The Power of Grace with Chelsea Skaggs of Postpartum Together: Letting Go of Perfection in Early Parenthood
In this episode of the Breath and Birth Co. podcast, Vanessa is joined by Chelsea Skaggs, a life and relationship coach from Postpartum Together. They discuss the importance of grace and letting go of perfectionism in early parenthood. Topics include dealing with societal pressures, navigating changes in relationships, and managing parent guilt. Chelsea shares insights from her background in psychology and sociology, and offers practical advice for maintaining a healthy family dynamic. They also highlight the significance of understanding personal and family values, and how to shift from a 'to-do' list to a 'to-be' list. The episode concludes with information on how listeners can connect with Chelsea for individual or couples coaching, and additional resources.
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00:00 Welcome to the Breath and Birth Co. Podcast
00:47 Introducing Chelsea of Postpartum Together
01:10 Navigating Early Parenthood with Grace
03:22 The Transition to Parenthood: Personal Stories
07:08 Building a Supportive Partnership
13:40 Dealing with Guilt and Judgment
25:58 Current Offerings and Final Thoughts
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Vanessa: Welcome to the Breath and Birth Co. podcast. I'm Vanessa, a hospital based, DONA- International certified birth doula and passionate childbirth educator. I love to merge the power of your intuition with the precision of modern medicine to help you navigate pregnancy and birth your way. Each week we kick off with Monday meditations to bring calm and connection to your pregnancy.
Then we build your confidence through insights, birth stories, and care provider perspectives during thoughtful Thursdays. Ready to feel supported, informed, and empowered? Hit subscribe to the Breath and Birth Co. podcast today and let's embark on this transformational journey together. As a reminder, any information shared here is not medical advice.
For more details, visit breathandbirthco. com slash disclaimer.
For today's episode, I'm here with Chelsea of Postpartum Together. She's a life and relationship coach focused on working with individuals and couples during their transition to parenthood. We're going to cover the power of grace and letting go of perfection in early parenthood today. Let's dive in.
Chelsea: Good morning, Vanessa. I'm happy to be sharing with your community. And, , as we were kicking off, I was actually just thinking about how, , we had a friend over last night who has her fourth new baby and my husband and I were talking about those early days and was like, Oh yeah, I remember, you know, just. Feeling pretty chill about that. And he was like, are you kidding? You were raging about everything. And I was like, Oh my gosh, you're right. Like I kind of blocked out that season of
Vanessa: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Chelsea: with giving myself grace, with my path and our path together as parents. I. I think I got so swept up in all of the social media, all of the blogs, all of the images and Interestingly, I have a psychology background. I was really interested in like, how do we parent kind of in reaction to how we've been parented? I think we all, you know, we appreciate our parents did the best they could with what they have.
Now, what do we have to do things a little
Vanessa: Absolutely.
Chelsea: Um, but that the introduction of like all these new ideas and topics like gentle parenting and attachment parenting and all of that in combination with the Information overload, I felt as a new mom, I had such a hard time being graceful to myself.
So I am really passionate about this topic because I think we have to find who we are as parents, as partners,, individually and together. And there's not always room to do that when we're constantly feeling overwhelmed by all these measuring sticks we put ourselves up against.
Vanessa: Mm hmm. That totally resonates with me too. I think especially as a type a person who loves to control things and be organized and plan full and everything. , when my son was born, it was like all of that had to go out the window. You know, and it was like our whole lives went from just the two of us to now we're responsible for somebody else That's determining our schedule and our sleep and everything And so yeah So Rhett was born in November and my word of the year For the following year in January was grace because I knew that I just wanted that constant reminder and target of In those hard moments going back being able to return to that word and say no I need to give myself grace.
I need to give my child grace. I need to give my partner grace Like this is a transition and it takes time and we'll find our groove And as soon as we find that groove it's going to change and that's okay, too continue on with your, your story in terms of how you went from that phase and postpartum to realizing and using your talents to, create your business today.
Yeah.
Chelsea: My background is in psychology and sociology and I thought when I graduated college that I wanted to go get my master's in marriage and family therapy. And once I was accepted into a program and started to explore it, I actually withdrew. I was like, this is not the path for me, but that relationship dynamic and the impact that that has on our world as a ripple effect has always been really interesting to me. And so I went down kind of a whole different path of being in pediatric behavioral health. I was a teacher,, and all of this was kind of in my, my background. And then I had my first child. Fast-forward to felt a lot of rage, not a lot of grace trying to find control of all those things. And me, a lot of freedom came when I just started to talk about that because I literally thought I was losing my mind as a new mom. Like I'm never going to get back to a place where I can think straight.
Like I am off the rails. And the more I started to talk about that, because honestly, I think so many of my friendships, so much of my life changed after I had a baby maybe it was just like, I didn't care if people thought that it was kind of weird to start talking about these things.
Cause I was like, what do I have to lose? And so the more I started to talk about that, the more I saw from people, , that it was a hard, hard transition that people weren't talking about and. Um, at the time I was in the kind of nutrition and exercise, world, that was a big part of my daily life, um, something I did as a, as side work. And I started to see people who, after having a baby, they were offered a lot of tips on weight loss and their body, and . no one seemed to be talking about the inner identity change and the way that you see yourself in the world, the way you see yourself with your partner. Um, and that's kind of when this like full circle moment came where I was like, okay, , my path wasn't meant to be a marriage and family therapist.
It was meant to create this space before, uh, or, or kind of proactively through transitions to. Support parents to talk about these hard things and to learn how to talk about these hard things and to learn how to dig into why they feel guilt or why , they're trying to control everything and why this is impacting their relationship. Um, so I just really got nerdy about that very, very specific part of life and the transition that having a baby brings individually and to a couple. Phew. I just got so excited.
Vanessa: And that is why I love having you here, because you are so passionate about that and I can feel it every time I talk with you. Um, so If we're talking about encouraging new parents to embrace that imperfection, is there any common, , advice that you give or any, , trends that you're noticing with your clients in terms of that? And how, how could you help our listeners through that?
Chelsea: Yeah, I think that the world is really noisy. Um, it has been, and it's just seeming to get noisier and noisier, like many things that can take our time and our energy. And so I think If every couple spent some time getting really clear about their values as a family, what they want to contribute to the world, what they, you know, why do they have a family right now and
Vanessa: Mm hmm.
Chelsea: to become?
, how do they want people to feel when they come into their homes? How do they want to feel when they're sharing that? Space together, um, that can create this foundation for how to make decisions or how to prioritize things or what to let go of. , I see that specifically for my moms. I think there's a lot of pressure for moms to hold everything together and I
Vanessa: Mm hmm.
Chelsea: You
Vanessa: Absolutely.
Chelsea: the common thread for so many things. And because of that, not all, but I see a lot of moms just grasping for control in every area they can because life can feel out of control. And
Vanessa: Mm hmm.
Chelsea: that becomes a disconnect. Uh, so, you know, figuring out really matters is it, is it that the dishes are done every night so that you can, you know, reset in the morning and not already feel behind.
Vanessa: Mm hmm.
Chelsea: just had this conversation with a couple who disagreed on like, do the dishes need to be done at night? And that can feel like such a surface level conversation. But for one partner, it was every day that , the sink is full. I wake up already behind
Vanessa: Yeah.
Chelsea: takes over the whole day.
So like getting to
Vanessa: Yeah.
Chelsea: layer of what want and why that matters, I think changes the dynamic in so many ways.
Vanessa: Yeah. And like you said, , I think once you determine those priorities and the wise behind them and communicate those, , the partnership can have that better understanding and then it can be easier for that person to, um, I think you said let go because that's what's so hard with the perfectionism is it's like everything.
Has to be perfect.
Chelsea: Uh huh. Yeah.
Vanessa: you can't let go of anything. And I think, yeah, like you said, honing in on what's truly important in this new phase of life and that accepting the fact that it's okay that your priorities do change.
Chelsea: hmm.
Vanessa: and that. It's okay if, as long as the dishes are done, if that means I'm doing the dishes instead of, I don't know,
Chelsea: Yeah,
Vanessa: a laundry load or,
Chelsea: yeah,
Vanessa: I don't know, walking the dog or something, you know, that like,
Chelsea: yeah,
Vanessa: like, that's okay.
Tomorrow's a new day
Chelsea: yeah,
Vanessa: we'll figure it out. Um, yeah.
Chelsea: The other thing I would say to that is I think it can be hard for us to just like outwardly, maybe proactively identify these things,
Vanessa: Yes.
Chelsea: those values and that priority. So, um. I encourage people to just get more curious. Like, I think we get to this point where we're like, we've been with our partner, we should just know.
We should just
Vanessa: Mm hmm. Mm
Chelsea: know what their priorities are. But like, let's just humble ourselves a little bit and be super curious because again, you've changed, your partner's changed. And so maybe, you know, your partner is saying, I can't go to bed without these dishes done. of being like, that's stupid. They'll be here tomorrow. You know, it's a chance to be like, what, what does that do inside of you? Like, what does that make you think what really triggers you from these being done? Um, you know, or your partner comes home from a hard day of work and maybe you think, or they're really stressed and you think, you know, how they went loved, but. Changing that to just saying, like, how do you need to be cared for right now? Like there are so many opportunities to just keep learning about
Vanessa: hmm.
Chelsea: And kind of, I like the metaphor of, um, you know, our phones update their operating system because things change and our
Vanessa: Yeah.
Chelsea: And if we love them, I think we have to constantly be updating like our, our view of them and knowing how they operate.
Vanessa: Absolutely. I love that analogy, and I would 100 percent agree that really resonates with me too, even just down to popular, um, like personality tests or like love languages. Um, for instance, when Brian and I were long distance for so many years, my love language was quality time. And
Chelsea: Yeah.
Vanessa: transitioned to living together, it became acts of service.
Chelsea: huh.
Vanessa: You know, and then that was born and it, you know, evolves again. And so yeah, like you said, just staying curious and, and understanding and being open to the fact that we will change. And that's, that's great
Chelsea: great.
Vanessa: that means there's room for growth. You know, we don't want to still be that 21 year old partier at age 40, you know, like we, everybody, um, you know, evolves and we should grow and, and the goal is.
You know, that we're growing together and we're on the same team.
Chelsea: Yeah, and I think that gives us permission to even just say like in this season, you know, these things, they're a priority to me long term, but I'm not going to get to them right now. So in this season, I'm going to let go of this. Or do you want to be loved in this season? Like what's going to make you feel really connected in this season?
Because. I think our circumstances also do impact how we receive love, how we give love, how we connect, how we communicate, um, and that gives a little freedom to not try to make our partner a fixed person or make ourselves a fixed person. I mean, that would kind of be easy if that were life, got masters of ourselves in that person, but that's not how it is.
And we have to. Make room for that.
Vanessa: Right. Yeah. Um, how about the topic of guilt, um, either specific to mom guilt or parent guilt in general? Um, what are you seeing with your clients and any advice that you can give around that? Yes. Yeah.
Chelsea: about how many pieces of guilt we see. And you're right, specifically moms. Um, You know, I, I think in my head of when my kids don't have their,, coat for school and it's a really cold day. and maybe I wasn't the one that got them on the school bus, but I still feel that guilt because I still feel like the school's going to think, you know, this child's mom, I don't think that they would reactively say. Dad, and that's just like a dynamic I see socially. So I think that that is, is still very ingrained in us. Um, specifically as women in heteronormative relationships. Um, so there's that societal impact, but I also think, you know, it's so beautiful that we have the rise of information, um, on social media, on blogs, on YouTube, and also sometimes aren't you also just jealous of. The generations that did not have all of this and they just, they had a smaller pocket of, of things. Their, their purse wasn't so deep. And I think that with the more information we have, there's more opportunities to judge ourselves, to feel guilty for
Vanessa: I was going to say.
Chelsea: aren't doing things.
Vanessa: It all boils down to that, the judgment and having such accessibility to all of the different methods and all of the different ways and all of the new studies and you should be doing this and not this. And this new study says this. Oh, but this one contradicts it. You know, it's I think for me personally, a lot of the guilt is it stems from perceptions or potential judgments.
Of other, either women or other people, um, you know, mother in law
Chelsea: Oh
Vanessa: to best friend who has different views and you mentioned even, even just the winter coat, I am huge on,, car seat safety and that's one of my control things like there's. only so many things we can control, but I can control how I buckle my son in my car.
I can't control the other cars in the road, but I can control how I safely buckle him. And, , it is not safe to have a big puffy coat on underneath that buckle. And every morning at drop off, I feel like I'm being judged because Rhett gets out of the car seat and I have to like put the coat on him after he gets out of the car and like walk in the building.
Um, And then on the opposite effect, I see cars pull up with like eight kids get out of the car. And I'm like, that's a Honda Civic. Where are those kids sitting, you know, kind of thing. And then I had to catch myself in that of just like everybody's doing the best they can with what they have.
Chelsea: Have you, um, read or listened to the let them book that is really popular right now?
Vanessa: It is on my list, actually,
Chelsea: Yeah,
Vanessa: um, for a lot of the reasons we're talking about, honestly, because it's something that I, I need better perspective on.
Chelsea: It just really high. Like I, I think that every mom who feels this guilt and this comparison and this pressure, um, should at least like get the cliff notes or an abbreviated version. I know it's really hard to go through a whole book as a new mom.
Vanessa: Yeah, and I, okay, this is another thing too, , I am a huge audiobook listener, which I've really, um, I've, what's the word I'm looking for? I've not accepted, but like embraced. I've embraced that in motherhood that like I don't necessarily have time to sit down and like read a book by myself, but I can listen while I work.
I can listen while we go on a walk. And that was really big for me during COVID. Um, I was like, we were quarantined and the only time I got out of the house was to walk around the neighborhood and I would listen to my books and that was what kind of like my sense of normalcy almost. Um, so yeah, I'm just throwing that out there too, that if you're in that season and you feel like, Oh my gosh, how do people have time to read or to do some of , those normal routine things that you used to do, just have an open mind about that too.
And that maybe, maybe this is an audio book or a podcast phase of your life.
Chelsea: Totally.
Vanessa: yeah, we'll, we'll link that. Let them in the show notes for everybody. Cause I've heard so many great things about it.
Chelsea: Yeah. And I, I think it is just that like, I cannot be responsible for other people's thoughts and reactions of me. And if I am, I think what really got me is realizing, wow, I'm giving so much brain space to trying to figure out what does this person think of me? Or did I do this right? Or, you know, is this. Up to, up to code or up to And I could be giving that energy to my kids, being present with my kid. I'm letting my brain conjure up these stories and use its energy and its creativity for all of this stuff that the people I'm thinking are thinking about me probably aren't even thinking about me half as much as I think they are.
Vanessa: Yep.
Chelsea: what if I just progressively let people have their things? And, and back more of my energy, to put into my present life and my family.
Vanessa: I love that. Yeah. That's great advice. Shifting from that let them mentality, then do you have any specific advice or tactics for people to kind of be at peace with their journey and some of those things that maybe could have bothered them or they could have ruminated on,
Chelsea: Mm
Vanessa: um, either what other people think in that guilt aspect or, , Like you said, just those anxieties
Chelsea: well, what I'm thinking of, and you can tell me if this is answering your question or
Vanessa: uh,
Chelsea: um, but is kind of shifting from this, like to do list to a, to be list
Vanessa: love that.
Chelsea: yourself, what are all the things I need to do today? Like who, who do I need to be? Like what kind of energy. Do I want to exchange with my kids, with my partner, with the people around me? , and that doesn't make the things that need done go away. I'm not going be fulfilled necessarily by checking off this list. to be fulfilled by protecting who I am. if everything else goes off track today, That's kind of the bar I measure myself on. What's I able to show up, you know, the way that I want to for my family.
And hopefully I get these things done in that kind of energy space, but I can't always judge myself by the things I get done.
Vanessa: That is such such great advice. I mean, even just picking a simple word for the day or something that that you can really focus on in that moment.
Chelsea: Well, I was going to also share a practice that I've done with some of my clients, which
Vanessa: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Chelsea: right now. Imagine that your child's in third, fourth grade, and they're writing an essay or, you know, making one of those cute little pictures and papers about mom.
Most of us don't want that to say, My mom gets the dishes done every day. My mom never leaves, you know, crumbs on the floor. My mom But those aren't really the things that you aspire to be, um, and so, you know, for me, like an uncluttered space is very important because it leads to kind of peace and being able to lean in and relax in the home. But knowing that it's for the goal of peace and relaxation alleviates the like hustle of it. And you know, I want my kids to say that our home was welcoming and it was peaceful and it was fun and their friends like to come over and enrooting it in that mindset I think is just a helpful practice for people too.
Vanessa: Yeah, that's also great. And in terms of like that to do versus to be, I think another kind of mindset shift that helped me personally was anytime I found myself getting into this cycle of I have to do this and I have to do this, just change that to I get to do this. And I get to do that and I, and I'm not one for like toxic positivity, if you will, like it's okay to have the duality of these things that like, it can be hard, but also even just changing the have to, to get to, it can remind yourself in those tiny moments , that you do have things to be grateful for, you know, even when things are hard that, you know, you do have a roof over your head, That you get to clean and tidy, that you do have food in the fridge.
Um, hopefully that you get to make a warm, loving dinner for your family to sit around a table together, you know?
Chelsea: Yeah, I like to remember to times that I used to dream of, of being a
Vanessa: Yeah.
Chelsea: you know, and like the grown up life I would dream about, you know, making this dinner while kids are running
Vanessa: Yeah.
Chelsea: through the house or, you know, um, being woken up in the middle of the night by a screaming baby.
And it doesn't always feel dreamy, but it's nice to remember. Like, oh yeah, this is the life I, I dreamt of living, um, especially, sorry, I'm going to tie it back into like social media, but I think the days, you know, before we had Pinterest boards and views into other people's lives, like what did you dream your adulthood and your family would be like?
It's probably not as complicated as the standard you're holding yourself to right now because of all. Of the things coming at you, like, can you return to the simplicity of the, not that you can't dream bigger for yourself, but the simplicity of what you thought this journey could be before you were inundated with all of everybody else's standards and ideas.
Vanessa: Yes, yes. And to it, and on the social media topic to another thing that I think is kind of relevant here is we talked about that everything can be a phase of life, like not in this season, and I think it can be hard to when you're playing that comparison game on social media, when you're seeing friends, like, perhaps you are one of the first, , families in your group of friends that has children
Chelsea: Yeah.
Vanessa: and you are seeing your, you are.
Other best friends, you know, on all these vacations and going out to the bars or the opposite where we were like one of the last of our friend group to have kids. So now all of our friends that have kids are in, we're in this phase of life where like their kids are older and they have more freedom and they are able to go on like these big group.
Family vacations and stuff. And like, we are now finally in that phase of life. But again, if you're in the throes of immediate postpartum, just know that like, I'm just that reminder that like, it's just not our turn yet and that's okay. And it will be your turn again soon. And, . To just kind of remind yourself that this is a season and you'll have your turn again soon and it's okay.
Chelsea: Yeah, that's a really great reminder.
Vanessa: Um, so, what are your current offerings right now for clients? If this whole episode resonates with them and they want to reach out to you, can you describe, what you do and how you can help, um, individuals or couples?
Chelsea: Yeah, so I my big passions are women knowing themselves, um, and finding community there and couples knowing how to communicate with one another and connect with one another and give each other grace and space for the changes that they go through because You said something earlier, like you kind of, you have the two of you, you have your schedules, you have the way you do life. And then everything changes for both of you. And there's not a lot of time to catch up with one another, even though you're living in the same house. Um,
Vanessa: we were like two ships sailing in the night, especially um, took shifts, if you will, through the night in order to make sure that we each got blocks of sleep. But that meant literally, we were each solo parenting for half of the 24 hours, essentially.
Chelsea: Yeah, and so I work with couples on I kind of walk them through this process of like dealing with what did they expect was going to happen in this transition? What kind of resentments have they carried? How do they see their future? How do they want to both navigate the home and their intimacy life and their?
personality styles and what that brings to parenting so I The way that I work with couples is I meet with, um, one partner, one week, the next partner, the next week. And then I take their notes in the conversations that they were able to have in confidence and kind of mesh them together to guide them on a conversation every three weeks.
So really my goal is like helping people understand how to have these conversations, what they're. idea of normal and their life experience and their personality brings to the table that's maybe different from their partner. and then I do sometimes run small groups or work individually with moms specifically if maybe their partner's not ready to do the work themselves or if they feel like they need to kind of work through their own identity, identity changes and growth before talking about how that impacts the relationship.
Vanessa: I love that so much. Okay, well if you're interested in working with Chelsea, either on your own or as a couple, I've included her info in the show notes for this episode. I've also got a link to her monthly brewery meetups if you're in the Columbus, Ohio area.
And, as we discussed, I've got a link to Mel Robbins The Let Them Theory book in the show notes as well, which I can now say that I finished listening to in audio format since we recorded this episode originally. Indeed, I highly recommend it for whatever phase of life you're in. So go ahead and check that out too.
Thank you so much for spending time with me today. I hope you found this episode helpful and encouraging on your journey. Don't forget to hit subscribe so you never miss a future episode. And if you enjoyed today's conversation, I'd be so grateful if you left a quick review. It helps others find the show.
For more information, Resources and links mentioned in this episode. Be sure to check out the show notes. You can also connect with me on Instagram at breath and birth. co for more support and inspiration until next time, remember you've got this and you're never alone in this journey.