The Becoming Podcast | Season 3; Episode 6 | Graeme Seabrook on the cultural influences on motherhood, centring your needs, and letting the good things in your life radicalize you

I am so jazzed to share this episode of The Becoming Podcast with you today.  Graeme Seabrook and I have the most vivacious and far-reaching conversation about motherhood, and I know you will enjoy it. Let me tell you about Graeme:  she is a maternal mental health expert, advocate, and community leader who helps moms and reconnect with and embrace their humanity. As a certified life coach and founder of The Mom Center, an online community exclusively for moms, she’s coached over 3,000 moms on how to place their names at the top of their priority list, without guilt or shame. I first learned of Graeme and her work when I listened to her amazing interview on our mutual friend Mara Glatzel's podcast.  Graeme totally blew my mind on that podcast when she talked about the concept of what I've come to call "reclaiming the matriarchy," which essentially says that if mothers are going to do all the emotional and physical and spiritual labour for their families that they do, their needs should be centred in their families.  I've since written about that concept in my own way here. In this conversation with Graeme, we explore that theme more deeply, and she shares with me how that philosophy has evolved over the past couple of years.  We talk about the societal and cultural influences on motherhood, and she reminds all mamas that you're not broken, motherhood is.  Graeme totally debunks the idea of "putting your oxygen mask on first," which basically stopped me completely in my tracks during our interview.  We talk about what empowered motherhood looks like, the power to be found in surrender, and finally, Graeme shares how we can better understand and support BIPOC mothers.  She shares the best piece of guiding advice for this, reminding us that we, as a collective of mothers, are only as healthy and well as those of us who are most marginalized.