Navigating Postpartum Anxiety and Depression with Lizzie Langston

In this episode, I'm joined by the fantastic Lizzie Langston, a postpartum coach and mom of three (soon to be four!) children.

Lizzie is a passionate advocate for postpartum wellness and has developed her own coaching practice to support moms through their journeys. She brings a holistic and spiritual approach to her work, incorporating various modalities to empower women in their transformation.

After stumbling upon Lizzie's podcast myself (not too long after having my daughter) I knew I wanted to get her on this show to discuss all things postpartum.

As a new mom myself, I'm blown away by what I didn't know to expect even with a midwife, doula, and friends and family in my corner.

Lizzie is such an incredible resource for moms and moms-to-be, and I'm grateful that she's here to be a voice for those of us who experience challenges and ups and downs in the postpartum period (which she believes is for your entire lifetime after having a baby!).

On today's episode, Lizzie shares her personal journey of experiencing postpartum anxiety and depression after the birth of her third baby. 

She opens up about feeling alone and unseen, highlighting the importance of checking in on postpartum women and letting them know they are valued, even when society may not recognize their efforts.

Lizzie's story is a powerful reminder that it's okay to ask for help and take action without waiting for instructions. 

We also discuss the significance of understanding yourself, facing the shadow self, and embracing self-love for healing and self-acceptance.

Hope you love it!

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Quotes

Postpartum Depression: "And so it was actually a sister-in-law that said, I think this is postpartum depression, and I think you need to go see someone."— Lizzie 

Postpartum Depression: "My trend was that my anxiety was sort of the beginning. My anxiousness took over, and then it led into depressiveness. I think the anxiety just burns women out."— Lizzie 

The Power of Coaching: "So coaching actually my first experience with coaching didn't teach me anything about the nervous system. I picked that up later as I had a sense I just knew postpartum women needed to get into the body level, not just the talk stuff. But I think what I loved about it was that it gave me my power back and it said, hey, your thoughts are contributing to the way you're responding with your kids."— Lizzie 

Psychoneuroimmunology: "Your emotional state can actually be manifested through physical symptoms, diseases, discomfort, everything from a throbbing shoulder pain issue to a thyroid disease or cancer or things like that."— Lizzie 

Healing the Shadow Self: "The parts of you that you don't like and you're ashamed of...we shame it away so deeply...journey back to your whole self and it's total unconditional self-acceptance...we're so dedicated to the roles and responsibilities and the duties of motherhood...we don't want to deal with or see the parts of ourselves that we don't want to see, that we're ashamed of...your whole self wants to be seen and loved by you, nobody else...the most powerful healing frequency is love from you to yourself...stop pushing away and shaming and noticing how they're doing that in a very subtle way...we talk ourselves out of seeing these things because we are so ashamed of them."— Lizzie 

Viral Topic: The Importance of Prioritizing Pleasure
Quote: "How pleasurable? Like on a scale of one to ten, how easy do you find it to rest and relax into a state of pleasure? Like simple pleasure, whether it's drinking a warm cup of coffee in the morning, how much of a priority do you make your pleasure?"— Lizzie 

The Power of Self-Compassion: "The number one AHA moment I've had, this is ... It's so transformative."— Lizzie 

The Importance of Self-Advocacy and Emotional Regulation: "The first thing is you have to know how to advocate for yourself, to your partner... That's going to take me arranging with my co-parent... require me to be willing to stand up for this part of me that needs alone time... being able to advocate for yourself... the number one gift that we can give to our kids... is just our authentic relationship with ourselves... When you are authentically connected to yourself and you know yourself inside and out and you know your cues and your triggers... then you are so much more real with your kids..."— Lizzie 

The Struggle of Motherhood: "I genuinely just thought, like, it was the end all, be all. Like, it was the most expression of being a woman and the most valuable thing I could do... but you get in the trenches of it and you're like, oh, I feel like a little jaded. Like, this isn't what I all thought it would feel like or be like."— Lizzie 

Supporting Postpartum Women: "I think the biggest block to people helping postpartum women is they say, what can I do for you? Most women have a hard time telling you what to do. I don't like, now I told my husband, if people ask you what they can do, here's a couple of ideas. But this is my fourth go around, my 1st, 2nd baby. I would have been paralyzed. If somebody asked me what they could do for me, I would have been in my head like, oh, I don't want to be a burden. Like, that was my mojo. I don't want to be a burden. So just do it. Just be like, hey, I scheduled a house cleaner. Here's a gift card. You can use it whenever you need it, or I have three months of hello, fresh for you whenever you want it. Here's the code. It's just like, hey, I'm dropping off dinner tonight. If you don't need it, stick it in the freezer. I just love you and I wanted you to know I'm here. Just like, do it."— Lizzie