Lizzie Langston is a mom to three kids, wife to a bearded hunk, and an AZ native living in Denver. After struggling twice with postpartum anxiety and depression, and after trying antidepressants, therapy and postpartum support groups, Lizzie found healing through the cognitive-based tools of Life Coaching. In 2018 she became a Certified Life Coach and now offers remote, flexible coaching for moms in postpartum struggle. She’s absolutely passionate about helping moms stay afloat mentally and emotionally postpartum. You can follow her on Instagram @lizzielangston .
When I started my family, I had just completed my Bachelor’s degree and was happily married. I was ready to throw myself into motherhood and not look back.
So we had our first baby! 🙂 And I was right, I LOVED being a mom. ….But it was not 100% what I expected… (is it ever?)
About 8 months or so after having my first baby, I’d feel bouts of loneliness almost every day.
I loved my baby, enjoyed him immensely. I was so happy to be with him as a full-time stay-at-home mom, and yes, he was such a good, sweet baby! But I felt quite a bit of loneliness as a first-time mom, and that is something I hadn’t expected.
I felt like if I admitted this to myself it would mean I wasn’t a good mom, so instead of figuring out a solution to my loneliness in motherhood, I distracted myself with random new hobbies, baking a lot of cookies, and LOTS of Downton Abbey…
Eventually, partly to squish out the loneliness I was feeling as a full-time stay-at-home mamma, I said, “Let’s have baby #2!! I’m ready!”
I became a mamma of two. I was now busier and didn’t feel lonely as often with two…but the loneliness would still happen. And when it did, it was now more intense than ever.
I couldn’t make connections like I wanted to.
At play dates, was judging my own parenting.
I was self-conscious around other moms.
I’d return home from play dates maybe energized for a bit! And then, a couple hours later ( during naps), more loneliness.
Can you relate to any of this?
Well, I went on to have three kiddos in four years, and developed postpartum depression two times.
At one point, after baby #3, I didn’t feel like I was being safe around my kids anymore. My depression was at its worst. My husband put our house on the market, got me and the kids up to Denver, Colorado, and we moved into the basement of my in-laws’ home.
That was humiliating… but I was scared and needed the help with the kids, as my husband worked all day 9-5.
Eventually my in-laws could see that I needed to be away from my kids–my kids had become my main source of negative emotion. So they sent me back to Ariziona to be with my husband and focus full-time on healing.
Here I was 800 miles from my kids… But I couldn’t let the shame of the situation sink in.
I just had to figure out healing.
I’d tried the maximum dosage of antidepressants, as well as therapy with a postpartum specialist. And no change.
So I really had to get creative. I needed something to help me snap out of this…
I remember I turned on a life coaching podcast that I had heard was awesome. I was folding laundry, and I will never forget what the life coach said next, because it changed my life.
She said, “Circumstances are neutral….”
She told me that circumstances, including our kids and husband…all the things in our life we can’t control or change, do not and cannot create feelings within us.
That’s what our brain does, through its thoughts that it thinks about each circumstance of our lives.
I had my way out of depression!
If I could just think differently about my kids, I could feel differently around them.
Mindset shifting. Thought discovery.
I hired a life coach who taught this model, and gave it a shot.
It changed everything.
If there is one gift I can give you, it is to truly believe that the circumstances of your motherhood, right now, are neutral.
Of course, because of the way our brain processes things, the circumstances of our lives don’t feel neutral to us.
They feel hard, or heavy, or sad, or unfair.
But we have to remember as moms: there is a space between each stimulus, and each response.
Deliberately creating the experience we have of the circumstances of our lives.
Here are the steps to feeling better RIGHT NOW about ANY circumstance you have going on in your life, so you can feel more aligned and live more deliberately starting now: (these are property of The Life Coach School, I have permission to share them with you because I am a Certified Life Coach via The Life Coach School):
Determine the circumstance that you have feelings about (e.g. “My husband said these words, “….” / or, “My child did this ___ at the grocery store) But remember, no emotion or opinion is allowed as a circumstance. Just the facts.
Ask yourself: What do I think about this? What is the thought I have about this circumstance? Just pick ONE thought.
Determine the feeling that your thought creates within you. When you think that thought about the circumstance, how does it make you feel?
Explore the actions you take when you feel that way. (This includes things you do, OR things you avoid doing)
Consider: what is the RESULT that you get from that thought, that feeling, and those actions? What’s that chain of events creating in your life?
Here’s the model I’ve walked you through, nice and clean. You can run it and fill in your own answers, any time you’re feeling stuck:
Circumstance
Thought
Feeling
Action
Result
That day listening to the podcast, I learned that blaming someone else or something else outside of me feels good, because it is not taking full responsibility. It’s easier.
I was blaming my kids for my feelings.
And for as long as I was doing that, the only solution to feeling better, was to get away from my kids–I’d tried everything else.
When I OWNed all the emotional results I was creating in my motherhood, I had a way out.
When we walk through the steps of this model and see what thoughts we are creating for ourselves, we really feel like we can create the life we want to!
This is what I want for all of us: more power to be who we truly want to be. To show up in our lives in a way that feels more aligned with who we want to be, who we really are on the inside.
So we can have deeper, more meaningful relationships as Besties, and be a Bestie to ourselves and our kids!
Here’s to all of us as moms being the best we can be,
-Lizzie
P.S. If you’d like some help with this concept, I invite you to listen to my podcast, The Postpartum Coach Podcast, or just join me on Instagram @lizzielangston .
So grateful to be a part of this community of Besties.
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Danielle is the owner of Today's the Best Day. She strives to provide creative and uplifting content in order to enrich the parenting experience for women everywhere. Danielle hopes to help you and your family to make every day the best day! 
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