Breaking Lies About Motherhood: You Don’t Have to Do It All
In this episode, we’re breaking the lies about motherhood and the pressure to do it all. Carolina shares her personal journey of changing her mindset, healing her inner child, and still working on her self-worth.
Carolina talks about leaving her six-figure corporate job due to a toxic and misogynistic leader in her 17-year career. She realized that she could decide the standard of living she wanted and when she was done, feeling good about it.
To help her manage her busy life, Carolina hired a team to support her, including a cleaning lady, bookkeeper, therapist, babysitter, and even paid for her mom to fly to see her. She also shares how hiring a virtual assistant and podcast editor has made a significant impact on her life and career.
Join us as Carolina breaks down the stereotypes and expectations of motherhood, and how she’s created a life that works for her and her family.
What you’ll learn:
1:56 You don’t have to do it all
6:35 Healing inner child
10:00 Evaluating is important
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Professional bio
The Carolina Sotomayor Podcast is brought to you by Carolina Sotomayor and the Fertility Foundation.
Carolina Sotomayor is an Expert Womb Healer who helps women conceive by removing physiological blockages with Reiki. She is the host of the Carolina Sotomayor Podcast, a show that covers everything from fertility to postpartum to motherhood, and the creator of Fertility Foundation Collective, an online membership that helps women heal at their own pace to boost their fertility.
Carolina has served over 500 women from around the world to heal. She is passionate about helping women create their families. As a result, there are over 60 reiki babies in the world.
Fertility Foundation Collective: https://carolinasotomayor.com/membership
Carolina Sotomayor Reiki: https://carolinasotomayor.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carolinasotomayorreiki/
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Podcast Episode Transcript
Hi, I’m Carolina, your podcast host and expert wound healer. Over the past five years, I’ve served over 500 women to remove physical blockages in their bodies. We achieve this with Reiki. I believe healing doesn’t have to be done alone, nor should it be. We will hear stories of healing methods to heal with and guest speakers covering taboo topics you won’t hear anywhere else.
Let’s continue this journey of wound healing together.
Welcome back friends. I’m Carolina sat, your podcast host and Ricky Womb healer. Today we’re talking about freaking down lies about motherhood. You don’t have to do it all. That’s right, my friends. News flash. It’s 2023 Pessie. You don’t have to do it all. This ain’t the 1950s. No. And if they’re saying that you have to, it’s time to have some conversations.
That’s right. It’s all about changing your mindset and your limiting beliefs, so understanding where those beliefs come from, who told you that was the way it was, and just realizing we don’t have to do it that way anymore. The most dangerous phrase, . I saw this on a TikTok, or maybe it was Instagram was the most, oh, no, no.
I remember where I saw this. My friend and my podcast coach, Dylan Schmidt, he recently sent an email that said the most dangerous phrase ever spoken was, well, we’ve always done it this way. And he’s right, and we don’t have to do this. We don’t have to do it all anymore. That’s why there. You know people you can hire.
There is people that are made to help you. There is also like resetting your expectations of yourself is really where you need to first start, so you don’t have to do it all. And what does all mean? Career child rearing, like taking care of details of birthday parties, laundry, chores, finances, emotional needs, relationship, being a wife, mom, friend, all of.
You don’t have to do it all. And the number one thing that I have adopted and believed to my core as a personal truth, I don’t have to do it all right now in the same day. I am many things to many people, and I’m all good in those aspects. I’m a great daughter-in-law, but in my, uh, great daughter-in-law every single day, no, but when it is my time and I need to be present with my in-laws, guess what I’m all.
It’s understanding that I don’t have to be all the things all the time at the same time because I was failing when I was doing it and I was not doing anything. Well, there are certain things that we have decided as a family that we are like what we need from each other, and so being a wife and a mom and a person, Is things I need to hit every single day, and we have created in those flows.
What are the things that we need from each other? In those roles as family members, my son requires a lot of hugs. He goes, mommy, I need a hug. Or he’ll tell me he learned this in preschool was mommy, my bucket’s a little empty now. I didn’t get enough love today. I need a cuddle. And the fact that he can express that to me is profound because when I was a child, I didn’t know what emotions were.
I didn’t know how to articulate them. I certainly didn’t feel safe to express them. I didn’t know I was allowed to express them. I didn’t even know that I could say anything because I was more of like, the choir to you are the easier your life is gonna be. So for me to have a son that says, Hey, I need X, Y, Z allows my job to be easier as a mom.
So my husband and I have a fantastic relationship. He’s the person I never get tired of. And a million lifetimes will never be enough time with him. But every day we have thank yous before we go to bed. And it’s three things that. That person did that day that we’re thankful for. So we do that with my son and my husband, and that allows me to be a good wife to him.
Also. Knowing his love languages has allowed me to be a better wife. Allow us to effectively communicate better to each other and make each other feel seen and heard. So understanding like how you can meet your emotional needs and what are the priorities in your family and in your individual relationships within the family has allowed me to be.
More of myself and feel like I can give myself more grace. I don’t need to be supermom every day. My son has seen me cry. My son has seen me fall apart. He’s seen me yell at people because they were assholes. And guess what? If you come from my son or my husband, it’s not them. You need to worry about. It’s me because I have fought an entire lifetime to get to where I’m at, and I’m not gonna let anyone.
Disrespect them. I’m gonna advocate for them. And I think that that’s understanding that there’s gonna be moments where you are going to be supermom. You’re not gonna be a supermom every day, but creating rituals and spaces in your routine. Or in some cases, my friend Rachel Tran, who’s also a parenting coach, she said people do rhythms.
They do the same thing every single day in the same patterns. It may not be. At 7 0 5 every single day, but they are gonna brush their teeth. They are gonna take a shower every night. They are gonna wear their pajamas somewhere in there. Put in the things that are most important for you, and do them in an increment or in a frequency that is easy.
And soon over time, that little thing becomes easier and easier. And it just becomes second nature. And that’s where the thank yous came in. The thank yous before bedtime. What are three things I’m grateful for today that you did? That I saw and I’m grateful for, and they have to be different than the day previous, and it makes everyone feel valued, loved, and seen Now.
I also healed my inner child because my inner child felt like if I didn’t do it all, I was nothing. And in my childhood trauma that came up, it was all or nothing. My childhood was very extreme. So it was either all in, people were present or they were gone. It was not consistent, it wasn’t stable, it wasn’t steady.
So I had to learn that it’s okay. To have moments of highs and lows, but also like what can we do as an adult to slow down so we have consistency? Cuz consistency and sustainability creates reliability and safety and reliability and safety allows me to not burn out. So understanding and healing my inner child was so important to understand I was worthy of slowing.
I was worthy of asking for help. And the help that I, I hired was, I hired a cleaning lady. My husband hates to do chores who doesn’t, but like I found out, like what we were arguing about in our marriage was over dishes. And I was like, I’m done with this. So I hired a cleaning lady. I actually hired a cleaning crew and they’re amazing.
And they come twice a. And it keeps us accountable. I have two businesses and I hired a bookkeeper, and I hired a therapist and. I hired a babysitter, my in-laws, moved away. We struggled really hard to find a great babysitter that wasn’t complicated. All our babysitters for a while, we’ll see. Were complicated and one that we’re like, you are a part of our family.
We trust you. We believe in you. We are gonna spoil you. We are so thankful for you. So the more I healed my inner child, the more worthy I felt like I could spend. on to ask for help, and I, I really leaned into how good it felt to feel lighter and like the moments I got to breathe or if there was less tension.
I really relished in those moments. I was like, how can I create more of this? So understanding that, like, I also don’t have to be the mom that travels. I love airplanes, but I like travel. On my terms, so sometimes I would prefer not to go and have someone come here instead. Depends on your budget too. For us, it was cheaper to fly my mom here to visit with us.
I’m happy to pay for her ticket every single time. Happy to pay for any accommodations she’ll need in any kind of seat she wants on the plane. Yes ma’am. As long as it’s not first class . I don’t have to do it all. I don’t have to be the mom that takes my kid on 10 hour road trips because I’m not a happy camper in the car.
It makes me super unhappy and I’m very unpleasant to be around. I hired a virtual assistant in our business and that was a game changer. I don’t have to be the secretary of our lives either. I don’t have to be the secretary of my inbox, and it might take her a little bit more time, but it’s something less that I have to do.
Uh, she does my Amazon orders. Simple stuff like that. You don’t have time for Amazon. Uh, nobody. I’m trying to do less of my life so I can do something else. Evaluating like what was I doing that I didn’t wanna do anymore? And what was repetitious? And understanding that, like how is my time better spent elsewhere?
Call it savvy or delegation, whatever you prefer. But I would rather spend time. Being present with OIE and outside and creating memories and have the ability to employ a very competent and amazing human who can do all of the admin things. Call the Doctor Swink appointment, that kind of thing. Give them all the tools, set them up, use a project management software.
I am techie, not just a great healer and speaker. I am a techie. And I have a project management selfer called Click Up. It’s free. Go check it out. And of course, with this podcast, I hired a podcast editor. I believe in hiring out things. If you can, when I hire things out, it’s with the intention. I’m getting time back.
I also don’t have to do it all with groceries or cooking or meal planning. Guess what? My kid is not gonna remember if I baked every single cake for his birthday from scratch. No, and he wouldn’t care anyway. He just wants to know that he had cake. So it just really like what are my expectations of myself in these situations?
What are the expectations of doing life and where did those expectation and beliefs come? Understand that you can break ’em all. You can say, fuck it all, because this is my life. I am also a mom and a wife, but it’s my life and I’m the person I have to live with the longest. Why shouldn’t I be making my life happier, creating more moments of joy, making my life full of ease.
I understand life is gonna happen, trust me. Uh, we’re not into the toxic spiritual babes from TikTok, but life’s still gonna happen. I have tools to cope with it, but I also have more support because, I have more capacity because my mental space and my emotional space is not spent worrying about if my son is going to like the cake, I bake for him.
Guess what, Betty? We bought it for Publix or hyvee here in the Midwest. If we lived in Florida, we would buy the sheet cake from Publix. So what can you do about motherhood? What are your beliefs about mother? And how you operate as a mom and a wife, as a family member, and how are you doing the things that you’re doing?
Are they aligning to create more peace, more joy, stability, and safety in your life? For us, this year was about more peace. Last year was about simplifying things and understanding that those goals can change, but. You have to remember, you’re in charge and there’s no police coming for you. There’s no, unless you broke the law, then that’s, sorry, but we’re not talking about that.
It’s more about like owning your life, standing up and saying, you know what? I don’t care about what other people say. This is my life, my kid, my family, and I am, I’m gonna do the best I can to show up for them and show up for myself because I deserve all of these. and if you feel like you don’t deserve those things, then it’s time for you to join Next Level Fertility or the Make A Baby membership.
We need to work on your worth. My self-worth is something that I’m perpetually working on, but it’s okay. I understand that. I don’t have to also be all the things all the time. Because nobody is all the things all the time. So this is a bit of a more raw episode than usual. So I hope you’re doing great in your week, and I’ll see you next week.
It was an honor to connect and serve you this week. If you are a spiritually curious person wanting to conceive, inhale blockages in your fertility, click the link in the episode description to learn more about the Fertility Foundation collective. Until next time, my friend know you are love.
