Episode 39 Postpartum Anxiety: A Journey of Self-Talk, Self-Compassion and Transformation

Join me as I engage in a sincere, heartfelt conversation with our guest, Shelly Bortolotto, an Australian coach residing in Canada, who bravely lays bare her personal struggles with postpartum anxiety. We navigate through her journey, shedding light on her experiences with Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex (DMER) intertwined with postpartum anxiety, and how this challenging phase shaped her life as a new mum.

In this enlightening conversation, Shelly introduces us to the detrimental influence of negative self-talk on mental health. She shares her battle with the suffocating belief of not being enough and the debilitating exhaustion that accompanied this thought process. Learn how Shelly triumphed over these challenges, this conversation underscores the power of our internal dialogues, and highlights how coaching can offer the much-needed perspective to break away from unhealthy mental practices.

As we wind down the episode, we discuss the role of self-awareness and self-compassion in parenting. We delve into the importance of questioning our thoughts and feelings as a means to re-frame our mindset and foster self-compassion. A standout point from our discussion is the necessity of decoupling our self-worth from our parenting performance, acknowledging that parenting can be tough. Learn about how to navigate the often challenging journey of parenting with grace and compassion.


Shelly's Website:  https://shellybortolotto.com/ 

Learn more about Fiona's speaking, radio and consultation services at Informed Health: https://informedhealth.com.au/

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Credit for the music used in this podcast:

The Beat of Nature

Music by Olexy from Pixabay

Transcript

Fiona Kane: 0:31

Welcome to the Wellness Connection podcast with Fiona Kane. I'm your host, Fiona Kane, and today I actually have a guest who is an Australian, who is living in Canada, in Whistler in Canada, and her name is Shelly Bortolotto. I didn't say that Italian enough, I'm sure.

Shelly Bortolotto: 0:51

Welcome, Shelly. Thank you, Fiona. It's lovely to be here and I love hearing the Aussie accent. Thanks for having me on the show today.

Fiona Kane: 1:00

It's great to have you here and it's great to connect with an Aussie living overseas. It's always interesting to hear people's stories and where they are and what they're doing. Would you like to share a little bit of being in Canada and how you ended up there?

Shelly Bortolotto: 1:14

Yeah. So the very quick version is I'm just here for a season and it's been 15 years long. I turned up in Whistler just for three or four months and I met a Canadian boy and he is very much Canadian. 15 years later we're still married, we have a little girl and we're just loving growing up in Whistler, canada.

Fiona Kane: 1:35

Okay, that's great, great story. And look, I didn't. I kind of stepped a little bit fast and I didn't actually ask you to introduce yourself. So part of that is who you are, where you are. But, yeah, how to introduce yourself? Anyone who doesn't know you, please introduce yourself.

Shelly Bortolotto: 1:51

Yeah, so, like you said, my name is Shelly Bottolotto. It's Italian because I married the Italian background and that's fine, and I'm a coach. I help people figure out what they're thinking and telling themselves in their head, because that impacts how we feel and how we do life. So I help people do life with more ease and feel better because I teach them those daily things we need to tell ourselves every day in order to just feel good as we go about our day and make decisions better.

Fiona Kane: 2:21

Yes, the language that we use, our daily habits are so important, and today that's exactly what we are going to be talking about. It's those daily habits that support your mental health, and I know that you have a bit of a story for yourself in regards to your journey with mental health, so would you like to share?

Shelly Bortolotto: 2:41

Yeah. So Fiona, as we talked about, I came from Australia, came overseas and we got married. We decided to have a kid, so I have a baby and almost immediately when the baby comes out, I start feeling terrible. I don't know why, but I struggle through feeling really terrible for the next 20 months, including some breastfeeding challenges and just not understanding. I got to this point where I just thought I wasn't a good enough mum Right from the get go. So I had over a year of just saying I'm just not good enough. I don't know what's going wrong, but I'm just not a good enough mum.

Shelly Bortolotto: 3:21

It was the daily talk that I had in myself. I could be shitting like myself, thinking I should have done this, I should have done that. I should have done, should have cleaned the kitchen, I should be more connected. I looked at my baby and she has the blonde hair that I used to have and the very, very blue eyes. So it was like looking into my own eyes and there was no connection. There was no. I knew I loved her, but there wasn't that ooey gooey feeling that all the other mums talked about, and it wasn't until I had finished breastfeeding and I had. When I was breastfeeding I had something called DMER, which is Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex. Essentially, just when the baby's latching on, it feels like the dementors out of Harry Potter have sucked your soul out.

Fiona Kane: 4:16

Wow, and what a description that is that? Just Wow.

Shelly Bortolotto: 4:21

It's incredible because there's probably someone that will hear that description and say that's me. This is a very rare thing. A lot of doctors don't know about it. It's just something to do with the way the hormones jump up and fluctuate in the moment of breastfeeding, so understanding that that is happening.

Fiona Kane: 4:39

Yeah, I see I'd never heard of it and you put those initials of that in your email or what messaging to me and I had to look it up and I've never heard of that before and I think it's important to it is important to talk about that because I know that I haven't had children but everyone around me has and I've been around a lot of babies in my life and I know that there's always that whole oh, you know, breastfeeding it's natural and it feels wonderful and blah, blah, blah and it can and that's wonderful if that's how it works. But I think it's really important to, Like I said, I've never. I've been around a lot of this stuff, a lot he's never heard of it and for someone who this is happening to, they really need to understand that it's a real thing.

Shelly Bortolotto: 5:28

It is a real thing. And the thing is, when you put this real thing of DMER, dysphoric milk ejection reflex and you combine it with what we didn't realise was happening at the time, which was postpartum anxiety, it's hard to separate the two. Yes, so essentially you're trying to treat two things, not realising that you're treating two things.

Fiona Kane: 5:49

Yes, yeah. So you're just going with the story of. What's the story? The story is like I'm a bad mother or there's something wrong with me. I don't know what's the story that you're telling yourself.

Shelly Bortolotto: 5:58

The story was I'm not good enough, and because when the story is I'm not good enough, the responses do more. So I was trying to do everything around the house as a new mum and breastfeeding, and in Canada we get to take a year off with our kids. At first, the government pays it. It's amazing, but it means it can be really isolating because we're not back at work, we're not in that connection that we know we would have, so my husband would watch me trying to do everything around the house and take her out for walks and breastfeed. We're still breastfeeding full time, which is, I might add off, equivalent to a full time job.

Fiona Kane: 6:42

And if you're doing that and feeling the way that you said you were feeling when you were doing it, that just must be dreadful.

Shelly Bortolotto: 6:49

And he said look, just stop, just sit down and let like take a rest. I'm like I can't. And he said why? Because it all crumbles in. It's easy to push down the feeling of not good enough when you're out there trying to get stuff done yes, but you never get enough done to tell yourself, oh, I'm good enough today. It's like this constant cycle of inadequacy, more inadequacy, more insufficiency, more self-discipline. So that was going on for quite some time. And there was counselling. I'm thinking, look, the counselling just isn't working, I'm just broken. And it was a lot of just not good enoughness.

Shelly Bortolotto: 7:35

And then once I finished breastfeeding, so we sort of put that whole DMER challenge to rest and it wasn't feeling like the soul was getting sucked out of me 20 times a day and I was able to go back to my doctor and say something's still not right. So she did this, she pulled me aside. She said come and sit over by my computer, come over here and do this little quiz for me. And I'm thinking it's one of those cleo or cosmo quizzes where you kind of want to be in the middle, right, yes, like cool but not too cool, but friendly but popular. So I did the quiz. It's a question like how many times do you worry a day? Like what do you think about? What words did you tell yourself? How are you sleeping? And I get to the end. I'm like, okay, I got 14. What's a good score? She looks at me like dead pan face. She goes zero. You could just about see the light bulb go on. I'm like, oh oh, it was the test to see, like it was the medical evaluation they used to diagnose postpartum anxiety. And that happened at 20 months, when my daughter was 20 months old.

Shelly Bortolotto: 8:58

So I had been through thinking that I was terrible for about a year and a half, longer than a year and a half, nearly two years, and that was a really tough experience. Even after that experience was done and I very, very quickly I got the medication. I got more counseling. I talked to my boss. I said look, I've been diagnosed with postpartum anxiety.

Shelly Bortolotto: 9:31

Everyone was like makes sense, how can we fix it? How can we support you? Which is? It was very new to me. I'm like I can't believe this is happening. Everyone else is like clearly it's been happening. I'm like why didn't anyone tell me? I thought I was just broken. I didn't realize my hormones and my chemicals in my brain were just out of whack. I thought I was just a terrible parent. Anyway, it worked. I got better and I was able to do life in the most general sense. I could get my daughter out the door to daycare, I could get to work, I could get my job done, but I still hate it on myself. I was now in this daily habit of not supporting my mental health. Yeah, and it was really hard.

Fiona Kane: 10:33

When you say not supporting your mental health, do you mean, are you talking about the way you were talking to yourself, or are you talking about lots of other things too?

Shelly Bortolotto: 10:45

Primarily. Yeah, it was the way I was talking to myself. It was the thoughts I was telling myself in my head, so it would be like I was still in that habit of shitting on myself. I should have done this. It was like a to-do list. You know how we all write out our to-do lists, but it was on overdrive. It was a terrible person because I haven't done lists and this might be. I didn't wash out my daughter's lunchbox the night before, and then that was the reason I was late the next day, or at least that's what I was telling myself. And then I thought, oh, I'm not doing it. I'm not a good enough parent. I should have done that night before, and that should take up the next couple of hours of my morning, just when it was simple as like oh, I didn't do it, no big deal, I'll do it now.

Fiona Kane: 11:42

That sounds exhausting, hugely exhausting.

Shelly Bortolotto: 11:48

And the thing is my daughter was doing great. There was it wasn't like. A lot of times when they're diagnosing, they look at how is the kid doing, how is the mum doing. So my daughter is this amazingly incredible, smart, intelligent, switched on little kid, really empathetic, really kind. This morning she organized my bedroom table for me. Thank you.

Fiona Kane: 12:15

She's a really organized little kid.

Shelly Bortolotto: 12:17

So she was doing fine. And I was really, really struggling inside because it was exhausting to constantly be telling myself that I was insufficient and inadequate. And it wasn't until I actually got some coaching. And I got the coaching in order to start a business, so it was. It was essentially it started out as business coaching, but the core of that was that I wasn't telling myself that I was good enough. So I had to retrain my brain out of this constant habit of basically beeping on myself as I won't say the S word which is, on the side note, really cute, because my daughter thinks the S word is stupid, not the other S word.

Fiona Kane: 13:14

She's an adorable eight year old, yeah, yeah it's lovely you can keep them in that innocent place. It's beautiful. She is gorgeous.

Shelly Bortolotto: 13:24

And it wasn't until I could start thinking of myself as capable and worthy and competent, and not blaming myself for everything that I hadn't done, that my mental health really started to come back.

Fiona Kane: 13:39

Yes, and it's something that I talk to my clients about a lot. As a nutritionist, but also a counsellor and coach, I teach my clients how to learn how to nourish themselves to health. But nourishment is not just food. Nourishment is what you think, it's what you say, how you feel about yourself, it's who you spend your time with, it's all of those things. So if all you're doing is pouring on, well, what are you just using? Fertiliser no gasoline.

Shelly Bortolotto: 14:23

is the fire really what?

Fiona Kane: 14:25

you're doing is pouring that onto yourself all of the time. That is not nourishing, not in the way that fertiliser normally would be. That's just not nourishing. So that's just. If all you're doing is just doing that to yourself, then that's like the opposite of nourishment, isn't it?

Shelly Bortolotto: 14:45

Yeah, and I've come off a farm so I've shoveled plenty of that in my time.

Fiona Kane: 14:51

That's probably a bad example of me saying fertiliser because it is nourishment for plants. But anyway you get the gist. Doing that to ourselves doesn't work.

Shelly Bortolotto: 15:00

Yeah, and there's definitely some tools that I've come up with along the way. To you know, obviously the main tool is coaching, is getting to talk to somebody one-on-one every week and have them actually look at your thoughts so that you get that outside perspective of this is the thing I'm telling myself every day. This is the question I ask myself when I wake up in the morning how am I going to be a terrible mum today? And when those are the questions we ask ourselves, it's like we auto-complete the answer.

Fiona Kane: 15:38

Well, you've already framed it, haven't you? You've already framed it what the answer has to be? Because the framing has created as that whole I talk about it a lot, but it's that you see what you want to see. And so if you go out into the world and say I'm going to look for opportunities to prove that people are kind, you will see that. But if you go out every day and you're going to look for opportunities that people are out to get me, you will see that too. So it is a really the way you frame things to start with makes a big difference, doesn't it?

Shelly Bortolotto: 16:12

Yeah, and often we don't realise how habituated we have been come to framing it in such a negative way.

Fiona Kane: 16:22

And also we actually might not even know Our internal dialogue is our internal dialogue? Does anyone really know what anyone else's is? So because we've only ever had our own, we might not actually identify that ours there's like there's anything wrong with ours or ours is not healthy for us.

Shelly Bortolotto: 16:46

Yeah, that's what coaching does is when I coach, as I'm sure you do too, I'm very, very neutral. It's almost like you just get blank face, because I don't want to give you my opinions about what's happening inside your head, because we want to find out what's happening in your head. What are those daily questions you're asking yourselves that you've pre-framed the answers for? Yes, and is that serving you? It's not. Until we start getting them out on paper, you can actually look at them really objectively and think, oh well, I do ask myself this a lot, or I do always think of that person in that way and I do always look for that specific kind of evidence. And then we sort of see how well that's having me feel this way and from this feeling I'm taking these kinds of actions.

Fiona Kane: 17:43

And then we ask for a reason and wondering why you feel bad.

Shelly Bortolotto: 17:47

Yeah, like that's the result. The result you're getting from those actions is not feeling well.

Fiona Kane: 17:57

Yeah, so, like you said, we've never done this before. Well, no, and we? How does anyone know? We all think that whatever we experience is normal. Largely we do, or we certainly don't know other people's experiences. So, yeah, we just don't know. And the other thing, too, that I think that is people need to be aware of is that people think that their internal dialogue or the thoughts that they have, they somehow think that it's it's right or it's accurate, or they need to listen to it Somehow, that voice in their head is some authority. That's absolutely correct. It's just some sort of program in your brain. It's not, and programs can be changed. But we, so sometimes people actually think whatever that voice is is to be believed. But it's, it's not. It's not some great sort of you know, smart expert or whatever, especially if it's not, if it's saying things like that. Simply, it's a program. If picked up along the way.

Shelly Bortolotto: 18:57

Yeah, when we coach, we like to talk about the difference between facts and thoughts, and there's a really simple way to make that judgment like it's a fact that we are talking together today, yes, but it is not a fact that I should have done X number of things, or and the way we we decide that is. We imagine that there's a hundred people squished into your living room and then we get those hundred people to vote have you done enough today, yes or no? Now our brain automatically assumes that all hundred people are going to vote no, you haven't done enough today. You're a terrible person. But that's not true. As long as you've got these a hundred imaginary people in your living room and they are voting differently some people putting their hand up this way, some people vote over that way then it's a thought, it is a belief that can be changed. Some things can't be changed. I have blue eyes and that is a fact, but there's so many things we can change.

Fiona Kane: 20:16

Yeah, but I'm terrible person.

Shelly Bortolotto: 20:23

It's a very opinionated.

Fiona Kane: 20:25

Exactly, you know, and the truth is that we're all human beings, which means we're capable of lots of different things, but we're usually not just one thing. So you've started telling me some of the strategies you've been using this kind of daily strategies to improve your mental health. So can you expand a little bit more on that? So obviously part of it was identifying what you were saying to yourself and changing that story. So tell me a little bit more about that or any other strategies in particular that you found have been really helpful for your mental health.

Shelly Bortolotto: 21:00

Yeah, the one I'm talking about right now is just identifying the thought you're telling yourself. And actually we want to really slow that down. We want to really create that awareness of, oh, I'm telling myself this and it's making me feel this, and then, oh, I'm doing that six times a day, or I typically do that in the evenings, or I do that after lunch, and then when I'm feeling, when that puts me into that feeling of shame and guilt, then what am I doing in shame and guilt? And I know I was in shame and guilt and I would be sitting on the couch reading my book rather than interacting with my daughter, as I could be, because I was buffering that feeling away. So, really creating that awareness of the thought when it comes up, when it's more likely to come up, what's that feeling that happens inside? And then what are the actions that you're typically in from those feelings?

Shelly Bortolotto: 22:05

And once we've got that really big awareness, it's like we have this movie montage, like I love the movie, the notebook I don't know if you've seen that one, it's adorable. There's always that part I'm like I'm going to cry on this part. I need to go get the tissues. You know what's coming once you've created that awareness because you've seen it over and over. And once you know what's coming, that's the tool, the way you can start to catch yourself, be like oh, this is me having that thought I should have done XYZ as a parent, and now I'm going to feel shame. Oh, but it's not true that I should have done that. So it's just a thought, and I know thoughts create feelings, so I can tell myself something different. It's possible I could have done that today, but I didn't. And I don't need to feel shame because I didn't.

Fiona Kane: 23:00

Yeah, it's that questioning, is it true? Do you have any evidence for that being true? Yeah, and really kind of just, I think it's just. I find that once we learn that we can question all of that rubbish that we say to ourselves all the time, once we learn we can actually question it, we can say is that really true?

Shelly Bortolotto: 23:26

Is that?

Fiona Kane: 23:26

really not true? Is it not really true to think that, yeah, or do I agree with that, or does that make?

Shelly Bortolotto: 23:33

sense. Yeah, would I tell my best friend that.

Fiona Kane: 23:37

Yes, yeah, which is the perfect question, actually, and that's something that I'm sure you and I it's a conversation that we have a lot with our clients, isn't it? Because no one would treat their best friend the way that they treat themselves with this sort of stuff, like you just wouldn't do it.

Shelly Bortolotto: 23:57

You wouldn't. And when we talk about, when we've got this big awareness of oh, this is exactly what's happening, we call it the model, the circumstance, the thought, the feeling, the actions, the result. Then we're able to dig around much more mutually and sort of say, well, what do you want to think? And sometimes my clients' brains just go absolute blank, no idea what they can tell themselves.

Fiona Kane: 24:23

Yeah.

Shelly Bortolotto: 24:23

And I'm like well, imagine your friend is sitting at your kitchen table and you're having a cup of tea and they've come to you with this problem. What advice do you give them? And then their brain turns on. They're like oh, this is exactly how I would have that conversation. Yes, they need to love themselves more, they need to give themselves a break, they need to see that they have accomplished a ton of stuff today and they need to stop saying yes to so many things.

Fiona Kane: 24:46

Yeah, exactly, your friend comes in, sits down, has a cup of tea. You're not going to be standing there saying, well, you're useless, well, if only you were a better mother. And you just don't get anything done and you're hopeless. And who do you think you are? No one would have that conversation with their best friend. However, we have it with ourselves over and over and over again, and that's the longest. I always sort of say that the relationship you have with yourself, the longest relationship, the most consistent, longest relationship you're going to have in your whole life, and so at least creating a friendship there, at least having a healthy respect or friendship with you, is really important. So exactly that. How would you have a conversation if it was someone that you loved? How would you have a conversation if it was your friend? And that really allows you to reframe it completely, doesn't it it?

Shelly Bortolotto: 25:41

totally does. And then the other question is if it's not your friend, it's your daughter, it's your son sitting at the kitchen table, yes, or it's your mom or your cousin, whoever kind of fills that spot in the context of the problem. Yes, Now, fiona, I promised you a couple of tools.

Shelly Bortolotto: 26:03

I've got two more that I want to share, but we need to sort of bring that story back to when I was a brand new mom trying to do everything and, as we know, as brand new moms, sometimes you have a choice between eating, sleeping, feeding the baby or staying up to have 10 minutes to yourself because all you want to do is watch a TV show.

Shelly Bortolotto: 26:29

And, of course, notice, I didn't put cleaning the house in that list. But when I was about three, when she's about three months old, they said sometimes you will need to put the baby down and you will need to do something for yourself, and my mom actually recommended practicing this every morning. So every morning I found what I called my tipping point. The tipping point is when you have to put yourself first, because you're completely out of, your bucket is empty and you cannot give from an empty bucket. So the tipping point is find when you're in that complete sleep deprivation period. Find that tipping point when is the moment when I need to put my baby down on a safe mat on the floor and go and eat breakfast at three in the afternoon, because taking care of me is the most important thing.

Fiona Kane: 27:36

Yeah, it's that message that they give you on a plane. Isn't it about putting your mask? Drop down the oxygen mask. Put your mask on first.

Shelly Bortolotto: 27:47

Yeah.

Fiona Kane: 27:48

And I understand why it doesn't happen. I mean, obviously babies need us for absolute survival and that's why that relationship is so intense and that's why you know it's natural for a mother to put her child first, and you know, and it's vital in so many ways and for so many reasons. However, if you keel over, you're not able to help the child at all, so that that ability to somewhere in there kind of have that that awareness is like okay, okay, right, yeah, I need to do something. Just having that awareness in there is really important.

Shelly Bortolotto: 28:33

Yeah, it's knowing that there is a tipping point. There is a moment where you literally need to feed yourself and for me it was things like I need to eat and I need to drink water because I am producing milk and at that point I was actually producing milk and I was. I added an extra pump to feed because I was producing milk for my friends baby who couldn't take other milk. So I was doing time and a half, really, and the idea is that you will.

Shelly Bortolotto: 29:03

You need to know about the tipping point. It is there, it exists, you will find it and once you start to find it, the idea is that you can catch it before it happens. So I know I need to eat by 11am in the morning, so I'm going to make sure I have breakfast at 9am. That idea of I know I need to do this and finding those really clear strategies like I've had a terrible night who can I call to come and look after my baby for two hours so that I can sleep, coming up with that creative strategies instead of that auto answer of no one's helping me, I'm doing it alone and all the silly reasons why.

Fiona Kane: 29:47

And you know, there are people that may be doing it alone, but there are many who could have some support and help, but they don't ask for it. And I think it's important to because I don't know. I think that when we I see this with mothers, but I see this with people in lots of different, in lots of different situations that I can do it, I should be able to do it like you know, I should be able to do it on my own. And you know, we've come from a society that's being part of a tribe or part of a village or that's our background. We actually need that connection. It's okay to ask for help and, you know, I really feel that we've lost that in a lot in our society and we think that we have to do everything on our own. And asking for help, I think, is quite challenging for a lot of people.

Shelly Bortolotto: 30:39

And sometimes we see that it's okay to ask for help when we have a newborn oh, you're a newborn mom, oh, what kind of help. But when we have toddlers or teenagers, people are like, oh you've. It becomes almost even harder to ask for help because there's, there's that expectation is that you've sorted it Like. You're not in that crucial moments anymore.

Fiona Kane: 31:01

Okay, so the new mom has a like an expiry time on it. It's like okay, the expiry is done, now you should be fine.

Shelly Bortolotto: 31:10

Yeah, and often because there's lots of it, as he's in Whistler and the mom or the dad will come over and help for the first three to four weeks or five to six weeks, and I always check in with my friends when their parents have gone, because that's when it really sinks in, like for me it was my mom has gone. I don't know when I will see her next. Quite literally, I might not see her for another two or three years and that was incredibly isolating. And then I still have this baby that is now moving into that next phase of not sleeping through the night.

Fiona Kane: 31:46

So, yeah, oh well, you know, teenagers, they're easy. Why do you need support around that I know right.

Shelly Bortolotto: 31:57

I have this adorable girl right now. She is eight, like I said, and she's in the big kid phase, which is the moment where she's like mommy, I'm a big kid, I don't need help, I've got this all by myself. And can you come and tuck me in and help me dress my teddy for bed? She doesn't, in fact, have a teddy, but she does have a stuffed toy that must be with her. So I'm like absolutely, you're a big kid. You stay a big kid as long as you want.

Fiona Kane: 32:25

Yes, yeah.

Shelly Bortolotto: 32:27

And there's one more really fun little tool that I came up with that, I think, goes all the way through parenting and it's called score and it was really, really important when I was staying home with my baby in that first year and the word score actually stands for the five different things that I figured out that I needed to get through the days and I had to ask myself each day which one do I need to score SCORE, socialize, create, organize, rest or exercise. Sometimes that last one, the E sometimes it was eat or exercise, because I got my own eating habits back to like eating regular meals. Then it became more of an exercise. So what do I need today? Do I need to see a friend? Do I just need to organize my house because that particular cupboard is driving me crazy? Did I not sleep the night before? Do I need to make rest a priority? Do I need to cancel something so I can rest?

Shelly Bortolotto: 33:35

Yes, my husband and I came up. Finally, we came up with this deal where, like I would only go out with a child every second day, I could go out more if I wanted to, but I only had to go out enough that, like I didn't, he just didn't want me to try to do something every day. He said just do something every couple of days. Yes, I'm an introvert, so I'm happy most of the time to stay at home anyway.

Fiona Kane: 34:00

Yeah, and you need that time to replenish if you're an introvert, so that's fine. I like that SCORE thing and I think that the way you used it is really healthy too, because it's not just another opportunity to see every way that you failed because you haven't fulfilled all of the things on the SCORE. It's an awareness. It's just like an awareness tool around. Okay, another way of doing it is the way I talk to my clients. What I teach them to do is sort of say what does self-care look like for me today? Yeah, I think that's pretty much that question, just with the letters, just help you remember what self-care is. It's a great little way to just have that awareness and go, yeah, what is it today that I need? Because you might only have moments and of course you're not necessarily going to get all of those things in the one day, but what's the thing that is the priority that day?

Shelly Bortolotto: 35:05

The idea isn't to try and get all the things in the day, it's to ask how can I score today? Socialize, create, organize, rest or exercise. Now, create might look like baking a cake. I went through a lovely phase where she was connecting two sleep cycles in the middle of the day, so she'd sleep from like 12 to two, so 45 minutes, and then another 45 minutes plus a bit at the end, and I could actually bake something. Yeah, that was really fun. Or it might be like socializing like I need to go see a friend and maybe I didn't get out of the house, but maybe I called them, maybe I just talked on the phone. And that was just one goal, one thing to do that day that I could recognize and reward myself for.

Fiona Kane: 35:56

Yeah, great strategy and easy to remember. Yes, were there any other strategies that you would like to share?

Shelly Bortolotto: 36:10

Really just this idea that, like what we were talking about is you get to choose what you tell yourself. Actually, I do have one more. I told it to a client. It's very simple, I told it to a client just the other day is when you go to bed I have notebooks. All these notebooks behind me are all intentional thinking notebooks.

Fiona Kane: 36:32

Intentional thinking notebooks.

Shelly Bortolotto: 36:33

Okay, yeah, they're all me doing my self coaching, processing emotions, letting myself know that it's safe to feel an emotion, because emotions are just vibrations in our body and when we feel emotions it's easier to let go of the thought. And intentional thinking is. I like to write down a thought for my bedtime. So the reason I do it is because it's more likely to be the sentence that comes back to my brain in the morning. Sometimes it'll be one of those useful questions like how can I connect with clients tomorrow or how can I plan a fun weekend for my daughter, and sometimes it'll just be things like you're an amazing person or you really impacted this particular person today, and then when I wake up in the morning, I'll think back about that client I talked to yesterday and be like, yeah, they can have an amazing week because of our session, and that reminds me of my own accomplishments and my own achievements and it's safe to feel accomplished.

Fiona Kane: 37:44

Yeah, definitely. If you could now go back and talk to Shelly when you were in the midst of all of that, what advice would you have for her?

Shelly Bortolotto: 38:00

Well, a couple of years ago I would have said I'm so sorry you're going through this. And now I will tell her that there's a reason you go through this, so you can help a hundred and a thousand more people to think better about themselves. So I don't know if I'd give her any advice, so much as just a big hug and a gratitude and say you're gonna get through this, you'll get out the other side, and it is so valuable to so many people.

Fiona Kane: 38:30

Yeah, yeah, sometimes that is the truth when a lot of us, our deepest scars, our biggest challenges in life are actually the things that open up a lot for us on the other side, whether it's just that, the maturity that we gain, or whether it's that we learn something or we do something or we move on to something that sort of helps other people. But there's, there's some often on the other side of it, there is wisdom in it somehow somewhere.

Shelly Bortolotto: 39:03

Yes, and it's. It's nice to be far enough on the other side that I can see the reward for that. Yes, yeah, just the joy of connecting and helping people and, yeah, it's such a, it's such an important. I'm fascinated by people's brains and how they work. Yes, and I'm so honored to be able to get in there and help people shift their thoughts. So thank you so much for having me today. I really appreciate getting to share these tools with your audience.

Fiona Kane: 39:37

Yeah, well, thank you for coming on. I just think it's so important, why it's important to share our stories, because I think that there's so many in this some Instagram world I think we have. We often have an idea of what motherhood looks like or should look like, or you know all the perfection stuff that people show online, and I think that there's, even more than ever, a lot of people are feeling inadequate and like there's something wrong with them and they're not achieving because they, you know things don't look like. They look on Instagram for other people and, of course, those people on Instagram it doesn't look like that for them either, but we don't know that. I just think we we have so much of that comparison itis and and reasons that we feel bad about ourselves or that we put ourselves down and it seems to be.

Fiona Kane: 40:30

I talked to mothers all of the time and it's such a big thing for mothers.

Fiona Kane: 40:35

It's just that such a judgment and I don't know if it's some of its judgment from the outside, but a lot of its judgment from inside that we think that we, that we imagine that we make up, but it's such a big issue and and you know, motherhood is probably the most important thing that happens on the planet really, because creating and nurturing young minds in young bodies into being, you know, adults that do something useful in the world or that you know that do something kind or, you know, contribute to the world in some way, is actually a really big job, a really big responsibility, and I don't think we take it seriously enough or treat it with the respect that it deserves.

Fiona Kane: 41:22

And I also think that that many mothers are isolated and feeling, feeling vulnerable and and feeling like their failure in some way. So I think any discussion where we just normalize or it's not so much normalized, because what you had were issues that you know, diagnosable issues, but just saying that that they happen, you know, and this is, this is what your experience was, and and, and that you do come through the other side, there is help and also there are some great strategies that you can put into place to to help yourself yeah, and one of the things that you said really struck to me is that it is such an impactful job to be a mom, or to be a dad or a caregiver or parent, and the irony is that when we give it our full focus, there's that risk that we attach our self-worth to how well we're doing that job.

Shelly Bortolotto: 42:21

Yes, and it's really important to keep them separate. So you're doing an incredibly impactful job and no matter how that individual is doing, you still get to believe yourself as whole and worthy and you still get to have other reasons for living too, because that makes you better at doing all the things that you're doing yes, yes, definitely, yeah, yeah, we're more.

Fiona Kane: 42:47

We're more than one thing where lots of different things, and I think that we do. That's a whole other topic. But we get attached ourselves to our job or to a being a parent or whatever it is, and and yet if we get every little bit out of feeling good about ourselves from that, it can be a problem. And with parenting especially, again, this is another topic. But with parenting, the truth is that it's really hard and children will go through all just different phases and different cycles, and it's going to be.

Fiona Kane: 43:17

You know, there's, you know it's one of those kind of roller coaster things, I'm sure, where it's like there's good moments and there's bad moments, and that's that's normal, that's part of it, because you, you know you are literally helping to create and and nurture a human being, and so it's it's not smooth, it's not meant to be, that's not how it works. So it's it's you know it is okay that it is challenging. That's you know, it's it's that's not unusual. But if you kind of think that every time your child doesn't want to talk to you or gets angry at you or whatever, that you're a bad parent, that's yeah. No, it's just like I'm doing my job.

Fiona Kane: 43:57

If you get up, I think that you know a lot of the time in life. If you get up, you get on with it, you do the best you can, you know, then you know whatever it is you're doing, you're doing well. So I think that, yeah, sometimes, yeah, our judgments we have on our self and the expectations are just way over the top. But yeah, I'm really glad that to get your perspective on the different ways that you can, the different language that you can use and the different way that you can reframe things and and nurture yourself while you're going through that and and and getting to the other side, thank you.

Shelly Bortolotto: 44:41

It's absolutely so important for people to hear this thank you.

Fiona Kane: 44:46

Yeah, so look, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation, a really important conversation, like I said. Now, if anyone wants to get in contact with you, how can they find you?

Shelly Bortolotto: 44:58

they can go to my website. Shelly Bortolloto dot com Fiona I know you're gonna link that up in the share show notes. Yes, and I love chatting to people on messenger, like Facebook messenger. I love waking up, being like, hey, how you doing getting those messages? Because I'm, because I'm on the other side of the world.

Fiona Kane: 45:17

Basically, yes so I get messages all-time nights.

Shelly Bortolotto: 45:20

So if you want to just reach out to me on messenger, you're more than welcome to just find me in the little thing. I'm very open for people to message me and you can send me an email. You can get on my email list and you'll get goodness in your email couple times a week. Yes, all about how to you know you support your mental health and become more aware if you're thinking yeah, brilliant.

Fiona Kane: 45:43

Well, thank you again. I really appreciate it having you here today you're very welcome. Have a wonderful day, and I will chat to you soon and thank you to everyone who is either watching or listening to the podcast today. I hope you enjoyed that episode. Please like, subscribe and share, and also go and follow Shelly in all of the places. Like I said, like she said, we'll put them in the show notes. Thank you, everybody. I'll talk to you again next week. Thanks, bye.