#13 When Motherhood Triggers Chronic Illness

In this episode of The Rebellious Healer, Jenny Peterson reveals the deeper connection between motherhood and chronic symptoms — and why so many women get sick after becoming moms.

You’ll learn:

• Why chronic symptoms often begin after motherhood (and why that’s not a coincidence)
• The hidden subconscious patterns you inherited that bleed into being a mom
• How to finally hear what your body is trying to say

If you’ve been trying to be everything for everyone and feel like your body is paying the price, this episode is your invitation to shift.

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Ready to resolve your chronic symptoms and get your life back?

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Thanks for listening!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

So you became a mom, and suddenly your body started breaking down. The fatigue, the anxiety, the palpitations, the mystery symptoms that no doctor can explain. They didn't come out of nowhere, and they're not just postpartum hormones or getting older. They're messages. Today we're going to talk about the hidden link between motherhood and chronic symptoms that almost no one is talking about, and why your body might be screaming because you've refused to let go of who you used to be. Welcome to the Rebellious Healer, where we ditch the fear, decode the symptoms, and take healing into our own hands. I'm Jenny Peterson, a former holistic practitioner, turn symptom-free mind-body rebel. I help women break free from protocols and step into trust, confidence, and full body healing. If you're done with the rules, restrictions, and outsourcing your power, you're in the right place. Here's what we're diving into today: why so many women develop chronic symptoms after becoming a mother, the subconscious patterns keeping you stuck, and what your body is really trying to say and how to finally listen. Let's get into it. Have you ever stopped to notice when your symptoms actually started? Working with our clients, I see time and time again that they trace back to one major life shift, becoming a mother. Not always right after birth. Sometimes it's when the baby becomes a toddler, sometimes it's when she returns to work, sometimes it's after the second or third child. But the pattern is almost always there. She becomes a mother. Then her body starts to break down. Fatigue, anxiety, digestive issues, skin flare-ups, pain, hormonal imbalances, food sensitivities. And the deeper truth, these symptoms aren't random. They're not a freak accident or something she caught. They are messages. And here is the hard truth. And I say this not to shame, but also to be a wake-up call. Most women become mothers and keep trying to be the woman they were before motherhood. You still try to be productive, 24-7. You feel guilty for resting. You don't ask for help. Carry the mental load of everyone in the house. You say yes when you want to scream no. You push through your needs and override your body. You're holding on so tightly to the identity of being capable and strong and independent that you're bypassing who you are now. And your body can feel it. That misalignment, that's what creates chronic symptoms. The more you override your body, the louder it gets. Because the symptom isn't the problem. The disconnection is. And I know this from personal experience. After I had my son, I was completely overwhelmed. I was still running my wellness center, trying to manage being home with him and juggling all the things. Even when I sold my wellness center, I couldn't just be. I felt like I had to have some bigger purpose outside of just being a mom. I kept trying to keep up with the old version of me, the one who could run at full capacity, achieve, lead, go, go, go. But I wasn't her anymore. And instead of grieving that shift, I resisted it. And eventually my body said, enough. My panic attacks were the message. I had to grieve the old life on some level and fully step into this new version of me, the one who needed rest, who couldn't do it all, who had a different role now. I also had to learn how to set boundaries with myself, lower my expectations, say no, and delegate. I caused a majority of my stress by having these high expectations that I was putting on myself. At the time, I was all about being organic, you know, had to be completely preservative, toxin-free, you know, the whole holistic thing. And I was spending a lot of time making homemade food and creating more stress for myself. When in the big picture, those things I could have easily delegated, meaning go to the store and buy them because of the amount of other things that were on my plate. And I chose not to do those things because of my values at that time and the expectations that I had to meet in order to be this organic mom. I was making my own almond milk for my son, in addition to running to a farm to go get goat's milk. I was making homemade food all the time and still having to run a business. And despite even all of this organic stuff that I was doing and all this holistic practice around staying away from the chemicals and stuff, not saying that that's a bad thing, but I'm just saying you can go overboard with it. And I was overboard with it. And it just created more stress for myself. And in the long run, my son was sick all the time. And it wasn't due to his food. It was due to his mother being stressed out and trying to do all the things. So being stressed out while I was making the organic food was actually not serving my son. And it wasn't serving me. But that was the expectation I put on myself. That was what I said I needed to be in order to be this good mom. And also the owner of a health and wellness center. I had to do this. I had to fit the part, right? So I was the one creating all this stress based on the expectations and not being able to set boundaries with myself. And I, on a lot of levels, refused to step into the role of just being the mom. I had to do more than just be a mom. And I'm not saying just being a mom in a way saying that it's not enough because I'm old enough to know that just being a mom is a full-time job. But back then I was like, I need to be more. I was trying to prove myself, keep up with that independent, capable woman that I was before. I had to keep up with that. So on that night when I had my first panic attack, it spiraled and everything went downhill from there. And it forced me to stop forcing. It stopped me from having to do it all because I couldn't do it all anymore. Physically, I could not. Before that, I physically just pushed myself. And this was enough. My bucket was overflowing and my body was saying enough is enough. And it took that wake-up call for me to say, something here's got to change. And I knew deep inside, Jenny, this is all because you are doing way too much. And, you know, despite knowing that intuitively, I still looked outside of me for solutions, whether it was changing of diet, supplements, and everything else that we go through in that holistic journey. I knew deep inside that I needed to work on these patterns of overdoing it all the time, feeling my plate too full. I knew that that was where the answer was. But I had to work on also what was causing me to do that, where these patterns came from for me to not want to slow down. So that's where we need to take this deeper. Where do these patterns come from? And they don't start just from us. You didn't, you don't wake up one day and decide to suppress your needs and fear asking for help. We are conditioned to do it. Think about it. What did you witness growing up? Maybe you had a mom who did everything, who never rested, who never asked for help, who looked put together on the outside but was crumbling on the inside. Or you heard things like, moms don't get sick. You rest when the work is done. Don't be lazy. If you want it done right, do it yourself. And society backs this all up too. You can look at the Instagram moms, the Pinterest crafts, the endless pressure to make organic lunches, keep the house spotless, volunteer at school, run a side business, and still show up smiling and sexy at night. This is the legacy we've inherited, a legacy of self-abandonment. And when you become a mother, it activates these subconscious patterns. You start playing out what you saw, not what you need. Take some time to go back into your past files and just observe from now an outside view of your mom or any other women that were in your life and what you learned from watching them. Or if your mom didn't do any of those things, but you had to take the responsibility of taking care of everybody in the house. Maybe you were the oldest. For me, my mom was a single mom. So she was gone a lot, and I was left to, you know, me and my brother taking care of each other. And it was always, and she gave us a list of the things we needed to do by the time she got home. Not saying that that didn't build responsibility for us because there's definitely some positives with that. But there was always this need to always be busy, to never really just relax. That was wired in me to not relax. We got to get this stuff done. You know, mom's gonna be home and she's gonna want all this to-do list done. And at the same time, getting that to-do list done and having mom say, Wow, you did a great job praising us for doing it or telling us how amazing uh of a job that we did, there was praise with that as well. All of this is wired into us for how we choose to behave and act as we become adults. And so when we become moms, these old patterns come out. I always say if you have work to do on yourself, having children is gonna bring that out because it's gonna bring back your past stuff from when you were a child because you're trying to mother or parent differently than what you were raised with. And also what you saw from your parents is now being passed on to your children. And they're gonna be mirrors of that. So it's not surprising that when we become moms, this all starts to come out. And our bodies are trying to tell us and give us these messages. We work with so many women that this is their story, is that they come to us and have a long list of symptoms. And it'll oftentimes be that these started uh after having a child, and they're extremely overwhelmed. Overwhelm is probably the most commonly used word that women describe to me when they come to me. Not only do they feel overwhelmed with their symptoms and how to address them, but they're overwhelmed in their life. And that is an indicator, it's a red flag telling me there are patterns that are driving this overwhelm. Overwhelm is just the feeling. The feeling is a byproduct of something else underneath that. What is driving us that is making us feel overwhelmed? And it's these patterns of perfectionism, it's the fear of asking for help, the guilt for resting. And I remember one of our clients, Felisa, she came to us with a combination of a lot of symptoms, but the main ones that I remember are palpitations, anxiety, and digestive stuff. And on the surface, she was doing everything right. She had the picture perfect house. She had, you know, the meals for her kids, able to volunteer, you know, doing everything on the outside perfectly. But underneath, she was barely hanging on. Her days were packed with long to-do lists that never seemed to get done. And she would spiral if her house wasn't spotless. Because to her, that meant she was failing as a mom and a wife. Clean house equaled love, productivity equaled worth. Again, these were things that she learned as a child that having this clean house meant that someone is going to love you, someone is going to tell you that you're worthy and valuable because you're able to do this. But her body was saying otherwise. Her palpitations weren't random. Palpitations are number one sign that person is overwhelmed. They are here as your body's way of adapting to that internal pressure that you're under, that constant state of overwhelm. So when we got to work with Lisa identifying the deeper roots behind her overwhelm, and what we uncovered were those three core patterns that we see all the time: the perfectionism, the fear of asking for help, and the guilt for resting. Like I said, they are survival patterns that she inherited and reinforced by what she was witnessing growing up and what society taught her. But once Lisa started to dismantle all those patterns, everything shifted. She didn't just think differently, she acted differently. That's the key. We have to have action. We can be aware all that we want, say affirmations all day long if we want. But if we're not going to take different action, nothing's going to change. Nothing's going to change in the subconscious or the nervous system if we don't act differently and follow our actions with what we want to believe. So she started to ask for support. She started resting. And it wasn't because she rested because she earned it. It was without needing to earn it. And she stopped making her home a reflection of her worth. And the most powerful part of it all is once she did all these things, again, taking action to tell her body it is safe now. We're not in this state of overwhelm, her palpitations went away. And that was the same thing for me. I was having palpitations all the time. That was my number one symptom. And once I addressed my patterns that were contributing to that overwhelm, my palpitations went away as well. This is what real healing looks like. It's not managing symptoms, but it's changing the environment that created them so our body can then feel safe. If you try to operate like you were the woman you were before you had kids without recalibrating your nervous system, your needs, your identity, your body is going to put on the brakes. Symptoms are your soul's way of saying something is off. You're not living in truth, you're abandoning yourself. And sometimes it's the only way your body knows how to get your attention. You can keep chasing all the protocols, right? We've all done that. Or we can pause and ask, what part of me am I refusing to let go of? This, the old part of you that you used to be. Well, I used to be able to do all this. Oh, I just want to go back to being able to have that to-do list and getting it all done in the daytime. That's not where we are anymore once we have kids. And where am I trying to prove I can still do it all? And where is that coming from? Wanting to prove? Who are you trying to prove it to? Your husband, the world, your parents? And where does that come from? Where did you learn that you need to prove that you can do it all in order to feel loved or valuable? And lastly, who would I be if I allowed myself to change? What would that look like? What would that feel like? Healing happens when you become the version of you that your soul has been calling forward. You can't keep your nervous system in survival and expect to heal. And you can't shame yourself into rest and expect peace. You can't be everything for everyone and expect your body to thrive. Something has to change. And that change starts inside of you. So let's talk about what this shift looks like in practice. It might look like saying no to extra commitments at school, letting your partner take over dinner duties, taking a nap instead of cleaning the kitchen, letting go of guilt for screen time, sitting down to eat, even for five minutes instead of standing up and eating. Speaking up when you're overwhelmed. Some of the things that I did was I said to my husband, I can't be cooking dinner every single night. You're gonna have to take one night. So we have a schedule of when he does dinner and when I do dinner. And we're splitting up the tasks around the house. There's a chore chart. And we're gonna follow it because as a team here in this household, we all need to contribute. Mom can't do it all. And as my son got older, he started participating. And we make it a team effort rather than it just being all mom's effort. I've learned to definitely speak up when I'm overwhelmed. And I have become a master delegator, not just in my home as much as I can, but for sure in my business. Uh, I did learn that running a home is very similar to running a business. And some of the mistakes I made when I was in business also reflect in what was going on in my home and could have very well come into my current business. And one of the biggest things for me when I own my health and wellness is that I wasn't willing to delegate. I had to learn to love delegating. And when you start to delegate it, you there's a little bit of guilt that you feel in the beginning, like this doesn't feel right. Again, that's just your nervous system not being familiar with that feeling. But I'll tell you what, once you start to do more of that, it starts to feel really dang good. And delegation now becomes something that I absolutely love. If I can delegate it, that means that I can put my energy towards the things that truly do matter, whether that's my business or my health. Delegating doesn't mean I'm lazy. It means I'm able to do the things that matter, that keep me healthy and also my business healthy. So those were some of the things that I had to do for myself. And probably the last thing that I just remembered is also setting boundaries with myself. Not just with other people, but when people think about boundaries, they think about it always being about other people. It was about me setting boundaries with me, by me saying, no, I'm not going to do this. No, I'm not going to make this entire meal from scratch today. Uh, no, I'm not going to take on that one extra task today because I know I'm not going to be able to finish it. And I'm only going to put a list of three things on my to-do list today because the reality is anything more than that, I'm never going to get to. And I need to have realistic expectations. Uh, setting boundaries of myself of how much time and energy I put into working in my office. I had to set boundaries around what I was saying yes to and boundaries around expectations that I was also putting on myself. You have to be honest about the shifts that need to happen. And those shifts are going to be what builds trust, trust between you and your body, trust between you and your truth. Because your body wants to heal, it knows how to heal, but it needs you to get real with what shifts need to happen in order for it to feel safe. So if your symptoms began after becoming a mother, it's not a coincidence. It's not bad luck. It's not your hormones. It's not because you're broken. It's because something deeper is out of alignment. And that something is usually this. You're trying to hold on to the old version of you while pretending nothing has changed. But everything has changed. And that's not a bad thing. It's an invitation to slow down, to let go, to listen, to trust. Your symptoms are here as a signal, and it's a really powerful one. And when you listen, everything will shift. I encourage you to take a moment and ask yourself this. What is one way I'm still trying to be who I was before I became a mother? And what would shift if I let that go? This isn't to judge yourself, but to become aware, because awareness is the first step to change. Thanks for listening. Until next time, remember to trust your body. She's not broken, she is speaking.