should storm and we, you know, these shoulds come from outside us, but we also bring them inside us and we do it to ourselves. That's true. But I really want you to have compassion on yourself, to know that you care about the shoulds because you love your child, because it is terrifying to have a newborn and it's...

Chelsea (1:00:30)
Yeah.

Yes.

alison (1:00:49)
Terrifying and there's so many reasons why it's more terrifying for us now than it's ever been in human history before Including the fact that we don't grow up with practice with babies in our in our younger years like people did in past generations, right? so the Antidote to anxiety and shoulding is not don't worry It's

Chelsea (1:01:03)
Mm -hmm.

alison (1:01:18)
compassion. It's saying, I see you as a new parent and I value you and I value your anxiety because that is an important energy that we use during times of transition that helps us to pay attention when we need to learn new things and make a change. But what we want to do is harness that anxiety so that instead of it feeling like an overwhelming

Chelsea (1:01:20)
Mm -hmm.

alison (1:01:48)
cloud that shuts us down, we can actually use it as the motivating force it needs to be. So just honoring where you are in this moment with your child, knowing that as you gain experience with your child, the anxiety will lessen. Here's this three step tool I have to offer you that will hopefully make that process move more.

Chelsea (1:01:55)
Mm.

alison (1:02:16)
quickly for you, for you to gain some confidence. And understanding that, yeah, when your auntie says to you, I can't believe you didn't breastfeed your baby today, or how could you leave the socks off your baby? His feet are gonna fall off, right? Like, that is not something you have to listen to. And that might not take away the pain of those words.

Chelsea (1:02:20)
Mm -hmm.

Hahahaha

UGHH... Yes.

alison (1:02:44)
But it at least gives us a little perspective to say she's not right. And I get to be the leader with my child.

Chelsea (1:02:50)
Yeah. Listeners, this is the second time now that I am receiving...

a message around the language that I use and I'm so thankful for it. No, for real, I am. So when I first started the podcast, I used to say, like, postpartum mental health disorders are normal. This is normal. The things you're feeling are normal. And I had a guest say, well, it's not normal, but it's common.

And I was like, you're absolutely right. And I'm a language lover. And I was like, you are so right. I immediately made that switch. And...

Having you say to me the shoulding all over yourself and like putting that blame on you on myself, it really did instantly like it was like a light switch moment for me that I was like, my gosh, there's another instance that I really need to be intentional with how I'm wording something because yeah, that's just putting more shame, more guilt, more blame that doesn't need to be there.

And now that I know the term should storm, I actually like it better than, than, because I mean, just for obvious reasons, it reminds me of shit storm, which is what parenting is in general. So, so real time, I'm like, I am learning and evolving and I appreciate that so much.

alison (1:04:19)
Yep.

Well, you know, Chelsea, I had so much fun coming up with the term should storm, but also I, I want to be clear. I wasn't criticizing you because I have, because I have used the term shoulding all over yourself myself. and I don't think it's a wrong thing to say. I just want to point out that in a culture like this, if you are a responsible parent,

Chelsea (1:04:33)
You

So I didn't feel criticized at all.

alison (1:04:56)
then you are making, if you internalize that should storm, you are doing the responsible thing that our culture tells you a responsible parent will do. And I am telling you that our culture is wrong. But the fact that as parents, we feel the shoulds, we internalize that anxiety and we should all over ourselves, we're just doing what our culture is telling us we need to do. And the hard part is standing up,

Chelsea (1:05:09)
Mm -hmm.

alison (1:05:25)
to an entire culture and saying, no, I'm going to choose compassion and connection instead.

Chelsea (1:05:32)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, and in this case, it's compassion and connection with yourself, in using that language.

alison (1:05:39)
Because to give compassion and connection to our kids, it's really almost impossible to do unless we have self -compassion. And that was a huge part of my journey as a doctor and a mom is learning self -compassion because self -compassion is not part of the medical culture. We...

Chelsea (1:06:03)
No, I wouldn't imagine.

alison (1:06:05)
We brutalize ourselves in our own bodies in order to achieve becoming a doctor, right? And weaknesses, it's a bizarre thing that we are trained to be those who comfort and heal the sick. And yet we are told that we are not allowed to have any weakness or need any healing ourselves. So that's pretty messed up, but that's a subject for another podcast.

Chelsea (1:06:11)
Mm -hmm.

Right? That's a whole other podcast.

alison (1:06:31)
Yeah, because I'm fading, so I probably need to take my nap pretty soon.

Chelsea (1:06:33)
Yes. You know, I need to refuel. I need some lunch.

What I will say is, and I've said this a few times now listeners, but I feel like I meet each of my guests exactly when I'm supposed to meet them. And from every episode, I heal a little part of myself as well. So in sharing your story and sharing your journey, I hope that it was

cathartic in a way and I hope that my listeners can connect with it, but selfishly I also feel a tiny bit, a tiny little piece of myself is healed and

that I've also grown on my journey, that I'm on. So I thank you not only on behalf of my listeners, but for myself as well. I'm so appreciative of the time we've had together.

alison (1:07:25)
Thank you so much, Chelsea. I just, this was a really beautiful conversation.

Chelsea (1:07:32)
Thank you, Allison, for a conversation that was so insightful and turned out to be just what I needed to hear. Sigh See Start is most certainly on my reading list. Listeners can find Allison's book on Amazon, and if you happen to check it out, make sure you leave her a review. You can keep up with us on Quiet Connection by following us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and threads at Quiet Connection or at Quiet Connection Podcast.

You can help our community grow by reviewing and sharing our podcast on your social media. To share your personal journey, you can contact us through our website at quietconnectionpodcast .com or by email at quietconnectionppmh at gmail .com. Join us next time when another story is told and you realize you are not alone. I see you.