00:04:11.340but it's very good at showing all of the micro ways that society lays all of the blame at
00:04:19.860mother's feet. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And here's the thing too, right? I mean,
00:04:24.800so this book that I wrote, I didn't even just write it about motherhood. I've got these three
00:04:28.720sections in the book where it's motherhood, sex, and relationships. And I would even go so far as
00:04:32.660to say that that myth encapsulates all three of those categories. So if you're not inherently,
00:04:39.220you know good at or perfect at motherhood romantic relationships and other relationships
00:04:45.660and you're not just completely fulfilled with everything then like again that's your fault
00:04:50.320right so it's like we get as mothers we it's laid at our feet the motherhood side but it's also the
00:04:56.240relational side too it's like there's it's hard to catch a break you know as a woman we don't catch
00:05:01.560breaks. No, no, no, no, no. Meanwhile, men can literally be pedophiles and no one cares. No one0.88
00:05:09.120cares. Yeah, the standards have been a little uneven for quite a long time now.
00:05:14.160So uneven. So talk to me a little bit about how martyrdom works into this. I think about it every
00:05:21.980day and I don't want to be a martyr. I mean, one of the things I tell myself when I wake up,
00:05:26.240you're not a martyr. Don't be a martyr. You don't have to be a martyr. But how does that work into
00:05:30.880the myth. Yeah, I have a whole chapter called martyrdom is not motherhood. And martyrdom is
00:05:36.340not motherhood. We should let's make sweatshirts that say that. And, you know, it comes a lot from
00:05:42.180how we were raised. I mean, I think this has been passed down generation after generation, but it's
00:05:46.260really this societal idea that to be a good mother, you have to erase yourself. And the only way to be
00:05:51.980a good mother is to erase yourself. So, again, not even just a good mother, we could talk about
00:05:55.880partner or, you know, friend or sister or daughter or whatever. But the point is, is that you cannot
00:06:02.020show up as a fully sovereign being with your own needs and be good at relating. You have to
00:06:09.600essentially sacrifice yourself to be considered a good and worthy mother, daughter, partner.
00:06:15.500And, you know, I use actually, and this ruffled some feathers when I was okay with it, but
00:06:20.740every chapter I do, I use what I call like an archetypal feminine form or a myth or a fairy
00:06:26.800tale. And in this chapter, I use the archetype of Mother Mary. Right. And I, yeah, everyone gets so
00:06:34.620riled up when you start talking about the Virgin Mary. Well, you get riled up because what I do is
00:06:40.060I go down the kind of, you know, historical rabbit hole, if you will. I use her image. I think what
00:06:47.020people get riled up about is because I go historical on it. I talk about the Mother Mary
00:06:52.260that we know now is this compilation of multiple feminine archetypes, multiple goddesses, and how
00:06:59.840the idea of her being the perfect woman, the perfect mother, it's been contrived. It's been
00:07:05.580kind of calculatingly contrived as a way to control women and mothers.0.99
00:07:11.060Yeah. Yeah. No, it truly has. And, you know, as a person who has a random degree in religious studies, I'm constantly, constantly fascinated by the Virgin Mary and her evolution through history, the historical idea of her and how she has evolved to kind of meet the moment of every moment for men, not for women.
00:07:37.880I mean, truly not for women. She has been written by men. What the Bible says about her was curated and written by men. And yet, we still look to that ideal today, 2,000 some years later.
00:07:58.700That's right. That's right. And that's part of why I talked about her as a figure because I was
00:08:03.420throughout the entire book, I try to make people understand. It's like we have to question where
00:08:08.040did this come from? How did we get here? And as a therapist, I find that understanding,
00:08:14.600that way to start breaking things down to be so empowering because personally, but also with my
00:08:19.640clients, when you start to say, where did this come from? How did we get here? And you start
00:08:24.080to depersonalize it. You start to see that these systems were set up to control, to keep people in
00:08:30.480shame, to write. You start to go, oh, I'm not crazy. I'm not broken. The system was set up in such a
00:08:37.200way to keep me feeling that way. And so then once you can depersonalize it, you can then say, OK,
00:08:41.560how am I going to kind of change it or rail against the system, if you will? And it starts
00:08:45.900to almost become a moment of like activism in and of itself to do this inner work. I think it is a
00:08:51.760moment of activism. I truly do. It feels to me like an act of rebellion to wake up every day
00:08:59.380and say, I'm not going to feel guilt about how I mother. I am I am perfect just the way that I am
00:09:06.580because men never think about this. There is no man alive who's like, I am not a good enough
00:09:11.880father today. Well, and I'll tell you, the ones that I do hear saying that are. They are also so
00:09:20.720steeped in shame. And this is often what I, I mean, not just me, obviously I'm, I'm informed
00:09:26.000by the amazing works of like bell hooks, for example, this idea that these dominator systems,
00:09:31.520right? Patriarchy just being one of them, capitalism, white supremacy, this impacts
00:09:35.340all of us negatively. This is the, the, like the thing I want to scream from the rooftops, right?
00:09:41.080It's like, man, you're not actually benefiting by playing into these systems either. They're
00:09:47.800designed to keep all of us in shame and to keep all of us like performing as good little soldiers
00:09:54.420of capitalism, right? None of this is here to help us reach our full potential, be fully intimately
00:10:01.500involved and related to other beings, be the best parents, be the best partners, right? That's not
00:10:06.720how these systems were designed. So when I'm able to have those kinds of conversations with men,
00:10:11.580it's such like almost like a healing experience for me as a woman to be able to go there
00:10:17.500with a man, you know? Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. For sure. And again, I mean, I love this idea
00:10:23.920that society has just created unreachable and ridiculous expectations for all of us, particularly
00:10:31.940for mothers. And what are some ways that you talk to women about how they can dial this back
00:10:39.820or take it back? Rewrite the narrative, if you will. Yeah. I mean, I think first and foremost,0.99
00:10:45.600It's that idea of understanding how we got here, right?
00:10:48.720So I think it's important to start to separate yourself from the systems and understand that
00:10:53.740you've kind of just been a puppet in some way.
00:10:56.900That feels empowering to me, again, because then I can go, oh, it's not me, right?
00:11:10.000I mean, this is the work I do so often with people around codependency recovery because
00:11:13.860we've been so trained to relate to one another. I don't care who we're talking about through this
00:11:20.600lens of again, martyrdom, codependency. You know, I don't exist without that external validations,
00:11:27.400whether that's through another person, whether that's through a relationship, whether that's
00:11:31.400through buying things. So once we can start to unpack some of that stuff, we can slowly start
00:11:36.760to back ourselves into who am I? Who is Vanessa? What are my dreams? What are my desires? What are
00:11:43.380my needs? And then we can very slowly start to chip away at how can I start to meet those needs
00:11:48.860myself without expecting others to do it for me, which again is a more empowering stance to come
00:11:54.060from. And then through that, I really, really believe, Joe, it's like our work, our generation,
00:11:59.880the ones that are doing this work, the way that we are impacting our children, the way that they
00:12:04.540are watching me as a mother. I mean, my daughter watching me do this work is part of the reason why
00:12:10.440I keep doing this work, right? Because I know that through watching me do this work, she is
00:12:15.440gaining the ability or like the inner knowing that she is deserving of that kind of life,
00:12:22.480a full life, a life that's not steeped in martyrdom, a life that doesn't steep,
00:12:25.960you know, doesn't revolve around shame. Right, right. And I never felt like I had a life that
00:12:32.300revolved around shame or guilt until I became a mother. Yes, same. Which, I mean, look, I know,
00:12:39.840And I know that it is something that is put on women generally from a very young age, but I didn't have that, which is why I think it has been so jarring and so shocking to me to feel less than in a role that I know rationally I'm real damn good at.
00:12:56.540Yes. Yes. But that I mean, same. I oftentimes people will come in to work with me and I'll have so many women who are like at that kind of threshold of exactly what you're saying of like having these aha moments around the shame and all of these things.
00:13:11.240And I'll say, listen, in the beginning of this work, it might actually be easier for you to do
00:13:17.280this work for your kids. Do this work knowing that it is impacting your children and the way
00:13:23.160that they will be able to move through the world. And then slowly but surely, you will start to gain
00:13:27.480the ability to say, oh, no, it's actually about me too. But I had that aha through motherhood,
00:13:33.900which is why I wrote this book, because my head started exploding with all of these like,0.96
00:13:38.300holy shit this system is so rigged against us and to your point I almost didn't really have0.74
00:13:44.780the awareness prior to becoming a mother no absolutely absolutely I truly didn't and I0.98
00:13:51.680think that most people did not as well let's take a quick break and when we get back I want
00:13:58.360to talk about the concept of ego death in early motherhood
00:14:02.540you matched on hinge you're vibing then her energy completely changes what do you do
00:14:13.520i'm raven smith and i wrote and read a real love story about this exact
00:14:18.020sitch listen to the free audiobook now
00:14:20.720okay we're back what does the ego death in early motherhood mean
00:14:29.880yeah so this is a Jungian or a depth psychology concept I mean that's that's my background my
00:14:36.300background is steeped in Carl Jung's work the work of archetypes the work of image and myth
00:14:41.720and dream and the unconscious and so ego death is really what we call this process by which we
00:14:48.540evolve into who we are becoming so this next phase of life so one could argue that biologically
00:14:56.220we grow up. You biologically become a mother, whether you're emotionally or spiritually ready
00:15:02.220to become a mother. Biologically, you become an adult. You become an elderly person. We keep
00:15:08.020growing. Unfortunately, if we are not actually honoring these transitions from a spiritual and
00:15:14.420an emotional space, we biologically evolve, but we don't emotionally and spiritually evolve,
00:15:19.520right? So an ego death is really that moment where we allow that disillusion, which can often be
00:15:25.060very jarring, the disillusion of who we were in order to then become who we are becoming.
00:15:33.740Motherhood for so many women is exactly that. It is a blowing up of who you used to be,
00:15:39.920of who you thought you were, of the world that you thought you knew. But sometimes it's not
00:15:44.400replaced with an integrated, evolved sense of self because we don't have a support system
00:15:49.820to kind of honor us, hold us, help us process, help us integrate and make sense of what just
00:15:55.820happened, right? And what continues to happen. And so ego death, again, is just kind of like
00:16:00.300this catch-all term for those moments when your ego completely explodes prior to becoming who
00:16:05.920you'll be. Right, right. And I do, I think I was very humbled when I became a mother, again,
00:16:13.700because I felt like a capable, grown-ass woman in the world.
00:16:18.320I'm like, I can do things, lots and lots of things.
00:18:30.700um i want people to understand exactly what we're talking about which is you're not broken you're
00:18:36.120not crazy you are experiencing very normal things within a very abnormal society structure societal
00:18:43.180structure um you know this idea of we're not meant to do this alone we're not meant to live in a
00:18:48.900family structure with one maybe two people we are meant to have that air quote village right around
00:18:54.000us um and so if you're feeling like you're losing your mind or you feel like you're failing at it
00:18:59.800yeah, that makes sense. It's completely normal. And this idea of we can't or we shouldn't ask for
00:19:05.880help, again, is a constructed idea to keep us isolated, to keep us overwhelmed, exhausted,0.99
00:19:13.760depleted, so that we can't look around and go, hey, this is bullshit. So push against that.0.95
00:19:20.160Push against that shame that's been constructed to make you feel isolated and say, no, screw that.
00:19:26.120I'm going to reach out. I'm going to tell people, can you come over for a little while so I can
00:19:30.860take a nap? Can you bring food tonight? I just cannot get up and make dinner for the family.
00:19:37.400Ask for help because I guarantee you the women in your life would also have loved or will love
00:19:42.660the opportunity to do the same thing. Truth. Truth. I mean, everyone wants to help. And I
00:19:47.260think the thing with help and even now, now that I'm out of postpartum, now that I've gotten
00:19:52.100an eight, six, and a two. I ask for such specific help, and I don't mind doing it anymore. I've had
00:19:59.320an ear infection for the past two days, which is the worst. I've forgotten how bad an ear infection
00:20:03.840is. And I just reached out to my friends, to my neighborhood, to the village. Hey, can you
00:20:09.820take these two to school? Can you pick this one up from Girl Scouts? And, you know, actually did
00:20:16.860not feel guilty or bad about it. And I was proud that I had reached that point of not feeling
00:20:22.580guilty or bad about asking for the help. Yeah. And you shouldn't feel guilty or bad. And you're
00:20:28.260right. People like helping. This is the thing. I mean, this was such an aha moment for me. I
00:20:33.440remember this moment even before I had a kid where I was, you know, I'm very typical type A,
00:20:39.000hyper-independent, eldest daughter. I can do it all myself. And I remember a moment where my
00:20:44.320therapist said to me, something about my mom, and I have a really hard time asking her for help.
00:20:48.660And he said, you do realize that even as an adult, that is still joy for her. She still gets to
00:20:55.040parent. She still gets to be of service. So inherently not asking for help. So whether
00:21:00.800that's your friends, your family, whoever, you're actually robbing them of a potential moment of
00:21:06.460joy. And I was like, ooh, that one hits because I don't want to do that to somebody. And he was
00:21:10.980like, right, you think about it in that way. And so to your point, it's like our friends want to
00:21:16.280be of service. So allow them the opportunity to step in and do that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And
00:21:23.100I think the specifics are really helpful, too, because just saying I need help. That's right.
00:21:27.860People like to be told what to do. Yeah. Yeah. So they want to be they want to be to your point.
00:21:33.220They want to be specifically helpful. That's very vague. And I think for any of us that I want to
00:21:38.000help, it's almost a bit overwhelming. Whereas if somebody says, can you bring us dinner tonight?
00:21:43.560It's like, okay, check. Got it. I can manage that, right? But I think that's the same thing
00:21:49.440in relationships when we're talking about asking for what you need. It can't be, I need to feel
00:21:55.660safe or I need to feel seen. I mean, you can feel that internally, but you need to start doing the
00:22:01.480work around what does that translate? How does that translate into specific behaviors or ways
00:22:06.880of being so that the person on the other side can then step in and try to help fill that.
00:22:13.220Right. Exactly. Exactly. You talk a little bit in the book about how mothers have lost their
00:22:19.580intuition. I'm fascinated by the idea of intuition. I totally believe in it. Talk to me a little bit
00:22:25.420about that. Yeah, it's interesting. I actually just led a group last week about the same
00:22:30.520conversation that seems like it's kind of a hot topic right now. Somebody was asking me,
00:22:34.760How do I know if it's my intuition or it's my anxiety, right?
00:22:37.920And I was saying how, again, partly society has essentially ensured that we are disconnected
00:22:45.240from that part of ourselves because if we were truly connected to our intuitive knowing,
00:22:50.880we would be able to look around and say, this doesn't work for me.
00:22:53.940And we would challenge the systems, right?
00:22:55.880So again, understanding that it's very specifically constructed this way, we might start to say,
00:23:00.700Okay. If intuition is a soft and gentle knowing, then anxiety feels rushed and constricted.
00:23:10.140And as if there's a story that goes along with it, like I should do this. And if I don't do this,
00:23:15.060and this will happen. And what if I do this? And what if I don't do this? That's anxiety.
00:23:19.280So it's about getting still in the moments that you can and checking in with what's happening
00:23:25.600in your body. How does that interaction register in your stomach, in your chest, in your throat,
00:23:31.800right? And starting to really understand the subtle nuances of what's happening in your system
00:23:36.520because those subtle nuances lead to those greater, deeper knowings, which have always
00:23:41.780been there. They've just been turned down so quiet for the sake of the external. The external
00:23:48.560noise is just so damn loud that it's essentially muted our internal knowing.
00:23:54.100Right, right. Because there's so much coming at us from other places, which I think is even different now than it was when I had my first baby because the social media noise is so much louder than it was.
00:24:11.080And I mean, it's it's insane. It's the it's the it's a sonic boom compared to what our mothers had. Right. Like we were never meant to parent with this much information coming at us all the time. We were never meant to do anything with this much information coming at us all the time.
00:24:30.120I mean, we shouldn't be cleaning our houses with this many house cleaning tips coming at us.
00:24:35.620Seriously. Well, also, even just like you and I doing this recording and we, you know, before we started recording, we said we're going to do this video off.
00:24:42.780Like, you're like, I don't do video. It's even that.
00:24:45.500It's like this constant needing to be and look and present a certain way, because if we don't, then we can't have a conversation.
00:24:53.700Like, I'm not allowed to check in with my friends without first sifting through 5,000
00:27:39.080Yeah, this kind of in the part where I'm discussing, like, how did we get here?
00:27:43.320In this chapter, I talk about how epigenetically, right?
00:27:47.520So epigenetic trauma, for those who don't know, it's this idea that traumatic incidents are actually encoded in our DNA and then they're passed down generationally.
00:27:56.260So we've done research around and shown, proven this, right, in the descendants of slaves, in the descendants of Holocaust survivors.
00:28:04.920And so as I was researching, I started looking into that kind of epigenetic trauma that's
00:28:10.460been passed down from the witch hunts.
00:28:12.860And what I started realizing as a therapist is I was almost embarrassed that I had never
00:28:17.400really considered that 300 plus, and by the way, still happening in parts of the world
00:28:23.380currently in 2025, almost 26, that that many hundreds of years of persecution and of being
00:28:30.920literally hunted and killed could not in some way still be imprinted in our DNA as women and not
00:28:37.540just European women. Again, it's happening and has happened all over the world. So the witch wound,
00:28:42.520as I call it, is really this wounding that's been passed down around don't be too loud, don't be too
00:28:47.800big, don't be too unique, don't take up too much space, right? Don't be too smart because all of
00:28:53.240those things were partly reasons that we would have been burned at the stake, right? We would
00:28:57.400have been snatched out of our homes and we would have been killed for it. So yes, it's societal,
00:29:03.160but also it's encoded in our DNA that those things are actually unsafe for us as women in the world.
00:29:10.380Then we talk about the sister wound, which is really like capitalism kind of on top of those
00:29:15.960witch trial days and still, which tells us that there's only so much pie to go around0.69
00:29:19.840and that other women are the enemy. They can't be trusted. So often women were pitted against women1.00
00:29:27.300during those times because the early days of capitalism and patriarchy really, they understood
00:29:33.460that women's connections to one another, women's connections to the village were actually dangerous0.97
00:29:39.100because they were so powerful. So there were ways in which women were turned against one another,0.98
00:29:43.580and that still haunts us to this day. We still judge other women. We still talk about each other0.99
00:29:50.540behind our backs. We're catty. It's the enemy, right? So that still exists. And then you have
00:29:56.720the mother wound, which is really all of this inner patriarchal, inner misogynistic wounding
00:30:03.360that's passed down generation to generation through women, through mothers to daughters,
00:30:07.480right? And so unfortunately, a lot of those things that are passed down, I think unknowing,
00:30:13.860unconsciously, are done because it's what keeps us, air quotes, safe. So the hatred of other women,
00:30:20.000like that is essentially known as a way to keep ourselves safe, but it does perpetuate
00:30:25.380the larger problems that we're talking about in this conversation. So when those three things
00:30:30.920combine, I've been calling them the Trinity wound because each of those are worthy of unpacking and
00:30:36.020understanding in order to, again, kind of move forward into this new way of being, of mothering,
00:30:41.100of relating to one another. Yeah. I mean, all of these wounds hit me. It's a lot of wounding,
00:30:50.040a lot of wounding. Okay. I mean, I'm just, I'm Carrie at the end in the prom scene right now
00:30:54.040is what I am. I'm covered in pig blood. But it is the sister wound that I think hits me the most0.90
00:30:58.780because women truly have been pitted against each other on the internet. Women are the worst1.00
00:31:03.980to each other. We're even seeing this now with the release of the Epstein files. We're seeing1.00
00:31:09.940people blame these young victims. It's witch trials all over again. Instead of castigating
00:31:19.220these men who, I mean, committed horrible acts. But yes, I've also been thinking
00:31:25.580a lot about what Megyn Kelly said. There's a big difference between a 15 year old and a five year
00:31:31.900old. And there's I mean, look, they're all children. But yeah, I want to focus that I want
00:31:36.400to shift it to the men for a second of which they don't have a lot of these wounds because
00:31:41.960as a society, especially in America, we have set a precedent that childhood goes until 18. And these
00:31:50.520men just decided to buck that societal norm. That was the choice they made. They chose to say,
00:31:56.300I don't care what we all collectively believe as a society. And yet, we're not talking about that.
00:32:03.600We're going after these young girls, these children, and even mothers of children are doing that.
00:36:07.520It's hard because, again, we're taught that after 40,
00:36:10.480And I'm and I'm guessing even if you can't consciously put your finger on it, I'm going to offer that because I know for me, this is what it was.
00:36:18.380When I start to started to actually experience tangibly the feeling of disappearing a little bit, like not being as visible in the world, people didn't look at me the same way.
00:36:31.480They didn't give me the same attention.
00:36:36.140So it wasn't me looking necessarily at my face in the mirror.
00:36:38.740It was when I started getting responded to differently out in the world that I started being like, oh, no, like I'm disappearing again, not consciously.
00:36:47.420Right. I need to fix that. And what do we need to do? We need to look younger.
00:36:51.760Right. Right. Which is not the case, actually.
00:36:55.160It truly is. You know, it was funny. I was just in Paris with my girlfriends and I totally got flirted with in my favorite bar, like not in a creepy way, just like I got noticed.
00:37:07.640actually I think it was more being noticed but I think it was because and I wasn't looking fancy
00:37:12.640I was not looking sexy trust me I was in my black turtleneck uh because I'm in my Joan Diddy and
00:37:17.860Nora Ephron era and but I was noticed I realized that I was noticed by men this far like they were
00:37:26.020they were just like really funnily trying to like give us their butter because our bread and butter
00:37:31.020hadn't come. Right. And it felt great. And I think I was noticed not because I put on some
00:37:37.600serum or something, but because I was confident and happy. That's right. That's right. You just
00:37:42.680nailed it. And that's, you know, and look, I don't I'm not shaming or blaming any of us for
00:37:47.360enjoying the feeling of being noticed by men. Right. Because this isn't always going to be like,
00:37:53.320well, it shouldn't be about how men see you. And the bottom line is, too, there's a matter of
00:37:58.140Eros that we're talking about. And Eros is really, it's life force. And sexuality and feeling sexual
00:38:07.080and feeling, you know, invigorated and feeling alive, like that's all a part of this. And so
00:38:14.140this is also the conversations I had that upset a lot of people when I talk about how normal it is
00:38:18.780to find other people attractive when you are in a monogamous relationship and for other people to
00:38:24.340find other people attractive when they're relating to you. It's part of what makes us an alive human
00:38:29.840being. It's an energy. No one is saying you have to or you will have done it. But it does give you
00:38:35.440a feeling of aliveness. And can that be OK? I think we shame that a lot, too, in our society.
00:38:42.440And I'm not ashamed of that. I feel the same way. When I get that feeling of a little hit of
00:38:47.700validation and when I realize, to your point, that it's actually about who I am and the energy I'm
00:38:53.140giving off not necessarily what I look like it gives me a shot it gives me a hit absolutely and
00:39:00.260I think that's fine I think it's great I mean I've been told that kind of like oh my god I'm like I
00:39:03.560got so much attention and I love it and not even just attention I like attention from everyone
00:39:08.440which is what I've realized in my old age like I love attention much like my middle child she is
00:39:14.180very much me. Fair enough. I mean, my daughter. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I'm totally, totally
00:39:23.800okay with that. So let's to close it out. Give me some of your best advice. I mean, like Mike,
00:39:33.140drop it for me, right? Like, how can we start just living motherhood instead of performing it?
00:39:41.600Yeah, I think when we start to realize that the more embodied in this solid, sovereign sense of self, capital S self, that we are, the more impact we have on the world, our children, and then beyond our children, it starts to shift the way you show up as a mother.
00:40:02.060So when I started thinking about how children learn by what they see, not by what they hear,
00:40:09.360right? So when I started thinking about how my daughter is learning how to be a woman
00:40:12.940by watching me be a woman, it shifted the way I showed up for myself. So when I think about
00:40:20.600my daughter's ability to live a full, passionate, sensual, erotic, excited life, I think, well,
00:40:28.760then I have to also live that kind of life.
00:40:32.480And so this idea of being a martyr, question that.
00:40:35.860Is that what we want for our children?
00:40:37.500Whether it's your daughter or let's say your son,