YDGM Ep 32: Chantal Challenger, life as a mum and an expat.
You're Doing Great Mom
Chantal Challenger lives a different life from many of us, traveling around the world with her husband and two kids. She and her husband work in the hospitality/hotel industry, and have chosen a life as expats currently living in Jakarta. She shares about how they chose to move from their home in Australia, and how they’ve adapted to raising their family in a different culture.
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YDGM Ep 31: My husband Julian Wiseman talking about his book on Port Vintages.
You're Doing Great Mom
My husband Julian Wiseman and me chat about his new book. If you are a wine lover and you also enjoy port, this episode is so interesting with so much information about wine and Vintage Port. And you will see how much of a port geek he is.
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YDGM Ep 30: Keith Wassung
You're Doing Great Mom
Keith Wassung knows more about chiropractic than most chiropractors. He's been spreading information about chiropractic for over 30 years through his educational material, photos, slides, and website to help people learn more about chiropractic. He's a father of six, so that makes him an expert in fatherhood! Listen to this awesome episode as Keith talks about his life and love for chiropractic. It was great to learn so much about him!
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YDGM Ep 29: Thomas Waller DC
You're Doing Great Mom
Chatting with chiropractor extraordinaire Thomas Waller DC about fatherhood, chiropractic, and his mission in life. Tom’s the kinda guy that you can hang out with, have a beer with, and chat about anything. His energy fuels you each and every minute. He’s also the guy you could call up and ask his advice and he’d stop and give you his 100% with a solid answer. And he’s also the guy you’d see on a stage in front of thousands of people. He’s unstoppable.
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YDGM Ep 28: Craig Peterson, an American living in Rome
You're Doing Great Mom
Craig Peterson is American who lives in Rome Italy. He’s 35 years old and he’s a Network Spinal Chiropractor. He is not a father, and he’s in a relationship with a woman who doesn’t want children. He’s thought about having kids, and it was his current girlfriend who gave him the deeper thought of why he wants kids, and why not live life without having kids.
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YDGM Ep 27: Brendan Waddington on Fatherhood
You're Doing Great Mom
Brendan is a naturopath, soft-tissue therapist, personal trainer, and he also helps miners by coaching them on their health. When I asked him to be on my podcast, he didn't think I'd be interested because he's not a father. Naturally, it's what people would think, but I was very keen on having men who are not fathers to talk about their views on the subject. Brendan mentions that he definitely wants kids eventually, and it was interesting to hear how he thinks and feels about fatherhood.
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YDGM Ep 26: Julian D A Wiseman AKA My Husband
You're Doing Great Mom
My husband and I talk about a lot of things sort of relating to fatherhood.
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YDGM Ep 25: Lillian Lartey
You're Doing Great Mom
Lillian Lartey is a personal trainer, massage therapist, and I consider her a life coach for women because she is so grounded in her values and commitment to having an extraordinary life. As a life coach, she has helped women, many of them mothers, to focus on themselves and to achieve happiness, building back their health, self-esteem, and love for life.
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YDGM Ep 024: Drea Clark
You're Doing Great Mom
Drea Clark lives in LA and works in film. She's my sister's best friend from highschool and we've known each other for a really long time. I asked her to be on my podcast for this current series of conversations with women who are not mothers, and she was totally enthusiastic to participate. I knew it would be a fantastic conversation, a fun one too, because Drea is just so articulate in just about anything. You ask her about anything, and she'll have something to say about it.
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YDGM Ep 023: Angie Dairou
You're Doing Great Mom
Angie is a successful therapist, working with individuals as well as companies, big and small. This episode was awesome, with so many interesting and thought-provoking nuggets of wisdom, ideas, and stories about motherhood and how we can shift our perspectives about it in the context of applying it to roles of leadership and life in general.
info_outlineI remember being in my early 20s as a student in chiropractic school when I’d go to as many seminars as possible because the fees were so low for our student rates. I’d sit and listen to many different speakers present, and I was always incredibly inspired by the women chiropractors who spoke about their lives, their practices, and their kids, and how they juggled everything. I sat there thinking, “I wanna be just like them.”
To grab her phrase from her podcast, Melissa is one of those rockstar chiropractor moms who inspires me. It’s a honor being in her circle as one of her peers, and to be able to get to know her.
In this episode, she shares about how she got married and then got pregnant in her last year of chiropractic school.
“I graduated and had my son four days later.”
She talks about her fast birth of her first child, “My son was born very quickly. It was a little bit of a surreal experience. It was literally like three hours from start to finish … and before you knew it, boom, he was there in my arms.”
I was impressed with her level of clarity and groundedness. She said she attributed that to her being married to her chiropractor husband at the time, both sharing the same dream of starting a family letting it happen naturally. The impressive part was about when in the span of only six months, she graduated, had her first son, then moved and opened up a practice together with her husband.
“It is what it is. It’s the way it was supposed to play out for me. And we literally graduated, I had my first son, we moved to Toronto, we bought our first house, we opened our practice. We did all these major life things in a six month period and we didn’t know any other way. You just figure things out as you go along.”
Melissa also goes on to share about how, after her divorce, she handled and figured out life as a single mom, raising two boys.
“You know, what your kids need is love. If kids are misbehaving, it always comes back to ‘where is the hurt here’. Because I don’t believe the majority of kids are trying to be manipulative. They are trying to communicate in whatever way they can that they have a need that’s not being met. It’s not that they are trying to cause problems. They are reacting to something. What’s this behavior coming from? What’s the real underlying situation here? It’s just remembering that kids just really want your love and attention. They just want your time.
She shares how important it is for us mothers to take time for self-care.
“I also think it’s important as moms to not only be taking care of yourselves because it gives you so much back, but to continue to nurture yourself because there’s going come a time when your children are not gonna be your sole existence. It can be really difficult for some women who don’t have any sense of self or any sense of contribution or anything that gives them joy and happiness …”
Melissa is truly inspiring, a leader in our chiropractic profession, a role model, and a mentor. And I’m sure that her two sons would say that above everything, she’s a super rockstar mom.
She’s awesome and I loved getting to know her on this podcast episode.
Enjoy.
To connect with Dr Melissa Longo, check out her website http://drmelissa.ca/
Also, be sure to check out her podcast, Rockstar Doctor Moms https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/rockstar-doctor-moms-chiropractic-life-practice/id1181580224?mt=2