Motherhood transforms you.
There is no ‘bouncing back’ to your previous life. Being a mom requires that you ‘transform forward,’ creating a new, better version of yourself. And the feminine qualities essential to motherhood—loving, caring, nurturing, listening—also happen to be the qualities that the world is most yearning for in business, politics and the social sphere.
Stephanie Jhala enjoyed a healthy, medically uneventful pregnancy. But at the very end of the planned home birth, something went wrong. Her baby was not breathing. After a transition to the hospital, Steph’s newborn daughter was on put on life support in the NICU, consigned to a cooling sack and connected to countless tubes. Doctors predicted her death.
But Stephanie knew instinctively that her daughter would be fine. And she was right. Her daughter improved by leaps and bounds, and is now a thriving, feisty 10-month-old. How did Steph access that intuition? How does she continue to trust and cultivate her mind-body connection on a daily basis? And how is she using the tools she learned in her business as a leadership consultant to become a leader in motherhood?
Steph created All the Mama Feels for her own sanity.
The Instagram and Facebook accounts, along with the in-person meetup in Vancouver, function to show the real side of motherhood and provide the tools women need to reframe the context of motherhood from one of diminishment and invisibility to that of empowerment. Today she shares her definition of intuition and offers advice around accessing that instinct in the hospital environment. I ask Steph about the mind-body connection and how the gap in generational wisdom impacts our idea of mother’s intuition. Listen in to understand how the qualities required of motherhood translate to the business world and why we have a dire need for transformation in the workplace to make organizations more sustainable and family-friendly.
Listen to The Startup Pregnant Podcast Episode #010
Quotes from the episode:
- “I had to transform the way that I viewed my new life with a baby from, ‘I’m trapped under a baby all day, just holding her and doing nothing,’ to, ‘I’m raising this tiny human, and this tiny human is now my contribution to the world—and one of the greatest contributions to the world.’”
- “Becoming a mother, all of a sudden you are called to be loving, caring, nurturing, listening, peaceful, giving—all of these feminine qualities that I might in the past have considered weak or soft. And if you take a step back, those are the qualities … that the world is most yearning for.”
- “We’re very reliant on data, or Googling, or science or the facts, that we almost forget to take a moment to check into our gut. Before technology, we didn’t have any of this information, we just mothered.”
- “In the past, we lived in communities where everyone was helping … in this tribe type of way. There is this loss of generational wisdom that you would be supported in when you have a baby. Now we all live in this modern world, in these apartments by ourselves, without our tribe, and we’re sitting there with a newborn baby, like, ‘What the hell do I do?’”
- “With technology … we’re always looking for the answer outside ourselves: Google, other people—we want that validation. We forget to first ask ourselves, ‘Could I figure it out?’”
- “[Social and environmental commitment] requires a new way of doing business that’s never been done before, so we need leaders who are up to dealing with things that nobody’s dealt with before… There is no framework that exists to save the world. It requires our creativity, our intuition, our bravery, our naïve-ness to tackle it.”
- “When I talk about transformation of motherhood—these qualities of caring, abundance, connection, community, nurturing—these are all qualities I am really passionate about instilling in business leaders to ingrain in their business strategy to create a friendly future for this planet.”
- “Being a mother is like a double full-time job with no pay, no vacation, no sick days and no breaks—and you are on all the time! …It was a shock to my system.”
- “Even I diminished my role. I questioned, ‘What have I reduced myself to?’ …My new goals are feeding myself, showering, just trying to survive the day. I really had to get real about how I even was seeing this as a diminishment, and that’s where I knew a transformation was needed. I really wanted to create a new context that empowered me.”
- “I’m still discovering how I’m going to set up my new life with a baby, and I’m really committed … to monetary abundance, but I’m also committed to less time spent on work, making a big impact doing something I’m passionate about, and being able to care for my child.”
- “There is this opportunity now to work smarter and have balance in life. I don’t want to work until I’m dead—I want to enjoy life, and … working seven days a week, 12-hour days isn’t going to create happiness.”
LEARN MORE ABOUT STEPHANIE JHALA:
Stephanie Jhala is a creative force in the realm of business, social impact and leadership. She is passionate about contributing to the global consciousness and promoting a sustainable, socially just world. As an executive leadership coach and consultant, she helps mobilize businesses to make a meaningful impact in the world via profit-with-a-purpose and the integration of value-based practices.
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Birth and Beyond Midwives
- Patagonia’s Family Friendly Policies
- The Five Hour Workday
- Postpartum Support International: 800-994-4PPD (800-994-4773)
- PPD Moms: 800-PPD-MOMS (800-773-6667)
EPISODE SPONSOR & SPECIAL OFFER:
Thank you to the sponsor of this episode: Meet Edgar! Grab your free two-week trial of Meet Edgar, a social media scheduling tool that allows you to create content once and re-use it as much as you need, at http://ed.gr/startuppregnant.
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