Hello everyone, this is Tonya Dawn Recla, your Super Power Expert, and I have such a treat for you today. This remarkable woman, Amber she’s just a bright light. I love her story. I love everything about her. Where I really kind of fell in love with her was I was looking at her bio and she’s an unapologetic bibliophile and I was like, “Oh my, she’s my people.” so I love the fact that she just has this expressive kind of look at life and mothering, right? That’s what we’re talking about today is stretching motherhood. Her book, Stretch Marks is such a creative concept and such an amazing way to look at motherhood from an alternative perspective.
A lot of times we look at parenting, it’s almost like we kind of water it down and clinicalize it, right? Which is interesting because she’s also a licensed family and marriage therapist and so she certainly has every right and the background and the experience and the education to kind of add this clinical layer to it. But this idea of us being motherhood, right? We are our mothering experiences, and we get to say what that looks like and we get to inform it and to kind of think that there’s this cookie cutter one way approach is really not doing any of us any good. No matter how brilliant we are, it’s easy to fall into that trap, right? The comparison trap and everything else.
So she’s on this mission to work with women to support them in their mothering styles, but really looking at where they are, the kind of the axis, the pivotal point around which their mothering style orbits. It’s a conversation that is difficult, it’s complex, there’s no one size fits all. There’s no simple solutions. She knows a thing or two about this, right, raising four boys, traveling around the world. I can’t wait for you to hear her story because she’s such a delight.
So before I get too far into the weeds here, I want to bring her on so you can welcome her to the show. Amber Trueblood, author of Stretch Marks and mother extraordinaire, assistant to mother extraordinaire, welcome to the show, Amber. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me.
So your background and your experiences with your family and in your journey of writing this book and everything is so amazing and really a testament to your dedication to your mission. But before we dive into that, I want to ask you our quintessential question and ask what are your super powers?
Well, the best way I can answer that is the feedback I’ve gotten most recently from most of the women that interact with me. And this is that seems to be my super power, is helping women feel seen and feel heard. That seems to be the impact right now.
Well, You just let it roll off your tongue in this way, but that’s not a common component of the motherhood conversation. Like it’s really taken for granted, I think it’s such an amazing cornerstone of our families, of the adults that we put out into the world, all of this good stuff. Why do you think that this idea of showing up in it has not really taken hold?
Well I think we get wrapped up into like you brought up a comparison trap. There’s so much going on around us and we live in kind of these individualized silos of trying to handle multiple things and juggling multiple areas all simultaneously, meanwhile judging ourselves for not being perfect at all of them, which is crazy. And then getting really down on ourselves when we don’t meet our own unrealistic expectations or the expectations that we’re assuming from the outside world. So when you hear somebody say, “No, no, no, no. I’m going through that same exact thing, or my child is doing the same thing,” and we’re all kind of at least addressing a lot of the same challenges. I think if we can alleviate some of that self-judgment and self-doubt and really be authentic with ourselves, then that allows us to connect in a way and support each other in a way that’s so much more valuable and improves everybody’s experience.
Beautiful. I love the subtitle of the book, a self development tool for mothers who are being stretched in every direction. I think you really encapsulate this idea and it’s only getting worse, right? Our lives are only getting more complicated and more complex. I remember when we were really looking at the core curriculum for the super power experts model and it just kept getting more and more complex and I sat with it and I prayed on it and I kind of meditated around it, but this idea is that no, realistically the world’s not getting anymore simple, and so on some level that means that we have to develop tactics and methodologies that allow people to navigate complexity. And I think trying to water it down or pretend like it’s going to be easy or step one, two, three, it’s just not. And so it’s so necessary that we find our own kind of orientation within that, and I do believe that’s been missing from the motherhood conversation.
Yeah. That’s one of my challenges to mothers and to myself too is we’re so busy. We’re so overwhelmed with all of the things and activities and tasks that we feel we were supposed to do and seldom do we have time to kind of step and say, “Do I want to be doing this? Wait, is this important to me?” If so, fantastic, great. But we rarely, rarely give ourselves that opportunity to stand back and see what path we’re on, if it aligns with what’s important to us or even ask ourselves what is important to me because we’re all different. And not only is that okay, but that should be celebrated I think. That’s what’s amazing about the human experience and what makes us interesting people as do our weaknesses, our faults, our flaws. All of that is so critical to who we are and how we learn and grow. But, unfortunately we spend so much time and energy pretending like we don’t have those faults or we don’t have those flaws or we’re supposed to be perfect.
And kind of the system that I take women that I’m working with through is kind of a very systematic approach to help work through that, help really identify for you specifically what’s important to you, what’s important to your family right now at this point in your life? Because maybe a couple of years ago it would have been something different.
Beautiful. I know that really lights up a lot of the hearts of the moms who listen to this show. We’re going to take a break, but before we do, how else do you work with moms, not just through the book obviously that anybody can get and if you go to the site, there’s a link there for that. But any one on one care? I know we talked about your retreats. How are the ways that you support moms in this?
So I have retreats and then I also have, because a lot of moms are juggling multiple things or have small children at home that makes logistics or financials difficult, I’m also just about to launch a virtual bootcamp. So this’ll be a three-month weekly program that women can access at any time that’s convenient to them. If they miss the weekly call, they can watch it at any time, they can ask questions, they can interact. And it really… And it will also house a community of women that are experiencing the same thing simultaneously and really excited to delve in and move forward in their life in a way that’s meaningful and important to them. And that’s why like be truly you is kind of my main tagline now, because that’s what it’s all about is helping people to be truly you, yourself.
And where can people go to find out more about those opportunities?
So at ambertrueblood.com houses pretty much everything. And then the book is available anywhere books are sold, you know, online or in any bookstore.
Stay with us, folks. We’re talking with Amber Trueblood today about stretching motherhood. When we come back, we’re going to dive into this beautiful and creative concept of a book that she created. So stick with us and we’ll be right back.
Enjoy more of Amber’s wisdom on this episode of SuperPower Mommas: Improve Confidence and Release Mommy Guilt
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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