Eps 172: Unlearning Supermom with Rachel Butler
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Today’s guest is Rachel Butler. She is an executive and professional coach, an organizational health expert, a wife and mother of 2 boys she is one of those unique women who is both powerhouse and presence. She’s a master in organizational systems and she’s worked with over 325 organizations. Rachel embodies what it means to be an empowered woman and a conscious mom. Rachel and her mama business partner Gillian Rowinski are the voices behind Unlearning SuperMom a feminist website that supports equal rights and opportunities for women and empowering all of us. We will be discussing Unlearning SuperMom. Join us!
“Our culture has clearly defined what being a good mom should look like and it is oppressive. The martyrdom of being busy, being agreeable, putting everyone else first, running yourself ragged. If super mom is who we become when we are in this world with our eyes closed then unlearning her is a deeply courageous feminist act.”
“Are we doing it because it’s a “should” or are we doing it because it’s something that brings us joy?”
“It’s really hard not to get into comparison-itis.”
“I sort of reject that idea that the major measure of success in parenting is enjoying it”
What you’ll hear in this episode:
-The impact of childcare costs on returning to work for moms
-The emotional conflict about returning to work
-Keeping it real as a mom
-Who is super mom and where does she come from?
-Re-learning our inherent self-worth that is not based in accomplishment
-Motherhood and martyrdom: when we put ourselves last
-Motherhood messaging and where it comes from
-History of motherhood and women’s work
-The perceived value of women based on their relationship with their children
-Child centred social media messages and guilt
-The value of the messy middle
-Being aware of social media messaging and how it impacts us
-Where do you start unlearning super mom?
-Ways to dip your toe in to shifting towards unlearning super mom
-Stages of learning from awareness
-The mental load we carry
-Checking in with your body
What does Joyful Courage mean to you?
I think one of the phrases that most triggering, I already even brought it up in this conversation, the triggering for me as a parent is like “Oh, just like enjoy every moment. It goes by so fast” that statement brings so much anxiety to me and I really understand the intention of it. I do. But for me and I feel like I’m, you know, I’m someone who’s like maybe even obsessively working towards like enjoying, you know, trying to be with my kids and you know, so I find it really and I’m sort of a nostalgic person anyway. So anyway, I get a lot of anxiety from that statement and so I sort of reject that idea that the major measure of success in parenting is enjoying it, you know.
So I think from, you know, the most impactful things, you know, profound things that I’ve learned as a parent has really come from, like, the more painful moments of the parent, like some of the suffering that’s come, you know, and what I’ve been able to learn from that and being able to sort of meet it, you know, meet and face all of the really messy stuff and and I think that really is courage, right, like coming up to that really scary, whether it’s personal work or complex relationships or whatever and showing up for them.
So I think the, you know, joyful courage to me in that context is really about looking for the meaning and just showing up in your life and allowing that to not, you know, that what’s there to not be good or bad, you know and not treating happiness like it’s the pinnacle of life experience.
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