Episode 205 with Courtney Devich
Embracing Imperfect Motherhood
SHOW NOTES:
Tune in to gain valuable insights on how to cope with anxiety and embrace imperfect motherhood as Courtney Devich takes us on a journey to a place where anxiety won't boss us around. This episode is a must-listen for all parents and anyone dealing with anxiety.
Check out Courtney's new book here >> https://amzn.to/46AbbFL
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
205 COURTNEY DEVICH
Ginny Yurich Welcome to the 1000 Hours as a podcast. My name is Ginny Yurch. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and have a new author with us today. Courtney Devich. Welcome.
Courtney Devich Thank you for me and thank you for having me.
Ginny Yurich Well, okay, so here's the thing.
Ginny Yurich We just found out basically that we're neighbors. Yes. Mean, we live in nearby cities. Like they timing it.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. What a thing.
Ginny Yurich You talk to people all over the world and then someone pops out. I mean, you're the closest. We should have done it in person.
Ginny Yurich Yes.
Courtney Devich Maybe not at 7 a.m.. Because I have my pajamas on and my bottom here, so.
Ginny Yurich I can't see.
Courtney Devich That person's video.
Ginny Yurich So it had to be later in the day.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. It was.
Ginny Yurich So cool. So we just live a stone's throw away, basically. And Courtney has a new book out about anxiety, and it was a really eye opening one for me. Courtney, because you really talked candidly about your struggles. And I know that a lot of people struggle with anxiety and depression, and I see it a lot in our Facebook group where people are talking about how they want to get outside, but they're very afraid. They're very afraid of different types of things snakes, bugs, and sometimes they're nervous about strangers and all of these different things. So it comes up fairly regularly where people feel a little frozen and they want to live differently, but they feel very stuck. And so you basically wrote a book about that. It's called Mama's Got Anxiety, but it's not going to steal her joy. So you talked quite a bit about the pandemic and feeling stuck in the house and that type of thing. So can you just give us a little bit of back story? You see, this started really when you were a kid.
Courtney Devich Yeah. Yeah. So I would say that I struggle with anxiety as a child, just things that probably shouldn't have been fearful as a child. I would lay awake all night long, just filled with worry before school would start. Or if I had something big coming up like a test or, you know, basketball tryouts. I was afraid to sleep downstairs by myself, so I'd be going upstairs. My younger sisters bedroom, just very obsessed and worried about the future. Like, especially about, like, college and career choices and marriages and children. And I'm like, I'm 12 years old. Shouldn't be thinking about these things. So I would say it was very present as a child, but I wasn't formally diagnosed until I was 19 years old and then put on medication after that. That was just like, you know, the stress over college and work and all of those things. Then into motherhood. Motherhood, I would say, really, really heightened my anxiety. My my first son was born four weeks premature. So things like feeding and getting his weight up, he had jaundice like it just was very stressful. And then every pregnancy I've had, I just had baby number three here three months ago. So every pregnancy I've had after him, just that anxiety of, am I going to have another preemie baby, you know? And then we obviously all moms worry about things like SIDS and are they eating enough food nursing or are they gaining of weight as the swaddle tight enough? Just all those worries. But I'd say that when it becomes just the normal motherhood worries and then it becomes like an anxiety disorder is just that persistent, overwhelmed worry that does not go away. And it's affecting your everyday life where the back story of the book kind of came from was that I became a stay. A mom at the start of the pandemic decided I could not put my babies in daycare at that time, just didn't know what was happening. The whole world was shutting down and my anxiety just kept progressively getting worse. The more and more I stayed within the four walls of this home and it was stealing my joy of motherhood. I became a stay at home mom, wasn't able to go outside, wasn't able to enjoy these years with my littles. And then it just like the fear of everything else that was outside these walls, like, you know, there was all kinds of other stuff going on in 2020. I just became like, I just want to stay in my house forever. I'm not sending these kids to school. There's going to be a school shooting there, like just all the other worries and fears of the world, and I'm just kind of crippling down on me. So I started writing a book, and the book doesn't touch like, not everything is about the pandemic, obviously, Like it is just about motherhood, anxiety, those worries that we have as moms and just kind of, you know, the pandemic fed it. And I came out of the pandemic through the writing of this book.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. Do you find that when you talk a lot of people, there's a lot of moms that write to you, maybe personally or privately to talk about similar things?
Courtney Devich Yes, I, I know. Like, we just sometimes feel like we're just so alone when we're struggling with mental illness and just. Whether it's anxiety or depression. But I feel that I share it when I share, other people share. And whether it's in the comments or messaging me and my DM there, there's a lot of me too that I get as far as I just thought I was the only one. And thank you for writing what I feel. And yeah, I would say that anxiety is so common among us moms, and some of us it's maybe postpartum anxiety where it's just related to the baby and we can get through that. And obviously medication therapy and everything can help with that. But you can go on to develop an anxiety disorder after becoming a mom, or if you're like me and you've had anxiety your whole life and motherhood just kicks it up into high gear.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, it's a lot to deal with and there is a lot there, especially that first year with a baby where you don't really know what you're doing and you don't really they can't communicate with you. And there's, like you said, the weight thing. I remember I had a girlfriend who had a baby years before I did, and her husband was in the military. So he was deployed and she lived several states away. So I remember going to visit and she was just so on edge about the baby gaining weight. And then she had to go in for these weight checks. And so it seems like almost from the very beginning, you know, they're pricking their heel for blood and yeah, do they have jaundice? And almost from the very beginning, it sort of rolls away from you. And that was one thing I wasn't expecting with motherhood was the fact that you lose control and you may be before you became a mom and depending maybe on what age you became a mom. But, you know, I was in my mid to late twenties, so I'd had several years where I could structure my own life and I had a little bit of a rhythm and a routine. And then the baby comes and the baby doesn't fit often. Hours didn't into that rhythm routine. Yeah. And so you're kind of waiting. Like you're waiting like, okay, well, at some point I'm going to be able to rein this back in. But I've been a mom for 15 years and it still hasn't happened.
Ginny Yurich So yeah.
Ginny Yurich You really step into this different type of life where you have a lot more unknowns. And that's one of the things that you talk about in the book is control. And I, I could see how something like COVID and everything else that's going on in the world really shines a light on the lack of control. There's a lot of things going on in the world around us. Yeah, that we don't have control over, but still we have to sort of navigate through. So how does control play into the anxiety like you talked about? I get anxious if I feel like I lack control, but once we become a parent.
Ginny Yurich We.
Ginny Yurich Really do like don't.
Courtney Devich Have any control.
Ginny Yurich And we.
Ginny Yurich Don't. How do you deal with that?
Courtney Devich I think it just kind of so it's really like you have to think about what is the fear that I'm facing or that I think I'm facing that's making me feel like I need to control that. And coming back to like, is it a rational thing or is it irrational thing? So for me, like I have to like control bills and manage the money. My husband does not know how to get into the bank account. Like literally if I die, he doesn't know what to do. But I so this is just kind of one example. So I have to like, manage the bills and pay them because if we don't, well, you know, the water that shut off or the electricity, is that like really a rational thing that I need to cling onto so hard for a dear life? Probably not, because if I were to forget, they would send me a notice. It would get turned back on like I'm able to pay it. Obviously, like for somebody who's not able to, that, you know, is a kind of a different story and situation. But other things like just controlling, you know, who our children are friends with when they go to school. I've got my oldest starting kindergarten here soon and it's just like, okay, you know, have I prepared him enough? Is he going to be okay? Like, he's going to be away from me for 7 hours a day like this is it's going to be a really like I'm going to like lack a lot of control here and I'm going to have to just kind of deal with it because, you know, he's he's got to go to school. He's he's gotten so that age. And so I'm just really trusting that I've prepared him and I've equipped him to make good choices as far as who as friends will be, you know, playing with kids on the playground, being kind and nice and, you know, listening to his teacher, just all those simple things that I will not be able to control because I will not have eyes on him. So just as mom's just not, you know, learning to just surrender our children and just trusting that we've equipped them and that everything's going to be okay because we can't control them forever. Especially, you know, moms are got kids going to college here soon and they're going to leave their little nest. And we just got to trust that we've done what we can and handed over to God.
Ginny Yurich It's like that's sort of the process I think of. Parenting and childhood. Is it this mutual learning or the child is growing? And then we're learning to let go of control. And I think that for some of us, it starts right at the very beginning with the pregnancy, the birth plan.
Courtney Devich You know, the.
Ginny Yurich Birth plan that goes out the window because you get different health complications and things. And so that sort of was my experience. It was like, oh, okay. From the very beginning and you talked about how, you know, I was planning to have a November baby and the baby came in October so early. So you have all of these plans and now I think the baby shows up. And I think in a lot of ways it really the process of becoming a mother helps us grow in that way because we have no choice but to. Yeah. And you say the more we control, the more we want to control. So that was an interesting statement because it made me think about how if we have a bent toward that, we're trying to control that. Actually, maybe that might be the worst thing for us is that when we have the opportunity to control a lot of things and we we sort of become stuck there.
Courtney Devich It's like a vicious cycle. It just creates more anxiety because you just need things. The control. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. And so here is a situation where the kid comes and like you said, off they go. And this is a practice round, right? They go off to kindergarten, it's 7 hours and you're practicing because like you said, at some point it'll be college. And for some parents listening, they may already be there. They're already at the college spot. And you also heard about control to stop striving for perfection. It's not going to be perfect. And we just have to let a lot of things go so that our kids can grow, but that can lead to a lot of anxiety. You talked about fear and you just kind of brought it up well with the example of your bills and you're write about unrealistic fears, which I said that's the thing that comes up often. We have this Facebook group and people know they know their fear is unrealistic. Yeah, they know it's holding them back, but they're looking for answers on how to deal with it. So you wrote you may need help from someone else to determine what's in unrealistic fear. So can you talk to us about how we might go about doing that? Have you ever had experience where maybe you ask somebody else or you really have to sit down and kind of rationalize?
Courtney Devich Yeah, well, I'm trying to rationalize myself, or my anxiety would usually just try and talk me back into the fear. My husband is a, you know, who I lean on the most and trying to just talk to him. You know, I've got something that is making me obsessive and worried and I'm able to sleep while I go to him and I talk to him and you just kind of to me down on like, okay, is that really something that you should be worrying about at 1 a.m.? Or is it really something that you should be afraid of? And so it's just having somebody like whether it's your partner or a friend that you also know struggles with anxiety or, you know, maybe it's a therapist that is totally okay. I'm back in therapy right now. Postpartum emotions and mental health is real here. So, you know, maybe it's talking to anybody about it and, you know, talking to them like, is what I'm going through right now. What I'm thinking in my anxiety and how it's spiraling in my head, is that really rational or not? And they can, you know, talk you down from it and help you. It's kind of a little tricky because my husband also has anxiety. So sometimes it's like, okay, you're going to talk me up and then I'm going to get you anxious as well. So but most of the time he's talking. A lot of times, actually his anxiety is totally different than mine. And that's what's really interesting about it, is that it can manifest completely different ways with everybody as far as what what makes us afraid.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, Yeah. So dealing with different fears and then you talked about overthinking. So this is something that I could imagine really would affect a lot of the things because it's affecting your sleep.
Ginny Yurich Yes.
Courtney Devich You're looking at me. Sleep deprived here.
Ginny Yurich When you have a three month old. So obviously, I know you're sleep deprived because of that, but that would be a tricky thing, that even if you don't have a baby, if you can't turn your mind off, then you're not sleeping. And then I would imagine that exacerbates all of the things. Yes. So how have you dealt with the mind that runs at night? You can't sleep. Your brain is spiraling, that type of thing.
Courtney Devich Usually, sometimes I have like a list going on next to me on my nightstand because, I mean, especially right now with launching a book, it's like all the to do list and everything. And then, you know, kindergarten and like, oh, did I get the copy of the birth certificate? So putting a pin in it, so to speak, and saving it for tomorrow or thinking about it tomorrow, like if it's a big decision that you've got that's coming up, it's weighing on you like school choices or whatever the decision may be. I think that's one examples I use in the book of just, okay, I'm going to just think about this tomorrow. I'm going to put a pin in it and talk to my husband about tomorrow. And, you know, I'll use is just like going to I call it my happy place, just kind of taking my brain and putting it somewhere else, like totally retreating from that thought, go into another place and eventually, you know, I will will fall asleep. I do prayer. I've done I've tried meditation. I sometimes had meditation apps. Sometimes that can be a little, little weird to me. I don't know. Sometimes it works for other people, though. I'm trying to think of other stuff that I've tried. It's just really about getting off the working wheel and retreating from the thought and moving on to something else and taking your mind elsewhere and shutting it down. Basically.
Ginny Yurich I like the idea of taking your mind elsewhere and I almost wonder if that might even work during the day too. Yeah, you know, you talk about at night, this is one of the biggest times because nothing's going on and all of a sudden you're laying there with your thoughts. Yeah. And so it can be worse then. But even during the day, if you're feeling like, okay, well, maybe this is an unrealistic fear, but I really do want to go do this thing with my kids or I want to go to this place. I like the idea of your going to your happy place. I think it's hard to not think about something because then it just keeps popping in. But then if you choose to think about something else, then maybe that replaces that obsessive worry or whatever that you're thinking about that is scary. So you talk about the your happy place, which is really special, was at your grandparents house. That's where you go. Can you tell us about that?
Courtney Devich Yeah, my grandparents, they just I have such a special place in my heart for them. My my papa died when I was 13, so I was pretty young, and it was the first time I experienced some real grief. So my happy place is just sitting in my grandparents house. My papa just eaten his his bacon, drinking his coffee and reading the newspaper, and my nana's at the kitchen making breakfast or she's, you know, making me a chocolate malt, which was kind of our thing. She was like to slurp the bottom of it out with her, her straw. So my nana died just a month after my first was born. My first son. So they're both they're both in heaven right now. But that's that's where my happy place is. And I just eventually miss being there for a little while. This kind of shuts down the the noise of my brain and the calms my fears and puts me to sleep.
Ginny Yurich Wow. What do you think it was about being there and just that simplicity?
Courtney Devich I think that as a child, my childhood was a little rough, but my parents went through a divorce at a really tricky age. I was I was 14 when they separated. So I think that just my grandparents house was like just a safe place for me as a child. Like, I always just felt safe there. And so I think that that place specifically just doesn't there's no fear in that place. And I just feel safe in that home and comfort and.
Ginny Yurich Wow, Did they live close by?
Courtney Devich You're about an hour away. Yeah. Okay. I lived in Montana, so everything's kind of more spread out. That's where I'm from. I'm in Michigan now.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. So an hour didn't feel super far if things are pretty spread apart. Yeah. So I'm pretty often.
Courtney Devich Yeah. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Ah, if there's grandparents listening, it's such an interesting thought that your simple life could be so impactful for someone else down the road. Yeah. You know, you wonder if they could have ever thought, like, here I am doing my simple things, I'm having my coffee, I'm eating my bacon. Yeah, I'm reading the paper. There's nothing extravagant or out of the ordinary about that. But here it is, something that really helps you to get through this mothering journey. So that's really beautiful and encouraging and. Encouraging to try and have our homes be safe places for other people where they can come and just relax. Yeah. You even talk about the adult coloring books, which those have gotten really popular, huh?
Courtney Devich Yes. Yes. That was something I think I can't remember if I read about that or my therapist suggested it and I was like, Oh, I'll try that then. Yeah, it's sometimes going to feel silly because I've got kids with coloring books everywhere, but and I feel like sometimes I get like a little, like, obsessive with it, too. Like I got to stay on the lines a little bit here, too. But yes, that's also a good one. Is that about coloring books and, you know, reading before for before bedtime, like our kids get stimulated very easily. So, you know, staying off the phone, not scrolling before bedtime is going to help with with the sleep as well. And so we are reading also before bed can help kind of just turn that brain off and get your mind somewhere else. Yeah. So you can sleep right away.
Ginny Yurich There are these really cool coloring books. I have to send you a message about them because I can't think of the name of them off the top of my head, But I don't know if you've seen them. They're. They're pretty big. And it'll be like this page and every it'll have, I don't know, hundreds of shapes on it, like hundreds of triangles or hundreds of circles. And they're all numbered.
Courtney Devich With a.
Ginny Yurich Color coding thing. And so then you start to color it in and it takes a long time, but eventually a picture emerges. Yeah. So it's really neat because you don't know what it's going to be. So there's like in Animals one, there's like a cityscapes one. We love doing that and, and sometimes we'll do it together because there's so many things to color in. I think that stuff is super fun and it's a good for fine motor. And it's just one of those things that, like you said, it gets you off the screen and other people talk about the same thing. Like if you say, okay, it sounds a little funny, it's an adult coloring book. But I was talking to this guy named John Acuff, who's written a bunch of books, and he does Legos.
Courtney Devich Yeah.
Ginny Yurich And he talked about how he's an entrepreneur and he doesn't have a lot of control over his day to day business. It's a little tricky sometimes. There's no one telling you what to do. You have to figure it out on your own. And he said, Legos, just bring him into that spot where he can just kind of relax into it, follow these step by step directions. And now they make all sorts of Legos for adults.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm.
Ginny Yurich Like, I see him a lot of times at the bookstore, and it'll be like the Home Alone.
Courtney Devich Yeah.
Ginny Yurich And Seinfeld. And you can make flower bouquets and.
Courtney Devich Yeah, they really.
Ginny Yurich They make them now for adults. And I think, like, those types of things are good for quieting the mind.
Courtney Devich Have you heard of diamond painting?
Ginny Yurich No.
Courtney Devich No. So that was something also similar to one of my kids or one of the kids in my son's pre-K class brought him for a whole class to do and it was like these little rhinestones and it's got the numbers on it as well and the different colored rhinestones and you're placing it on there. And he brought it home and he was super into it for a little while. And it was a little tricky because he is learning his numbers as well. Right. But I took over and I spent like 2 hours on it and had like my hand cramping up and everything from it because I was so obsessed with it. But that's another thing. It was like really cool and just like time consuming, but took my mind off of stuff. And this was relaxing a little bit too.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, those are some great ideas. Courtney and I was talking to this woman named Joe Winger, who has a book coming out called Old Fashioned on Purpose, and she said that there is this information out there, these studies that say when you work with your hands, it helps your brain release dopamine. And so it really does help you feel better. And we've moved away from that quite a bit in the way that we live. So like you said, sometimes it feels silly, like we're doing these crafts. What are we doing? Yeah, but no, there's really some scientific backing to any of those things that if you like a little bit of the sewing or I like Mosaic. So that's kind of what that's like, right? Putting these little things together and it creates this broader picture. So those are awesome, great ideas. I'll link in the show notes that coloring book that I have because there's a couple of different ones and they're so fun. They're great for a rainy day and they just kind of just show up and you're like, What? I remember I did a butterfly and one's a giraffe and everyone's guessing and then they're wrong, and then it turns out to be something else. So that's a really cool idea is about especially at night, so you don't have to be fixating on things. There are so many here. I'd never heard of Kourtney about the ear crystals.
Courtney Devich Yeah, my vertigo. Vertigo story?
Ginny Yurich Yeah, the Vertigo story.
Courtney Devich Yes. I did not know. We have, like, ear crystals in our inner ear. I get that. I think it was the inner ear that sounds real, but apparently sometimes I think I had an episode. It's been to like about a year since I had my last Vertigo episode. But sometimes when I've flipped over, like in the bed from one side to the other and I just go like checkup. Disney World World is spinning here, and I thought for sure I was dying and it was vertigo, I guess so, yes. The air crystals just a. Currently we have those in our ears. If they get dislodged, they can cause that vertigo feeling. There's like different exercises and techniques that they can do to kind of put them back.
Ginny Yurich Relax them.
Courtney Devich And login into their spot. Yeah. So that was another thing that was.
Ginny Yurich A lot to deal with.
Courtney Devich Of everything.
Ginny Yurich That I.
Ginny Yurich Deal with. Yeah, for sure. And sometimes it feels like like you said, like you feel like you're dying.
Courtney Devich I got a little bit of hypochondria too. So I think anxiety, it's like, Oh, my goodness. Like, what is this weird symptom? Or what's this bump on my head that. Was that a brain tumor? Yeah.
Ginny Yurich I mean.
Ginny Yurich This is a lot to deal with.
Ginny Yurich I know you're writing it out.
Ginny Yurich You wrote a book.
Courtney Devich You.
Ginny Yurich And you've got a three month old and you've got little kids. You said your oldest is going into kindergarten.
Courtney Devich He's going into kindergarten. My middle is going to start preschool part time. And then the youngest, you have.
Ginny Yurich A three month old. I wonder, do you sometimes think like maybe it might feel easier once they're a little bit older? Or do you think that since it's something you've been dealing with since you were a kid, 1213 that it'll always be? I just think parenting gets a lot easier. These are really hard years.
Courtney Devich I if you're, you're further along in parenting than me. So if you say that I was.
Ginny Yurich You know, I mean, it's.
Ginny Yurich Easier where you can trust that they know what they're doing. And when you have a toddler and they're irrational or preschooler. Yeah. They don't know. They don't know what they're supposed to eat and that was to eat. And they can't help you. You're having to do all that on your own. You're shouldering a whole lot. And so I.
Courtney Devich Would hope, you know, my mom says she lays awake at night a lot still with worry. And I'm, you know, a thousand miles away from her. So that's that's the only person I know. And it doesn't get any easier. So, Mom, if you're listening.
Ginny Yurich That's not very helpful. But you're in the process now of dealing with it. And I think that as kids get older and like we talked about at the beginning, as you get used to this, a little bit of time apart and as you get used to the friends that they make and you start to see that things are okay, but you're.
Ginny Yurich Still.
Courtney Devich Doing a good job, Mom.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, for sure. It well, it it's got to be tricky to be that far away from your adult kids and to have this eight years where you kind of knew where they were and now you don't every single day and.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ginny Yurich It's a tricky thing. It's like, what's the better what's the better spot to be in? I don't know. You had a story in here about a house fire. It was one of your biggest fears. Mm hmm. And then it happened a couple doors down. Can you tell us about that?
Courtney Devich Yeah. So I think the reason it was a big fear of mine, like, it's not totally irrational. My house is a Cape Cod style, so my children's rooms are up on the top, and my master is on the main level. So it's kind of ever since we moved into this house, I was like, okay, what if I can't get up there too, unless, like, the catwalk is on fire and I can't get in to the other person's room? So there was a house fire. It was actually just like six months in the cupboard there in 2020. The year 2020 was our year for you.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Courtney Devich But it has two doors down and a garage caught fire and then just kind of the whole house went up into flames. And you think about everything that we have in our garages that are flammable for gasoline, gas mowers and everything like that, or batteries to our kids, right on toys or everything. So it just it spread really quickly and then it actually like jumped roofs to the house right next to me. So we actually did evacuate and get the kids out of here because it was like the fire department had not shown up yet. So our house is like the next one in the line of fire here. And I don't know, you know, other things like gas lines and everything I'm assuming are connected between the houses and everything. So we we evacuated the first house, lost all of their their belongings that luckily everyone got out in time. They evacuated through a second story window. And then another neighbor who was up with the baby in the middle of the night saw, heard and God bless them. He came out with a ladder and got them down from the roof. Wow. Of like a.
Ginny Yurich Diamond up the ladder.
Courtney Devich Wow. Yep. And then the the owners of the second home, we woke them up in time because there I mean, vinyl siding just really just engulfed in flames right away. So got them out in time and then nothing happened to our house. Luckily, my son I think did he was what was he, two and a half at that time. And he he has had like some fears of like coming out of his room and stuff like that that we've had to work through. He's much better now. But I know he he remembers that and seeing the flames and everything, so.
Ginny Yurich Wow. So, yeah, I was one of your big fears and you really lived through it. How has this book, has the book added to your fears? Has it helped you push through some different things? Is it a completely different animal than some of these other anxieties?
Courtney Devich Yeah, I'd say that the book was like my healing journey. When I first started the introduction, I was still hunkered down in my house, living in fear. So I've been through the journey writing it that, you know, the reader will hopefully go on the journey with me. And so coming out of it, finishing the book, I feel like my anxiety is in a way different place now than it was three years ago, six years ago, even. Especially like with my the birth of my third baby here just a few months ago. Like I think I added in the book, I kind of had a fear of, you know, do I want another baby? We'd always talked about three, but for me it was like, okay, I have another baby means having another child to be nervous about and worried about. And especially with just like the pre premature birth history and everything, I was like, do I want to go through all of that? That pregnancy and that anxiety and fear of is the baby going to be born early? So through writing the book, I submitted my manuscript and a month later we got pregnant and it was planned. So it was like, I can do this, I'm going. And it was the most peaceful pregnancy that I have had. So it was really, really just that the book just helped me throughout all of that. And postpartum was a little tricky. I did have some gestational hypertension, some medication for some blood pressure there. But yeah, it was just yeah. So in a way, this this book brought me through and now I've got another little bundle of joy.
Ginny Yurich I think. What do you think it was? Do you think it was sort of getting your thoughts out on paper and wrestling with those? What do you think?
Courtney Devich Yeah, I think that just yeah, just getting the thoughts out on paper and going through the journey and learning to lean on God and his strength throughout all of it and just learning to take my joy back. It's right there in the subtitle of, you know, my joy is not going to steal my mother or my desired. He's not going to steal my joy and my motherhood, and I'm not going to let my anxiety to be the boss of me anymore. Is isn't what I write there in the final chapter is that it's it's a part of my story. Obviously, it was a big part of my story because I wrote 50,000 words on it. But it's not it's not the full my whole life. It doesn't get to have that much control over me. And so being able to say, no anxiety, you're not going to boss me around. You don't get to dictate how many children I'm going to have or you know, what my life is going to look like or, you know, take your mind away from me every single moment of every day, especially my motherhood. So just being able to talk back to your anxiety, talk back to that fear and saying, no, you're wrong. I know what the truth is and you're not going to steal my joy for me in this moment or in my life anymore.
Ginny Yurich Now, that's huge. And what really made things different for your kids, because then you talked about when you're struggling with anxiety and if your husband's struggling with it and you struggled with it since you were a kid, there also tends to creep in it's worry about your your own kids. Are they going to struggle with it? Yeah. And so you're kind of on the lookout for that. Yeah. But as you're helping to deal with it with yourself, then you're also giving your kids strategies because they're going to see that you you talk about how anxiety affects your health. Can you talk about how that affected you?
Courtney Devich Yeah. So when I actually was diagnosed at 19 with anxiety, I thought I was having heart issues and having chest pains a lot. So I went to a cardiologist because that's what you think when you've got chest pains. I mean, something's wrong with my heart. So all the EKG, all the cardiology tests and everything showed nothing wrong with my heart. And they're like, I think you just you have anxiety. I was like, Oh, well, that that makes sense. I think I had that for my whole life then. So the chest pains sometimes feeling shaky or nauseous, especially if it's like a panic attack, worrying what I'm going through. I've also been through TMI here. I've gone through all the testing with the GI Doctor, and it's my anxiety. Anxiety can cause you to have irritable bowel and GI issues as well. So there are definitely lots of different physical symptoms of anxiety when you're going through it, especially with the, you know, panic attacks. And I think a lot of people just don't ever think about that or correlate it or, you know, oh, that's anxiety, that's society's fault, because we just think of it so much as a invincible illness, you can't see it. So. Those are some of the things that I have. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Well, one of the ones you talked about, too, is irritability, which would be a tricky one, too, because it's like, well, we don't really want to be an irritable mom, but I would imagine if anxiety.
Courtney Devich Children.
Ginny Yurich Or even it's taking up all of your bandwidth.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm.
Ginny Yurich Just to deal with that and to deal with life, then you could see how you would be. Yes. More irritable. Or you just have less runway there. Yeah. You know, it's taking up a lot. And kids take up a lot, too, so, yeah, I could see how that would be tricky. One of the things you talked about, too, is that anxiety can make you feel like a failure. So this was a story about comparison. You had babies similar time as your sister. Let's talk about that for a second, how you dealt with the comparison and looking kind of looking around, seeing what everyone else is doing and how that can add to anxiety.
Courtney Devich I think sometimes that still can like creep up on me, to be honest. Like, especially with like social media and seeing all these other moms on Instagram that are homeschooling their kids or, you know, they've got like two year olds in there already know their ABCs and hear my. My three year old is just, you know, second or third man watching her tablet. So it definitely can make you just feel like a failure when you're comparing yourself to other moms. And, you know, although she's doing it different than me and yeah, my sister and I, we are our boys are ten days apart. So and so there's a lot of comparison there. I've got two friends right now that have babies just kind of within months of me as well. So, you know, lots of other questions about like, oh, is nursing working for you or are you doing formula? Like just there's this other question, you know, and I think that it's hard because as moms, we want to like, help other moms and give advice to other moms, especially like, you know, it's a new mom and she's struggling with nursing or whatever it may be. So we want to, like, offer that advice, but we also don't want to come off as like, oh, that's what you should be doing because that's what I'm doing. So yeah, the comparison trap is real. There's that quote or saying, I think it's Theodore Roosevelt comparison is the thief of joy. And so the whole book is about joy. It's like no comparison is not going to get to steal our joy either. So being able to just stay focused on your own motherhood, you've got that mom gut, trust it. And you were the mom that was chosen for this baby and you know your baby more than anybody for that child, I guess.
Ginny Yurich Sure. Well, and it's tricky because there's a lot more people to compare to now. Yeah. I actually think it was Jon Acuff who said, you know, his mom was in a cul de sac with four or five other moms. And those are the only mom you talk to. Yeah. And now there's hundreds of moms that you can see what they're doing and what's everyone doing? And it's a lot more input. There's more input these days in terms of information. And and so in some ways it's good. Like, I just read this book called Hunt Gather Parent that's all about parenting. It's actually one of my favorite parenting books I've ever read. And she had some really good advice in there. Like she's gone to different cultures and seen what they do in different parts of the world and that sometimes we don't have any input at all because we're not living multi-generational. So sometimes there's too much information or sometimes you don't have the right information. You wish you had it and you just don't have it at all. Like I, I just read that book and my oldest is 15. I'm like, Oh, I wish I would have read this 115 years ago. It was that good. But it is tricky when there's all that information out there and you can really have a a peek into so many different people's lives. But like you said, they're your kids, they're individuals. Even if they're ten days apart, they're going to be so different like the little cousins. And that's a special thing. What a special thing to have a cousin that close in age when they get to have just such a great relationship. So when talking about kids in anxiety, one of the things that you talk about how is how a lot of the anxiety that we see in children is coming from the pressures that they face. So tell us about that.
Courtney Devich I think that I mean, talking more about kindergarten here, like kindergarten for me was half day. And now we're expecting them to go all day long. And we like it's not just that playing or preschool, like with activities and crafts, like we're going to start teaching them how to read and everything in kindergarten. So we're we're definitely expecting more of our children at a younger age these days and putting more pressure on them. I know moms that are just like crazy. Every single night is a different activity, you know, with football and soccer and dance and all these things and like, how does your child have time to do their homework? And because, you know, we've added I, I'm told anyways that the homework load is a lot more these days compared to like when I was a child at a younger age too. So they're bringing homework home with them and and they're in time to do all that and just a lot of things that, you know, and then they're also like going to school and they're, you know, doing lockdown drills and everything. And so there's also that like fear creeping in on our children. Like, I remember my son. Lockdown drill pre-K last year, and it was really hard to talk to him about it and what, you know, why we do it and everything and it looks to me is like, well, what if Mrs. D gets gets shot in the eye? You know, what do we do in the class? And it was like that. What if moment he just, like, totally put himself in there and I hadn't even mentioned anything about, like, a gun or anything. Like, he just knew I was just like, Oh, it's just in case somebody, you know, that comes into the building and they want to harm you. And he just was like, Well, they shoot the teacher and and so their little brains just are already getting filled with fear at such a young age because of the world we live in, the pressures that we're putting on them, expecting more and more of them. And I just I pray that my kids can just stay a little for as long as possible. I know they'll learn to review, you know, initially, and I, I don't want them to be fearful when they go to school and through those doors. So just as my parents just trying to do everything that we can possible to just lighten that load and take that pressure off of our kids and and just help ease that anxiety, because childhood anxiety is rising as well. And I'm sure I haven't looked at any statistics seriously, but with this pandemic and everything, it's probably gone through the roof. And so our kids are struggling, too.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. And as you're learning to deal with it in your own life, I'm sure that's given you a lot of tools to help with your kids. So, Courtney, your book is Mama's Got Anxiety, but it's not going to steal her joy. So cool that it has been so influential in your own journey and has helped you in this really difficult. These are difficult years of mothering.
Courtney Devich So yeah.
Ginny Yurich You know, like I said, I think it gets easier as they get older. So what a great tool that you found that helped you. And so even just writing, you know, you wrote a whole book that, you know, a lot of people talk about journaling and that type of thing, Just writing things down can be really healing. Like I would have thought you would have said this brought you anxiety because now you have all these interviews and now you have to.
Courtney Devich I'm not going to lie. I do have a little bit of writing about my anxiety book.
Ginny Yurich You know.
Courtney Devich People are like, what are people going to think that I like? Am I going to find somebody where the reviews are going to be? And then, yes, just juggling having a three month old and doing podcast interviews, doing a launch team like.
Ginny Yurich Yes.
Courtney Devich There's been anxiety about anxiety.
Ginny Yurich But what a thing. It's going to be great for moms who need it and for parents who will get the sense that they're not alone, that they can read and they can see that this is something that a lot of people are having to deal with on a daily basis. I like that you said, you know, you have anxiety about having anxiety.
Ginny Yurich Because.
Ginny Yurich You just don't know.
Ginny Yurich What's going to come.
Ginny Yurich Or they get a fear of the unknown, right?
Ginny Yurich Like, oh yeah.
Ginny Yurich Oh yeah, yeah.
Courtney Devich Or even just like, you know, like feeling claustrophobia and stuff like that. Like, okay, I don't want to like, put myself in a position of or even like social anxiety, like, I don't want to go to that event or that party because it's felt like a big be anxious or be socially awkward or I don't want to go to that big football game because that's just too big of a crowd. So it is kind of like, you know, avoiding things because, oh, that's going to make me anxious or, you know, having anxiety about having anxiety.
Ginny Yurich But yeah.
Ginny Yurich Because you did talk about the social do. Yeah, I liked the story about when you were in a group and they did icebreaker questions.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Ginny Yurich I feel like why, why are we still doing it? What's a fun thing in life you wish you would have done sooner? And then you're kind of like, Well, that's kind of a depressing question. I don't know if I could have come up with an answer.
Courtney Devich Yeah, I'm like, Oh, I probably should have joined a group sooner and socialize and make more friends, but it just made me too anxious. So here I am, though.
Ginny Yurich Right? Right. I mean, I kind of think we do things on their own time. Like, yeah, you do it when you're supposed to do it. A fun thing in life you wish you would have done sooner. Like, that's super depressing. But then that was a story where you meet with this group and then you friended people on Facebook and then your husband was like, No, no, it's too soon, See?
Courtney Devich Soon It's too soon. You're going to come off clingy.
Ginny Yurich Sorry. Yeah, my.
Courtney Devich Friend. Me.
Ginny Yurich So that's tricky.
Ginny Yurich Too. That's a whole, tricky part of navigating the social rules of social media. It didn't used to be like that, right? You have to figure out how to do it in life. And then you also have to figure out how to do it online.
Courtney Devich And as moms like, we don't have any time to socialize or make friends for ourselves, especially as stay at home moms. Like it's just lonely. So like moment you interact with another adult, like be my friend.
Ginny Yurich Like you have to, like, taper it. Like you wait this many days.
Ginny Yurich There's no rules about it.
Ginny Yurich No rules. It's tricky. We I used to do just a lot of things with other moms during the day, and I think that helped because it helps you to know that you can still have friends even when things are chaotic. Yeah, And that's really. It is. You can't finish a sentence and you're running from doing the thing or you don't show up. I mean, I think that would happen. It's like it could get sick last minute or they threw up.
Courtney Devich Or they fell at.
Ginny Yurich The wrong time. And so you're having to deal with a lot of things. So in a lot of ways, mothering really helps us grow and it helps us grow because we have to deal with these things. And there's no way around it. And so, yeah, there's lots of information here about social anxiety and feeling awkward and just stumbling through it and going anyway and being in the spot where you get asked a weird icebreaker question. So that's good advice. Not turning things down because of fear. So. Courtney, way to go on a new book.
Courtney Devich Thank you. Thank you.
Ginny Yurich People can find more information at Courtney damage dot com or at Courtney damage author. How cool is that? You have an Instagram and there's information there as well. You've written for a lot of things you're writing has appeared in her view from home today parents and for every mom. Have you always written mainly about anxiety?
Courtney Devich No. I started motherhood and faith, and then I started I think it was depression was the first piece that I opened up a little bit about my mental health history and everything and and then just anxiety. When it started hitting, I started writing more and more about that. So mainly motherhood, as is my, my arena. But I've got a special heart and my very special place in my heart for my mom struggling with anxiety or depression for sure.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. You know, that's some people can find a lot of help there. Thank you. Courtney We always end our podcast with the same question. What's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside?
Ginny Yurich Oh.
Courtney Devich Well, I was raised in Montana, so I would say probably at Yellowstone National Park with my family, Old Faithful. And just I love I really miss the mountains. That's one thing about Michigan. I'm like buried by mountains. It was really hard for me moving here, too, because I didn't have, like, mountains to, like, navigate me like, oh, that mountains north. Like now I'm like, I have no idea where I'm going out here. So definitely just being at Yellowstone National Park, having picnic as we're like driving through the park and getting to see like the buffalo and all. There's lots of wildlife at that at Yellowstone Also National Park, not the TV show, which I know a lot of people when I say I'm from Montana, that's what everybody's mind goes to now is that TV show.
Ginny Yurich So.
Courtney Devich Yes, fishing as well. We did a lot of camping growing up. So I would say getting to go camping and fishing with my my dad and my sister. So, yes, I love that.
Ginny Yurich What a cool place to grow up. I've actually not been there. So it's on our list. Have you gotten to go back?
Courtney Devich Yes, I went back last summer. Yes, we try and we drive it. Actually, it's 22 hours. So that's that's tricky with kids, but it's way cheaper than wine. So we're going to go back, though. We've got some air miles saved up. So we're going to go back for Christmas and we'll fly this time. So, yeah, it'll be really exciting because I haven't been home for Christmas in 12 years.
Ginny Yurich So for that, so special. Well, Courtney, thank you for being here. Thank you for your time. I know you have a really busy.
Courtney Devich Week being with your.
Ginny Yurich Launch and your baby and we are neighbors, so maybe we're going to run.
Ginny Yurich Into like.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, murder or something like that. There will be, you know, all the best to you on launching this book. And I know it's going to help so many moms. Thank you for being here.
Courtney Devich You Thank you for having me.
