This week, on my podcast Adventures With My Forties, I talk about boundaries. Spoiler alert: I am not an expert in having boundaries! Instead, I am an expert in not having healthy boundaries.

I woke up Monday morning and made a decision: I am not going to be the cookie chair this year for Pippa’s Brownie troop. I was the cookie chair last year when she was still a Daisy. It was actually fun. I enjoyed it. I assumed I would be the cookie chair again this year. But it’s 2020. HOLY SHIT.

Monday morning, I texted my decision to our troop leaders. I originally thought I would have to spend at least a week thinking about (translation: agonizing over) this decision. But then, I realized I was just procrastinating telling them because I was worried they would be mad with me, but I can’t be the cookie  chair when it’s going to compromise my mental health during a bat shit crazy year.

As I decided to send the text, I realized I was setting a very healthy boundary. And I also realized that it’s time to talk about boundaries on the show.

I am NOT a boundaries expert.

But I have a lot of experience with NOT having healthy boundaries and with trying to establish better boundaries and not really knowing what the hell I was doing. You could say I am an expert at bumbling my way toward better boundaries.

When it comes to boundaries, I am a work in progress.

I have to be honest. I don’t fully understand my history with boundaries. It’s something I have to think about because I have not thought a lot about boundaries. Does this make any sense? No one ever talked to me about having boundaries. At least, not until I was working with my fourth therapist! Or, maybe people did talk about boundaries but I wasn’t receptive to the information? Maybe I was not at a point in my journey where I was ready to absorb the information?

I am finally ready to get me some healthy AF boundaries.

I think I bounced between two extremes for many years.

On the one hand, I had a fortress built around my heart. I was not comfortable with emotions. I did not want to feel my negative emotions, and I certainly did not want to share those emotions with other people. So as far as emotions were concerned, I had The Wall from Game of Thrones around my heart.

On the other hand, I did not have boundaries. Or, when I forced myself to set a boundary, I felt shit lousy. I did not have a strong sense of self-worth, so whenever I established a boundary, I felt like a bad person. I worried that I was making the other person angry. That I was going to lose the friendship if I said No or cancelled plans or did not make myself fully available to the other person’s needs. The boundaries I managed to establish caused a lot of inner turmoil and anguish.

It shouldn’t be that way. I should not feel tormented every time I allow myself to have a boundary.

When I think about boundaries, I start to think about being a woman in a patriarchy. For thousands of years, it has served men to use women who do not have healthy boundaries. The patriarchy does not encourage boundaries for women! Women are expected to say yes, yes, yes, and give, give, give, give, and serve, serve, serve without asking for anything in return.

I used to feel guilty about having boundaries. Now I am learning to love my boundaries.

Boundaries let me be my true radiant self.

Boundaries allow me to say No and not feel guilty and miserable.

I am allowed to say NO without justifying myself.

I am allowed to say NO without apologizing. (When I apologize unnecessarily, I reinforce the belief that I do not deserve boundaries.)

I’m also allowed to change my mind. Like I just did with being the cookie chair for my daughter’s troop. I was totally going to do it again, but I just can’t anymore. Not after the 2020 I’ve had. So I changed my mind, and I’m not apologizing for it AND I FEEL GOOD ABOUT MY BOUNDARY.

When I feel guilty about enforcing a boundary, that does not mean I need to retreat from the boundary. Instead, I need to examine what internal subconscious beliefs are sending up the guilt. Most of the time, I discover some shitty old belief about my self-worth, or lack thereof.

I am getting better at setting healthy boundaries. Journaling and therapy have helped enormously on this front. So has paying attention and being curious. Again and again, I see in my life that half the battle is noticing a problem. Once I notice that I am not happy with my boundaries, I am already halfway toward having better ones.

I am bumbling my way toward better boundaries, but I know I will get there eventually.

Two and a half years ago, I published my memoir Adventures With Postpartum Depression on Amazon. As part of the publication process, I had to include a blurb about the book to entice potential readers.

This was probably more difficult than writing the actual memoir!

I was so intimidated by the prospect of writing something that promoted my book that I hired someone to do it for me. I filled out a questionnaire, paid about a hundred bucks and received a blurb that was … meh. It did not feel like me. But it had been written by a “professional,” and what did I know about publishing? So I revised the blurb and hoped for the best.

A few months ago, I gathered enough courage to rewrite the blurb. This time, I wrote it myself. Sort of. I looked up the book description for Brooke Shield’s memoir about postpartum depression and wrote a similar blurb. If the publishers for Brooke Shields thought that was the sort of blurb that should accompany a memoir about postpartum depression, who was I to say otherwise?

This is what I wrote:

In this debut memoir, Courtney Novak shares her journey through the darkness of postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety and postpartum obsessive compulsive disorder. She describes her symptoms, including insomnia, guilt, and intrusive thoughts about throwing her baby. Courtney shares candidly how difficult it was for her to realize she had a maternal mood disorder.

There’s two more paragraphs of that crap. It describes my memoir, but it feels like it was written by a stranger.

This morning, as I was journaling, I felt inspired to write a new book blurb. This time, I was not going to hire a “professional” or imitate what someone else had written. I was going to write something that felt natural and authentic.

Here is my new book blurb, which should be live on Amazon later this week:

The title of this book is “Adventures With Postpartum Depression” but it should actually be “Adventures With Postpartum Depression, Anxiety, OCD, Insomnia, Despair, Extreme Guilt, Intrusive Thoughts About Hurting The Baby And Feeling Completely Inept at the Whole Business Of Motherhood.” That title, however, was never going to fit on the book cover unless the author used a really, really, really small font.

There are a lot of excellent books about maternal mood disorders, but this one is different. This one is funny. It is raw, honest, poignant, vulnerable AND laugh out loud, please don’t pee your pants, funny.

Courtney cannot help herself. She tried to write a serious memoir about her experiences with postpartum depression. And to some extent, she succeeded. She is brutally honest about the thoughts she had about throwing her baby and taking her own life. She opens up about her insecurities, shame and guilt. She lets readers eavesdrop on her conversations with her psychologist. But even when she is reflecting on the darkness of her mental illness, Courtney still finds humor and joy.

For anyone suffering from a maternal mood disorder, or any mental illness for that matter, Courtney offers hope and inspiration. Readers will learn how an ordinary mom triumphed over postpartum depression and let the experience transform her into a better, stronger version of herself.  

Oh my goodness, I did not realize just how much the shitty old book blurb was dragging at my soul. I feel so much better!

I love self-care. I believe it is a necessary and vital part of our lives.

BUT: I also worry that self-care gets presented to women as a sort of panacea that will cure all their problems. Feeling down? Buy a scented candle. Feeling unfulfilled and dissatisfied with your life? Take a bubble bath!

This is the dangerous self-care myth: if I practice self-care, I’ll be happy. I’ll feel great. All my problems will go away.

But self-care does not always address deeper soul needs.

I was introduced to the idea of self-care when I was recovering from postpartum depression. My psychiatrist kept nagging me to practice self-care. My loved ones kept urging me to take time for myself. I also read a lot of books about PPD, and those books urged me to practice self-care.

But what the hell did that mean?

At first, I thought of self-care in terms of pedicures and bubble baths. A week after I was discharged from the hospital for psychiatric care, I got a massage. That was relaxing and good but … I felt kind of hollow. So the next day, I got a pedicure. That was also nice and relaxing, but still… I had a hollow feeling.

I was also coloring in the evenings. I had started coloring at the hospital as part of “occupational therapy.” Nathan saw how making art lit me up, so he bought me crayons and coloring books. I had also started journaling again. Slowly, I started to realize that writing and making art helped me feel good. Massages and pedicures were relaxing, but for me, writing and making art were the priority.

I do not want to disparage things like massages and pedicures. I love me a good spa day. In fact, when the pandemic is over, I can’t wait to go to my favorite spa (I hope it is still open!) and get a scrub. Things like bubble baths and spa days definitely count as self-care. It’s just for me, when I only have a little time for self-care, I get more value from taking time to write and make art. For everyone, self-care going to look a little different. You have to do what works for you. Not what works for me, or your sister, or your best friend. YOU.

I think self-care is amazing and important BUT as I was recovering from PPD and reading about self-care, I started to internalize a dangerous message: if I took an hour every week, or twenty minutes every day, just for myself, then I would be fine.

Let’s take a little flashback to my lawyer days, shall we? I graduated from law school in 2004 and practiced law until January 2013. When I was a lawyer, I was MISERABLE. I was never called to be a lawyer. I went to law school because I was terrified of following my calling to be a writer. I worked as a lawyer at big law firms with a big salary because I had this idea that my value depended on how much money I made and how much prestige my job carried.

But hey, when I was a lawyer, I self-cared the shit out of myself. Expensive spa days. Journaling in the morning. I went on trips. Bought myself expensive purses that I didn’t really like. I got facials. I got my hair done. I exercised. I knitted. I did all the self-care! But did that help?

HELL NO.

I was still a miserable lawyer because I was denying my inner call to be a writer and pursuing a career that shredded my soul. I used to tell people that when I got off the elevator at work, I switched into lawyer mode. And when I left, I could switch back to Courtney. This felt a little bad ass. But it was crushing my spirit, and there was no amount of self-care that could make me feel better. I might as well have put a bandaid on an amputated limb.

Self-care is necessary. Relaxation is vital. But self-care has to be done in conjunction with being your authentic self. You cannot avoid your inner divine call by taking a bubble bath. You cannot avoid the work that you are meant to be doing in this lifetime by getting a facial.

This is not easy. We are born with our true inner calling and the work we need to do. But then life piles on and separates us from our call. Society convinces us that we are not good enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough. That we need to fit in, follow the rules, be a good girl, and act like everyone else or we’ll be rejected and cast out from the herd. We are told that we cannot be trusted, that we are not lovable, and that we should be happy with a bubble bath and glass of wine.

We have been told that a scented candle is enough to cancel out the fact that our spirits have been crushed.

Let me tell you about scented candles. When I was a miserable lawyer, I bought myself a $40 candle. It did not make me feel good about myself. It just made me feel like an idiot for buying a $40 candle BECAUSE I DON’T EVEN LIKE SCENTED CANDLES!

I can’t tell you what your inner call is. I can’t tell you what work you are meant to do in this lifetime. I can’t tell you who your authentic self is. But I can tell you this: your inner call is worthy; your authentic self is awesome; your work and your voice and your ideas are important.

If you are struggling to figure out what your divine call is, I suggest thinking about your younger self. What did you feel called to do as a kid? What juiced you up? What did you feel compelled to do? What did you love to do?I read somewhere to think of yourself when you were twelve years old, but I prefer thinking of myself as even younger. Because I don’t know about you, but by the time I was twelve, I was already fairly messed up by society and other peoples’ expectations and opinions.

The idea of self-care as a panacea for all ills is dangerous to women. It makes us think that all we need to do to have a happy life is get pedicures and maybe color for fifteen minutes at the end of the day. The self-care myth is telling us to drown our inner call with a bubble bath.

Self-care is necessary and vital and wonderful. But if your soul feels crushed because you are smothering your inner divine call, self-care is not going to fix that. The self-care myth perpetuates the idea that you just need fifteen minutes a day to feel like yourself, but you deserve to feel like your best self all day, every day. That doesn’t mean you won’t sometimes feel uncomfortable or sad or angry. That’s life. But you can feel uncomfortable or sad or angry and still feel like yourself. That is what you deserve. You deserve to practice self-care AND feel like your best damn self in all aspects of your life.

Well, I have to hand it to 2020. It is doing a first-rate job of teaching me that life is uncertain and the only thing I can control is my mindset.

We had found our Pandemic School Year groove. Julian was back at preschool and loving it. Pippa had started meeting with a pod of two other friends and loving school again. Everything seemed to be humming along.

Then the Bobcat Fire started.

The Bobcat Fire is one of the wildfires currently raging in California. It is in the San Gabriel Mountains just a few miles from our house. Our air reeks of smoke. Ash is everywhere. I can’t take the kids outside to play. We can’t go swimming in our pool or take a walk and just running errands feels like too much.

I will never take the air I breathe for granted again.

Preschool is even closer to the wildfire than our house. Last Thursday and Friday, Julian was able to go to preschool but they had to stay in their classroom the entire time. Julian did not seem to mind this. But the air quality has worsened, so school is closed now. The plan is for the kids to return on Thursday, with new air filters running in the classrooms. We’ll see about that.

Pippa’s pod has also been suspended. There are just three kids in the pod. We have been meeting at a friend’s house that is very close to the wildfire. Their air quality is so bad, they had to move in with a grandparent who lives farther away. So our sweet little second grade pod has been suspended until the wildfire subsides.

Man, this just sucks.

I’m actually in good spirits. I don’t know how, but I have somehow managed to surrender to this experience. It’s like things are so bad, I just can’t be bothered to be upset any more. The winds will blow as they blow. The fire will burn as it burns. The ash will fall where it falls. I can’t control any of it so I might as well enjoy the fact that I am alive and sharing these strange times with my family.

Still, this sucks and I feel better when I acknowledge that it sucks.

This! Sucks! So! Fucking! Much!

We were supposed to have a birthday party for Pippa in March right before the California shutdown. We finally rescheduled her birthday party for later this month. It is going to be a drive by, say hello, take a cupcake, simple affair. But now, it looks like we might have to reschedule that because of the wildfires!

Ah, geez. I can’t even get upset about that.

This week, I am back with more Jedi mind tricks for pandemic parenting. Because parenting is already tough, but add in a pandemic? Sweet Jesus, have mercy!

But first:

• My memoir, Adventures With My Forties, is free right now on Amazon! It is free until Saturday, September 12th. If you missed this round, don’t worry. I’ll make it free again in December. If you want to be alerted when the book is free, then …
• … sign up for my newsletter! I tried starting a newsletter a few years ago, and it didn’t work. It just felt too stiff and formal. I was trying to imitate the style of other newsletters. I was trying too hard to write what I thought people wanted to read instead of writing what I wanted to write. Then I became a Room Parent for Pippa’s kindergarten class and discovered that “stiff and formal” is not my style. I started writing class emails that were slightly unhinged and it was so much fun. I am much more “zany and deranged”! So that is what I am going to try to do with my new newsletter. I hope to have fun and be my authentic self.
• And in case you are curious, the fire I mentioned is the Bobcat Fire, currently at 24,000 acres and 0% containment. It is currently burning away from Pasadena, so fingers crossed! My thoughts and prayers are with the firefighters.

All right, and now, as promised, my second round of Pandemic Parenting Jedi Mind Tricks:

• You can only change yourself. If you are not happy with something about your kid’s behavior, you have to change your behavior. This goes back to modeling, instead of lecturing. For example, if Pippa talks rudely to me, and I give her an angry lecture, I’ve just demonstrated that rudeness is an effective tool for communication. If I say nicely, “I don’t like the way you are talking to me and if you continue that, I’ll have to send you to time out,” then I am changing myself and teaching Pippa a more effective way to communicate.
• You can only save yourself. This is some scary ass shit. By saving yourself, and doing deeper work on yourself, you are lighting the way for your children. But they will fuck up and make mistakes and sometimes be assholes and that’s okay. They have their own journey with their own adventures. They have their own work to do during this lifetime. I’m not saying abandon them. Love them! Nurture them! But realize that it’s your job to save yourself and do YOUR work. You can’t short circuit their work.  
• Are your expectations for your child reasonable? Like are they at the age when they can handle distance learning on their own? Or are you setting them up for failure with your expectations?
• You can’t control life but you can control your mindset. That doesn’t mean the glass needs to be half full. Lately, it feels like 2020 took a huge shit in the glass. Half full or half empty, the water is contaminated. So when I mention “controlling your mindset,” I am not advocating denial. But agonizing over things out of our control? That just increases unnecessary suffering.
• Sometimes, it helps me to think, if I was the child in this situation, how would I want to be parented?
• Or I flip that thinking and wonder, if my kids were the parent in this situation, what would I want for them?
• Fuck screen time rules.
• Flexibility, flexibility, I can’t touch my toes but when it comes to parenting, I try to be flexible. .
• You don’t need anyone else’s approval about the way you are raising your kids. You don’t need the approval of your parents, your in-laws, your friends, your kids’ teachers, your kids’ principal, or any so-called parenting experts.
• Have compassion for yourself and your kids. Everything feels better with compassion. This is something I am working toward and I forget compassion All. The. Time.
• What works changes. I forgot to mention this on the podcast! But I want to include it here. Remember babies? Babies change all the time. Just when you get a good groove going, nap time changes, eating habits change, teething kicks in and destroys everything… Well, what works during the pandemic also changes. Sometimes by the hour.
• Pay attention and be curious. Sometimes just noticing a problem is the solution. I used to yell all the time at my kids. It made me feel awful and they hated it. I thought I was going to need an elaborate solution to the yelling but just by noticing the problem, it gradually subsided.
• Stop judging other parents. When you judge other parents, you judge yourself.I
• It’s okay for your kid to get bored.
• Be authentic. If you are being yourself, parenting feels easier. Like for me, it means getting outside and doing crafts. But for you, it’s probably something different.
• Be intentional and conscious.
• The work is the reward! It’s not the praise or accolades and it’s not money, because god knows we are not being paid for this gig. But the work. You are entitled to the work. Not the glory or fame or honor or prestige. Just the work.

Under the best of circumstances, parenting is tough. Add in a pandemic and some distance learning? Holy sh*t. At the beginning of the pandemic, I wished there was a “Guide to Parenting During A Historic Pandemic” that would help me navigate these stormy times. But the more I reflect on it, the more I realize that the parenting principles that helped me stay sane pre-pandemic also help me stay sane in 2020. In this episode, which is Part 1 of 2, I dive into the principles that are guiding my adventures with pandemic parenting. 

These are the parenting principles I discussed this week:

• Don’t compare your kid to other kids. Kids are people and people are unique. When I fall into the comparison trap, I always compare my kids tougher traits to another kid’s “easier” traits. I don’t compare the way my kids are awesome to other kids. Don’t beat yourself up about this. It is a common human tendency to dwell on the negative.
• On the same note, don’t compare yourself to other parents. We all have different superpowers, different issues, different ways of coping, different life experiences, and different present circumstances. Your style of parenting is going to be as unique as you and your kids are.
• Modeling works better than lecturing. Show, don’t tell.
• You’re not alone. This pandemic is tough for just about 100% of parents.
• Honor your intuition. I talk about intuition in Episode 8. You have to trust yourself and what works for you and your kids and your family during these unprecedented times!
• Follow your kids’ lead. They are less messed up by society, marketing, and the patriarchy than we are. They know what they need.
• But honor your boundaries. You don’t have to sit with a child in your lap in a way that’s uncomfortable just because that is how you child wants to snuggle. You don’t have to play make believe for hours on end just because that is what your child wants. If you always give in to what your child wants, how will they learn how to treat other people? How to endure boredom?
• YOU WILL MAKE MISTAKES! My kids are entitled to my mistakes. If I’m perfect, holy shit, that is setting an impossibly high standard for them.
• The obstacle is the way.
• Don’t take things personally.
• Abundance, over scarcity.
• Shame needs secrecy. So if something during this experience is making you feel shame, share that shit. Are you yelling more? Share with your friends. Are you allowing all the screen time? Share that shit as well!

And I’ll be sharing more helpful parenting principles soon in Episode 11!

I made a comic strip! The idea for this comic has been rattling around my head for about two years, but I kept pushing the idea away. I told myself, I’m not an artist, people will think it is lame. But I did it and damn, it felt good to make.

I posted it the other day on Instagram and thought, People are going to love this! I got four likes. Okaaaaaaaaaay, not quite the response I was hoping for, but you know what? The work is the reward. Making the comic strip was so fun and cathartic, it does not matter if other people liked it or not. What’s important is that my inner call kept shouting at me to make the comic and I finally answered.

I’m really proud of this comic and will definitely be making more. I have some ideas that are not related to breastfeeding, but I’m going to focus on breastfeeding for now. It’s an issue that needs more attention. A lot of moms are suffering in silence because they think they have somehow failed their baby because, for whatever reason, they are not exclusively breastfeeding. The “breast is best” slogan definitely aggravated my postpartum depression. I know a lot of moms who felt demoralized because of the pressure to breastfeed.

I’m sick of staying silent on this subject because I might insult some moms who breastfeed. The “breast is best” slogan is toxic. I don’t care if it rhymes. A fed baby and happy mama should be the goal. If that means breastfeeding, fantastic. But if it means a bottle and formula, that is just as fantastic.

I made this comic with Instagram in mind, so I did not include borders. Next time, I will! It’s a learning process, folks. If you prefer the original IG post, it is right here. Okay, here is my comic baby:

To be continued …