Episode 21: Redefining Your Identity After Motherhood: There's No "Bouncing Back" (And That's the Point)
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Erin Leech (00:39)

Hey friend, welcome back to In the Middle of It. I'm Erin Leech, and if you're new here, I'm so glad that you have found my little corner of the internet. If you've been listening for a while though, this episode is gonna kind of wrap up the informal series that I have been on since basically the beginning of the year.

Today I want to pull it all together — connect all the dots with everything that we've talked about. The grief and ambition, mental load and mom guilt, and all the inner work that's just woven into all of this — and kind of bring it home. Bring all of this into one place.

So let's get into it.

I want to start with the story and the concepts that we're told as moms — this whole idea of bouncing back. As if there is a way to go backwards. Which, if you ask me, you're never going back. It sounds really intense, but it's true.

We hear this all the time. Getting back to your pre-baby body, going back to work, all of those things. And while sometimes it can be true that yes, you can go back to your same job after you have your baby — in pretty much every other sense of the word or phrase, bouncing back, or going back to who you were before, just ain't gonna happen.

Your body is never gonna be the same. My feet are a size nine now and they have never been a size nine unless the brand of shoe ran small. Same with our hips and our rib cages. I've learned so much about our bodies and it just does not go back to the way that it was before. It's like when you go on vacation and you can fit all this stuff in your suitcase, but on the way home, ain't no way all of that same stuff is fitting back in the suitcase the same way it did. It's kind of similar to that with our bodies postpartum — and after having multiple babies especially, it's just not going back. And the sooner that we can embrace that, the better.

And especially in the context here of our identity. I talked about this earlier in the series — in episode ten, we talked about the three truths for the ambitious mom redefining herself, and one of them was that the shift that happens when you become a mom isn't just an adjustment. It's truly a gauntlet. It's the most intense kind of shift and transition that most of us are ever going to go through.

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I've been thinking about that word transition a lot lately. I just saw something on social media — maybe last week or so — talking about the transition phase of labor. And this post really stuck with me because it was saying that this final phase of labor before you deliver is literally called transition. You think it's because you're transitioning from labor to delivery — and yes, in a literal, logical sense, that is true. But on a deeper level, this post was saying that this is the most intense, disorienting, can't-quite-catch-your-breath kind of experience. Your body is doing something it has never done before — and I would argue that's still true even if you're having your second, third, or fourth kid, because you're just never the same person and never the same mom with the same body.

And when you go through that transition phase and into delivery, you yourself as a woman also transition. Because who you were before labor — or even in the beginning stages of labor — has evolved into the woman who can process everything that goes on when our bodies bring our babies into this world. And just going through that experience — and I am so grateful that I can speak from personal experience — you just cannot be the same person after. I feel so much more empowered most of the time. We all have our moments. But generally speaking, feeling so powerful and so badass that I did all of that — that's real.

And that's also what motherhood does. It is equally beautiful, gut-wrenching, and disorienting. But it changes you. You go through one transition there to deliver your baby, and then the whole adjustment into motherhood and raising your kids — it changes your priorities and your perspective of the world. I think of so many things differently already, just two and a half, almost three years in. Some things that didn't matter to you before might matter now. And equally so, if you let it, motherhood actually releases some things that weren't serving you, and you end up not caring about things you used to care so much about. A lot of that would be people-pleasing type things. Some of the performance and the shrinking yourself.

It's a process, obviously — we all have our days where the imposter syndrome creeps in and the fears and the doubts come along with it. But for the most part, motherhood is a really beautiful experience in the sense that I think your truer sense of self is finally allowed to come through. Rather than before, when you had all these masks that you would wear in different situations.

So if you've been spending energy trying to get back to who you were before baby — the same schedule, the same ambitions all laid out the same way, that same version of yourself — I really want to offer you the kindest redirect, with the most love. Stop looking back. She was wonderful. She deserves to be honored and appreciated, and you can be so grateful for everything that you were and everything that you had done pre-baby. But that's not where we're going. There's no way to go back to that person after everything that you've been through.

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And when I talk about the woman you were before kids being gone, I don't mean that in the sense that you have to become an entirely new person. No. The core of who you are — your passions, your values, your morals, the dreams you've been hanging on to — those aren't gone. The core of who you are definitely still remains.

But what I mean is that somewhere in the chaos of keeping a tiny human — or multiple tiny humans — alive, and running a household, and managing everything for everyone, being that default person for everyone, somewhere in all of that, you've gotten a little overshadowed. Not erased. There's no way to erase you. That's literally the point — if you were erased, things would probably fall apart. You're still there. Your ambition is still there. The voice that keeps telling you there's gotta be more for us out there — that hasn't gone quiet. It's just tough to hear it when there's so much going on around you and you don't even have the quiet space to listen.

So you don't need a brand new identity. You just need to redefine the one that you already have. Build a life that's actually structured to hold that identity and support that woman — the whole woman, not just the parts that are convenient, that don't inconvenience our partners or our families, or make us feel like we're holding our kids back in some way. Because as I've said in past episodes, you're not.

But the process of reclaiming and redefining your identity takes a lot of inner personal work — mindset work and all of that — which is something a lot of women are uncomfortable admitting that they need, let alone actually taking action on. And it's not therapy, although I am always here for therapy, will always support that, and I love my own therapy experience. Therapy can absolutely complement this work and this journey of redefining and re-birthing yourself in life after kids — or really, life with kids.

But this kind of inner work is actually a little strategic. It's looking at the stories you've been telling yourself about why you can't, or why now isn't the right time, why you've gotta wait until the kids are older or the finances are better or your partner is on board. Whatever story you're telling yourself — because those stories are not facts, that is for sure. That is where the overshadowing actually shows up. And until you metaphorically look them in the eye, there is no self-help book and there is no business strategy that is really going to change that.

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And that's actually the whole point of me sitting here recording this podcast and building this coaching practice the way that I did.

If you go back and listen to some of the earlier episodes in this series — and even just earlier episodes of the podcast in general — I've talked a lot about this identity concept. I'm kind of loosely calling it the Identity-Led Pivot, TBD if that's gonna stick around, but it's just the idea that who you are internally has to shift before any external strategy is actually gonna stick. And I've watched this play out over and over again, especially in my own story and in a lot of women that I know and love.

Here's usually what happens, more or less. You have this dream. Maybe it's a business or a creative project, a career pivot — it doesn't necessarily mean that you're self-employed or you want to be. But there's something that you've been low-key obsessing over for longer than you want to admit. That thing that just keeps popping up in your mind, these random little light bulb moments. And maybe you've tried to take action toward it. And usually that looks like just adding it on top of everything else that's already on your plate. You've tried productivity systems, you've bought different planners — if you're like me, you've gone through so many planners over your lifetime, it's not even funny. You're trying to utilize those precious moments after bedtime, you're doing all the things. But it doesn't go anywhere. Or it does go somewhere for a little bit, and then things kind of taper off and you end up telling yourself the story that you're not disciplined enough, or it's not the right time, or you know what — maybe this just isn't meant to be.

But really, you're not undisciplined. It's more so about being depleted. And you've been trying to build something brand new on a foundation that was not designed to hold it. Your family life and your family rhythms right now were not created around this ambitious mom that you are — because we just get swallowed up by family life and being a new mom. And we ourselves, as moms, bend and adapt to what our family needs rather than the other way around.

So the solution to expanding and strengthening that foundation is not a new marketing strategy. It's within our home. It's the mental load — the invisible list of tasks that you're holding in your head. And it's this martyr mindset, where we sacrifice ourselves in all of the ways for our family. From preconception, from trying to conceive, if not even before that — we do so many things for our family to thrive. We take all the vitamins, we change our diet, we exercise more so we have a healthy body to carry this baby, maybe even just to conceive itself. Obviously all of the sacrifice — physically and emotionally — that we go through being pregnant, and again with delivery and postpartum recovery. There is so much of ourselves that we give to our family that it almost just sets this new norm that that's just what we do.

But that's how we lose ourselves in the process. And then suddenly one day you look around and you're like, wait. What about me? Where did I go? Or you just finally hit your limit and you snap, and you might be lashing out — what about me? What about my time? What about my personal fulfillment and my needs?

No one knew what you needed because you just kind of shoved it aside and said, when the kids are older, when I have more time, when we have more financial ability and can hire childcare — then I can do X, Y, Z. And that whole mindset of sacrificing ourselves for the betterment of our family, first of all, does not actually better our family. Talked about that last week.

And until we address that — the inner work, the identity shift of actually believing that you deserve this space, and the practical work of actually redistributing things at home — until you do some of that, nothing is going to change. At least not sustainably, in a way that you can maintain or in a way that doesn't low-key drive you crazy in the process. I know that's not the fun answer. Everybody wants the five-step system, the silver bullet, the magic sauce. And trust me, all those things do come into play eventually — but they have to come after this personal work that we do for ourselves, to really have the impact that they're supposed to.

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And even sometimes you can do the inner work and try out new strategies and business tactics and all of that, and sometimes it still doesn't land. And just as a quick little side quest tangent here — that still doesn't mean that you are not meant to do whatever it is you're going after.

One of my favorite things about this work is just being a connector. Not just women to their ambitions in some spiritual, soul sense, but also women to resources that are actually right for them. Because not every industry looks the same, not every business model is the same, and sometimes one mom needs to become a coach or a content creator or whatever — and some other mom wants to be more behind the scenes in some different kind of way. Some women have been sitting on something super specific that's related to their background and expertise that I couldn't possibly dream up right now. And my job as a coach isn't to give the same roadmap to everybody. It's to help you find the one that fits your path and your journey and gets you to the destination that you want to get to.

So if you've been taking in all of these strategies and nothing's felt quite right, there's a strong possibility that they're not wrong — they work for some people, they just weren't for you.

And that is the lovely part about this inner work that you do. Because part of what it does is help you get quiet enough to actually hear your own intuition. To realize that this isn't sitting quite right, this doesn't feel aligned, let's try something different. And even if you can't figure out what that is, that's why you find coaches — shameless plug. But you at least have the sense of knowing that this isn't working for me, and it doesn't mean anything about me. It just means I'm going to have to try something different.

A lot of the time, especially as moms, we can try out some of that bro-marketing type stuff, or the really strong hustle, masculine, grind-it-out type of approach. And that just doesn't work for a lot of us. There might be some little bits here and there that I still resonate with, but for the most part — no. I have a much softer, more spiritual approach to things.

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So to wrap this all up with a pretty little bow.

The woman I am talking about in everything I create — she's tried things. Like I said, you've bought the planner, you've tried the course, you've done time audits and all the things, maybe even invested in a high-level mastermind or a group program. And you feel like you got some good information but still can't move the needle in your business or whatever your creative endeavor is.

And those things haven't worked — not because you're not capable. You are extraordinarily capable of so many things. I mean, just literally childbirth. Boom. That is one of the most monumental things that you are capable of, no matter which way you went about it. Don't let anybody tell you that a C-section is the easier way, because quite frankly, after my experience having a vaginal delivery, I would argue that that was easier. That's just my personal opinion. So anyway.

Back to the woman that I think of and talk about with everything that I'm creating here. Those things haven't worked because this inner work hasn't happened. And the one thing that you haven't changed is yourself — or more specifically, the story that you've been telling yourself about who you are now that you're a mom. About whether you're allowed to take up space. About whether your dreams are still reasonable given the season that you're in — that one is the big one for me, a lot of the time. And about whether you can truly have both.

And this woman — she is so tired. Tired of making excuses, tired of delaying the possibilities, tired of living on the sidelines of her own life while this thing that she just cannot stop thinking about sits quietly — but not so quietly — in the back of her mind. Kind of like a rock in your shoe.

And if you resonate with any of that, if that's you — I see you. I almost just said I was you, but I am you. Even though I'm speaking about it in a past tense here, I'm still in the middle of this. I'm only six weeks postpartum as of recording this. I still have to do this inner work all of the time. It doesn't really end — sorry to say, there is no end destination.

But that inner work paired with the right strategies and the right tools and tactics — this softer, more intuitive part of you that already knows what she needs, working in complement with the left-brain strategy that turns all of your intuition and your ideas into something legit and real and rewarding and fulfilling and profitable and impactful — that is the bridge that I am building.

This is what 2026, and hopefully far beyond it, looks like for me. Joining hands with moms who are ready — not waiting, not still saying one day, not when things settle down, but ready now — to do this real work. To figure out what's actually in the way, get it the heck out of the way, and build something that feels like them. That's aligned with who they are and also with their family life. Because that's the beautiful thing about entrepreneurship — like I said last week, you get to build what you want. You get to build this business and this endeavor that works with your family's rhythm, instead of your family adapting to the business's busy seasons.

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So here's my message for you.

You are not the woman that you were before you became a mom. And that is not a loss in the slightest — it's legit the whole point. The woman that you are now, who's been through this gauntlet that I speak of, who has sat in the grief — whether you realize it or not — of who you once were, and came out on the other side, who keeps feeling this pull towards having more in life than just motherhood — she is so incredibly powerful. She just needs some space to breathe.

You're not going back to who you were. You are rising from the ashes of all of the identities that came before this one, and all of the life that you've lived. And there are some really beautiful things waiting for you down the road, if you're willing to start taking the baby steps. If you're willing to just start before you feel completely ready and get after it.

So if you've been listening along and you want to talk about what it would look like to actually do this work together, my door is always open — figuratively. My DMs are always open, every inbox on all the platforms. I have a new website up and running now where you can find out more about what I'm doing lately, and specifically about a coaching program that I have called Matriarch Rising.

And if nothing else — if you just take one thing from today — let it be this. Stop waiting for the version of yourself who feels ready. Readiness is not a destination. It's not a feeling that you suddenly have one day. Readiness is a choice, a decision. And you are allowed to make it right now, in the middle of it, exactly as you are, with everything going on around you.

Because being ready doesn't mean that tomorrow you have this monumental change in your life. Being ready and deciding to start taking action just means that you're gonna create a new Instagram handle for this thing that's been on your mind. Or you're just gonna talk with an AI about what it would be like to start whatever kind of business. It does not have to be anything groundbreaking. You can literally just take one tiny little baby step. Because how do you run a marathon? 26.2 miles — but it's just one step at a time.

Thank you so, so much for sticking with me through this series that has come to be. As always, I am Erin Leech. This is In the Middle of It. And I'll see you next week.

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