Micro Destressing For Busy Parents with Sarah Ezrin, Author of The Yoga of Parenting
Fourth Trimester Podcast Episode 133: Micro Destressing For Busy Parents with Sarah Ezrin, Author of The Yoga of Parenting
Parenting is deeply rewarding, but it can also be exhausting, leaving little room for self-care. Even the smallest moments of relaxation can have a big impact. In this episode, I’m joined by Sarah Ezrin, award-winning author, world-renowned yoga educator, and maternal mental health advocate, to talk about micro destressing techniques for busy parents.
Sarah shares simple, effective ways to regulate your nervous system, restore your energy, and find calm in the chaos of daily life. The best part is that it doesn’t take additional time, so if you’re busy, this one is for you.
This conversation is full of actionable tools to help you create more space for mental freedom, balance, and ease—because every parent deserves that.
Sarah Ezrin, Author of The Yoga of Parenting
“Mental freedom is the choice of where your attention is and how you can be whole in that moment”
— Sarah Ezrin, Author of The Yoga of Parenting
Full Show Notes
1. Micro de-stressing techniques for parents [00:00:18]
2. Parenting’s mix of emotions [00:01:10]
3. Importance of postpartum support [00:04:11]
4. Yoga and mental health focus [00:02:40]
5. Creating a supportive village [00:06:18]
6. Challenges of societal pressures [00:07:24]
7. Book structure and concepts [00:14:50]
8. Embracing mental freedom [00:33:24]
Sarah Trott: [00:00:00] Hi, this is Sarah Trott. Welcome back to the Fourth trimester Podcast. I have a special guest with me today who I’ll introduce in a moment. And before I do, I want to remind you we have a website which is fourthtrimesterpodcast.com where you can go and sign up for our newsletter. So please do that if you have not done so already.
Sarah Trott: [00:00:18] So today’s topic is micro de-stressing techniques for busy parents. And I have Sarah Ezrin here with me to talk about that. And as we all know, parenting is this amazing, beautiful journey and sometimes it can also be overwhelming. It can be stressful in times. And so sometimes we just need to figure out that moment to breathe. And I’m super excited to have Sarah on the show.
Sarah Trott: [00:00:43] She’s the author of The Yoga of Parenting, and she’s going to talk to us about these micro de-stressing techniques that busy parents can use to find the calm in the chaos. And also, Sarah is a world renowned yoga educator and maternal mental health advocate, and today she’s sharing some simple and powerful ways to regulate your nervous system, reclaim your energy, and create more mental freedom. So welcome to the show, Sarah.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:01:10] Hi, Sarah. I’m so glad to be here. I was laughing already because when you’re like, parenting can be. And I thought you were going to say stressful first. And I was like, yes, but you’re like, it’s beautiful. But that’s just the automatic, like, you know, that’s the reflex, right? And especially when you have young kids like I’m like, oh, right. It is beautiful. It is beautiful. It is a mixed bag. It’s all of those things. And I think that’s what makes it so beautiful is, you know, part of the challenges. But I just appreciate you and I appreciate this resource that you provide for parents everywhere.
Sarah Trott: [00:01:45] Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate and love your book and I’m excited to talk about it. and yeah, it’s like all of those things at the same time is the other thing. It’s not just stressful or just like all of the things. So Sarah I would love to hear you introduce yourself in your own words.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:02:03] I always laugh because I’m like, where do I begin? So I was born in like, you know, it’s so like which timeline do we discuss? I to introduce myself these days. I say I’m Sarah Ezrin and that is my name. I didn’t take my husband’s last name. I do not introduce myself as mom first. I learned from another yoga teacher, Diane Bondi. She. She said she never put the word mom in her bio, which I have in my bio. I do have like mom and you know, but she’s like, because we are so much more than that. just introducing myself as the individual.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:02:40] I am a woman Sarah Ezrin, and I’m a 43 year old woman, and I happen to also be have the privilege of being a mom. I’m an author and I have taught yoga for, I think, 17 years now. As we were trying to do the math the other day with a friend, 2008. So I think that’s 17 years, which is wild. And these days my main passion, I mean, my passion has always been mental health and supporting people on their mental health journeys. But now I really am focused in the motherhood space and specifically maternal mental health. But part of how I hope to support that is in encouraging people to be in the role of them, of who they are, and figuring out what it means to be whole, separate of these identities, of even our careers. Right. But, you know, we label ourselves with all these different things. It’s like I am insert your name. That is who you are. So I am Sarah Ezrin.
Sarah Trott: [00:03:40] I love that. Yeah. It’s so true. So often people are they introduce themselves by like what their job is or what they’re, you know, what do they focus on at the moment? And you’re so much more than that. All of us are.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:03:53] Just tiny pieces.
Sarah Trott: [00:03:54] Because you are a mom and this is a postpartum podcast, I would love to hear from you if there are any takeaways from your own fourth trimester experience that would be interesting or valuable to share with our listeners?
Sarah Ezrin: [00:04:11] Yeah. I mean, it was my fourth trimester experience that blew me into this world of how can I help support moms? Because I was so under-supported and only because of lack of education, and also because we don’t live near grandparents. My mom had passed away. We’re coming up on 15 years ago. My husband’s mom lives in Philadelphia. My sister at the time was living in Southern California. We’re in Northern California. So we didn’t have the village. We didn’t have the resources. I read all these books and I did all the prenatal yoga programs, but nothing prepared me for my presence and the walking through the threshold.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:04:55] And it I mean, it was, you know, cellularly changing. It was literally like, reconfigured me. and it was very, very challenging for me. I ended up having pretty bad postpartum anxiety and depression because I was under-supported and under resourced. And what I learned from that now, and what I did differently with my second and what I, how I try to support moms now, it’s funny. So there’s a woman at our our gym. I do like even though I’m a yoga teacher, I’m very into strength building right now, which I think all women should be after 35, but I digress. But there’s a gal in there and she’s been working out her entire pregnancy. She’s 38 weeks and she came today and I just like, I don’t know, my antenna went off. I talked to her a few times and been like, you know, you’re amazing.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:05:41] But I started to ask her more questions. I’m like, what are you doing? Like, what’s your plan? Not your birth plan, because that’s none of my business. But like, after the baby, the baby is here. How are you taking care of yourself? And then I created a fund within the gym, and we gave her a gift certificate for Uber Eats, because nourishment is such a big part of it. And like, I just get so passionate about supporting moms because that was something we didn’t have in place. I didn’t have a community of friends who my friends were based in LA at the time, who had been giving birth. I didn’t have a mom community yet.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:06:18] So my advice is, if you don’t have the village, sure, one up, create one. You can do so much online, you can do it with, you know, hiring outside help and outsourcing. And you can even just get creative with, like, you know, bringing in food or bringing in a cleaning service, but having that support so that you are able to focus on recovery and taking care of baby and connecting to baby. And that is what I did the second time around. And it was night and day different. And what a gift. So that’s like any new pregnant person. What’s your postpartum plan? Can I give you money? And will you hire a night nurse? And they’re like, okay, but that is, you know, I think it’s just so important to have the support.
Sarah Trott: [00:07:08] Yeah, it sure is. I love that point. It’s also really helpful to know that it’s not a weakness to ask for that support. My goodness, sometimes it can feel like it’s like hard because you’re like, oh no, I should have to do it all myself. But no, you don’t ask for the help. Ask for that support. It’s so critical as you’re pointing out.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:07:24] And that’s the lies that we’ve been sold. And I’ll spare you all a history of, like, American motherhood and where that kind of individualism came from. But we as a species, when we were still primates, there was what we call alloparenting, and children were raised within the community. It wasn’t just the mom and the dad, it was the there was many other. And I’m thinking of chimps right now, right. Like our closest genetic ancestors. But there were many other people, many other primates around, that were helping to raise the child in village-like settings, in tribal settings. That is how it is.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:08:02] So here you come to a country that is very staunch in individualistic values and says, oh, you just need your nuclear family, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. That’s all you need. And it gets translated into motherhood. So you have women giving birth and then having to either go back to work six weeks after giving birth, or their partner not getting any paternity leave, if, if any, and maybe sometimes two weeks and then they’re left alone with a baby.
And like, how am I supposed to do this? I’d never changed a diaper before my own son. And like, I have nieces and nephews, like I had zero exposure. Where when you’re living in these more communal settings, you’re seeing babies, you’re holding babies. I see children holding babies. So we’re really robbed of that. And then we give birth in, in, in the West, It’s not just America, but. And then people are literally like isolated at home with this being you don’t know what to do with. Like, it’s like they sent me home with this thing. Like, now I’m responsible for it.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:09:03] And then you also have this, like, pressure, this unspoken pressure of, you should be able to do it all on your own, when really, that’s just lies. That’s just a myth. It’s not at all how we’ve survived as a species, and it’s not at all how this child rearing thing is supposed to be done.
Sarah Trott: [00:09:20] Yeah, and sometimes social media can be wonderful, but it can also be kind of toxic. Don’t believe it. Yeah, a lot of it’s sometimes not very helpful. So give yourself the free pass because you don’t need to be on social media while you’re postpartum.
Sarah Trott: [00:09:34] Sarah, tell me more about the inspiration for your book. And I want you to talk about the structure of your book, because I’ve, I’ve been reading it, and I think it’s really nice how you’ve connected the physical practice of yoga to the spiritual, emotional, social sides of parenting.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:09:50] Yeah. So, you know, as mentioned, I’m an avid reader. I’ve been a writer my whole life. I read so many books when I was pregnant, and then I read so many books during postpartum. I mean, not really during like the immediate postpartum because you’re like, not really reading anything, but, you know, those first couple of months when you’re like trying to figure everything out and it didn’t matter what I was reading, most of the content was making me feel worse in the end. especially when it came to parenting style manuals, if you will, because so many of them were like, you must follow this recipe, and if you don’t follow this recipe, your child will be in therapy for the rest of their life.
So you have to remember these steps. And then you’re dealing with like a tantruming toddler and your brain is offline, right? Your frontal cortex is offline and you’re in your own like reaction phase. And then you’re like, wait, what do I do? I get down on the ground first. Do I go, do I do eye contact? Do I validate like you’re trying to figure it out, like in the moment? And ultimately it was only. It was only really making me feel further and further away from what intuitively I was feeling was right. And I was like, okay, I think I need to find more like spirituality and motherhood books. And so then I went on the hunt for that, and I found some amazing, amazing resources that were Buddhism and motherhood. I always butcher her last name, but it’s Buddhism for young mothers. Sarah she’s another Sarah.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:11:15] And I think it’s it begins with an n her last name. And forgive me for my perimenopause brain, but I know it begins with an N, and it’s like Buddhism for Mothers of Young Children: Becoming a Mindful Parent, which is beautiful. I loved Hunter Clark Field’s book. Jon Kabat-Zinn has a great resource, but I was like, well, where’s the yoga of it all? Where is the language and the different philosophies that we learn in, in our different yogic texts, the wisdom traditions and on the mat. I wasn’t really seeing that application. Location, and that was like my kind of light bulb, right? I was like, oh, well, this is an opportunity to create the thing that I needed.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:11:55] But in order to do that, I had to go back to the wisdom texts. I also had to go to teachers of all different stages, teachers who had newborns all the way up to teachers who were now grandparents, teachers who were in partnership, teachers who were not in partnership, teachers all around the world, teachers who identified in all different ways. And I was like, you have to tell me like, this is how traditions were passed down. I have the Vedas here. I like the Upanishads, like I have these books here. This is what I think does this. And I’m like, but you tell me, what’s how are you applying your yoga to your, to your practice and to your parenting? Rather. And these amazing interviews came out of this like just hours and hours and hours of interview. And I should mention too, like, this was deep Covid, so we were all isolated.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:12:46] I was really struggling to raise this baby on my own with my husband, but with no help. We didn’t. We didn’t have any help. My sister couldn’t come up. We couldn’t really hire help at the time. So this was like this virtual connection was a lifeline for me and the validation of like, oh, okay. So that maybe, you know, the person on Instagram disagreed with, but someone’s telling me they did that in their own home, and this is what they had to do to survive.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:13:13] And things just started to kind of settle in in this really beautiful way. And so the book became a combination of many things. It was like tying the physical practice to parenting, but also these interviews, these amazing stories, and then my own stories kind of woven in to tie it all together, because that’s how we all learn best. We all learn best through story. And I just was I’m so proud of it, you know? I mean, you and I were joking before we even started. Like, I haven’t even opened it in a while, but even just, like, you know, thumbing through it, just remembering the research and the people that I got to speak with, it’s. Yeah, I’m very proud of it.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:13:52] And I hope, I hope it’s helpful for parents out there. I hope that it it gives people an invitation to parent in the way that they need to, and to tap into their intuition and to use these wisdom traditions as Guideposts. But ultimately, it’s this guidepost of bringing you back to yourself and to your truth.
Sarah Trott: [00:14:13] Yeah, no, it’s really nicely structured. You have a pose and you have. And then you talk about that pose and what it means. So it’s like traditional yoga information. And then you tie that in with real stories from people that you’ve met and you’ve talked to who are parents and going through similar stuff and how that relates to a particular lesson. So I think that’s really unique. I’ve read a lot of parenting books, actually. I have like probably too many on my bookshelf but that’s okay. I really appreciate it. In fact, I thought it would be nice to ask you to read a passage.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:14:50] Yeah, I would love to. I would love to. And the amazing thing about this book is, you know, I had to reread it hundreds of times. Like, I had to reread it to my husband while we were, like, driving down to LA, like just for proofreading purposes. I had to reread it for my own copy editing. I had to reread it when I read the audiobook, and I’m always like, oh yeah, like, these aren’t lessons that are done right. Like, it doesn’t matter. My kids are now three and five and I’m like, it’s the same. I’m like, I need the constant reminder every day. So I love that about that too. That it’s healing is circular. And anyway, so that’s this is a lesson.
Sarah Trott: [00:15:26] Postpartum is forever.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:15:27] Yes, postpartum is forever. And this is something I think all of us moms need. Regardless of the age of your child. You could be in postpartum with a 45 year old.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:15:39] It’s living on an exhale for someone who teaches breath awareness for a living. I probably don’t breathe as much as I should. Or at least I don’t really inhale. My entire life seems to occur on the power of an exhale. I push forward, I give everything my all and then wonder at the end of the day why I’m exhausted. It was getting pregnant with my first child, when I truly started to understand the importance of the inhale, of making sure to schedule things that fill my tank just as much as I like to empty it out for everyone else.
Sure, I would preach to yoga students about the necessities of self-care and right the typical weekly social media post advocating for it candles, hashtags and all. But for most of my adult life, I would overwork and overplan and overdo because I thought that was what I had to do to make people happy. Plus, the only person who ever paid for it was me. When I got married and started having children, I began to see the effects that my choices had on the entire family system. If I’m burned out or empty, I get short with my husband.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:16:49] I get overstimulated by everything my children do. I’d like to add, and my dog, if I do a reprint. And my dog. I have difficulty sleeping and I’m on am constantly on edge despite being incredibly tired. I get sick and sometimes I even injure myself. At first I was confused. I thought giving everyone and everything my all was the most mom like thing I could do. I mean, we all read Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree as children, right? But as I continually hit these patches of severe burnout and let my energy tank get down to fumes, I realized that there is nothing selfless about giving yourself entirely to others.
How can you give life if your life force is depleted? Sarah not you. Sarah me Sarah like you don’t need to read that one in a mirror right now as I’m overscheduled, you know, with with elementary school things and. Yeah. Yeah. But I think as mothers, that is another one of the narratives we’re sold. It’s like your needs disappear when you become a mom and it’s just, you know, now the family is the priority. And you must give and give and give and give until there’s nothing left. But if there’s nothing left, how are you able to give? So really, reframing the best way we can give anything is to be full ourselves, right? You can’t pour from an empty cup.
Sarah Trott: [00:18:12] Mm. Yeah. And the presence that you talk about in the book is such a big part of it. Simply the gift of being present. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for the reading. So then I think it sort of begs the question, like, how do we get ourselves out of those moments of like, because I think all of us as parents, we’re so busy, we we fall prey to it. You’ve got work demands and family demands and social and school and all these things that we want to meet and fulfill for the sake of the betterment of everyone else around us. So how do we pull ourselves out of that and recenter? And I liked how we talked earlier about like micro de-stressing. What are some good micro destressing techniques that busy parents can use?
Sarah Ezrin: [00:18:59] Yeah. So when I was pregnant with my second, I had hyperemesis gravidarum, which is when you’re nauseous or vomiting the whole length of your pregnancy and I was exhausted because your second pregnancy, if you have a toddler, is exhausting. And then I was exhausted with that on top of it. And for my 40th birthday, my family pooled together money to send me to a hotel for like a night or two nights. And I remember I went and I was so tired. I mean, I just like, like I don’t even remember the massage. I think I slept through it.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:19:35] And at the end of the weekend, I was like, I’m more tired than when I even showed up here. And that was a big aha for me because, you know. Yes. Okay. I had a challenging medical condition that I was dealing with at the same time as growing a human being inside of me, at the same time as raising a human outside of me. But I was not treating my self-care as something that needed to be happening on a daily basis. I was holding on for that overnight for like months, and hoping that two nights away from my family was going to fill my cup. Much in the same way that, like, what I was alluding to in the reading was that I would teach for months on end without a day off, months on end, and then have two days off and assume that that was going to fill my tank back up. So the aha moment I had, as I like, sat on the porch of this very nice hotel and was like this was a waste of my time.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:20:32] Was that, no, it wasn’t a waste of my time, but I had tried to like let the take the lid off the pot and everything just came to. You know, I don’t know, maybe that’s not a good a good metaphor, but I needed to be doing tiny things every single day. It couldn’t just be once, every couple of months and then expecting there to be a difference. The self-care had to happen in these micro doses. And yes, everyone needs everything from us and it’s easy to give everyone our all. But when we prioritize ourself in these realistic, mom friendly ways meaning five minutes 30s little bits throughout the day that we actually have the the tank filled to be able to then go longer to serve people more that it’s not selfish that I’m like, I need five minutes in the bathroom while I wash my face.
That’s become one of my rituals, like every morning and every night I wash my face and I take my time with it, and I turn it into a meditation practice, and I used to feel so guilty. I could hear the kids like screaming in the other room and like they were. My husband is with them. They’re not like by themselves. But you know, I would feel so torn or I’d be like on my email checking. And by making the choice to be super present with myself for those three minutes, that’s as long as it takes in the morning and the night that was filling my my tank. And I realized it was it was just these little bits every day.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:22:05] So whether it was the walk around the car, I mean, we all know those really intense getting the kids into the car, whether they’re running late or they’re having a difficult time in the car seat or they don’t like the cars or, you know, and you shut them in the car and there’s this moment of silence before while you walk around to get into your seat, that rather than like rushing into the seat or being like, you know, in, in the fire of it, what if you just, like, stopped? They’re safe, they’re in their seat, you’re next to the car and like, looked up at the sun and took a couple of breaths. What if you walked really intentionally around the car to get back to your seat? So it’s this moment of microdosing calm so that by the time you open the door and they’re still screaming, probably, you know, you get in.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:22:52] And again, it’s just like, you know, the notches get a little bit higher on what your threshold is. Your window of tolerance, as they say in the trauma informed world, gets wider. And that’s really what we’re trying to do with so many of these practices is like, how can I exist in a tolerance of stress? And that’s what the window of tolerance is. But when we’re burnt out, it’s a very small window. And so we have to do these things for ourselves, which is not selfish, but I think self-preservation increases the window of tolerance. And it’s tiny little things throughout the day that’s going to make that stay consistently wider, broader and just more robust.
Sarah Trott: [00:23:35] Yeah. And what a great example for your kids too, right? They’re going to see you being an example of regulation of like, oh, mommy’s doing that thing again where she’s washing her face. Yes. But she’s always so much happier afterwards. Right. They’re going to observe and feel that kid’s kids notice. Yeah.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:23:51] Yeah. And like, I don’t like to pat myself on my back about like that because I think they kind of came into this world with their own souls and their own karmas. And I just happened to, like, be able to house them for this time. And what a privilege. But my youngest or not my youngest, pardon me, my oldest is very introverted and he will request time by himself. He will request to have room service, we call it, so that he can be in the room and eating his breakfast away from his brother, who is the opposite and is very loud and out there.
And it’s these moments I’m watching him engage in self-care and I’m not questioning it. You know, where I think, like for those of us that grew up in the generation that I did, I was I was raised in the 80s and the 90s. It was like, no, you get back out there and you be with the family and you know you’re being selfish. Like there was this constant pressure to override your natural instincts. Where for him, I can see him starting to shut down, and I’m like, okay. So I let him disconnect and I let him separate and be away from the family. And I’m like, does he? Does he know that because my husband and I are very open about, we need to go take some space or mom and dad, you know, data needs a break. We’re very open about that. You know, like I love you. We’ll be back. so I don’t know.
Then again, my youngest is like the Energizer bunny and never takes breaks. Maybe that’s why I don’t like to, like, think it’s me and my my my example. But, you know, I’m sure he’s regulating in other ways. Maybe. Or maybe I’m learning from them, too. I mean, I think that’s a huge part of it, too.
Sarah Trott: [00:25:26] Yeah. Well, regardless of whatever combination of nature and nurture is at play here, I don’t think it hurts that there’s an example of self-care. I really don’t. and in the back of your book, too, you have a list of resources, and I think one of them are like examples. Like more examples of self-care stuff. Yes. Like, oh, if you just do one thing a day. I think one of them was very simple. It was like, drink a glass of water when you wake up, drink lots of water.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:25:54] One of the women that I interviewed is Catherine Templeton. She’s an Ayurvedic counselor. She’s phenomenal. And so in one of the chapters, we talk about these simple self-care tips for parents. And so we put them into the book and just list it out, like, literally, like you say, wake up before the sun rises. Like that. That simple act is going to tee you up. I mean, this is all based on Ayurveda and everybody’s different. But saying a positive affirmation before bed, scraping your tongue, that’s a big one I do every day. I scrape my tongue.
So these are like tiny things that we can do. And yeah, drinking water. Right. Like it’s just these little moments and being present in the moment because we are doing them. And that’s the other thing that I’m really trying to encourage with the moms I work with is like, recognize what you’re already doing because I don’t want to add more things to people’s plates, but what if we could slow down and be really present in the thing that we’re already doing?
Sarah Ezrin: [00:26:54] And yeah, I mean, I was just thinking about one of the mom circles I was leading one. One mom was like, I like to step outside and have my. She has older kids now, but she’s like, I like to step outside and have my coffee in the morning. And we live in Northern California. You can do that most days out of the year. And I’m like, okay, so like really be in that moment, really be present with it. Leave your phone inside. Don’t invite the kids to come and stand with you. You know, make sure the coffee is warm. Treat it like a ritual, even if it’s just five minutes, so that we’re just really giving ourselves that fulfillment. You know, nourishment. Nourishment is really the word.
Sarah Trott: [00:27:36] Yeah. Yeah. Nourishment. It’s perfect. And also a couple of things you talked about yoga and the yoga philosophy you’ve been using some, like, yoga specific words. How does the yoga philosophy relate to parenting? Like, how does that tie in?
Sarah Ezrin: [00:27:54] Well, yoga is is a huge umbrella of practices. So in the West we hear the word yoga. And like all of us, you know, not all of us, many of us will just picture someone stretching and like, have a mat and, you know, usually in like some cute Lululemon or, you know, something like that, like it’s very commoditized here in the West. But the original practices of yoga, like when we’re talking about the philosophy of yoga, which we’re thinking of, like the capital Y yoga is actually a whole handful of of practices, from meditation to breathwork Work, to prayer, to selfless service, to being in a group and treating things as sacred.
So that could be like being in some sort of ceremony, like attending a wedding. you know, if you’re I’m Jewish, so I’m, like, thinking, like bar bar mitzvahs, like, you know, coming together in those ways. All of that counts as a yoga practice. And within the big Y philosophy of yoga, these are all the different ways that you can achieve that deeper connection with yourself and the deeper connection with who you truly are, which is a piece of God. It’s a piece of the universe or some, you know, nature, if you will. And so like, that’s it at it’s like, I mean, that’s the most distilled down. But that is, that is at its utmost. And when you start to peel away the meaning of yoga, like the lowercase y, and you look at the philosophy and those practices and then you look at the lowercase yoga and what that means in Sanskrit because unlike English Sanskrit, there’s one word that describes many different definitions. So here we would say like, you know, you know, math is arithmetic or and that’s not a good example.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:29:45] But the word yoga, lowercase y is used to describe many things, including an astrological conjunction. So like how stars will come together a mathematics some putting things together a marriage lowercase y has been used for that. Putting an arrow into a bow string, the connection there. And so if we look at these things like from that really high level and from the more everyday proverbial level, we see that the linking of it all together is these are all practices of connection. Everything has to do with some some sort of connection. And that’s what the root of the word yoga is usu is to bind, to unite.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:30:31] So back to parenting. It’s like, well, first of all, how many times have we been in Jubilee in a group of other parents and felt that moment, like that effervescence, and maybe it’s like a mommy and me or a babe and me kids class, right? Like being together and singing or being alone with your child and rocking and singing or praying or for the wellness of your child, or, you know, praying for sleep and safety and like getting together, coming together communally as mothers or as parents. And in groups like we’re doing all these practices all the time. They are all practices of yoga.
Anything that you do that is a form of connection is yoga. So this just existing when people say to me, oh, I don’t really like yoga. And I’m like, guess what? You’re doing it every day. You’re doing it every day that you have the privilege to raise a human being in your home as caretakers or honestly, people in relationships. Because I think it works in friendship and partnership. That is being that is doing yoga.
Sarah Trott: [00:31:43] It’s connection. I so appreciate that explanation. And, you know, there was a phrase that we were talking about earlier that I want to come back to, which is ‘mental freedom’.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:31:54] Yeah.
Sarah Trott: [00:31:55] And I want to hear your take on mental freedom, how that relates to this whole big topic, because it does.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:32:03] Thank you. Sarah. I’m like, obsessed with this word. I was like, let’s talk about mental freedom. It’s because it’s. So it came to me like, we talk a lot about the mental load, the mental load and the unpaid labor and the heaviness and the things that we’re carrying. And then the other day, because I think boundary setting falls into all of this, I was doing something in the laundry room, which already I was resentful about. I’m like the women in the laundry room anyway. Like, obviously like work that on couples therapy.
But I was like in the laundry room and I was doing stuff and I heard, some sort of dis, you know, misunderstanding happening between my husband and my oldest and my instinct is to run in and save someone. You know, whether it’s saving my husband or saving my son or just getting in the middle and getting involved. And I, like, took a breath. And I was like, thinking of all these practices. And my micro practice in that moment was to treat the laundry like it’s a sacred act, taking the clothes out of the dryer. Just breathe and be present with this. They’re fine, like nothing. Nothing crucial is going on that needs my attention. And sure enough, I could hear them work it out and this really healing way for my inner child too, right? Like, because that’s part of why I want to rush in.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:33:24] It’s like I’m trying to protect little Sarah from my own upbringing, but I could hear them work it out, and I thought out loud and I was like, that is mental freedom, man. That is mental freedom. And it was like the freedom of not having to fix everything for everybody or be everything for everyone, and being able to focus on the task at hand. And yes, I was performing a household duty. I was doing our kids’ laundry. Like it was a motherly duty, but the self-care wasn’t the laundry or the folding. It was the choice to not step in to their business and to not take on all of the energy of whatever was going on in there, to just be in this moment. And, I don’t know, a light bulb went off for me and I started to think about, well, you know, what is my what would be my dream if I could gift mothers? And as I talked to all my girlfriends and especially kids with kids our age, you know, and this is I know, postpartum podcast.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:34:30] But as they get into the toddlers and the early school years, the responsibilities shift. But it’s heavy. It’s heavy because then you’re like, obligated to the school and you’re obligated to school friends. And, you know, there’s like a community element. But my gift would be like, take the backpack of responsibility off, find freedom in the boundaries of what is mine and what is theirs, and in knowing what is mine and what is theirs. Also being able to be more whole in that sense, because I’m not shrinking down to deal with other people’s, you know, energies and challenges.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:35:07] And obviously, like as a mom, we do carry more than the average bear. You’re not you’re carrying more than your child’s best friend. But there is a point to where the mom can be completely overloaded and that it’s not it. It becomes detrimental. And again go back to the Giving Tree. You’re hacking away every piece of yourself to save someone. Nothing will be left of you and they will still be no better served, frankly. And like this is coming from years of Al-Anon. So it’s like, how can I stay sitting up in my in who I am and where I am? And yeah, sure, maybe they need a little limb or a little branch right here, but I’m going to stay whole and I’m going to be here and I’m going to focus on my growth.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:35:52] And the more I focus on my growth, the more I have to be able to give to other people. So that’s where the mental freedom was like a light bulb, right? Like it was because I realized it was a choice. It wasn’t in my husband coming in and being like, I will do the laundry from henceforth. You will never have to do the laundry again, though, you know, that would be nice. But then he’d be the one who filled overloaded like it was. It was in my decision of being like, I’m not going to get involved in that right now. I’m going to stay focused on this in the same way that I make the choice, I’m going to wash my face right now. I’m going to let my family work things out, or I’m going to be with my kid right now, and I’m not going to answer the email, and I’m not going to answer the phone call or talk to the other adult that needs me. It’s like mental freedom is the choice of where your attention is and how you can be whole in that moment.
Sarah Trott: [00:36:45] Beautiful. Yeah. It’s the opposite of mental load. Right. The mental load. Where oh, sure I’m just hanging out with the family and having a great time, just like everyone else. But also, I’m spending about 12 plates, like, thinking about, like, the PTA and everything else I’ve got to do at the office and whatever, whatever, right? That thing that we’re, like, quietly, silently carrying sometimes even like very unawarely. Yes, there could be things we’re happy about and excited about too, but it’s still like all these things we’re maintaining simultaneously.
Sarah Trott: [00:37:14] So okay, so that’s what mental freedom is. It’s the opposite of mental load to free yourself for that. Well, I mean sometimes stress and overwhelm is unavoidable for parents, right? Like, you know, it just is. It’s part of life. But I think these are some real simple and amazing ways that we can stop ourselves in the moment. These techniques that you’ve shared and the philosophy around all of this. So thank you so much. I want to invite you to share anything else that’s top of mind for you.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:37:43] Yeah. I mean, like, if you feel like you’re failing because so many of us do, it is not because you are doing something wrong. The system is broken. We are not set up to thrive in the capital W West, which is many countries in Western Europe and the United States, I mean Canada – because I’m Canadian, that’s where my dad lives. They get a year off for maternity and maternity leave, which is like that already is setting you up for more success and your job stays. You have job security for that year. So if you are in the United States or somewhere where it’s got poor paid family leave offerings and poor child and family services, and you are not living very closely to your family, or maybe you’re just not in a place where you’re close with your family.
Maybe they’re not helpful or there’s like discomfort there for many reasons, right? People can live next door to their parents and still not feel comfortable with them helping with their kids. So if you are in a setting where you do not have your village and you feel like you’re failing, you are not failing. The village is the key. And sometimes it requires us putting it together, and sometimes that means the outsourcing or the investing.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:39:04] But it’s so worth it because when you have that support network, it’s still going to be hard. It’s always going to be hard, and your kids will still come to you, even if there’s three other adults in the room. But you will at least just have that hammock that to lean back on, to relax into once in a while so you don’t feel like you’re just free falling. and yeah, like I just it breaks my heart that we self-blame as moms, but we do. And just remembering like, not to be like, blame the man but like, but kind of like, you know, blame the system in the same thing.
Even in partner dynamics. Right? Like, it’s like I get frustrated with my partner, but it’s not his fault that he didn’t get the paternity leave that I had hoped that he would have gotten, or that he’s working. His schedule is a 830 to 630 schedule. So who’s picking up the kids at 330? Right. That’s not his fault. That’s the system. So really understanding like what’s theirs, what’s that? And what’s yours I think will help you be able to see that what you are showing up for, I’m sure is the absolute best that you can do. And you’re doing a great job.
Sarah Trott: [00:40:14] Perfect. What a wonderful note to end on. Jane Honikman has a great book called Postpartum is Forever. So I know you said something like, oh, well, this is a postpartum podcast, by the way. Yeah, postpartum is forever.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:40:27] It is forever. I 100% agree. Yes.
Sarah Trott: [00:40:31] Yep, yep. and on that subject, we have a lot of great resources. I’ll link them all how you can connect with Sarah, how you can learn more from her. But where do people go to learn more about you, Sarah?
Sarah Ezrin: [00:40:41] Yeah, I would say I’m most active and available on Instagram. I love hearing from everybody. I strongly encourage people to comment if something speaks to you, you know people will automatically like but comment because other people are reading that comment. And that’s how we start to create that more virtual village too. So when you’re thinking in my head, oh, me too, but you’re maybe too shy, or it’s like I highly, highly and not just my posts. I mean, any post that you relate to, to, you know, put a hand raise or put a heart in the comment section because other people are seeing that, and that’s how we feel more and more held.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:41:22] This, this network of moms, we may not know every single one of them, but we all love one another and we’re all supporting one another. And I think Instagram is actually a really cool way, when done smartly and judiciously, that, you know, that can help you do that. So that’s where I like to stay the most connected. I’ve got different online courses depending on the time of year. And then of course my book, wherever books are sold. And yeah, I just love hearing from everybody. So please feel free to reach out anytime.
Sarah Trott: [00:41:53] So we’ll put links to all that goodness in our show notes for this conversation. Also, I’m going to link to a couple of episodes we’ve had in the past. One about creating mom groups or parent circles. Yes, you might not have one in your area, but we have a whole episode dedicated to what they are and how to find them. There’s all kinds of free, good facilitated stuff online. It sounds like Sarah, you have some cool resources too that you could probably point people towards for stuff like that, but you can create a parent group and find some of that support you need.
Another episode I’ll point to is about how you can have a friend or family member help you when you’re at home with a new baby. When you’re postpartum, you might have the resources to hire a professional postpartum doula, and I highly recommend that if you do. But not everybody does, or for whatever reason, their access issues, there’s all kinds of stuff that happens. But you can have a friend or family member step in if you know how to do it.
So we have a postpartum plan template that we can share and kind of help educate and give practical examples of how to do it. Because man, that village is so important as other Sarah is highlighting. So I want to reiterate that.
Well, thank you so much for the conversation, Sarah. The phrase of the day is mental freedom. Thank you so much again.
Sarah Ezrin: [00:43:09] Thank you Sarah. Thank you so much. And thank you to all the listeners.
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