Living in GRACE with Loana - being a new mom, learning to let go, self-care
SHOW NOTES
Wrapping up the student review series, I speak with Loana and we discuss her journey as a new mom and how she found the GRACE course that changed her daily mindset. If you are just following us now, welcome and we invite you to listen to the previous episodes and episode 40 to hear the background on GRACE, what it stands for, and Dr. Anhlan’s belief on gratitude. After hearing four different journeys of the GRACE course, I hope you are encouraged to start living your best life now!
KEY TAKEAWAYS
(1) It’s a Love Story
(2) GRACE and Self-Care
(3) To new moms: take a deep breath, take care of yourself and trust that everything is going to be ok
RESOURCES / LINKS
Living Your Best Life with GRACE - click to visit the course website to learn more about enrollment. Cohort 3 starts April 11th, 2022!
Intro and Outro music: Dreamer by Noah Smith
FULL TRANSCRIPT
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Intro: Hi listeners this is Evonne, and you're tuned into Million Ways to Shine. I'm continuing my discussion with other students at the GRACE course to share our journeys and our growth. Loana is a data analyst, and in this episode, we talk about her being a new mom, learning when to let go, and practicing self-care and self-love. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Evonne: So I have Loana with me today. And Loana, and I, we met during a course during grace, a grace course where we are just really expanding the series of exploring our mindset and just wanting to know where our journeys come from. Because I think all of our listeners and our audiences can kind of agree that you don't really know where you go until you get there. And you, or there's a lot of things you wish you knew throughout the journey that you didn't know until after the journey ended. So this is just kind of us talking about the struggles before we had our mindset change and after, and so Loana, I know, just before the recording, we were just talking about like our personal mindset shifts and changes. Um, but what has just changed in your particular year? How has your year been before the GRACE mindset and after?
Loana: Yes. Um, the question just took me back to a whole lot of memories - good and not good. So if I could take you back when I met Dr. Anhlan for the first time. I was a newcomer to Canada and I was in my struggle to find a job. And luckily I got the first job and at that moment I thought, my life was stabilized and I started missing my family back in Vietnam. And I, I didn't know what I was looking for. It turned out to be, in the end, it just daily life in Canada. And not to mention that I did not get to spend time with my family. I miss my family. So then I met my then-boyfriend, my now husband and he turned my world way more beautiful, more colorful. I got to know his family, who's happened to be Vietnamese as well.
So I feel very lucky in a way. And then I got pregnant. I got so excited because now I have my own family to care about, to dream about. Um, so you see there's a series of new things are happening to me. And I feel excited at the same time. I feel nervous because I don't know anything about being a wife, being a daughter-in-law and then being a mother. Because I am a bookworm person. Like I grew up in Vietnam and, oh, I know was, if you want to be successful in life, you have to be hardworking. You have to read books and you have to find any resources you can on the internet or in the library in order to, improve your knowledge. And I read everything I could. Like how to take care of the baby, how to sleep train the baby. How to feed them in every four to three hours. So they wouldn't be half full half hungry, so they will learn the appreciation and the food, et cetera. So I feel like I got it. Like, I feel I got it.
I would just in this mood of being a new student, applying knowledge that I learned from the book. Even with my baby when she's not eating well, and I was so stressed because it was not enough of the amount that was recommended by any experts on the internet or on the book. And I was worried because she obviously did not gain weight very well. And coupled with that, my mother-in-law, telling me what to do or just sharing some of her comments. And then my husband would be like, why would you have to follow everything by the book? Why would you just let it be and why don't you just let it be. And be open to my mom because she has been raising five sons on her own without any issue. And then I, I agree. And then I told him that. Yeah. But because I, the way I grew up, I have learned to learn everything myself and apply everything I know at my capacity. So I just could not trust the nature and the process, you know, I could just not let go of the idea of being controlled and being strategic and being prepared and knowing exactly what's going to happen.
Evonne: Yeah, look because you were so self-reliant and there was no one else for you to rely on in the past. So it just had to be you. And so coming into this moment where, you thought that nothing could go wrong and you're like, I got the hundred on the exam. I'm going to be the best mom every day. And then you're getting to these points in these questions. Like, wait a second. I didn't study this. Or you're getting questions where I did study this, but the answer is not right for some reason, and it's not working.
Loana: Yeah. I mean, I mean, it's working, but it's not like what isn't working... It's like always something that go wrong in a way, like, for example, my daughter doesn't cooperate or, you know, someone gives her some snacks…because someone give her some snacks, so she did not cooperate in the meal times. My husband is like, if your method is that perfect, but why would it be so fragile and easily damaged by a certain amount of external factors, which is out of your control?
Evonne: The data analyst in you is coming out!
Loana: I know. And then I was at that moment, I just feel like he is dismissing my opinion and my knowledge and it came to the point that I have very, very heated conversation with my husband, my mother-in-law, everyone in the family. And I felt so isolated and felt so helpless as well. Um, because I felt like I was trying my best. But at the same time, maybe people, although they have the same intention like me, that they don't think that what I was doing is the best. I felt like there's something like very, very heartbreaking and I questioned myself. This is something that I could not walk away. Like before, I got my first job. I felt like, it was not something that helped me to learn after two years. So I decided to apply for a scholarship in the UK and I got it. So for me, it's a way that I could walk away, but it's not like I give up. But I tried to look for opportunities. And when, when I go to the UK, my ex-husband got an affair in Vietnam. So after I give him another try, he still continue seeing that girl. So I decided to end the marriage and it's another way per se, another way of walking away. But for me, it's walking away for my own sake and I feel much stronger. I feel much in power, because it's my choice. And I don't accept with whatever the value was that was no longer sharing with mine. But this one, I could not walk away.
This is our daughter.
This is our daughter and I could not walk away. And it, and it feel like in the past I have been strong, but I haven't fully resolved with whatever emotional struggles that I've been through. Like, I haven't got a proper closure with my ex husband. like now I think about it. I am still not really sure. Like back then, and I was not really ready to see him and talk with him in person. But now, like, I feel like I'm ready to see him and looking into the eyes and talk with him like normal person. Like with relation on his current marriage and everything. Um, I could not walk away that night. I felt like I'm stuck. Like I want to be Zoe's mom. I want to be in her life. I want to have good relationship with my husband and my mother-in-law because basically my family is not here in Canada. And I have only my husband, family as my own family here. And it came to one point that I was very stuck. And I, I questioned my own, like, why would I have to think of escaping?
Like, this is not something I can escape. So I reached out to Dr. Anhlan and I asked her I'm like, I need your help.
So just to give you some context, Dr. Anhlan used to be my husband's mentor. She actually the one that in a way, um, match me and him. So, I was new to Canada, so I try to connect with anyone that sounds like Vietnamese students in Canada. And I just added Dr. Anhlan on LinkedIn. And I messaged her, asking her about some recommendations for newcomers for finding a job. And it turned out to be that she lives in Texas. She was very kind back then. And she listened to me. She gave me some advice and she, one time she told me like, okay, I am happened to be in Vernon at time, and I'm going to have a seminar, and I'm going to give you a code for a discount. And then me at that time, I was like, two months in Toronto, I don't drive. I live in downtown. And when I Google the way to Vernon, I was scared because it's like two hours in total of TTC. And the timing of the seminar is like, sort of starting from 8:15 PM. And is it likely to end like 10:00 PM, which is not really convenient for public transit? So I told her. I wanted to really meet you and listen to your speech. But it's quite far, and I've never been out of the city that far by public transport. And I I'm afraid that I may not be able to join. Then she's like, oh, so there's a guy who's coming from Delta as well, and you can message him and then you guys can go on TTC together. So That's a guy that turned out to be now my husband.
Evonne: Wow. That sounds just like a movie. (laughs)
Loana: I know, I know, uh, I don't, you know, it just, so, um, I don't know how to say, but I feel like it's a blessing in disguise for me to, to meet my husband. And now so back to our story. So when we have first have Zoe in the first month I was really stressed. And then after Dr. Anhlan was kind enough to organize a call between me and my husband.
Um, and Zoe at that time would just maybe some, two or one month old. I mentioned with her that we have these different ways of, you know, maybe we have, we share so many common values in life, big ones. but we never talked about trival ones. Like how to feed the baby, how to respond when the baby's crying. You know, all the trival things that can be red flags for a long-term relationship. And Dr. Anhlan told us to be trying to appreciate each other more and, and try to think from each other point of view and all the other good points. But I guess at that time, I wasn't enough.
I wasn't ready to take in her advice. And I was more focused on the mode of learning from whatever books I read from parenting and feeding and stuff like that. But when I got to the point that I told you about, the helpless point. I asked her like, I need your help. And when, when she called me, I started going on on differences that we have and she, she didn't let me finish my point. She just told me like, so I have this course going on, uh, already started for two weeks, but I can let you in and you can give it a try. And I was a little bit, you know, I was a little bit disappointed because I was in a mode of complaining and needing some kind of encouragement. But she's not getting me delve into the negative experience. So when I joined the course, the GRACE course. I was really, really serious about getting myself back to feet. And at that time it was not about my husband and with my daughter. It's about myself. Um, because I feel like if I'm not good, I'm not calm. I'm not happy myself. It's, it's going to affect my relationship with everyone.
And the way I interpret my interaction, with anyone, regardless. So I got changed a lot. Like it seems to me that the course would really, really work with people who hit a rock bottom.
And realize that they have to change themselves for the better, and they choose the better for themselves. And not only mentally, emotionally, but also the everyday choice of any interaction they have the surrounding.
For example, I have been taking a long mat-leave by that time. And most of the time I just stay at home. I'm waiting for Zoe to get to the time that I can feed her. And cooking and, you know, doing laundry work and, you know, browsing on my phone. it just prone to the boredom and focusing on the trivial of the mundane of daily life. I decided to walk like every morning when Zoe wakes up, I would just put her into the stroller. I walked to any outdoor activity that I can find for children. For example, outside choir or musical class. Or I picked a very beautiful path for us to walk to, or even to take the street car too.
And then we could have lunch outside. and when she's sleeping, I would just, you know, lay down on the grass and reading. And we would not get home until 5:00 PM. When my husband finished work and it gives us some space. And it gives me, you know, some exercise physically and emotionally.
Evonne: Yeah, I think what's such an important point that you hit on is that love grows just because you have the time to give yourself a little bit more self-care. Even as a mom, as a parent, as a wife, You can actually give more love for others because you continuously fill up your cup and your heart is full. So the love that you have for others actually is two-folds, after you start caring for yourself. When you were speaking, I also resonated with that because I love to serve. Um, I want to serve others and I want to give love to others, but at the same time, it got to a point, my rock bottom, if you will, we got to a point where I had no more to give and I actually didn't know that.
And so it took a lot of self-respect and self-love for me to realize that that's why I was unhappy. Because I was putting myself last. And putting myself last and putting myself first it's different from ego and the selfishness. And I think that was the balance that I had to understand from the mindset. That caring for myself, actually it wasn't selfish
Loana: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think it comes with boundaries as well. Um, it's, it's not all these, the boundaries that we put for other people, but also the boundaries that we put for ourselves. And we, we respect our own need. And we have to make sure that we meet our needs first, before we are able to and ready to, to give to other people.
after I changed my attitude, I become more relaxed about how my daughter sleeps or how she eats. Everyone can feed her, however, they, the way they want. And sometimes I would just let my husband take my daughter back to the parent's place. And I just chill with myself with the car now.
Evonne: That's awesome. That is such progress!
Loana: I know. I know. And I feel like it's just not the end of the day. If the baby doesn't eat or doesn't sleep or it's like, they grew up on their own. I'll probably just like take a step back and learn to learn, to enjoy. Uh, no matter the situation is.
Evonne: Yeah, letting go a little bit is also love as well. So that she can grow and stand on her feet and not always rely on you. That's in fact, I think a sense of really, really great love. Because it's a sense of trust that you trust your baby to also take everything that she's learned from you from osmosis so that she can grow up to be the person that you envision her to be.
Loana: Yeah, I think, and also not mentioned the psychology side of it. Like I grew up remember being forced to eat as well. Like I was very, very small when it was the baby. And I remember that it was very difficult to feed me, for my mom as well. And I remember, I didn't learn about the enjoyment of having food to eat until I was like in puberty. I guess it somehow left some kind of memories or some scars in myself that I need to be that kind of, another kind of mom that tried to feed the baby as much as possible. and now I'm just, trying to you know, break the cycle. So, so my daughter can be, you know, better with her own daughter later on. Um,
Evonne: Yes. That's beautiful.
Loana: Yeah. So it's still a learning process. Like sometime… I would tell you that sometimes I would feel not my best day as well. In the end, it's feels way better when I feeling like I had the choice to choose, to see things in a better way.
Evonne: Yes. Absolutely. Oh, thank you so much for sharing that with me. I know we went a little over because you had such a beautiful story and I really wanted to learn more about it. I still want to learn more about it. I feel like every day, right. We have new stories and new journeys to be able to share. And I know that looking back.
Well in our, in our darkest days, we almost sometimes forget those stories and we forget how far we've come. So reminding ourselves and feeling the gratitude for that journey and those memories that we were able to overcome, I think, is such an important part of that step. It definitely sounds like you had a lot of struggles and journeys, especially as a new mom. What would be your advice and your, your message to them out there today?
Loana: Yeah. I just hope that if any new mom that ever gets to listen to this podcast and they're going through what I used to go through, I hope that they are able to take a deep breath and tell themselves that they need to take care of themselves first. And trust that everything going to be okay.
Evonne: Beautiful. Thank you so much.
Loana: Thank you so much, Evonne.
Outro: To learn more about the GRACE course, check out the course link and the website and the episode description or on our website. It is a seven-week course. And the next start date is on April 11th. If you love this episode, let us know what you think by leaving a review on apple podcasts, or you can reach us on our Instagram page at million waste to shine. A big thank you to everyone who has given us a review and a shout out. Thank you for the love. Your support means so much to us. Keep an eye out for the next episode where we'll talk more about courses and tools for productivity. See you next time.
