Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - How to Unf＊ck Your Conditioning as a Mother

00:00:00.000 Hey y'all, Jo here, and you are listening to Under the Influence.

00:00:09.160 We talk a lot on this show about what happens when motherhood becomes content.

00:00:15.420 And motherhood is content for a lot of us, not just for influencers.

00:00:20.060 It's content for the group chat.

00:00:22.520 It's content for the Facebook page.

00:00:25.900 It's content for your Instagram.

00:00:27.500 and even if you're not a brand, parenting, which is a thing that's honestly supposed to be messy

00:00:33.960 and real, often starts to feel curated and optimized for engagement. My guest today,

00:00:42.000 Vanessa Spinarski, has been thinking about that a lot too. She's a therapist and a writer who

00:00:47.160 works with mothers to, in her words, not mine, unfuck their conditioning. I love that. I love

00:00:54.180 it. So what that means is to try to start unraveling all of the invisible rules and

00:00:58.900 expectations that have shaped how we mother, both in public and in private spaces. I'm talking about

00:01:06.040 the myths of being a good mom, a selfless mom, a productive mom, or maybe the mom who can do it all

00:01:11.680 without losing her cool. It was funny. One of my friends came over to pick up her daughter from a

00:01:17.100 play date the other day. It was bath time and the kids were having a good time. And she goes to me,

00:01:22.580 she's like, your house always seems so calm. And I'm like, girl, you should have been here five

00:01:28.420 minutes ago. You should be here 10 minutes from now. This is the tiniest little snippet in time.

00:01:37.400 But we don't see enough of those snippets. We really, really don't. Finesse is great at helping

00:01:41.900 women look at how different patterns live in our bodies and our nervous systems, and how this 1.00

00:01:47.520 cause us to show up both in real life and as mothers. She's also a content creator herself. 1.00

00:01:53.960 So she's really good at talking about this new version of corporate motherhood that exists

00:01:57.560 online. All of those invisible systems that decide who gets seen, who gets amplified, and also most

00:02:04.180 importantly, who gets left out. These things are shaping both sides of the screen. They're shaping

00:02:11.000 the moms who are scrolling and the moms who are creating. This conversation is getting into all

00:02:16.400 of it. It's getting into how to stop performing motherhood and how to actually start living it

00:02:21.340 and how to take back our power from an algorithm that was never designed to make you feel joy as

00:02:27.160 a mother. If anything, it was designed to make you feel anxiety so that you would buy more crap. 0.99

00:02:41.240 All right, I'm going to start with the big question that's going to lead to a thousand 0.97

00:02:44.580 to other questions. As women, how can we start to unfuck our conditioning? When I started saying 1.00

00:02:51.600 unfuck your conditioning, it was a breath of fresh air for me. And in the context of motherhood,

00:02:56.280 I think just like the moment before we even become moms, like even before that, like we are

00:03:03.000 swimming in so many rules in society, whether they're spoken or unspoken, implicit, explicit

00:03:09.220 about who we're supposed to be in this world whether that's be selfish or grateful or patient

00:03:15.280 regulate yourself so you're never seen as being messy this emotion is bad but this one is good

00:03:20.880 you should feel guilt if you have a life outside of of your kids shame for feeling depleted like

00:03:26.360 there is just so many rules and all of these rules they are just running on autopilot we stop being

00:03:33.020 with our lives and we just start managing things we're just moving through the motions you know

00:03:37.720 whatever it is that we need to do. And we don't really stop to think or our why in life kind of

00:03:42.800 starts to fade. And we become really efficient women, really efficient women, but we become 0.60

00:03:48.120 really disconnected women as well. And our nervous system just starts to live in a constant response

00:03:54.600 mode. We're always anticipating, we're preventing, we are fixing, we're smoothing, we're performing.

00:04:00.320 And the longer we run that program, the more it just becomes our identity and we forget what it

00:04:04.580 feels like to want something for ourselves. And I just think that this conditioning, unfortunately,

00:04:10.100 it's not neutral. It is actually what burns us out. And it's what convinces women that exhaustion

00:04:16.120 is actually normal. And that anger means that we're bad or we're failing, that if we optimize 0.87

00:04:21.560 or push a little harder, that we're finally going to feel like enough. And unfortunately,

00:04:27.580 burnout in motherhood isn't just doing about doing too much. It's actually about becoming

00:04:33.180 someone you are not and you constantly have to justify to be and it's the slow quiet self

00:04:39.620 abandonment that is happening it's humming in the background and we're trying to live up to ideal 0.90

00:04:44.160 but this ideal was never built with our actual humanity in mind so yeah this unfucking or 0.92

00:04:49.660 conditioning i'm asking women to take a breath pause come up for air and just try to step off

00:04:57.200 the treadmill long enough so we can actually see what's happening outside of you oh my gosh

00:05:02.480 I love this. I just love this idea so much. What are some of the most deeply ingrained messages

00:05:08.480 that moms receive about things like sacrifice, productivity and good parenting and these things

00:05:15.280 that have gone completely bananas with the advent of social media? I mean, we're just we're getting

00:05:20.680 them constantly now, right? Absolutely. Yeah. I think some of the most deeply ingrained messages

00:05:27.900 that we receive around motherhood,

00:05:30.480 I think they actually do go beyond sacrifice or productivity.

00:05:33.660 A lot of the times what's underneath all of that

00:05:35.440 is more about control and it's more about invisibility

00:05:38.140 and it's more about our worth.

00:05:39.920 I think that we're taught that a good mom

00:05:42.220 is somebody who kind of disappears,

00:05:44.300 disappears, who equates love with self-erasure,

00:05:47.940 with exhaustion and exhaustion,

00:05:51.260 but still being very devoted to our role.

00:05:53.340 But that is not love, unfortunately. 0.81

00:05:55.280 That's social conditioning that benefits everybody except for the woman. 0.63

00:06:00.320 And when a mother is burnt out, what happens is she actually becomes more complacent and 0.89

00:06:05.420 more compliant to the system.

00:06:07.080 She's actually easier to sell and she's easier to silence and manage when she is depleted.

00:06:12.620 So we're taught that motherhood is a performance of control, that if you just read the right

00:06:18.520 book or you follow the right method or you stay calm enough, you can engineer happy,

00:06:23.800 well-adjusted children. But that illusion of control is actually what keeps moms more anxious, 0.87

00:06:29.400 more isolated. They are constantly measuring themselves against outcomes that they actually 0.96

00:06:33.940 cannot control. And when we try to rebel against that, the system always just tries to find a way

00:06:39.920 to package the rebellion as well, like self-care, gentle parenting, balance, and it gets sold back

00:06:45.500 to us as another thing to just perfect. And those old rules just kind of get a new language. So I

00:06:50.940 think the real challenge isn't just rejecting sacrifice or productivity. It's rejecting the

00:06:57.320 idea that a mother's worth has to be proven at all. And what makes you a good mom isn't control

00:07:02.400 or composure. It's your capacity to try and maintain humanness or authenticity inside a

00:07:08.080 system that keeps asking you not to be any of those things. And I love what you just said,

00:07:13.300 that when we're burnt out, when we're beaten down, we're weaker to receive these messages.

00:07:19.380 And then these messages are always accompanied with, buy my thing, buy my thing.

00:07:23.620 It's going to make you a better parent if you just buy my thing.

00:07:27.080 Exactly.

00:07:28.280 And that's just kind of, that's the loop we get stuck in, right?

00:07:31.080 Because now we're anxious again and now there's overconsumption.

00:07:34.860 So we're always in a state of dysregulation.

00:07:38.560 Oh, my gosh.

00:07:39.580 When did you personally realize that so much of what you believed about motherhood really wasn't intrinsic or instinct, but culture speaking at you?

00:07:54.200 Yeah, I had this question.

00:07:57.360 I was like thinking about it, like when was there like a pivotal moment?

00:08:00.280 But I don't think that there was one single isolated moment that I realized that so much of what I believed about motherhood wasn't really my voice.

00:08:08.220 I think that when I look back at the four, like the last four years, it was more like a very slow waking up over time. At first, I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do. I came into motherhood with an invisible checklist, trying to hold it together. I am by nature somebody who is high achieving. I, you know, I like things done a certain way. And so I was trying to hold it together. I never drop a ball.

00:08:33.300 And for a while, I really believed that if I just actually did try harder and I could control more, and if I could read more books, I could master motherhood. And like I said, like we just said, like that's the trap in itself, right? Thinking you can actually muscle your way through something that isn't, that is actually meant to transform you. Like motherhood is meant to evolve and transform you.

00:08:55.400 But there came this day and I remember it distinctly. There was I can remember the rock bottom, right? I remember where I just broke and my nervous system couldn't handle it anymore. And I remember sitting there and I was sobbing and I was thinking I'm failing at something that should come really naturally to me.

00:09:12.440 And something inside me just whispered like, but what if isn't what if this isn't actually yours to hold? And I think that question changed everything. Also, I think that I just have a little bit of leverage just because of my background as a social worker, as somebody who does a lot of trainings and things like trauma work and somatic therapy.

00:09:31.900 I'm a learner and I'm a seeker. So I kind of just dived into this head first. And the more that I

00:09:38.380 learned, the more I realized like, oh my gosh, there are so many scripts. And none of these were

00:09:43.740 like, most of these were never mine to hold in the first place. And I started to recognize that I was

00:09:47.980 not only parenting, but living from fear and control and the need to be good and not from

00:09:53.500 authenticity or intuition. So I had to just like, I like using the framework of like, I had to wake

00:09:59.600 up. I had to wake up long enough to look around and go, wait, like who told me that this is what

00:10:06.300 a good woman or a good mother looks like? And once I could step back and kind of detach myself from

00:10:11.760 that, I couldn't unsee it. And so the work since then has been a lot of integration, learning to

00:10:17.560 mother from inside, from the inside instead of the outside, to notice when that culture of waste

00:10:25.040 does show up um that one that says try harder do more etc etc and ask like is that truth or is that

00:10:31.360 conditioning um and I think that's what motherhood does when you let it you let it crack you open

00:10:37.640 and you can let it strip away what isn't really you and it will invite you back into your own

00:10:42.560 voice if you let it but you have to be willing to stop performing long enough to actually hear it

00:10:47.140 which is hard. Which is really hard. It truly is. So what do you mean when you say mothering

00:10:56.460 from the inside? Yeah. So I'm going to talk about this a little bit later, but I see it as

00:11:03.440 motherhood as art. And so what I mean by that is I stopped seeing motherhood as a job and started

00:11:10.980 seeing it as an art. So jobs are about productivity, efficiency, and outcomes. We're

00:11:15.360 looking for external validation. Art is about process, presence, meaning. So motherhood like

00:11:22.140 art, it's alive, it's relational, it's unpredictable, it's unrepeatable, it asks you to stay engaged,

00:11:27.360 to be curious, to move with rhythm, intuition. Mistakes actually become part of your masterpiece.

00:11:32.560 So when I mother from the inside, that's where I'm mothering from, a place of art, not performance.

00:11:37.560 I mean, it seems really hard to get there though. I mean, and also I'm trying to like

00:11:44.360 unpack all of that and it still doesn't make sense to me yeah there's a lot of work that has

00:11:50.260 to happen between where we when we wake up and when we get to that point um so for me personally

00:11:56.000 this has been off for all actively working on myself for four years now so this is not one

00:12:02.840 little shift that happened overnight um this has been four long years of putting intentional work

00:12:10.420 in every day because I am committed to the process. And it didn't happen right away. There was a lot

00:12:16.640 of pressure and pushback. There was this liminal space I was in for a long time. I had no idea who

00:12:22.040 I was just finally coming on the other side of that now. But I do feel like I'm somebody, if

00:12:28.620 anybody knew me about coming into motherhood, if you knew me, I was the most dysregulated person

00:12:33.400 that you'd probably ever meet in your life. And I can say that I've walked this path and I am on

00:12:39.140 the other side. I'm almost there. I feel it. And what does it mean to be dysregulated?

00:12:45.160 Yeah, I think that that's kind of just what I talked about a little bit earlier. It's just like

00:12:49.020 the state of dysregulation. So dysregulation in itself is not bad. I think that we actually have

00:12:55.440 to be with our dysregulation first. I think what happens in our culture is that we rush to, we sell

00:13:00.640 regulation, right? Like as a tool, like just be calm, just be regulated. Dysregulation is when

00:13:07.100 something in us just doesn't feel right we're waking up we're feeling tired we're feeling

00:13:11.520 depleted we um we are like i don't even want to be alive today like i don't even want to do

00:13:17.020 anything today um is when we're anxious like when we feel like something is out of sorts

00:13:22.040 that is usually a sign that we're in a state of dysregulation when we're overreacting when

00:13:26.680 we're underreacting those are signs that something could be off when our energy when energy is

00:13:31.740 depleted all the time that is a sign so dysregulation in itself is not bad it is actually

00:13:36.540 a sign. And it's your body saying, hey, something here needs to be attuned to and needs to be paid

00:13:41.120 attention to. So I actually, when I work with clients, I'm like, let's be with your dysregulation

00:13:45.380 first. Let's listen to it. Let's hear what it has to say, because it will give us a roadmap,

00:13:49.980 map a pathway to where we kind of need to go and what needs to be addressed.

00:13:54.920 I want to take a quick break here. And when I get back, I want to dig into the social media

00:13:59.560 of it all and how it has made this so much worse. Absolutely.

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00:14:41.920 Okay, we are back.

00:14:43.400 You've described Instagram as connective, but also clicky.

00:14:49.020 And I could not agree more with that.

00:14:51.580 I think there are some positives to Instagram and social media generally.

00:14:54.520 I think they're far outweighed by the negatives, though.

00:14:56.560 So I'm curious how that duality shows up for you as both a mom and a creator.

00:15:01.840 So first of all, when I first got on Instagram, like I had, again, this is another thing.

00:15:06.340 Like I had no, another place where I had no idea what I was really signing up for.

00:15:10.380 For me, it actually did start as this like tiny creative outlet.

00:15:14.120 It was one of the first ways that I actually did start coming back to myself in motherhood.

00:15:18.200 I've always been kind of like a creative, outspoken person.

00:15:22.800 And that part of me had been pushed down for a really long time.

00:15:26.500 So creating an account like this just felt like a small act of becoming visible again

00:15:31.260 and being seen.

00:15:32.500 And at first I was just sharing like little activities I was doing with my daughter because

00:15:36.040 I'm not the mom who loves pretend play on the floor.

00:15:39.040 I need to say I hate pretend play.

00:15:41.500 There's things I don't like.

00:15:42.700 I don't like pretend play and I don't like being at playgrounds.

00:15:45.520 I love outsourcing someone else standing at the playground while they play and watching

00:15:51.760 them to keep them safe.

00:15:52.620 but I don't want to be that mom on the playground on my phone, but I'm also bored.

00:15:58.140 Absolutely. I feel like I feel the same way as you. Pretend play does not light anything up in

00:16:03.500 me. And when I'm doing it, I feel so fake while I'm doing it. I'm like, oh, my kids can totally

00:16:07.780 sense that too, right? I know. Yeah. Yeah. So I wish we could all just admit, like, I don't like

00:16:12.040 these things and that's cool. And it's fine. It's fine. There's so many other different ways you can

00:16:17.000 connect with your kids, right? Like it doesn't have to be play. It doesn't have to be pretend

00:16:20.120 play on the floor um and and so that's kind of like where where my connection with my daughter

00:16:24.280 i've always been creative and she's actually really artistic too so we found this like mutual

00:16:28.180 thing we actually love doing together it was uh crafts um and little artistic things i do with

00:16:34.300 my daughter then it became a public diary i don't know how i don't know why it just i started sharing

00:16:40.760 some of my truth of my experience as being a mom like not the good stuff like the the overwhelming

00:16:45.540 things of like being a mom with a newborn and a toddler. And all of a sudden these moms started

00:16:51.220 messaging me and are like, me too, me too. And I don't know. I was like, that was huge. Like

00:16:55.720 so Instagram became this lifeline of connection. And it was a reminder that I wasn't the only one

00:17:00.540 that was struggling. And yet as I kind of like grew on Instagram, there was this other side and

00:17:07.220 I was like, whoa, what is happening here? It's like, it felt really clicky almost. Like the

00:17:12.040 algorithm feels like this invisible game that no one names but everybody i know is feeling it

00:17:17.100 um certain aesthetics certain voices certain circles that get rewarded but while other ones

00:17:22.380 get kind of drowned out um and of course that's going to stir up like i know it stirred up my

00:17:26.980 wounds of like comparison inclusion rejection not being not being enough right um and if i'm being

00:17:34.080 honest there are definitely times i have definitely gone against my authenticity because i was molding

00:17:39.240 myself to what i thought the algorithm wanted instead of standing in my truth and i think

00:17:44.500 that's the pull of the clicky side it like taps into our deep craving for belonging

00:17:48.440 um and unfortunately authenticity doesn't guarantee recognition um in fact authenticity

00:17:55.440 often comes with the price of being disliked and misunderstood and that is not easy to

00:18:01.100 navigate at all in the online world no i've got i've got to say that the more authentic i am the

00:18:06.320 more people dislike me strongly hate me yes i feel that too so not into me like if but if i were just

00:18:15.020 i think if i i would do a lot better online if i were just a basic b sure yeah but i can't be

00:18:21.840 so oh god yes i hear you i feel the same way and it's always like i'm always doing this mental

00:18:28.600 gymnastics in my head of like do i like do i post this like who who's gonna who's gonna hate me

00:18:33.540 today or how many how many unfollowers am I going to get say like don't like I'm still human like

00:18:37.620 I feel like that but I'm I'm really trying to like hey it's okay like it's okay stand in your

00:18:43.600 your footing like the people that will want to stay will stay and the people who want to leave

00:18:49.280 let them leave but obviously that's easier said than done it is so much easier said than done

00:18:55.280 friend it really it really is easier said than done and one thing that I think about a lot is

00:19:01.440 the idea of how these platforms do shape our idea of like what kind of mom we should be and

00:19:12.920 they've created this idea actually they haven't created it okay the idea of a quote-unquote good

00:19:17.240 mother a quote-unquote perfect mother has existed for the past I don't know not forever okay it is

00:19:23.720 a relatively new thing in history because I gotta say like we're looking back at like kings queens

00:19:30.800 and all those rich people back in the day they did not mother there were they had an entire staff

00:19:36.660 to be raising their children and if you were not that kind of person your kid was also either home

00:19:41.760 by themselves until they went to school or until they worked most of the time it's like this idea

00:19:46.460 of a good perfect mother let's give it like a century right and i think it did rise with modern

00:19:52.620 media trying to sell women things with magazines trying to sell women things because like like you 0.99

00:19:57.940 said if you get women unbalanced and if you get women unbalanced they want to try to fix that

00:20:02.900 balance and they'll pay for it but but social media truly does make it so much worse by by 0.97

00:20:10.000 showing off these women who appear perfect but they're not and like it is part of unfucking

00:20:15.720 our conditioning reminding ourselves that this is freaking fake and again that's kind of where

00:20:21.180 we go back to the starting the conversation like if we aren't awake if we are still dysregulated

00:20:25.460 we're not going to be able to see through that right and it becomes like like we get trapped in

00:20:31.000 it and you're right like the good mother had it's the good mother is literally a brand it's a brand

00:20:36.920 that's being sold um and and yeah it's no longer about nurturing connection we're starting again

00:20:42.660 we're just performing wellness balance happiness just to be sold all these things um and yeah you're

00:20:48.160 absolutely right it's just it's repackaged through modern media and the thing that makes it less

00:20:53.240 exhausting and I say it all the time is get offline like it's just yeah it is true I I remain

00:20:59.300 online for lots of reasons but I scroll less and I click around less than I ever did before

00:21:05.520 and I'm honestly happier I can feel my dopamine returning that's beautiful is it isn't it if you

00:21:14.480 could redesign the online motherhood space from scratch what would you do and what would it look

00:21:19.920 like? I would want there to be a lot of connection and a lot of safety, which are things that we can

00:21:24.440 absolutely not get on social media. I would want a space that actually slows women down instead of 1.00

00:21:31.620 speeding them up. I think I did a poll on my page the one day and I asked my viewers, do you actually 1.00

00:21:37.660 read content or do you just like swipe to the next thing? And there was like an astonishing 80%

00:21:43.600 that just said they're not reading anything. Like they're literally just swiping. So nobody is

00:21:47.880 really even like slowing down and absorbing and and really taking anything in it's just another

00:21:53.940 method of like speeding us up keeping us like in that this regulated state um and yeah there's not

00:22:01.860 a lot of space for nuance and social media which i also get frustrates me a lot right like i want

00:22:08.580 a space where nuance is welcome where you can say you know what i'm actually not really sure about

00:22:12.160 that i think about it more this way and it's actually safe to do that and that you're not

00:22:17.180 can be written off or canceled or judged because you shared an opinion that didn't align with

00:22:21.900 somebody else's opinion. And yeah, where content isn't about being going viral. Why does content

00:22:27.740 have to go viral to be meaningful? But I would just want to resource moms and help them to feel

00:22:33.140 less alone. And yeah, I just want it. I just not the same recycled aesthetic and just in a spectrum,

00:22:41.220 different cultures, family structures, neurodivergence, economic reality. Because

00:22:46.920 community isn't built on sameness, right? It's built on seeing the fullness of each other's

00:22:50.340 humanity, which just feels unsafe right now in itself. I so rarely see different cultures 1.00

00:22:57.080 on social media. And you actually just made me think about that to my detriment, unless I'm

00:23:03.600 traveling. So I saw so much from Japan, although it was a lot of travelers in Japan, until I got

00:23:10.540 to Japan as I was planning the trip because the phone is always listening to us. But once I got

00:23:14.820 to Japan, then I was served more local content, but still not really a look into anyone's true

00:23:22.760 existence. It does feel like social media really silos us. Yeah, that's actually really interesting.

00:23:30.160 You're right now that I'm thinking like I'm actually thinking about that. It's like we see a

00:23:33.640 lot of like Western, like Western society, like this online is very so Western. It's so filter

00:23:39.020 And it erases so many different – like, think about how different cultures maybe show caring or arresting or grieving.

00:23:45.540 It's probably so diverse.

00:23:46.760 And there's so much diversity in that.

00:23:48.580 Like, yeah, that's actually something that's really interesting.

00:23:51.300 Like, I don't even get people in Europe for the most part.

00:23:53.960 Yeah.

00:23:54.300 Maybe some Brits.

00:23:55.720 But, I mean, I mostly get Americans.

00:23:57.980 This is a really good question to ask Meta next time I get them.

00:24:01.660 Because I would love a window, however filtered, into people's existence around the world.

00:24:09.020 But I'm not seeing that on a daily basis.

00:24:11.600 Yeah, neither am I.

00:24:13.620 This is something to bring up.

00:24:15.440 Bring up with the apps.

00:24:16.480 Next time I get on the phone with them.

00:24:19.920 Yeah.

00:24:20.740 Oh, my gosh.

00:24:21.820 So much to dig into.

00:24:23.180 Okay, we're going to take one last quick break.

00:24:24.620 And when we get back, I want to talk about how you, as a therapist, work with women to do this.

00:24:39.020 okay we are back what is one thing that you wish every mother who is consuming motherhood content

00:24:46.060 knew what you're seeing okay there is probably some truth to it but there but it's only part

00:24:54.180 truth okay so i just like i want people to know that the internet is or like social media it's

00:25:00.560 just a collage of fragments so we're seeing fragmented moments a tender moment a curated

00:25:05.820 moment, a performative moment, a healing moment, a contradictory moment. It can hold truth, but

00:25:11.360 it's never going to hold the whole truth. So if you feel like you're falling short when you're

00:25:16.880 scrolling, it's not because you're doing motherhood wrong. It's because you're trying to measure the

00:25:21.360 fullness of your real living, breathing life against somebody else's edited glimpse, right?

00:25:27.760 So the screen, absolutely, it can offer like resonance. It can offer validation. And of course,

00:25:34.180 it's going to even offer you comfort at some times, but it's not the same as being a witness

00:25:38.620 in real time. So instead of asking, like, is this real? I try asking myself, like,

00:25:45.800 what part of me is actually resonating with this content right now? And what part might need

00:25:51.240 something more offline in a body to body experience with somebody else? So your lived experience,

00:25:59.260 whatever that is, messy, mundane, unfiltered, it carries more intelligence than anything that

00:26:05.120 the algorithm could ever give you. So the goal isn't to mimic what you see online. It's to stay

00:26:10.040 rooted enough in your own life that you can witness that, hopefully without losing yourself

00:26:15.540 inside of it. Right. How is all of this changing you for the better? Do you think that you are a

00:26:24.520 more present mom now? Yes, I do. I do. I think what's changed the most is that I've stopped

00:26:31.960 trying to get motherhood right. Again, I'm a, I'm a perfectionist. Okay. Like I've always,

00:26:36.980 I always thought there was a right way, a wrong way, a good way, um, bad way. Um, and I started

00:26:43.120 to try to just learn to be with it instead. Um, I, and unfortunately, yeah, I was one of the people

00:26:50.760 that, you know, I would look at content and I actually thought that other people's way

00:26:54.980 was the right way to do this, that there was a more gentle way, that there was a more consistent

00:26:58.820 way, that there was a way that I could be patiently, endlessly, and that I could always

00:27:04.420 be present.

00:27:05.460 But I just think doing my own inner work, like unlearning, dysregulating and regulating

00:27:11.280 therapy, questioning things, just showed me that the right was just code for performing

00:27:18.500 safety, like performing work, performing control. I really have tried really hard to live more as

00:27:25.100 an observer than a performer. I try to look at the online world without needing to measure myself

00:27:31.580 against it. Again, I'm not perfect. I still do that. I still do it. I try, but I am trying to

00:27:37.660 make an effort to watch instead of absorb it. And I just, there's no hierarchy of motherhood. There's

00:27:43.480 you know, better, worse, good, bad. I think that what we have is awareness. And I think that that

00:27:48.200 awareness has softened me. And I still have guilt. I just went away this weekend on the retreat and

00:27:54.980 my son was sick and I shouldn't have called home, but I called home and I saw him for like two

00:27:59.780 seconds. I was like, oh, like I should be at home right now. But, you know, I acknowledged it. I was

00:28:06.920 with it. I felt it. It was more, it wasn't really even guilt. It was like, oh, I wish I could be in

00:28:11.620 two places right now, but I can't. And I still have days when I spiral, but I don't confuse those

00:28:16.880 moments with failure. I see them. I name them. I be with them. I let them pass. I'm not scared of

00:28:23.540 my emotions. I trust my body. I trust my instincts. I don't need to fix every feeling. I can let it

00:28:29.920 breathe. Yeah. And I kind of just said what I said earlier about I try to do this motherhood

00:28:36.640 as art versus motherhood as a job yeah i feel like i've gotten to a good place with with motherhood

00:28:43.880 and again it's taken eight years right uh yeah but i don't really compare myself to other mothers

00:28:49.900 anymore i'm like i'm good with this but i still find it hard in other parts of my life which i

00:28:54.620 think is interesting to acknowledge as women because we are multifaceted beings yeah so i

00:28:59.880 still feel the comparison with other authors on instagram right yeah like that is a really hard

00:29:06.140 thing for me to see I feel a lot of less than when I'm scrolling through other authors accounts

00:29:13.720 again because it's so dumb because it is not a zero-sum game right and yet and yet and yet I'm

00:29:20.580 like I'm not doing enough I'm not succeeding all of the things all of the things we just talked 0.85

00:29:24.900 about with motherhood are also applicable to your professional career right absolutely yeah you're

00:29:30.280 right and I feel the same way because I will it's not necessarily the the mothering that I'm

00:29:35.480 comparison myself to i'm definitely comparing myself to other motherhood like influence but

00:29:41.240 not the way they're mothering like the way that they're i don't know showing up i guess but you're

00:29:45.800 absolutely right like i love that you said that i think that so many of us you know whatever you

00:29:50.180 are writers therapists doctors there were still yeah um i think it's just a natural thing to do

00:29:56.620 though don't like isn't that just something is that always going to be there i guess that's my

00:30:00.220 question it's like is it like a dial we dial down but it's always going to be there type of thing

00:30:05.020 Well, I mean, I think that there's always been kind of a natural envy. We want to be successful. We want to feel successful, too, right? But it previously was not just so in our face. Like, I didn't necessarily see everyone posting their book deals or their bestselling lists or their events or their fancy book trailer that they got because, you know, they got paid a lot more money for their book and the publisher has to make it back, right?

00:30:33.040 so I think there's just more and it's omnipresent yeah yeah and sometimes like I think that like

00:30:41.760 when I don't I'm speaking for myself but like if I do feel envious like sometimes it's not even

00:30:46.660 about jealousy because there was this one account that I was following even before I started

00:30:50.100 creating and I was always like oh like there was something I was envious about in terms of like

00:30:54.860 the way that she postured herself on social media and she was a mom whatever and it wasn't and now

00:30:59.480 in hindsight, I'm realizing that it was not actually jealousy. It was actually pointing

00:31:03.760 to something that I wanted really badly. And I was desiring. And it's something that I really

00:31:09.300 valued, but I didn't give myself permission yet to want or even think that I could have.

00:31:15.000 But that's in hindsight. I was like, oh, now I see that that actually wasn't jealousy. There was

00:31:20.900 something guiding me that was saying, like, you want that. There was desire in that. I was

00:31:25.940 witnessing somebody else's freedom or creativity or rest so sometimes i will do that flip too of

00:31:30.500 like is this like am i am i doing a comparison comparison thing or like is there something

00:31:35.840 this person has that i desire and i want more of in my life yeah i i try to do i try to do that

00:31:42.980 introspection more often than not right yeah i'm like oh okay i see this great book trailer i could

00:31:48.660 make that on canva let's be honest they probably did make it on canva it looks fancy but yeah you

00:31:54.620 know I could probably figure that out so a lot of it is waking up in the morning and being like what

00:32:00.340 didn't work yesterday and how can I push forward to make this work for me to make this better for

00:32:06.240 me I think instead of wallowing in it yes yes absolutely um yeah again and again like we this

00:32:16.280 whole conversation I'm like we have to start with the first step of like we got to wake up because

00:32:21.640 I think like if we are in dysregulation, we're not going to even be able to think clearly, right?

00:32:26.200 Like I even just think about who I was when I was dysregulated waking up in the morning and I

00:32:29.560 didn't feel like I had choice. Like my brain automatically went to negativity all the time

00:32:34.260 too, right? So I wake up now and I wake up with a different mindset. Like I'm like, I'm excited

00:32:40.220 for the day now. But yeah, I think it all has to come back to, we have to start with our

00:32:44.440 dysregulation, tend to it, and hopefully we can move into regulation so we can actually start

00:32:48.820 choosing and feel like we have choice and freedom and agency in our life right voice

00:32:55.500 yeah it's work it's hard work if none of this comes easy it's really hard it's really hard

00:33:02.480 so I do want to start or I do I do want to give our listeners just some practical advice I want

00:33:08.840 to leave them with some practical advice if you're feeling this if you're feeling dysregulated if 0.52

00:33:12.440 you're waking up in the morning being like god damn it nope I don't want to do this don't want

00:33:16.020 do this today what are a couple things they can do to just try to flip that switch a little bit 0.98

00:33:21.080 um i think it okay so because i am a somatic type of practitioner i do believe that we have to go

00:33:30.020 to the body before we can go to the mind so and again this is what works works for me this is a

00:33:35.880 way it is not the way um but i think that i started seeing my internalized self-talk my inner critic

00:33:44.780 that changed when I could change the orientation of my body um so literally just I mean the biggest

00:33:53.060 thing which I'm still practicing so I have not nailed this yet but the first thing that you do

00:33:57.900 in in the morning is is going to kind of dictate the way that your day is going to go so I used to

00:34:02.900 like of course the first thing I would do is grab my phone start scrolling check my emails and

00:34:08.100 immediately that's gonna that's gonna put my state my body in a state of dysregulation first

00:34:13.800 thing in the morning. So I've tried to put my phone in a bathroom now so that I actually have

00:34:20.560 to get up and go get it. So the first thing that I'll do in the morning, it's just anything simple

00:34:24.520 as just taking from breaths, feeling my feet on the ground, music. Oh my gosh, I am so in love

00:34:31.420 with throwing music on in the morning and it's an immediate dopamine hit for me in the morning,

00:34:36.020 but in a good way. And I think you just have to find what actually brings a sense of, and you

00:34:42.600 know what? We're not even looking for calmness. We're just looking for, I feel okay. I feel

00:34:47.700 neutral. I feel 5% better this morning than I did yesterday. I think we always think that we need to

00:34:53.340 have these like big grand moments of change. And it doesn't have to be that way. I always tell my

00:35:00.460 clients, 1%. What is 1% of something you can do differently tomorrow morning?

00:35:06.120 um small steps and they have to be achievable we have to work our edge

00:35:11.740 what's an example of a small step

00:35:15.100 um a small step like so it everybody's going to be different depending on what their what

00:35:21.920 their edges are and what they can tolerate um but i mean okay i'll try to give an example for

00:35:29.940 my, I'll just use the phone for me. Like I rely on my phone a lot in the morning. I would do it

00:35:37.700 every single day, every single day, every single day. So for me, a small step wouldn't be to take

00:35:44.260 my phone, turn it off and go put it in another room. Like that is intolerable to my body. Like

00:35:49.740 even just thinking about that right now is giving me, my heart is beating really quickly. Like

00:35:54.700 that's how much I rely on my phone. So I'm not going to go do that. That is not going to be my

00:35:58.520 first step. Maybe my first step is to keep the phone next to my bed and still on. And it's right

00:36:04.840 there that I can reach for it. But maybe instead of doing it right away, I take a breath and then

00:36:10.100 grab my phone. It literally just has to be that. And I can still do the same behavior, but I'm

00:36:15.400 breaking it up with a breath instead and a pause. And then I'll grab my phone. Like that's where I

00:36:20.660 start. Yeah. Yeah. It's really helpful to me to leave the phone in a different room at night,

00:36:26.200 you know and if I have something to do Nick's got not getting rid of his phone so I tell him to send

00:36:30.480 me an email or I just I write notes to myself I have little notepads next to my bed and I write

00:36:35.520 myself a note I'm trying not to touch that phone as long as I can in the morning and we've also

00:36:42.320 recently banned the phone at meal tables so no phone at breakfast yeah yes yeah um and it's so

00:36:51.040 funny because you're saying those things I'm like right and I'm not in a place yet I'm like that's

00:36:55.200 intolerable for my body still. But I hope to get there one day because I do think I rely too much

00:37:00.980 on my phone and it is with me too much of the time. I have become overly reliant on it. And I

00:37:06.300 also used it as a dissociating tool when I was really having a hard time in motherhood. And

00:37:14.780 people might see that as maladaptive of something that was not actually healthy, but it was actually

00:37:18.980 what sustained me a lot too during a like a really exhausting time in motherhood so I have

00:37:25.140 this attachment this attachment to it of it is an escape for me so I'm trying to undo that's like a

00:37:31.160 thing that I am trying to undo and unlearn right now because it became such a crutch at such a hard

00:37:35.840 time for me and it's so interesting to me that I mean you are a trained therapist you know all of

00:37:42.140 this like we I am a reporter who covers this and yet it's still hard for us yeah absolutely I and

00:37:48.680 that's why I try to show like again you know you see my social media but that's why I try to show

00:37:52.820 like I am just like a messy and I am in process and I will probably always be in process and just

00:37:58.480 because like one thing might be going really well in my life now I'm sure like something will fall

00:38:02.960 apart again and like I try to do my unfiltered thoughts online of like what is going on in my

00:38:07.980 life you know and I'm still caught talking instead of what I want to share and what I don't want to

00:38:11.500 share listen I'm not going to share everything like I'm allowed to have privacy in my life as

00:38:15.300 well. But I do try to give glimpses into like, yeah, I'm a therapist and I never want anyone

00:38:21.160 to think that I know more than them or that I'm better than them or because I have a degree that,

00:38:27.920 you know, that they're looking to me for guidance. I really want women to see me that I'm sitting

00:38:33.920 beside you. I'm sitting beside you just as another woman. Maybe, yeah, maybe I do have a little bit 0.80

00:38:39.320 more tools or language or I've read books or I have certain trainings. I have a big toolbox of

00:38:46.000 things. But at the end of the day, I'm just like in this crazy ride along everybody else.

00:38:54.440 I love that. Will you tell people where they can find you online for more of this content?

00:38:59.740 Yeah, so I am. My handle is at Vanessa, V-A-N-E-S-S-A dot Spinarski, S-P-I-N-A-R-S-K-Y. That is my Instagram handle. You can finally find me mostly on there.

00:39:15.040 And then I also co-host or co-own a Berkwool online therapeutic space for women outside of social media.

00:39:25.840 And that you can follow us at The Mama Healing Hub Inc. on Instagram as well.

00:39:31.700 Thank you so much for having me, Jo. This was so much fun.

00:39:45.040 Thank you.

00:40:15.040 chew on this bold question from dentine gum is it ever okay to compliment a millennial

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Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - October 30, 2025

How to Unf＊ck Your Conditioning as a Mother

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