Thrive Like a Mother Podcast
I'm Ebony and I'm a mama to 3 beautiful souls. I'm learning how navigate my trauma healing while building the life I never dreamed was possible. I'm a survivor of childhood abuse and for the longest time, I believed that if anyone knew my story, I wouldn't be worthy of love. Many years later and now I know that it far from the truth.
On the Thrive Like a Mother podcast, I'll share the resources and tools I use on the daily to cultivate a healthy mindset break the wheel of survival. Here we're about honesty and transparency. Because at the root of it all, my purpose in creating this podcast is so that you know you are never alone in your journey.
There may be laughter, there may be tears and we'll do it all by linking arms and learning to thrive together.
Thrive Like a Mother Podcast
There Is No Balance, Only Flow
Feeling like you need to perfectly balance work, motherhood, and self-care is an impossible standard that's setting you up for burnout. After keeping my youngest son home with me for his entire first year while working full-time, I discovered a liberating truth: there is no balance—only flow.
This episode dives deep into how to release the pressure of "doing it all" perfectly and instead embrace the natural rhythm of your life in its current season. When I realized I was constantly focusing on what didn't get done instead of celebrating daily wins, I knew something needed to change. The key wasn't finding some magical equilibrium, but rather setting intentional boundaries, taking genuine breaks (not for chores!), and nourishing my body properly to sustain energy throughout demanding days.
You'll learn practical strategies:
- for creating boundaries with work hours and technology use
- how to incorporate true mental palate cleansers into your day
- Why protecting your peace is actually the most productive thing you can do
Remember that your little ones are watching how you care for yourself—you're modeling what self-respect looks like. You are not lazy for needing rest, you're not unprofessional if your baby joins a Zoom call, and you absolutely do not need to earn your breaks by completing tasks. The permission to thrive is already yours.
And if you are needing support in the nourishment area, I've got you! The second round of Cook Like a Mother starts June 2nd and you can lock in your spot with this exclusive early bird price.
Thank you so much for listening in! If anything in this episode resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you left a review or shared it with a friend or on social media.
And don't forget to tag me so I can personally thank you for helping me get the word out.
Follow and chat with me on Instagram:
Podcast account - @thrivelikeamother.podcast
Personal account - @thrive.empowered
Sending you light and love always!
Hey, love, I'm Ebony and welcome to Thrive Like a Mother On this podcast. We're scared for our truth, but that fear is what fuels us to truly live in it. You're in the right place if you feel like you're stuck in survivor mode and you're ready to step into who you were truly meant to be. I'll share resources and tools I use daily to help you in your journey towards a healthier mindset and to break the wheel of survival. The journey may not be easy, but you won't have to face it alone. I'm a mama of three, healing day by day from past trauma, and I'm on a mission to build a life I've always dreamed of but never thought was possible. So, love, if you're ready to believe in what's possible, let's link arms and thrive together. Hey, loves, welcome to another episode of the Thrive Like a Mother podcast. Let's have a chat real quick before we dig into the episode. Y'all, this week has been the first week that our youngest Henry is in daycare full-time, and so what that looks like for me is I'm trying, trying my best to find what my new workflow is again, and that's really the topic of today's episode. Is really understanding, like what that means when you are working from home full time, maybe with a little one, maybe not with a little one, but just really trying to figure out what that looks like for you and what the reality of flow is all about. Right, because we hear so much about, oh, you've got to find your your work-life balance, and we're gonna dig into that a little bit today. So we are talking about that illusion of work-life balance y'all Because, honestly, there is no balance. There is no balance, there is only the flow, and it's a flow that you shape by setting your boundaries, getting crystal clear on what rest looks like for you and what nourishment looks like for you and your little one that you're keeping at home home.
Speaker 1:So, about three months or a few weeks into having Henry, I knew that we wanted to keep him home a little bit longer than just those those three months of maternity leave, and I honestly all set a goal for six months to start with, and that ended up becoming a lot longer. I ended up having him home with us for the entire first year, and that decision was based purely on this being our last little one, being my kind of final opportunity to really spend that quality time with my baby throughout the day, no matter what it looks like, it meant for me saying, hey, yes, I've got to go back to work, yes, bills need to be paid, but I still want to spend time with my baby and really gain that bonding time with them and watch them truly, truly grow up in every sense of the word. And it wasn't easy, wasn't easy y'all. There was definitely a big um, emotional, physical, mental strain on myself, my husband, who also works from home with us. A lot of times it was us, especially as he got older, as kind of juggling who was taking a look after him during meetings and things, especially with me breastfeeding. That added a whole nother element to things. If you are a breastfeeding mama, you know how already that can be emotionally, physically and mentally just a challenge.
Speaker 1:And so when you add in trying to also work from home full time, trying to also still pour into my business, still pour into the podcast, things looked much different and I very quickly realized that, no, this wasn't going to be easy, but it could be done. I just had to set the right intentions. And maybe that's you right now, maybe you are about to have a little one, or maybe you have a little one now and you're in maternity leave and you're wondering what that looks like, as far as could you keep them home a little bit longer instead of jumping right back into work, especially if you have the option from working of working from home. Um, for me it. I took that opportunity and I said, hey, this opportunity does not come along often y'all I have.
Speaker 1:I have three little ones, and so, for my oldest did not even get a chance to think about working from home with her, it things looked a lot differently. In fact, I had to go back to work three weeks after having her, so not even a full six weeks. And, granted, I had a C-section, but I had to get back to work, did not have the leave, did not have the PTO, and we had to feed our family, had to pay the bills, and so I did what needed to be done, but I lost the opportunity of being able to spend that time with her for that first year. Now, granted, like I still made sure I made intentions to spend time with my kids I'm not saying that but the opportunity is not always there for us as moms, to like have them with us while we're, you know, rejoining the workforce. Um, with my second daughter kind of same thing. I didn't have the opportunity to keep her home.
Speaker 1:I think at that point when I had her um, I think it was like right around the time she was our COVID baby, so it was right around the time that the like strictness of things were starting just starting to lift, still a little bit shaky. So I did get a little bit more time with her at home, but still it was tough. It was tough, I think, for me and my mind. I didn't see another way. At that point it was like, oh, this is just what you're supposed to do. And so when Henry came and it was like this is just what you're supposed to do. And so when Henry came and it was like this is our last little one, I gave myself the opportunity to to see things differently, to see how can this work, how can we even approach this?
Speaker 1:Um, there's this pressure y'all. There's this pressure y'all. There's this pressure that happens to need to do it all, especially when you are, like I said, working from home. You have the baby, you have a future that you're trying to build. Maybe you're also a mama that's building a business and pouring into, into other things and also needing to, at the same time, pour into yourself. There's so much pressure to look at the list that you have on day to day and feel like gosh, there's so much to do.
Speaker 1:And there was the turning point for me when I started to quickly head towards burnout. I started to get to the end of my day and, instead of being grateful for what I had achieved that day, I started to look at the things that I didn't get done and the things that were rolling over into the next day. And that's when I realized that there was no perfect balance. There was no work-life baby balance. Can you even imagine trying to balance all of those things? Like, physically, there is no balance y'all. There's just a rhythm, there's a flow and, honestly, having him here taught me that that can shift from day to day. So if you're a mama who's feeling like you're constantly dropping the ball, you're getting to the end of your day, you're looking at your list and you're like man, I didn't get quite done the things that I thought that I would. You're not alone. You're not alone and, honestly, it's okay. You just need to find what your rhythm looks like.
Speaker 1:For me, it meant slimming down my priorities a little bit um, if you notice, while he was here, um with the podcast, I wasn't putting out episodes weekly because Because I realized that that was going to be an impossible task for the season that I was in. Sometimes you need to, like I said, shift things on the daily, but also sometimes things shift for the season that you're in. Sometimes the season is not the right season to be putting out weekly episodes, to be building a business as aggressively as you might have in the past, before the little ones were there, and that's okay. So I want to give you about three things that are going to help you find your flow, because it's all about throwing away this idea that things have to be balanced, that you have to be putting the same amount of effort into each pot, and it's all about seriously finding what your flow means day to day for your season, for the age that your children are at, for what your priorities are in this moment.
Speaker 1:First of all, you're going to set your boundaries where you can. That means with your work hours being really strict, as in saying these are the hours that I'm going to be available After or before these hours. We're not doing it. Let's talk about um, that can be. That can be kind of scary sometimes, but I promise you, um, your coworkers, and, like your managers, they're going to understand that boundary because, honestly, a lot of us need to set that boundary. We are not workhorses, y'all, we're not.
Speaker 1:We need to be really strict on saying this is what I have the capacity to do and you need to think about that for, like I said, the season that you're in, the priorities that you have, let's talk about phones, phone usage. Set your boundaries where you can. There was an episode that I put out in my very first season talking just about this, about setting up my phone to create, like these boundaries for myself as far as getting on social media or as far as making sure it goes into do not disturb mode. Besides, for certain people that need to reach me at a certain time of the night so that I wasn't like spending hours and hours scrolling and absorbing information. Get crystal clear on what that looks like for you and I know that can be tough, especially when you're building a business and a part of that is your social media presence. Still, get some boundaries on if you need to set a timer and say, hey, this is the amount of time that I'm gonna be on this or an application to either engage or post or respond um to people.
Speaker 1:Do that Also. Know when to stop checking your email. Your email does not necessarily need to be the first thing you check in the morning. If that works for you, okay. But when you are checking emails I'm going to build this out a little bit more checking emails, checking notifications, within a certain amount of time or after a certain amount of time, you have to think about the way that your brain works. Right, if you are checking that notification, checking that email, you are telling your brain, hey, we are still in urgency mode, we are still in respond mode, and it keeps your brain going. It keeps your brain going when, really, what you want to do is to cut the day off right there and say, hey, this is something that I can respond to tomorrow, this is something that I can look at tomorrow, so go ahead and set those boundaries.
Speaker 1:Those are just some examples of where you can start to build in intentional breaks, y'all, and I'm not talking about a break to put the laundry in or a break to clean up the living room or anything like that. This is not for chores, anything like that. This is not for chores, this is not for scrolling mindlessly, this is for you. This is for you to reconnect and gain some clarity and get some focus and just be within. So I'm talking a break, as in either taking a short walk, taking a moment to take some intentional, deep breaths, having a cup of tea or a cup of coffee you know whichever warm drink that you like, getting a sip of water, and doing literally absolutely nothing at all, allowing your brain to not have to think about anything A true break. This was a game changer for me, because I am someone who I realized, can quickly just keep going through the list and, before I know it, I'm tired, I'm like, oh man, I can't do another thing.
Speaker 1:The breaks allow you to take your day at a slower pace so that you're not rushing through that list, but you are intentionally giving the capacity you need to give for each task and knowing that, hey, I still have capacity, maybe to do a little bit more, or I have capacity to take a break. It gives you. It gives you a moment, kind of like. It's kind of like your I'm trying to think when you're, when you're eating, like sushi, right, and they give you the radish. Your breaks are your palate cleanser. It's your time to just clear everything out, not need to think of anything, not need to do anything. It's your moment just to come back to self Number three y'all know I will stand on this hill for absolutely ever.
Speaker 1:You have to focus on your nutrition. You have to focus on how you're nourishing your body, what you're putting in your body and your baby's body right as they start eating. You have to focus on what is going to help you and your baby feel good. Think about what foods are going to help you get through the day. Make sure you're drinking your water, check in with yourself throughout the day, and you're going to basically say something like this like hey, we're not thriving in chaos. We are both flowing back, you and your baby when we are fed, rested and connected Fed, rested, connected when those three things are happening, we are truly, truly thriving.
Speaker 1:And so take a moment to really think about the things that you're feeding yourself. Are they giving you energy? Are they making you sleepy? If they're making you sleepy, maybe we need to switch up the things that we're eating. Baby feels like you know, they're snacking all day. Is there something that you can give them that really nourishes their body and helps them feel full and like they can really use all the energy that they have right, start to think about those things and if you need more support in that and if you need more support in that, I do have Cook Like a Mother the second round, where I support you in figuring out what those types of meal plans look like, what your goals are. How can you start to build the habit not only to plan for foods that nourish your body, but also how can you make those achievable so that you're prepping them and you're actually eating them throughout the week and you're enjoying them? So if you want more support in that, I will put a link, um, in the show notes so that you can get early exclusive pricing for that, because we are kicking off with that round June 2nd and I don't want you to miss that support.
Speaker 1:All right, y'all, I'm talking to the mama, um, who's listening right now. I want to say some things that maybe you might need to hear in this season. These are things that I told myself in the season of Henry being home and the season of that first year postpartum, of recovery. First of all, mama, you are not lazy for needing rest. I don't care that there's dishes in the sink, I don't care, there's toys everywhere. And maybe you're like this is my job, sure, yes, that's a part of motherhood. Right is taking care of the home, taking care of the things. But if you need rest, I promise you, if you start prioritizing that all of those other things, they will happen. They will, because you'll have the energy to get them done and you won't be running on empty.
Speaker 1:Also, this is a big one because for this entire year that Henry was here, I felt so self-conscious y'all. Um, if you watch me on social media Instagram you know that Henry and I, we used to be stuck together like glue y'all. When I say he used to be in the baby wrap on my lap, um, especially in those early days when he was napping on the zoom call, on the team's call at work. And you are not doing it wrong if your baby is with you while you're in a working meeting. You're not, and so I don't want, I want you to pull away from that self-consciousness of oh my gosh, what are they gonna think if I have a baby? First of all, everybody's gonna be like, oh my gosh, so cute, cute baby, and those who don't get it will hopefully just stay quiet. And if they're not quiet, don't let that be a representation of who you are as a mom. You are doing exactly what you need to do for you and your baby. You are where you exactly need to be at this point in time. You're not doing it wrong. You're doing it your way for what works for you and your family.
Speaker 1:All right, and this, this one y'all you do not have to earn rest. That is one that took me a while to understand is like oh okay, I've done so. You know this much of my list. Now I can take a break. No, you already deserve the break. You already deserve the rest. Take it, claim it. It's yours already. You don't have to work harder to get that rest. You deserve it every single day.
Speaker 1:So I want to end this episode, first of all, with some permission slips and reminders for you to take into your week now. Take into the next week and really start implementing these y'all. Number one it's okay to pause a task if it starts feeling overwhelming, if you start feeling like this is not productive I am not in a space where I can be productive in this task, it's okay to pause. Second ask for help. It's okay. If you can't do all yourself, you're not meant to ask for the help.
Speaker 1:And then, number three protect your peace. And then number three protect your peace, protect your peace. Even if you are looking at it in that way and you're thinking, oh, this doesn't look or feel productive. If you are protecting your peace, it is productive because it's going towards taking care of you, taking care of your baby. Your little one is watching you too. Y'all they are taking a look at how you take care of yourself. They are getting an example of what things will look like for them in the future. You are telling them that it's okay to not work like over course and to really protect your boundaries, protect your peace and shout those like, so that everyone knows that this is who I am and that they start to understand. And so y'all, I'm gonna say it again there is no work life balance. There is no balance, it's only the flow. And the more that you honor your needs, your baby's needs, the easier it's going to become to move through the day with grace for yourself instead of putting so much unnecessary pressure on yourself. You don't have to balance things, you just have to go with what feels right within you, because you already know what that is.
Speaker 1:I want to encourage you to send me a DM on Instagram and let me know how it's been going for you as you start implementing these tools and finding your flow in the season that you're in right now. I want to hear all the things. I want to be able to support you guys, and I can't wait to see you on the next episode. Thank you so much for listening. Love. If anything in today's episode resonated with you, share it with your bestie or share it on social media and tag me so we can chat about it. As always, sending you light and love, and remember you are worthy, you are enough and you deserve to thrive. You.
