December 11, 2021 • 29 mins
In this episode, radio host Brooke Taylor shares her raw post partum journey-- the difficulties she didn’t expect and how she overcomes them. From comparing her journey to her sisters, a C-section scar she didn’t expect, and Lisa & Brooke open up about being “touched out”.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body out me outway everything that
I'm made do. Won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me
it is beautiful and I will always out way. If
(00:23):
you feel it with your eys in the air, She'll
love to the move I get there. Let's say good
day and did you and die out? Welcome back to
outweigh Our Outweigh Fam. We've got special guest here, Brook Taylor. Hi, Brook,
Welcome to Elway. Hi, thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited. Yeah. So why don't you give our listeners
(00:45):
who may or may not be familiar with you, a
little background on who you are, where you live, and
um the big life update that happened just a few
months ago. So I live in Nashville, UM, which is
pretty new to me and my husband Andrew. We moved
here in December of It's been about a year since
we've gotten here, but it's been doing the whole radio
you know journey. Trying to get to where I want
(01:06):
to be in Nashville has been my kind of like
dream job. So we are here in Nashville, and I
work in radio. I work for her country, and I
work alongside of Amy, so I get to see her
in the hallway is pretty much every day, which is great.
She's one of the kindest humans, so it's really awesome
to see her and uh, you know, cross paths with
her every day. But yeah, we had a baby five
months ago, my husband Andrew and I. This is our
(01:28):
first She's a little girl. Her name is Emma Grace.
And um, it's been the best, most difficult journey I
think we've ever embarked on. But it is very rewarding
and exciting. But yeah, it's definitely been one of those
for your like roller coaster up and down all the time,
but it's it's definitely so much fun. I like how
you said we because your husband is definitely on the
(01:50):
journey with you. But I think, at least from my
experience as mothers, are you know, really like sitting on
the buppyest part of the ship if this is a ship,
for sure, Yeah, I feel like Dad's definitely go through
the journey with us. But there's just something, especially if
you're a breastfeeding mother, where you're constantly needed seven and
(02:10):
there's no way to get around that. So it's like
you're constantly always either attached to another human or if
you have to pump to give a bottle to somebody
else to give her the food. It's it's a lot. Yeah,
I was not prepared for this this at all, but
you've been um really open about your postpartum body image journey.
You've shared really powerful images and words on your social media,
(02:34):
and yeah, we just wanted to kind of have you
on to get into some of that conversation. So first
of all, congrat your five months postpartum. I'm right behind
you at three months, so I'm gonna be like looking
at everything you post now to see what's around the
bend because I never know what's gonna come. And and
before we jump into like you as a mom and
(02:55):
all of that, would you mind sharing what your relationship
to your body was like before were you were pregnant. Yeah,
for sure. So I have grown up an athlete my
entire life. I played sports. I played volleyball in college
on scholarships. So my relationship with my body was always
just like strength. I was always so strong and everything
(03:16):
I did. I loved working out, I love lifting weights.
I loved doing cardio. I just loved being active. Um
and then, uh, you know, you get pregnant and things
definitely change. So my pregnancy journey really kind of altered
that a lot. Because my pregnancy, I gained close to
sixty pounds, which sixty obviously is a large number, but
(03:36):
especially for someone who has been you know, eighty pounds
pretty much your whole life to being in the two
hundreds and making that change, it really took a toll
on my mental health more than I thought it would.
But before pregnancy, I was just you know, I was
an athlete. I was in the gym all the time.
I was always being active in some way, shape or form.
But then when I got pregnant, my body really just
(03:58):
kind of I wouldn't shut down. I feel like that's
how I felt like it did. But it was just
I mean, we're superheroes women, you know, growing a human
inside of you and thinking of it that way. My
body just kind of went a different route than I
thought it would because I have two sisters, and my
sister Kristen, when she got pregnant, she was just you know,
active and always going on walks and things like that.
And for some reason, I just I had no energy.
(04:22):
I was really like bloated all the time. I was
retaining a lot of water weight. So comparing myself to
other women's journeys is something that I started to do,
but then starting to realize that every pregnancy is unique
to itself, it's one different than everybody else's, and just
really coming to you know, terms, and just really being
(04:42):
confident in who I am after having babies. So postpartum
has definitely been a journey, but we were getting there.
You know. It's funny, I think that a lot of
times when we talk about like having body image, stuff
we talked about when we were younger and how it
used to be, And I don't think there's a lot
of conversation around what happens in your twenties or thirties
(05:03):
or forties if you're going through childbirth for the first time.
It sounds like, and correct me if I'm wrong, the
first time you started to view your body from a
different lens was during and after pregnancy. Yeah night, Yeah, okay,
Because we we talked to a lot of athletes to who,
(05:24):
despite like loving their sport, develop a disordered relationship to exercise.
That wasn't your story no, And I mean I feel
like maybe after college I sort of had this like
disorder with exercise where it came to like, you know,
I was up at five am doing workouts during college
all the time, and then after college I was like,
all right, maybe I don't want to get up and
go to the gym at five am. Maybe I want
(05:45):
to go like once every couple of days or things
like that. So it was getting over that hump of
not being in the gym like every single day and
making that, you know, a priority. It was, you know,
other things in my life, but I think the whole
being active in things like that. I I was very
comfortable with that and being in the gym and being healthy.
But then when I got pregnant, I just like I
was nauseous. I didn't want to do anything but sleep.
(06:08):
You know. It's just like it totally took a different turn.
So it was hard. Definitely. It really like stuck with
me when you said I was comparing my journey to
other women's journeys, like especially having I don't have sisters,
but I mean for you to have sisters sounds like
you're close in age to see them go through it
and have a completely different experience. What sort of emotions
(06:28):
did that stir for you? I mean, it was difficult
because you know, I'm thirty three, so having my first
kid in my thirties as opposed to my other sisters
who are in their twenties, your body just goes through
stuff way differently, you know. I and I had to
really talk to myself through that because at first, I
was like, well, Kristen, my youngest sister, I'm like, she
(06:49):
had her baby, and she was active, and she was
working out, and she was doing everything that she did before.
And then you know, she quote unquote snapped back right
after her first baby, and then she you know, had
a second child and the same thing. You know, she
quote unquote snapped back into you know what what she
was before. And I was trying to, you know, work
through it myself, wondering, you know, why why is it
(07:11):
different for other people? What what's different for my body?
And like why is it different for them? And and
why can't I do that? But realizing that, you know,
I'm almost ten years older than my sister, and and
realizing that my body is just doing things differently because
of maybe you know, my age, or just that's just
because what my body wanted to do. It's it's been
(07:31):
an emotional roller coaster for sure. And then so many
of my friends here in Nashville having babies as well.
Some are dealing with the same thing I am, and
some are you know, back to where they were before
they had their baby as well. So it's it's definitely
one of those things where you have to be very
conscious about what you feed into your mind when it
comes to pictures on social media and things like that,
(07:52):
because people really don't see what goes on behind the scenes.
Like if somebody posts the photo of themselves postpartum, you
might not realized that, yes, they have the body that
they had before they were pregnant, but they're going through
a lot of other things, most part of depression or
you know, other things like that. And there's just so
much you have to really be conscious about when it
comes to your body image and and what goes on
(08:13):
with your body postpartum, because there's just there's so much
you know, unveil. Oh my gosh, there's so much to unveil.
Were you prepared for what was to come after having
the baby? Note not at all. You know, you go
into birth as this is what I wanted to be like,
and this is what the movies make it seem like,
(08:33):
you know, it's one of the craziest, most amazing things
that ever happens. But I ended up having to have
an emergency c section and Emma was in the Nike
for a couple of days because the breathing issue. So
it's like, you know, I didn't get to hold my
baby until three days after you know, she was born.
So it's just dealing with that emotional roller coaster along
with an incision and a new scar and and stuff
(08:54):
like that. It's like crazy because you I'm a very
big believer in my faith, and I'm like, you know,
God gave me this story and this path because it's
going to help somebody else in the future. So, you know,
my testimony and what we go through, like I was
equipped to handle this because somebody else wasn't equipped to
handle what I'm going through. So having a hard birth
(09:15):
and then having a hard postpartum journey to me is
almost kind of like an inspirational thing because I know
it's going to help somebody. Like being on this podcast,
like just randomly being connected through other people and and
somebody hearing my story and being able to help them
along the way, I think is such a great way
to look at, you know, certain struggles that you go
throughout in your life. I just have to ask, in
(09:42):
those first three days of not being able to hold
your body, were you having any thoughts about your body
at that time or were you just focused on your daughter. Well,
it's funny because I feel like I had more time
to focus on my body as opposed to you know,
holding a baby and learning to breastfeed and things like that.
So I found myself and I've picked is in my
phone where I found myself, you know, looked standing in
(10:03):
front of the mirror, you know, in the disposable undeas
so they give you and you're groggy, you're just tired
from you know, everything that went on. And I have
photos of myself look and I'm like, I just look
so sad. Instead of you know, celebrating what happened that
I just gave birth to this beautiful human. I I
just found myself just looking at my body and being like,
(10:25):
is this how it's gonna look like forever? You know,
you look at that and and you do you look
like six months pregnant. For the first week after giving birth,
and that's not something people tell you about. So it's
kind of one of those things where you you go
through it and you're like, no, this is normal, this
is this is what most women go through. Yeah, we
had um. My friend Chelsea come on to talk about
her postpartum experience a few months ago too, and this
(10:47):
I was still pregnant at the time, so it wasn't
when you're pregnant. I don't know. When I was pregnant,
I couldn't digest what other women were saying, even though
they were like telling me what was going to happen.
But one of the things she said that I thought
was interesting was at breastfeeding helps you lose weight, and
that seems to be like the popular opinion, but she
(11:07):
came on to say that that hasn't been the story
for her and many other women. Do you have any
thoughts on that? Yeah, So my sister actually was telling
me about this throughout her journey. She was just like, yeah, breastfeeding,
you know, help me lose weight, help me get my
body back. And I'm like, I'm exclusively breastfeeding, Like we
are not supplementing, we're not doing anything else, and I
(11:27):
am not losing weight for breastfeeding either. So it's like
one of those things where it might work for somebody else,
but it might not work for other people. And yes,
you might be burning any calories, but I mean, if
you're nursing, I don't know about you, but I'm like
hungry twenty seven. I was gonna say it's I had
an interesting journey where I don't I don't want myself
because for no reason. Really, I don't even know what
I gained in pregnancy. I don't. I don't know any
(11:49):
of that. But I still have like a body awareness,
and I think that like initially the first few weeks,
I was like, oh, my clothes are gonna start to fit,
and then my body kind of settled and think like
took on a new form. I'm not talking about the
weight to the point where my pants aren't buttoning, and
it's been three months now and I'm not you know,
I'm very conscious about not trying to go back to
(12:10):
any place and just take it day by day and
listen to my body and use all the tools that
I've had to accumulate over the last you know whatever years.
But I think that at my point is is that
I think that I was like my body might have
like originally been going back to how it was and
then it didn't and that's okay, and that doesn't change anything.
But to your point of the hunger, I think that
(12:33):
when it comes to what I'm actually eating, and I'm
a registered dietitian, it's almost comical because by the time
you're done nursing on demand, like you said, you're freaking exhausted.
Like you're lucky if you could even like figure out
how to turn the microwave on to make a hot meal,
Like I'm like sticking random things from my pantry into
from random things into my fridge and calling it a meal.
(12:55):
And I have access and education and all of these
privileged things that most people don't have. And I could
only imagine somebody in a in a far less financial
comfortable situation after nursing the entire day, the best thing
they can do for themselves is get you know, burger
king or whatever. Yeah, go get a pop tart or something, Yeah,
(13:15):
pop tart, burger, you know whatever it is. But like something,
it's just I think that there's that myth of oh,
you know, just it'll be easy if you're breastfeeding and
not taking into account that nothing is easy if you're
breastfeeding or not breastfeeding in this stage of the journey. Yeah,
especially having I mean small children. I have one of
my best friends, she was unable to breastfeeds, so she's
(13:37):
formula feeding, which you know, it's is okay. And a
lot of people not only are hard on themselves and
their bodies with you know, what they eat and what
they look like after postpartum, but breastfeeding comes into that
whole journey of your body and being you know, sad
that your body can't do what other women's can do,
and it's it's hard. It's a hard journey and helping
(13:58):
walk her through that, and then you know, wanting to
stay the wrong thing about like oh yeah, I'm pumping
this amount for whatever. It's like everybody is so unique
and so different that it's so hard for us as
women to not compare ourselves to what you know, Alicia
is doing on this side or Brittany's doing on this side.
It's just it's it's hard all the way around when
it comes to motherhood. You're right, even like you said,
(14:19):
like my friend produces three ounces of milk, I'm only
producing one ounce of milk. So I don't know about
for you, but I had to make a big that's
not a big choice. That sounds a little bit dramatic,
but I had to make a choice about a month
ago when I realized that my old jeans weren't fitting,
and I was hesitant to buy new pants because you know,
pants can be expensive these days. D two hundred dollars.
(14:42):
I mean, maybe I like nice pants, but I was like,
you know, let me just I'll just continue on wearing
the sweatpants until I can fit into the clothes. And
every once in a while i've left my house. Not
often I work from home and I go to put
on my clothes, I'm like, okay, maybe my jeans bit now.
And I pull them on and they're tight before they
even make it like halfway up my leg, which is
(15:02):
an interesting experience for me, and it made it very
frustrating to get dressed. So I said, you know what,
I'm gonna go buy myself some pants that fit me now.
And I did. I bought two pants, two bears, the
jeans that I really like that fit me now, and
maybe I'll but maybe this is my new size, and
I'll continue to buy more. But have you had to
make any choices like that or or what is your
approach to getting dressed in the morning. Yeah, so, you know,
(15:25):
the first few weeks after giving birth, you're living in
whatever's clean pretty much, you know, nursing and doing all
that that stuff. But as you as you go and
you try to get back to feeling like a human.
Especially for me coming back to work, I love getting,
you know, putting makeup on, having my hair done because
I always say, look good, feel good, play good stuff.
I'm if I feel good and I look good, I'm
(15:46):
going to have a good day. And so coming back
to work, I was just like, I don't want to
just wear sweatpants or you know, leggings is fine, you
can dress those up, but trying to fit into my
old jeans was so difficult, Like they barely come up
my thighs. Like you said, kind of the same thing.
And I'm just like, Okay, I can either wallow in
this or like you said, I can dress to fit
(16:08):
my new body. And I think that's so important to
where numbers on a tag these days. I mean, you
could wear a ten and one size and a fourteen
in the other and they're the exact same size, so
it's not really looking at the size difference. But yeah,
going shopping and finding clothes that fit my new body
was so important. And I will say that it took
me a little while. It took me, you know, going
(16:30):
into stores and being like, Okay, I don't want to
try stuffawn, or I would put something on and just
cry in a dressing room because I'm looking in this
mirror and I'm like, this is not who I am
used to. And you're really not only learning to love
a new human that you just gave birth to, but
you're learning to love your your new self because you
really are a new person after you give birth. And
it's not an easy journey. I won't sit here and
(16:52):
say that, yeah, it's been a breeze. It's you know,
lots of tears, lots of laying of my husband's lap,
crying and and and trying to figure out what it
looks like. But getting clothes that fit your new body
is so important because instead of squeezing yourself into other things,
you're you're putting on things that make you feel good,
that makes you, you know, that look good on your
new body. And it's hard, it's a difficult journey. But
(17:14):
I'm with you on that where I had to go
out and I had to spend some money on some
new clothes because the other ones just weren't part of
my life anymore. Another another thing we have to pay
for in motherhood, on top of the swattles and the
bottles and the mamoro and this and that that, you know,
just the millions of dollars that a woman has to really,
especially if you're going back to work. And I think
(17:35):
that whether you're corporate or even right you know radio,
obviously you're just you're looking nice just for you here.
But you don't want to wear the same pair of
pants every single day to work, Or maybe you do,
but to you you specifically, don't you like being playful
and expressive with your clothes and having that as an
inhibitor on top of all the other things that we
have to worry about. It's like we just gotta get
clothes that fit us now. But I think you brought
(17:56):
up a really like illustrative point about the dressing room.
For me, that was a really triggering place growing up.
Every time I went to a dressing room, the harsh lighting,
I saw different angles of my body that always made
me feel bad to the point where I just stopped
using dressing rooms for all these years, I would just
buy clothes and then return or online shops. So for
(18:17):
anybody who listening who might feel really triggered postpartum or
not um, you might want to consider the online shopping
route to make it a more comfortable experience for you.
And I will also mention like Brooks, like you said
so smartly that size variation is not an indicator of
your true size. You might want to get the jean
(18:39):
whatever you know it is because of that fluctuation, because
I can obviously be a difficult situation, and I might
even suggest this just came to me if you're in
a dressing room or even ordering at home, starting with
the the higher number first and working your way back
(19:01):
rather than feeling like, Okay, I want to start with
this gize because I want to fit into that, to
learn it doesn't fit, to then try another and then
this doesn't fit, and then kind of feel like like
there's something wrong with you when there's when there's not.
You also said something really interesting that I'm curious about.
It sounds like you and your husband have like a
really loving relationship you said you cried on his lap
about your body. How has it been to voice those
(19:25):
feelings to a partner who can't get it and also
knew a body of yours before. It's been hard. It's
one of those journeys where you feel like you're going
through it alone because, like you said, a husband can
never quite understand the changes your body has gone through.
And you know, I would you know, venture to say,
like we see ourselves, you know, undressed more than uh
(19:49):
a spouse would, you know, getting in the shower and
looking at yourself and and feeling like, especially for anybody
who's had a C section, they call it the shelf,
like where your scar is and then your skin kind
of like hangs over it, so it's not fully flat anymore.
And seeing that and just the way that it looks
and the way that it feels, especially like if you
(20:10):
put on leggings, like you know, I'm used to wearing
like leggings at a crop top, and now I feel
like I can't because I have this like quote unquote
shelf where it's just like a little like bump um
and I'm very self conscious of it. So not being
able to sort of dress the way that I used to,
and then, you know, seeing myself in the mirror, it's
just a different experience than it used to be as well.
(20:30):
It's kind of one of those experiences though, where you
realize that it doesn't matter. What matters is the human
that you brought to the world. And my husband being
such an encouraging guy to where he tells me every
single day, you're beautiful. I love you the way you are,
the way you were before. I love you more now
than I did then, you know, and being able to
(20:52):
be open with a partner about how you're feeling is
important because if you bottle it up, like any other
thing in your life, you bottle it up, it just
wells and wells and wells until you hit your breaking point.
And then whether you have a panic attack or whether
you are just having a crying fit, or you send
yourself kind of into a spiral, it's like you have
to let those emotions out, whether you're talking to you know,
(21:12):
your spouse, or if you're single and you're going through
something and you have to talk to a therapist or
a really good friend, getting it out and talking about
it and being communicative about how you're feeling and why
you're feeling that way, that way you can really talk
through it as opposed to just be like, this how
I'm feeling, and this is why it is, and that's
that you know, It's like you really have to have
those conversations where you're like, it's okay that your body
(21:34):
looks different, it's okay that you know you don't look
the same way you did before, and really just learning
to love your new body is a journey that I
feel like I'll probably go through for the next who
knows how much time. But being communicative with my partner
about it, it's it's really important for him and I
to have those conversations because you know, he's my other half,
(21:55):
Like he's he's who I you know, he's who's with
me every day, and he's so encourage ing and loving
through it, and he's like, listen, your feelings are valid
and I understand to the extent that I can understand
um what you're going through. But just know that you
know you're beautiful, and I don't you know, I don't
think you're ugly because of what you think you're ugly for,
and yeah, I just think it's it's it's definitely a journey.
(22:17):
It's it's weird to talk to them about things like
that because I am I've always been that confident person
who loves herself and loves her body. And to kind
of feel like I'm being knocked down a few pegs
to just look at life a little bit differently, It's
it's been a journey, but I think it's definitely been
a really humbling one too. I like to tell you
said knocked down a few pegs, like you're still you.
Just because you're going through a change in your relationship
(22:37):
to your body and your body image doesn't mean that
you're still not the confident you. You can kind of
be both of those things. And for anybody who's listening
that might feel like their partner doesn't get it, I
would also ask you to maybe ask yourself, have you
communicated the way that it sounds like Brooke is communicating,
Because I know sometimes when I ill ugly or unattractive
(23:02):
and maybe I'm, you know, not loving how things are
going in my body, might think to myself, he won't understand,
and then I won't tell him, and then I'm not
getting that reinforcement that I might need. That's not to
say that that should be your only form of reinforcement,
because I'm a strong believer that when we become reliant
on our partners validation, we then seek it out and
(23:24):
when it's not there, we draw conclusions that aren't necessarily true,
if that makes sense. Kind of a separate conversation, but
just wanted to mention that, um, you can share with
your partner what you're going through so that they can
maybe voice what they're thinking, because your partner may be
holding back their thoughts about how beautiful or how much
they love you more now because that door to be
(23:45):
more intimate emotionally might not have been cracked open because
you're holding back. And maybe that's me, you know, saying
to me like I'm I'm keeping it all closed in,
I don't know about you, and maybe I'm not sure
if you're comfortable talking about this but exclusively nursing or
pumping or breastfeeding, and you know, something we're both we're
both doing is a lot of like nipple pulling and
(24:07):
seeing your boobs do things they've never done before. And
for me, like I'd say, the hardest part, not body
image wise, but relationship wise, is like these boobs are
no longer the boobs they used to be and like
I oftentimes don't want someone else to touch them in
the same way that they might be used to be
touching them. Yeah. No, I actually had this conversation with
(24:29):
some of my girlfriends the other day of how I'm
ready for my boobs to be my husband's again, if
you know. And it's like it's hard because sometimes, like
you said, um, we are constantly being touched, you know,
multiple times throughout the day, somebody else is touching our body.
And you know, I have noticed within the last five
(24:49):
months that like the end of the day, you know,
when my husband gets home from work and you know,
he's feeling some type of way. I'm like, I just
don't want to be touched right now, I've been touched
all day. But also that feeling of where it's like
things that we used to do, I'm like, you can't
do that because this is your kids right now. Like
this is weird, you know what I mean. And it's
like having that issue of like your body image of
(25:11):
like you're not able to do things that you're used
to be able to do. Lots of information coming out
right now, but it's it's so it's so true because
you know, you're used to feeling some type of way
when you know certain things happen, and now you're like,
I don't know if I like that before, Like I
don't know how I feel about that, but yeah, it's
it's difficult. And then, like you said, I mean, my
(25:31):
chest size grew like three cup size is huge, like
big and just heavy. My back hurts all the time.
Like it's wild having to, like you said, even spend
more money on new bras and new nursing tank tops
and things like that, and it's just Yeah, the the
chest nipple pulling situation at all times is definitely one
(25:51):
of those things where you're like, what are they going
to look like once this is all done? You know,
like are they going to be this way? Are they
going to be that way? I know you're so right,
and I am. My boobs didn't come in until after pregnancy.
I don't know if you had that same experience. Yeah,
same like I had. No, I was still flat up
until ten months pregnant, actually ten month thing, and then
(26:11):
as soon as she came out the next few weeks
they came in. And I actually have fake boobs from
when I was eighteen and I'm still seeing the shape
of like illustrating it up for a brook over our
zoom right now. But they're they're becoming more cone like
and the nipples now come out, and I just I
never saw my body do this before, Like I look,
you look in the mirror almost immediately after giving birth
(26:33):
if you're nursing or breastfeeding, and I don't know for you,
like we're the same age. I'm thirty three two. But
I felt like I felt like a kid before this,
and then I looked in the mirror and I was like, oh, no,
you're not a kid anymore. Like that's a mama's body.
That's a woman's body. There's no going back. Yeah, no,
I agreed because I remember before I gave well, I
(26:54):
guess before I was pregnant, I had very perky boobs.
I didn't like to wear bras like things like that.
That's how my body was. And now it's like if
I take my bra off. You probably have seen like
those illustrations online, like memes and stuff where it's like
after birth, you're like boobs just like come down to
your belly button. They literally are like they pointed down
like your code nipples and you're like what is this?
(27:16):
And that's another thing that you have to deal with,
is like I can't not wear bra now or else.
They're flying all kinds of separate ways. So it's definitely
another body image situation where you're like, this is different.
You literally have a grown woman's body now you are,
you're a mom um. Well, I just love the way
you've really approached taking control over snap back culture and
(27:39):
your life. And it sounds like you approach every day
of your life from a really grounded place. Sounds like
your relationship is a nice piece of security for me,
but on your own, it just sounds like you provide
a lot of security for yourself and you're such a
grounding voice. So we're gonna put your Instagram handle below
so everyone can check you out. And what radio station
are you on for those who are in the area
(28:01):
that you can listen to you, Yeah, and Nashville. I'm
on the Big ninety eight, So ninety seven point nine,
the Big ninety eight from ten am to three pm
Monday through Friday. So cool. And then we're gonna put
your Instagram which is what again, just so everyone can
hear it at Brooke Radio. At Brooke Radio, Okay, great,
we'll put that in the show notes. Thank you for
sharing your journey with us. You know, we went to
(28:22):
some intimate places, but I guess I was eager to
just talk to somebody who's kind of in the thick
of it with me and say some of those feelings
that feel really shameful when they're stuck inside of you,
but once they're out of you and you're like, Okay,
we're all going through this. Let's you know that we can.
I'll get through it together. Like you said, the hard
stuff for us can be an inspiration for somebody else.
(28:43):
And yeah, for those listening, if you're going through this
or you're about to go through it, just know you
are not alone in this. There are so many people
on social media that you can turn to that are
going through the same stuff, and building that community is
important to surround yourself with to know that you're not alone.
Thank you so much, Brooke. You're welcome. It's great to
meet you. Mm hm
I won't let my body out me outway everything that
I'm made do. Won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me
it is beautiful and I will always out way. If
(00:23):
you feel it with your eys in the air, She'll
love to the move I get there. Let's say good
day and did you and die out? Welcome back to
outweigh Our Outweigh Fam. We've got special guest here, Brook Taylor. Hi, Brook,
Welcome to Elway. Hi, thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited. Yeah. So why don't you give our listeners
(00:45):
who may or may not be familiar with you, a
little background on who you are, where you live, and
um the big life update that happened just a few
months ago. So I live in Nashville, UM, which is
pretty new to me and my husband Andrew. We moved
here in December of It's been about a year since
we've gotten here, but it's been doing the whole radio
you know journey. Trying to get to where I want
(01:06):
to be in Nashville has been my kind of like
dream job. So we are here in Nashville, and I
work in radio. I work for her country, and I
work alongside of Amy, so I get to see her
in the hallway is pretty much every day, which is great.
She's one of the kindest humans, so it's really awesome
to see her and uh, you know, cross paths with
her every day. But yeah, we had a baby five
months ago, my husband Andrew and I. This is our
(01:28):
first She's a little girl. Her name is Emma Grace.
And um, it's been the best, most difficult journey I
think we've ever embarked on. But it is very rewarding
and exciting. But yeah, it's definitely been one of those
for your like roller coaster up and down all the time,
but it's it's definitely so much fun. I like how
you said we because your husband is definitely on the
(01:50):
journey with you. But I think, at least from my
experience as mothers, are you know, really like sitting on
the buppyest part of the ship if this is a ship,
for sure, Yeah, I feel like Dad's definitely go through
the journey with us. But there's just something, especially if
you're a breastfeeding mother, where you're constantly needed seven and
(02:10):
there's no way to get around that. So it's like
you're constantly always either attached to another human or if
you have to pump to give a bottle to somebody
else to give her the food. It's it's a lot. Yeah,
I was not prepared for this this at all, but
you've been um really open about your postpartum body image journey.
You've shared really powerful images and words on your social media,
(02:34):
and yeah, we just wanted to kind of have you
on to get into some of that conversation. So first
of all, congrat your five months postpartum. I'm right behind
you at three months, so I'm gonna be like looking
at everything you post now to see what's around the
bend because I never know what's gonna come. And and
before we jump into like you as a mom and
(02:55):
all of that, would you mind sharing what your relationship
to your body was like before were you were pregnant. Yeah,
for sure. So I have grown up an athlete my
entire life. I played sports. I played volleyball in college
on scholarships. So my relationship with my body was always
just like strength. I was always so strong and everything
(03:16):
I did. I loved working out, I love lifting weights.
I loved doing cardio. I just loved being active. Um
and then, uh, you know, you get pregnant and things
definitely change. So my pregnancy journey really kind of altered
that a lot. Because my pregnancy, I gained close to
sixty pounds, which sixty obviously is a large number, but
(03:36):
especially for someone who has been you know, eighty pounds
pretty much your whole life to being in the two
hundreds and making that change, it really took a toll
on my mental health more than I thought it would.
But before pregnancy, I was just you know, I was
an athlete. I was in the gym all the time.
I was always being active in some way, shape or form.
But then when I got pregnant, my body really just
(03:58):
kind of I wouldn't shut down. I feel like that's
how I felt like it did. But it was just
I mean, we're superheroes women, you know, growing a human
inside of you and thinking of it that way. My
body just kind of went a different route than I
thought it would because I have two sisters, and my
sister Kristen, when she got pregnant, she was just you know,
active and always going on walks and things like that.
And for some reason, I just I had no energy.
(04:22):
I was really like bloated all the time. I was
retaining a lot of water weight. So comparing myself to
other women's journeys is something that I started to do,
but then starting to realize that every pregnancy is unique
to itself, it's one different than everybody else's, and just
really coming to you know, terms, and just really being
(04:42):
confident in who I am after having babies. So postpartum
has definitely been a journey, but we were getting there.
You know. It's funny, I think that a lot of
times when we talk about like having body image, stuff
we talked about when we were younger and how it
used to be, And I don't think there's a lot
of conversation around what happens in your twenties or thirties
(05:03):
or forties if you're going through childbirth for the first time.
It sounds like, and correct me if I'm wrong, the
first time you started to view your body from a
different lens was during and after pregnancy. Yeah night, Yeah, okay,
Because we we talked to a lot of athletes to who,
(05:24):
despite like loving their sport, develop a disordered relationship to exercise.
That wasn't your story no, And I mean I feel
like maybe after college I sort of had this like
disorder with exercise where it came to like, you know,
I was up at five am doing workouts during college
all the time, and then after college I was like,
all right, maybe I don't want to get up and
go to the gym at five am. Maybe I want
(05:45):
to go like once every couple of days or things
like that. So it was getting over that hump of
not being in the gym like every single day and
making that, you know, a priority. It was, you know,
other things in my life, but I think the whole
being active in things like that. I I was very
comfortable with that and being in the gym and being healthy.
But then when I got pregnant, I just like I
was nauseous. I didn't want to do anything but sleep.
(06:08):
You know. It's just like it totally took a different turn.
So it was hard. Definitely. It really like stuck with
me when you said I was comparing my journey to
other women's journeys, like especially having I don't have sisters,
but I mean for you to have sisters sounds like
you're close in age to see them go through it
and have a completely different experience. What sort of emotions
(06:28):
did that stir for you? I mean, it was difficult
because you know, I'm thirty three, so having my first
kid in my thirties as opposed to my other sisters
who are in their twenties, your body just goes through
stuff way differently, you know. I and I had to
really talk to myself through that because at first, I
was like, well, Kristen, my youngest sister, I'm like, she
(06:49):
had her baby, and she was active, and she was
working out, and she was doing everything that she did before.
And then you know, she quote unquote snapped back right
after her first baby, and then she you know, had
a second child and the same thing. You know, she
quote unquote snapped back into you know what what she
was before. And I was trying to, you know, work
through it myself, wondering, you know, why why is it
(07:11):
different for other people? What what's different for my body?
And like why is it different for them? And and
why can't I do that? But realizing that, you know,
I'm almost ten years older than my sister, and and
realizing that my body is just doing things differently because
of maybe you know, my age, or just that's just
because what my body wanted to do. It's it's been
(07:31):
an emotional roller coaster for sure. And then so many
of my friends here in Nashville having babies as well.
Some are dealing with the same thing I am, and
some are you know, back to where they were before
they had their baby as well. So it's it's definitely
one of those things where you have to be very
conscious about what you feed into your mind when it
comes to pictures on social media and things like that,
(07:52):
because people really don't see what goes on behind the scenes.
Like if somebody posts the photo of themselves postpartum, you
might not realized that, yes, they have the body that
they had before they were pregnant, but they're going through
a lot of other things, most part of depression or
you know, other things like that. And there's just so
much you have to really be conscious about when it
comes to your body image and and what goes on
(08:13):
with your body postpartum, because there's just there's so much
you know, unveil. Oh my gosh, there's so much to unveil.
Were you prepared for what was to come after having
the baby? Note not at all. You know, you go
into birth as this is what I wanted to be like,
and this is what the movies make it seem like,
(08:33):
you know, it's one of the craziest, most amazing things
that ever happens. But I ended up having to have
an emergency c section and Emma was in the Nike
for a couple of days because the breathing issue. So
it's like, you know, I didn't get to hold my
baby until three days after you know, she was born.
So it's just dealing with that emotional roller coaster along
with an incision and a new scar and and stuff
(08:54):
like that. It's like crazy because you I'm a very
big believer in my faith, and I'm like, you know,
God gave me this story and this path because it's
going to help somebody else in the future. So, you know,
my testimony and what we go through, like I was
equipped to handle this because somebody else wasn't equipped to
handle what I'm going through. So having a hard birth
(09:15):
and then having a hard postpartum journey to me is
almost kind of like an inspirational thing because I know
it's going to help somebody. Like being on this podcast,
like just randomly being connected through other people and and
somebody hearing my story and being able to help them
along the way, I think is such a great way
to look at, you know, certain struggles that you go
throughout in your life. I just have to ask, in
(09:42):
those first three days of not being able to hold
your body, were you having any thoughts about your body
at that time or were you just focused on your daughter. Well,
it's funny because I feel like I had more time
to focus on my body as opposed to you know,
holding a baby and learning to breastfeed and things like that.
So I found myself and I've picked is in my
phone where I found myself, you know, looked standing in
(10:03):
front of the mirror, you know, in the disposable undeas
so they give you and you're groggy, you're just tired
from you know, everything that went on. And I have
photos of myself look and I'm like, I just look
so sad. Instead of you know, celebrating what happened that
I just gave birth to this beautiful human. I I
just found myself just looking at my body and being like,
(10:25):
is this how it's gonna look like forever? You know,
you look at that and and you do you look
like six months pregnant. For the first week after giving birth,
and that's not something people tell you about. So it's
kind of one of those things where you you go
through it and you're like, no, this is normal, this
is this is what most women go through. Yeah, we
had um. My friend Chelsea come on to talk about
her postpartum experience a few months ago too, and this
(10:47):
I was still pregnant at the time, so it wasn't
when you're pregnant. I don't know. When I was pregnant,
I couldn't digest what other women were saying, even though
they were like telling me what was going to happen.
But one of the things she said that I thought
was interesting was at breastfeeding helps you lose weight, and
that seems to be like the popular opinion, but she
(11:07):
came on to say that that hasn't been the story
for her and many other women. Do you have any
thoughts on that? Yeah, So my sister actually was telling
me about this throughout her journey. She was just like, yeah, breastfeeding,
you know, help me lose weight, help me get my
body back. And I'm like, I'm exclusively breastfeeding, Like we
are not supplementing, we're not doing anything else, and I
(11:27):
am not losing weight for breastfeeding either. So it's like
one of those things where it might work for somebody else,
but it might not work for other people. And yes,
you might be burning any calories, but I mean, if
you're nursing, I don't know about you, but I'm like
hungry twenty seven. I was gonna say it's I had
an interesting journey where I don't I don't want myself
because for no reason. Really, I don't even know what
I gained in pregnancy. I don't. I don't know any
(11:49):
of that. But I still have like a body awareness,
and I think that like initially the first few weeks,
I was like, oh, my clothes are gonna start to fit,
and then my body kind of settled and think like
took on a new form. I'm not talking about the
weight to the point where my pants aren't buttoning, and
it's been three months now and I'm not you know,
I'm very conscious about not trying to go back to
(12:10):
any place and just take it day by day and
listen to my body and use all the tools that
I've had to accumulate over the last you know whatever years.
But I think that at my point is is that
I think that I was like my body might have
like originally been going back to how it was and
then it didn't and that's okay, and that doesn't change anything.
But to your point of the hunger, I think that
(12:33):
when it comes to what I'm actually eating, and I'm
a registered dietitian, it's almost comical because by the time
you're done nursing on demand, like you said, you're freaking exhausted.
Like you're lucky if you could even like figure out
how to turn the microwave on to make a hot meal,
Like I'm like sticking random things from my pantry into
from random things into my fridge and calling it a meal.
(12:55):
And I have access and education and all of these
privileged things that most people don't have. And I could
only imagine somebody in a in a far less financial
comfortable situation after nursing the entire day, the best thing
they can do for themselves is get you know, burger
king or whatever. Yeah, go get a pop tart or something, Yeah,
(13:15):
pop tart, burger, you know whatever it is. But like something,
it's just I think that there's that myth of oh,
you know, just it'll be easy if you're breastfeeding and
not taking into account that nothing is easy if you're
breastfeeding or not breastfeeding in this stage of the journey. Yeah,
especially having I mean small children. I have one of
my best friends, she was unable to breastfeeds, so she's
(13:37):
formula feeding, which you know, it's is okay. And a
lot of people not only are hard on themselves and
their bodies with you know, what they eat and what
they look like after postpartum, but breastfeeding comes into that
whole journey of your body and being you know, sad
that your body can't do what other women's can do,
and it's it's hard. It's a hard journey and helping
(13:58):
walk her through that, and then you know, wanting to
stay the wrong thing about like oh yeah, I'm pumping
this amount for whatever. It's like everybody is so unique
and so different that it's so hard for us as
women to not compare ourselves to what you know, Alicia
is doing on this side or Brittany's doing on this side.
It's just it's it's hard all the way around when
it comes to motherhood. You're right, even like you said,
(14:19):
like my friend produces three ounces of milk, I'm only
producing one ounce of milk. So I don't know about
for you, but I had to make a big that's
not a big choice. That sounds a little bit dramatic,
but I had to make a choice about a month
ago when I realized that my old jeans weren't fitting,
and I was hesitant to buy new pants because you know,
pants can be expensive these days. D two hundred dollars.
(14:42):
I mean, maybe I like nice pants, but I was like,
you know, let me just I'll just continue on wearing
the sweatpants until I can fit into the clothes. And
every once in a while i've left my house. Not
often I work from home and I go to put
on my clothes, I'm like, okay, maybe my jeans bit now.
And I pull them on and they're tight before they
even make it like halfway up my leg, which is
(15:02):
an interesting experience for me, and it made it very
frustrating to get dressed. So I said, you know what,
I'm gonna go buy myself some pants that fit me now.
And I did. I bought two pants, two bears, the
jeans that I really like that fit me now, and
maybe I'll but maybe this is my new size, and
I'll continue to buy more. But have you had to
make any choices like that or or what is your
approach to getting dressed in the morning. Yeah, so, you know,
(15:25):
the first few weeks after giving birth, you're living in
whatever's clean pretty much, you know, nursing and doing all
that that stuff. But as you as you go and
you try to get back to feeling like a human.
Especially for me coming back to work, I love getting,
you know, putting makeup on, having my hair done because
I always say, look good, feel good, play good stuff.
I'm if I feel good and I look good, I'm
(15:46):
going to have a good day. And so coming back
to work, I was just like, I don't want to
just wear sweatpants or you know, leggings is fine, you
can dress those up, but trying to fit into my
old jeans was so difficult, Like they barely come up
my thighs. Like you said, kind of the same thing.
And I'm just like, Okay, I can either wallow in
this or like you said, I can dress to fit
(16:08):
my new body. And I think that's so important to
where numbers on a tag these days. I mean, you
could wear a ten and one size and a fourteen
in the other and they're the exact same size, so
it's not really looking at the size difference. But yeah,
going shopping and finding clothes that fit my new body
was so important. And I will say that it took
me a little while. It took me, you know, going
(16:30):
into stores and being like, Okay, I don't want to
try stuffawn, or I would put something on and just
cry in a dressing room because I'm looking in this
mirror and I'm like, this is not who I am
used to. And you're really not only learning to love
a new human that you just gave birth to, but
you're learning to love your your new self because you
really are a new person after you give birth. And
it's not an easy journey. I won't sit here and
(16:52):
say that, yeah, it's been a breeze. It's you know,
lots of tears, lots of laying of my husband's lap,
crying and and and trying to figure out what it
looks like. But getting clothes that fit your new body
is so important because instead of squeezing yourself into other things,
you're you're putting on things that make you feel good,
that makes you, you know, that look good on your
new body. And it's hard, it's a difficult journey. But
(17:14):
I'm with you on that where I had to go
out and I had to spend some money on some
new clothes because the other ones just weren't part of
my life anymore. Another another thing we have to pay
for in motherhood, on top of the swattles and the
bottles and the mamoro and this and that that, you know,
just the millions of dollars that a woman has to really,
especially if you're going back to work. And I think
(17:35):
that whether you're corporate or even right you know radio,
obviously you're just you're looking nice just for you here.
But you don't want to wear the same pair of
pants every single day to work, Or maybe you do,
but to you you specifically, don't you like being playful
and expressive with your clothes and having that as an
inhibitor on top of all the other things that we
have to worry about. It's like we just gotta get
clothes that fit us now. But I think you brought
(17:56):
up a really like illustrative point about the dressing room.
For me, that was a really triggering place growing up.
Every time I went to a dressing room, the harsh lighting,
I saw different angles of my body that always made
me feel bad to the point where I just stopped
using dressing rooms for all these years, I would just
buy clothes and then return or online shops. So for
(18:17):
anybody who listening who might feel really triggered postpartum or
not um, you might want to consider the online shopping
route to make it a more comfortable experience for you.
And I will also mention like Brooks, like you said
so smartly that size variation is not an indicator of
your true size. You might want to get the jean
(18:39):
whatever you know it is because of that fluctuation, because
I can obviously be a difficult situation, and I might
even suggest this just came to me if you're in
a dressing room or even ordering at home, starting with
the the higher number first and working your way back
(19:01):
rather than feeling like, Okay, I want to start with
this gize because I want to fit into that, to
learn it doesn't fit, to then try another and then
this doesn't fit, and then kind of feel like like
there's something wrong with you when there's when there's not.
You also said something really interesting that I'm curious about.
It sounds like you and your husband have like a
really loving relationship you said you cried on his lap
about your body. How has it been to voice those
(19:25):
feelings to a partner who can't get it and also
knew a body of yours before. It's been hard. It's
one of those journeys where you feel like you're going
through it alone because, like you said, a husband can
never quite understand the changes your body has gone through.
And you know, I would you know, venture to say,
like we see ourselves, you know, undressed more than uh
(19:49):
a spouse would, you know, getting in the shower and
looking at yourself and and feeling like, especially for anybody
who's had a C section, they call it the shelf,
like where your scar is and then your skin kind
of like hangs over it, so it's not fully flat anymore.
And seeing that and just the way that it looks
and the way that it feels, especially like if you
(20:10):
put on leggings, like you know, I'm used to wearing
like leggings at a crop top, and now I feel
like I can't because I have this like quote unquote
shelf where it's just like a little like bump um
and I'm very self conscious of it. So not being
able to sort of dress the way that I used to,
and then, you know, seeing myself in the mirror, it's
just a different experience than it used to be as well.
(20:30):
It's kind of one of those experiences though, where you
realize that it doesn't matter. What matters is the human
that you brought to the world. And my husband being
such an encouraging guy to where he tells me every
single day, you're beautiful. I love you the way you are,
the way you were before. I love you more now
than I did then, you know, and being able to
(20:52):
be open with a partner about how you're feeling is
important because if you bottle it up, like any other
thing in your life, you bottle it up, it just
wells and wells and wells until you hit your breaking point.
And then whether you have a panic attack or whether
you are just having a crying fit, or you send
yourself kind of into a spiral, it's like you have
to let those emotions out, whether you're talking to you know,
(21:12):
your spouse, or if you're single and you're going through
something and you have to talk to a therapist or
a really good friend, getting it out and talking about
it and being communicative about how you're feeling and why
you're feeling that way, that way you can really talk
through it as opposed to just be like, this how
I'm feeling, and this is why it is, and that's
that you know, It's like you really have to have
those conversations where you're like, it's okay that your body
(21:34):
looks different, it's okay that you know you don't look
the same way you did before, and really just learning
to love your new body is a journey that I
feel like I'll probably go through for the next who
knows how much time. But being communicative with my partner
about it, it's it's really important for him and I
to have those conversations because you know, he's my other half,
(21:55):
Like he's he's who I you know, he's who's with
me every day, and he's so encourage ing and loving
through it, and he's like, listen, your feelings are valid
and I understand to the extent that I can understand
um what you're going through. But just know that you
know you're beautiful, and I don't you know, I don't
think you're ugly because of what you think you're ugly for,
and yeah, I just think it's it's it's definitely a journey.
(22:17):
It's it's weird to talk to them about things like
that because I am I've always been that confident person
who loves herself and loves her body. And to kind
of feel like I'm being knocked down a few pegs
to just look at life a little bit differently, It's
it's been a journey, but I think it's definitely been
a really humbling one too. I like to tell you
said knocked down a few pegs, like you're still you.
Just because you're going through a change in your relationship
(22:37):
to your body and your body image doesn't mean that
you're still not the confident you. You can kind of
be both of those things. And for anybody who's listening
that might feel like their partner doesn't get it, I
would also ask you to maybe ask yourself, have you
communicated the way that it sounds like Brooke is communicating,
Because I know sometimes when I ill ugly or unattractive
(23:02):
and maybe I'm, you know, not loving how things are
going in my body, might think to myself, he won't understand,
and then I won't tell him, and then I'm not
getting that reinforcement that I might need. That's not to
say that that should be your only form of reinforcement,
because I'm a strong believer that when we become reliant
on our partners validation, we then seek it out and
(23:24):
when it's not there, we draw conclusions that aren't necessarily true,
if that makes sense. Kind of a separate conversation, but
just wanted to mention that, um, you can share with
your partner what you're going through so that they can
maybe voice what they're thinking, because your partner may be
holding back their thoughts about how beautiful or how much
they love you more now because that door to be
(23:45):
more intimate emotionally might not have been cracked open because
you're holding back. And maybe that's me, you know, saying
to me like I'm I'm keeping it all closed in,
I don't know about you, and maybe I'm not sure
if you're comfortable talking about this but exclusively nursing or
pumping or breastfeeding, and you know, something we're both we're
both doing is a lot of like nipple pulling and
(24:07):
seeing your boobs do things they've never done before. And
for me, like I'd say, the hardest part, not body
image wise, but relationship wise, is like these boobs are
no longer the boobs they used to be and like
I oftentimes don't want someone else to touch them in
the same way that they might be used to be
touching them. Yeah. No, I actually had this conversation with
(24:29):
some of my girlfriends the other day of how I'm
ready for my boobs to be my husband's again, if
you know. And it's like it's hard because sometimes, like
you said, um, we are constantly being touched, you know,
multiple times throughout the day, somebody else is touching our body.
And you know, I have noticed within the last five
(24:49):
months that like the end of the day, you know,
when my husband gets home from work and you know,
he's feeling some type of way. I'm like, I just
don't want to be touched right now, I've been touched
all day. But also that feeling of where it's like
things that we used to do, I'm like, you can't
do that because this is your kids right now. Like
this is weird, you know what I mean. And it's
like having that issue of like your body image of
(25:11):
like you're not able to do things that you're used
to be able to do. Lots of information coming out
right now, but it's it's so it's so true because
you know, you're used to feeling some type of way
when you know certain things happen, and now you're like,
I don't know if I like that before, Like I
don't know how I feel about that, but yeah, it's
it's difficult. And then, like you said, I mean, my
(25:31):
chest size grew like three cup size is huge, like
big and just heavy. My back hurts all the time.
Like it's wild having to, like you said, even spend
more money on new bras and new nursing tank tops
and things like that, and it's just Yeah, the the
chest nipple pulling situation at all times is definitely one
(25:51):
of those things where you're like, what are they going
to look like once this is all done? You know,
like are they going to be this way? Are they
going to be that way? I know you're so right,
and I am. My boobs didn't come in until after pregnancy.
I don't know if you had that same experience. Yeah,
same like I had. No, I was still flat up
until ten months pregnant, actually ten month thing, and then
(26:11):
as soon as she came out the next few weeks
they came in. And I actually have fake boobs from
when I was eighteen and I'm still seeing the shape
of like illustrating it up for a brook over our
zoom right now. But they're they're becoming more cone like
and the nipples now come out, and I just I
never saw my body do this before, Like I look,
you look in the mirror almost immediately after giving birth
(26:33):
if you're nursing or breastfeeding, and I don't know for you,
like we're the same age. I'm thirty three two. But
I felt like I felt like a kid before this,
and then I looked in the mirror and I was like, oh, no,
you're not a kid anymore. Like that's a mama's body.
That's a woman's body. There's no going back. Yeah, no,
I agreed because I remember before I gave well, I
(26:54):
guess before I was pregnant, I had very perky boobs.
I didn't like to wear bras like things like that.
That's how my body was. And now it's like if
I take my bra off. You probably have seen like
those illustrations online, like memes and stuff where it's like
after birth, you're like boobs just like come down to
your belly button. They literally are like they pointed down
like your code nipples and you're like what is this?
(27:16):
And that's another thing that you have to deal with,
is like I can't not wear bra now or else.
They're flying all kinds of separate ways. So it's definitely
another body image situation where you're like, this is different.
You literally have a grown woman's body now you are,
you're a mom um. Well, I just love the way
you've really approached taking control over snap back culture and
(27:39):
your life. And it sounds like you approach every day
of your life from a really grounded place. Sounds like
your relationship is a nice piece of security for me,
but on your own, it just sounds like you provide
a lot of security for yourself and you're such a
grounding voice. So we're gonna put your Instagram handle below
so everyone can check you out. And what radio station
are you on for those who are in the area
(28:01):
that you can listen to you, Yeah, and Nashville. I'm
on the Big ninety eight, So ninety seven point nine,
the Big ninety eight from ten am to three pm
Monday through Friday. So cool. And then we're gonna put
your Instagram which is what again, just so everyone can
hear it at Brooke Radio. At Brooke Radio, Okay, great,
we'll put that in the show notes. Thank you for
sharing your journey with us. You know, we went to
(28:22):
some intimate places, but I guess I was eager to
just talk to somebody who's kind of in the thick
of it with me and say some of those feelings
that feel really shameful when they're stuck inside of you,
but once they're out of you and you're like, Okay,
we're all going through this. Let's you know that we can.
I'll get through it together. Like you said, the hard
stuff for us can be an inspiration for somebody else.
(28:43):
And yeah, for those listening, if you're going through this
or you're about to go through it, just know you
are not alone in this. There are so many people
on social media that you can turn to that are
going through the same stuff, and building that community is
important to surround yourself with to know that you're not alone.
Thank you so much, Brooke. You're welcome. It's great to
meet you. Mm hm
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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