You don’t have to be everything all at once.

There's just a lot of pressure to be good at being a mom, to be present, to be an engaged spouse, to be an ambitious professional, to be a hot. hottie, to be a great friend, to be a great sister or daughter, or you name it. The pressure is there to be amazing at all things all at once. And so that's what I want to talk to you about. Whether you're a mom with itty bitty kids, or you're in my stage of life where all my kids are in school now, or maybe your kids are grown and you're just here because you are a very kind grandmother who likes to watch my content. Cause I know you're here too. I want to talk about that pressure we feel to be everything all at once and why I think it's a crock of bull and that you don't have to be everything all at once. So when you finish this video, you're going to feel a little lighter. You're also going to feel a little more brave to go and be more of yourself in the places that make sense. And yeah, I just want us to have a good time. So that's what we're going to do. If you're new, great to meet you. My name is Jess Hover. It's so good to have you here. I am a mom of three. My kids are six, seven, and 11 years old. I lead a community of moms called Very Good Mothers Club, and we meet every single Tuesday via Zoom for coaching and community and camaraderie. And we would love to see you there, all the Cs. We would love to see you there is what I'm saying. I will include the link below. If you need some more support in motherhood, we have you. We're ready for you. Okay. Also work a bunch of other jobs. I have a very tall husband that I've been married to for 17 years. I have lots of relationships that I care about. Life is full. Life is full. And the reason why I add that in is because your life is full too. And I know that when we're talking about being amazing at everything All at once. Everything is a lot of stuff. And so where do we even begin? But I did something this week and I need to tell you about it. So this week I did a Spanish class. I signed up for Spanish recently. I took an acting class, my first one, and I auditioned for a play. And I was so sweaty. I was so nervous. You guys, I tell you that I get nervous when I film these videos and I get sweat under here and I'm so thankful you're not here. Gosh, did I get sweaty doing all of these other things that are brave and scary? Here's the thing. My kids are all in school now. My youngest started kindergarten a couple months ago and I'm feeling this sense that like now's the time I can explore some parts of myself that have been a bit quiet over the last few years. They haven't gotten as much attention over the last few years. Because I've been a mom of young kids, because I've been working jobs, because I had cancer, because lots of reasons why I haven't been able to do these things that I really care about. And this week I decided to do it. And I'm so thankful that I did. And I'll talk about that more later, but I was thinking about how there's this pressure for us to be everything all at once, like I specifically remember it when my babies were babies. And a feeling of if I don't use the skills that I have, or if I don't use the curiosities that I have, or even just like the identities that I had built prior to having a kid, if I don't use them, I'll lose them. And so I wanted to be good at so many things. And I was feeling this sense of like, I can't do it because having a baby is all consuming, which we all know. And it was really stressing me out. And I had this fear that like later in life, my kids would be slightly bigger. Basically, I would, my fear was that I would arrive to this stage that I am right now. And I would be this age and it would be too late. I would be behind. I would have missed opportunities or I would be, yeah, I would just be behind in whatever you pick the category. I thought if I didn't try to stay on top of everything, I would fall behind. I remember I was a part of this church for a while and there was a woman, she was the pastor's wife. And she, I think they had like six kids and she was an actress and she was a model. And I remember like they just kept listing her things that she did. And the list was so long. And I mean, six kids, think of how many kids, six kids is that is like 1000 children. And She would volunteer a lot for events. I was just so confused. I'm like, how in the world is this woman doing all of these things? So I ended up asking her for coffee. I was young. Eloise was born when I was 26 years old. And so I remember I had like little tiny Eloise and I go meet this woman for coffee. And I was like, I just need to know, how do you do everything? And she looked at me so confused, like, what are you talking about? And I was like, well, you know, because you're an actress and you're a model and you're a pastor's wife and, and you're a wife, just like just a wife. But to be a pastor's wife meant she had responsibility to this group of people and she was volunteering at all of these things. And she was like, yeah, I am so many things, but I'm not all of those things all at once. She was like, when my kids were younger, like your baby is. I wasn't acting or modeling that happened later and I wasn't volunteering and I wasn't doing all these things. And it sounds so obvious, but she said it in such a cool way. She said the entire time I have been all of these things, all of these things I care about. I guess she cared about writing as well. She had like these other passions that she identified herself as. And she said, I am all of these things all the time, but I don't do all of these things all the time. And now I think they got divorced. So she has one less thing on her list of things to do, but, um, the marriage, I mean, that's off the list, but I love that concept. And it really spoke to me of like, I am allowed to be a multifaceted person with a whole bunch of different passions and identities, but I don't need to put the pressure on myself to do it all, all at once. But then also now that I'm in a stage of life where I have a little bit more bandwidth and a little bit more curiosity, like I can feel my own self being like, but what if I did get conversational in Spanish? Or what if I did take an acting class and feel comfortable, you know, doing these other opportunities, there's like a natural flow of energy there. It's not coming from a place of, I need to do this because if I don't do this, I'm going to something bad, like that, that's not the energy I'm moving from. But that takes courage. Okay, we're going to talk about that because I basically want to move through stages of motherhood because I wonder where you are. You can let me know in the comments. Where are you? Do you have little babies and toddlers? Do you have elementary school kids? Are your kids older than mine? Please tell me so I know who I'm talking to. But I was thinking about those of you who have arrived to early motherhood. You have toddlers and babies. If you have toddlers and babies, even if your youngest is a toddler, so you're almost out of this stage. I would like to give you some perspective that I've gained over the years, not only from being a mom of little kids, but also to meeting with moms, right? I was a doula. I had a shop here in LA where we hosted moms multiple times a week with their babies and their toddlers. Like I've really got a lot of experience being around moms of little ones. And there is one thing that stands out to me that I wish I knew when Eloise was born, when my oldest was born. And it is that there is, there is wisdom in soaking up this identity as mom. And what I mean is like, when you arrive to motherhood, some of you love it. Some of you have like, this is your dream fulfilled. You've got the shirt that says mom, you've got the mug that says mama, you're in all the mom groups. You are just so excited. Like over the moon, I am mother. Hear me roar. But for a lot of us, We resist it. We're like, yeah, yeah, I'm excited about my babies, but also I'm like a really cool girl who has a lot of passions and I do other things and I work and I do all this stuff and I'm just like mom on the side. I mean, I was full-time mom. It's all consuming and I love my daughter, but you get what I'm saying. We kind of treat the identity as like a thing that we set over here because God forbid you guys look at me and think I'm just a mom. I see. mothers who really dive into early motherhood. And what I mean by that is they're okay to be known by it. They're probably in a mom group of some kind, whether it is a local group of mom friends, or they naturally all of their friends had babies at the same time, or they join an online community of moms. You're more than welcome to join us, but the moms who will allow themselves To really connect with the mother part of their identity. Those women do better than those of us who resist really hard and are trying to be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I can do this. I can do this. I'm a mom, but also I'm so many things. I'm starting to speak now. I am so thankful for the way that this YouTube channel allowed me to fully be mom. for my second and third baby. Like I was, I was very much mom for Eloise, but I mean, like when people meet me, they're like, Oh, you're the mom, right? Yeah. You're the, Oh, I know her. Yeah. She's a mom. And I want to tell you, there's a part of me that cringes inside because I forever wanted to be the type of mom that you're surprised when you find out she's a mom. You're like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe you have kids. I had no idea. No, no, guys, I am mom. Like people know that that's who I am. And I have to tell you that that actually made my life so much easier. I connected with mom friends. I had an outlet for the struggles of early motherhood. I had purpose. Like when I would go through something with my kids, I mean, even now this happens when I'm going through a hard thing with my children, the way my mind automatically starts to reframe it is. What can I learn through this that me and my friends here on YouTube and in my online community that we can like process together and benefit from what, what lesson am I learning? Like when a crazy thing happens, when I yell at my children and then I feel so dumb and I'm like, I know better. Why would I do that? And then I go apologize to my kids and we repair and it all works out. I am immediately thinking of my mom friends who I'm going to hang out with on the next Tuesday call and I'm going to tell them this story and then they're going to encourage me and I'm going to encourage them and we're all going to learn from this situation. If I didn't have them, I promise you I would be a worse mom, but I also promise that I would feel worse about myself because I would still be resisting my actual life and like comparing it to the life I think I should have had, whatever that means. We do that all the time, whether we're comparing it to a previous life we had. Or this ideal thing that doesn't exist, but still has the ability to make us feel crappy and usually is influenced by people we follow online who seem to have everything perfect and we feel like we don't. Does that make sense? If you're a mom of young kids and you haven't already found a community of other moms who see you and get you and can connect with you in that way. I really recommend it. And what I'm not saying is that every new mom needs to become a stay-at-home mom who has no life outside of motherhood. I think for some of you, I mean, some of you are my friends. I know you personally, you got to go back to work. That is like the best thing for your mind. You and I both, like I was the type of person who needed an outlet outside of motherhood in order to be a better mother. So I'm not saying every version of early motherhood needs to look exactly the same. But I do just want to encourage you not to resist. This all consuming stage, because the stage that you're in of raising babies and toddlers, it is quite literally all consuming. Like you're not crazy for feeling like, Oh my gosh, my days and my nights, they all bleed together. And I'm constantly thinking about my child. And I'm always being asked for a snack where I'm always needing to, to feed this baby or rock this baby or my, my partner, my spouse, my baby daddy, whoever is always looking at me as if I have the answer, even when I've given them the job to do, they still look back at me. Like I'm the one who has to get them through it. You're in an all consuming stage, like truly, truly. That's why mom friends are valuable because then you can get with your group of mom friends and be like, I'm going through this thing and they can all nod and go, yeah, yeah, same. Thanks for being open about that. How are we going to get through this? How are we going to thrive to the best of our ability right now? Okay. I want to add this little piece. Someone told me about a video, I haven't even seen it, so I don't even know exactly what I'm talking about, but it was something like, um, basically being like, why do you ask moms, have you lost yourself in early motherhood? Like, why would you ask them that they're supposed to lose themselves in early motherhood? Like this is a season of life where you throw yourself in. And I don't understand exactly. I think the, the, Point is, it was a little condescending in its tone, and the reason why I was the one being told about it is because I work with moms who feel lost inside of early motherhood. In fact, if you're a mom who feels lost inside of this stage of your life, I would absolutely love to help you because you don't need to feel like this. Early motherhood is very hard, but you don't need I need to be suffering inside of it. There's a difference. There's, you know, like. People who run a marathon, they're doing a hard thing, but if they're well-supported and well-hydrated and they've trained and they've stretched, the hard thing is doable, right? Early parenthood. is very much the same thing. There is a world where you can be living that and feel like you're drowning. You can feel very lost, very overwhelmed, very much out of touch with yourself. This could be financial stress. This could be marital stress. This could be postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety. Those are all very real things that you might experience. I definitely experienced them. You know about this if you've been around a while. And so on the one hand, when someone says, have you lost yourself in early motherhood? What we mean is like, are you okay? Are you, do you feel like you're surviving this? Are you all right? Like, how's your mind? How's your heart? How's your, how's the inner world going on? Because I know people expect you to say, you love it here. Oh, I love it here. Oh my gosh. My babies are so cute. I just, I can't imagine any other life outside of this one. And we know that that's probably true. And also there is a world where there could be. An additional truth happening alongside that one where you don't recognize yourself, where you feel out of touch, where life doesn't feel colorful anymore, where you're exhausted and you don't know when you'll sleep again, where it feels like you and your spouse are kind of misaligned and you're not connecting. I'm encouraging you to dive into early motherhood, right? And own the identity and join the mom groups and all of that. But you won't have the capacity to enjoy that stuff if something's actually wrong. Like if you really need support. And so I want to encourage you at the same time to get support. There is no shame in it. You're allowed to feel lost inside of early parenthood. And the analogy I use sometimes in our coaching is like, if you were drowning in a very, very beautiful sea, right? When I lived in Barcelona, Eloise was a little girl. I mean, like a little toddler We lived there and there was this really beautiful sea, like 10 minute walk from our house. It was so gorgeous. And I imagine what if you were drowning in that sea? So you're just flailing, flailing, flailing. And I'm standing on the shore and I'm like, isn't it beautiful? Oh my gosh. Isn't it so gorgeous? Look at the sky. Look at the way the water glitters. Oh my gosh. Can you even believe? Wow. Isn't this gorgeous? And you're fighting for your life. You are absolutely not taking in the view. That is absurd. That would be insane for anyone to think a person drowning in a beautiful place has the capacity to see the beautiful place they're in, right? But I feel like we do that to moms a lot where a mom has just arrived to motherhood. She's not sleeping. She doesn't recognize her body. Maybe she's breastfeeding. Maybe she had a C-section. Maybe she's, you know, recovering from some sort of physical trauma. She is just... Surviving. She's barely surviving. And we're like, isn't it beautiful having this baby? Isn't that incredible? Isn't it gorgeous? Soak it up. It goes too fast. Soak it up. Soak it up. For me, as Jessica, the one who coaches moms and is friends with moms and was raised by lesbian moms and is surrounded by women who have children. I am so passionate about helping these women like have a life raft so that they can just at least get above water and then start to enjoy motherhood. And it will remain hard. Like I said, it's a hard role to have, but it becomes very beautiful and very fulfilling and life-giving and exciting. And especially as your kids get older, for me, that was just so fun. I want you to dive into early motherhood. I want you to own it. I wear the shirts, join the groups, do everything. But if you are drowning. Even if you join a group, that alone might not be enough. And so I just want you to be able to be honest with yourself. How are you doing right now? How are you feeling? Do you feel like you're drowning right now? Is it hard to see the beauty of your own life? Then this is the perfect moment to seek out support, whether it's a doctor or a psychiatrist or a therapist or a coach, that you don't have to be drowning by yourself. And if you're not drowning and you're just trying to figure out how to enjoy your life a little more. I encourage you to accept this life as it is. Stop resisting this life and trying to make it something it's not. Be in the season that you are actually in because it's a temporary one. You're not going to stay here forever. You're going to sleep more. You're going to have so much more joy. You're going to travel. There's going to be so many good things coming for you, but the best thing you can do to get ready for then is to enjoy now in the... fullest way that you can possibly do it. I was just in a call last week with a group of moms from different parts of the world. And they were talking about things they're doing to connect back to themselves while they're raising their kids. And their answers were so simple guys. It was things like going for walks with my husband, drawing trees in the evening. After I put my kids to bed, one of the moms loves to draw trees. Someone was knitting. Someone's taking a Spanish class. Actually, she's the one who helped me do it and taking a piano class. They were just simple Easy, small things to connect us back to ourselves. My recommendation is pick the path of least resistance. Don't choose the hardest thing right now. For me, after having Wilson and Jules, making videos here for this channel was really life-giving. For me, this was a creative outlet and it was a way to add meaning to the stage of life I'm in. If making videos does that for you, do that. If social media does that for you, do that. But also if social media is messing with your head and it's putting more pressure on you, already feel, get off it. It is not worth it. You are doing so good. I know that I regularly resort to nature analogies, but I'm going to do it again. So here we are. You're not a machine. You are not an iPhone that updates overnight and suddenly has all these new features. You are growing slowly and steadily. And in some season, you're going to bear fruit. And in some seasons, you're going to have flowers that bloom and are so beautiful. And some seasons, you're going to be wilty and crispy. And some seasons, you might not produce anything. It's going to look like you're bare. And that is totally fine because you are nature in that stage, old things are falling off of you and preparing for the new things that are going to come in your life. And it's very tricky because we live in a time where comparison is so prevalent. It's again, the social media reference, but you can start to see everybody else's highlights, right. And feel like, oh my gosh, I'm not doing this. I didn't start a business. I, I don't know. I'm not, I didn't lose a bunch I don't know what everyone's wins are right now, but like... I'm not doing the amazing sexy thing that that person over there is doing. I haven't even been to Greece yet, you know, we need to realize that where we are right now is okay. And if we want to change and we want to grow, we can, but we're going to be most productive if we do it from a place of accepting our life as it is, loving who we are as we are, and then doing the slow, steady, hard work to make the changes that we want to see happen. And I just want to remind you that nothing you're doing right now is wasted. Even if the season of life that you're in right now feels like you're falling behind, like feels like you just do and do and do and then you go to sleep and then you wake up and you do it all again and you can't really see the fruit of your actions because it all feels mundane and like the same. It's not going to be wasted. It's all on purpose. It's all for something. The love that you're giving to your children matters. The love that you're giving to the other people in your life matters. The way you're taking care of your body, your mind, the way you're operating at work, if you're going to work, like even the skills that you think. Don't matter at all, right? Like I've told you this story before if you've been around, but when I worked at Fashion Week in New York City, I remember there was this one woman who was just so exceptional and she was always the one pulled backstage for big shows. Like, you know, Victoria's Secret models were going to be in the show, so they would pull this woman from the production team to go over there and help get the models ready for the show. And I asked her, how did you become the person that they call over there? Like, it seems like you have such favor from all of these people. And she said, yeah, I actually got really good at this by having kids and having to chase down toddlers to put their pants on and chase down little kids to put their shoes on and tie laces really quickly before school. When you have kids, it teaches you how to do a lot under pressure. And so now my kids are grown, but I'm here backstage using the very same skills on these super bottles that I did on those children. And that was so eyeopening for me because I had a view at that stage of life that motherhood, especially early momhood was like. pausing life. Like you're going to pause everything else to be here and do this. And then you're going to have to get back in the world. And hopefully people will like you enough to give you a door to walk through. Right. But this woman helped me see that nothing is wasted. None of these little things that you're doing are going to be wasted down the road. It's all for something. And so if we can be in the moment and make the most of them, then we have joy now and joy later. But sometimes we stress out now because of what might come later. And what comes later is going to be fine, but it's coming later. We're here now. We need to enjoy right now. A question I want you to ask yourself is not how can I thrive in every area of my life all at once, but how can I realistically connect with myself today? Like the inner me, the me that was here before I had these kids and the me that will be waving them off to college or marriage or whatever one day, like when they leave this house, I will still be here with me. And how can I connect with that person now? And it doesn't have to be anything major. It could be putting down our phone and just sitting in peace for a few minutes. It could be drawing. It could be reaching out to someone we love. It could be having, I don't know, great sex. It could be eating something delicious. It could be anything at all. To be honest, you'd have a dance party alone to Missy Elliott right now. You turn me off and just dance like crazy. What would make you feel connected to you briefly, realistically today? Because if you can do that, that's a win. The main thing I want to tell you as your kids get older and as your schedule really does allow for more time for you to do things that you're curious about or want to pursue, or maybe a skill that you want to practice that you haven't used in a long time. I really want to encourage you to be brave, and I'm saying that because it's something I needed to remember this week, specifically when I auditioned for this play. I wasn't planning to audition, but my daughter was auditioning, and they needed a woman to audition for this one role, and I said I would audition before realizing that it was going to be held in a room. Full of all of the other people who would be auditioning for this play. And it was a very big room and it was a lot of people who were going to be in there. And there were a lot of kids auditioning, but all of their parents were there with them waiting. And I was so freaked out. I was so nervous. I wanted to quit. I sure did. But I didn't because two things. One, I thought if I do this, I'm going to be so proud of myself that even if I don't I don't get this role. I'm going to feel like I did get it because I overcame this fear that I had. And then the other piece was I knew that my audition would go first and my daughters would be second. And if I quit, then she might quit if she felt nervous too. But if I went, then even if she was nervous, she would go. And do you know what happened? My son ended up auditioning too after he saw that I went and Eloise went. So, I don't know, maybe the courage was a little bit contagious there, but I just want you to know that the things you are curious about, the things you're interested in, the talents you want to pursue, or even just the skills you want to learn, whatever it is, it's going to require courage for you to think it's worth it, for you to step out and be a beginner for even, maybe you're not a beginner, but you're going to feel like a beginner if you haven't done it in a long time. And it feels scary to be in front of other people and potentially fail. But it's worse to not try. Truly, truly, it's worse to not try. And so I just really want to leave you with. Courage, whether you have young kids and I'm asking you to have courage to be in this stage of life, to surrender some of the parts of you that you can't pursue right now and really know that just because you're not doing them right now, they're still a part of who you are. You are still all of these different identities that you carry, even if the main identity that you're operating in right now is mother. Okay. And then as your kids get older and you're stepping out into these different opportunities and you're having to do these scary things, I want you to have courage to do them, to try. And if it's not for you, for your own children to see your example and be like, oh my gosh, my mom's so cool. She, she tried this thing that she was so scared of. If she can do it, I can definitely do that. And it's going to be a contagious energy in your house. Okay. I think that's all. You don't have to be everything all at once. You are all of the things, but you're going to be them in the right time. We will be much more fulfilled if we'll accept the actual season of life that we're in instead of resisting it and wishing for something different. What is that quote that's like, oh, the serenity prayer, Lord, give me the, what is the serenity prayer again? Something like, give me courage. To know, give me, give me something like give me the courage to accept life, accept the things I can't change, change the things I can and the courage to know the difference. Gosh, isn't she inspiring? She should have a YouTube channel. I don't know. Oh, you guys are the best. If you need any support, I will put links below so you can find me. If you want to reach out for one-on-one coaching, my email will be there. Otherwise, you can join us in Very Good Mothers Club. Otherwise, just join us here and let me know that you're here. I would love to get a comment from you telling me about who you are and why you're here and what keeps you at my channel, keeps you at my channel, keeps you, what keeps you coming back? What do you want to talk about here? Because I would love to know who my audience is so I can make videos that support your actual life. Okay. Thank you so much. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.