Holding Space For Our Inner Child with Kaitlyn Topolweski
Get to know the 2024 Mental Health and Motherhood Virtual Conference speakers in this summer series!
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12 speakers (all moms) with a range of professional backgrounds
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It’s time for another meet and greet!
As we wait for the 2024 Mental Health and Motherhood Conference on October 11, 2024, we have the chance to meet our speakers this summer on Substack. I sat down with
and asked her our conference question:“How can we treat ourselves with compassion?”
Because she was a trooper about a dropped call, the lovely Kaitlyn has two videos here for you to enjoy. I apologize in advance for the bit of choppiness that resulted. (At the virtual conference we have people on the back end navigating any potential issues and a backup video call ready to go.)
A gem from our conversation:
“We could have a part of us that loves motherhood and loves diving into it and then a part of us that feels really scared and a part of us that feels really overwhelmed, a part that misses freedom, and this model really makes space for all your parts and that there's no moral meaning behind any of those feelings, which I could have used in my first year of motherhood. I did not have access to that insight at the time. And it was really lonely and confusing.
And I think that's why therapists who are also mothers really often, in my experience, struggle because both of those roles historically have been expected to be very selfless.
We need a self. It's in the name of self-compassion.”
I can’t wait to hear more from Kaitlyn on her speaker panel with
on the topic of “Holding Space For Ourselves & Inner Child. One thing I personally didn’t realize going into parenthood was how much it would stir up in my own upbringing reflections.You can reach out to
through her own newsletter or ask questions in the comments here.We talk about a lot, so if you’re reading this in your email, you may need to click read more for the full transcript. Enjoy!
Part One:
Transcript
Chanel Riggle
Hello everyone, thank you for joining me again. My name is Chanel and this is part of the Meet the Speaker newsletter series we're doing for the 2024 Mental Health and Motherhood Virtual Conference, which is October 11th. Super excited. Tickets will be on sale starting July 1st. (On sale now!) So please keep your eyes open for announcements on that.
Caitlin, thank you so much for coming here today on our little video chat. I wanted to get right into it and ask you how can we treat ourselves with self-compassion?
Kaitlyn
Well first of all thank you for having me. I'm super happy to be here. This is a very important topic to me so I'm really honored to be a part of this group.
And, you know, when I think about self-compassion on the surface, it seems a lot of people might have heard it's as simple as treating yourself like you would a friend or my shortcut to this sometimes is like, how would I want to treat my son on my best day, my most rested patient day? And sometimes that can be like a lightning bolt moment of like, wow, I was definitely not doing that with myself before.
And that's kind of the shorthand of it that we kind of hear.
That's where sometimes we can really have a hard time with self -compassion, where in other areas of our life it might be easier. And so I think that this is our challenge. I think this is what we'll get into in kind of more of that deeper work in the conference about understanding.
What are those parts of me that just cannot tolerate anything other than bliss and selflessness and motherhood and you know, it can cause a lot of anguish in us when it doesn't look like that. So that's how and why it's kind of hard in motherhood.
Chanel Riggle
Yeah, thank you. We're going to be looking at the conference with you on the topic of holding our inner child, like looking at the topic of self-compassion, not only as how can I give myself more grace and I'm doing fine as a mom, but also as a big lesson I've learned is, wow, I'm seeing a little mirror of all the things that I didn't realize I needed to talk to my therapist about, really. So why is healing our inner child harder when we become parents. Can we dig into that a little?
Video 2
Kaitlyn
I never really considered myself a control freak or a person concerned with control. And then I had my son and I was like, what is all this? And I think what I realized is that I had witnessed a lot of that growing up and I internalized that and learned to control myself. That's how I kind of focused all that energy. And then when I became a parent, I realized, wait, I can't control this? And it was so disorienting. It took me a long time to realize, wow, I have a part of me that's working so hard to control something that cannot be controlled, really at all.
And that was a hard day, but also a really relieving day. And so a lot of times, it's so hard because these are parts of ourselves that haven't been confronted in this way, that are usually pretty hidden, let's say. And a lot of times, at least in my experience, I realize that some of the difficulties I have are not just mine, but mothers before me. I hold a lot of archetypes and messaging about what a mother should be that goes far beyond me
Chanel Riggle
So I love that you brought up this generational work because when I think of self-compassion and motherhood, I also really consider we're not just trying to give ourselves more self-compassion; we’re giving our inner child self-compassion, which means we need to understand, where our mothers weren't giving themselves self-compassion…it is just a cycle. It's really crazy how we are all tethered by that and we might not even realize it.
Kaitlyn is asked about her background (question cut from video)
So I have a four and a half year old boy and my gosh, we're in a season of just an explosion of verbal abilities and talking and enthusiasm and energy. I mean, he wakes up like shot out of a cannon in the morning. You gotta be ready to go. There's a lot to see, a lot to do. Like he'll demand to dance 5 .30 in the morning, doesn't care. So that's my season of life in motherhood.
And professionally, I am a licensed professional counselor in the state of Colorado. I'm also a therapeutic and well-being coach. And I work with mostly adults. I've got some moms on my caseload, which I love. I am currently getting trained in a type of therapy called internal family systems, which I'll talk more about at the conference, which is such a great modality for motherhood because it acknowledges that we have all of these different parts of ourselves that can feel... very different things from each other.
We could have a part of us that loves motherhood and loves diving into it and then a part of us that feels really scared and a part of us that feels really overwhelmed, a part that misses freedom, and this model really makes space for all your parts and that there's no moral meaning behind any of those feelings, which I could have used in my first year of motherhood. I did not have access to that insight at the time. And it was really lonely and confusing.
And I think that's why therapists who are also mothers really often, in my experience, struggle because both of those roles historically have been expected to be very selfless.
We need a self. It's in the name of self-compassion. We need a self to give compassion to. If we don't take care of ourselves, if we don't know how we're doing, it's just things go downhill really fast, and it doesn't need to be that way, and that's why I'm so excited and I'm so moved by this conference and to be a part of it.
You can find all speaker links on Substack below and our website, plus merch and event details at our website.
Tanmeet Sethi, MD Amber Groomes,Ph.D. Jeannie Ewing Lauren Barber Kathryn Barbash, PsyD Kaitlyn Elizabeth Naomi Gottlieb-Miller Krista Steele Heidi Schauster Emma Del Rey Kim C Dickerson, MS Heidi Fiedler
I can’t wait for your session, Kaitlyn!!
Thank you so much for having me. I am so so so excited to share space with the rest of the speaker and lift up this message to as many mothers as we can.