Know a new mother or anyone going through a major transition who needs support? Kristen Jawad has a service for her. If you just want to know how to support a new mother or experiencing major stress of any kind, or you are planning on being one yourself, you’ll want to hear Kristen Jawad. Visit her website here.
Emmalou Penrod
I’m talking to Kristen Jawad today. She is a body mind coach, spiritual companion, and holistic health care provider. Kristin, welcome.
Kristen Jawad
Thank you so much.
Emmalou Penrod
And I absolutely love that, holistic health care provider. Boy, we need that. And your interest with mothers. And so tell us about your journey.
Kristen Jawad
I have been interested in working with moms, I would say probably since I was a high school student. I was lucky enough to be a nanny for a family who practiced gentle parenting practices. And that had a profound impact on me, and influenced the way that I wanted to parent. And so yeah, I mean, that seed was planted, probably, you know, before I had my own children. And then, after several years, I decided to go to massage school. And one of my dreams was to create a healing sanctuary for women to rest and relax. And to heal injuries, I had seen my own mom struggle with chronic back pain from car accidents, and one of her legs shorter than the other. So, you know, just seeing how dedicated moms are to caring for their family members, and even sometimes extended family members. Yeah. So that’s a little bit about how I got started.
Emmalou Penrod
Wow. Now, tell me about your practice. I understand you’re in the Seattle Washington area.
Kristen Jawad
Yes, that’s right. So I have a private studio in my home where I see clients. And I work with smaller numbers, just because this is something that I really want to dedicate 100% of my energy to. I decided that when people have physical pain, there’s often an emotional component to it. And it may be that there’s a transition that’s happening in their life, maybe there’s a loss that’s happened, even a car accident can be traumatic, or maybe after the birth of a baby. So I recognized pretty early on that massage was a way to soothe and to help heal people and to help people calm. But I really wanted to add more skills to my toolbox, and be able to offer people more of a wraparound service. So I then decided to become a life coach. And I knew that I wanted to continue working with women and especially moms. In my massage practice, I would see people often during their pregnancy, and then they just kind of like disappear, fade into the sunset. And I would always wonder like what are the barriers for moms? How can we continue the care? Because it’s not like, life gets easier when the baby’s born. It gets more challenging. And physically, I mean, nursing or feeding babies carrying babies, carrying car seats. I would get calls of people that were like, my back is out, I’m experiencing extreme pain. And I really wanted to be able to make it possible. So I decided to start offering mobile massage as well, especially during the postpartum time, so that it just was easier for women to get the care that they needed
Emmalou Penrod
Awesome. So it sounds like you’ve been doing this for a while.
Kristen Jawad
Yeah, I went to massage school about 20 years ago. And then I was really focused on raising my own kids. And so I’ve always maintained my license, and I’ve been continuing it. And I was having a small practice. But now my kids are both in college and I have a lot more time and energy to dedicate to my practice. And also during the pandemic. I mean, the needs for people to get extra support has, It’s just so sad because a lot of families are separated, you know, they can’t fly, they can’t travel. So I’m really grateful that I get to be one of the helpers for families. And it’s been really meaningful that way for me, at least I can do something during the pandemic.
Emmalou Penrod
Yes, yes. And and I love that holistic approach. You know, we quite often tend to think of our mind and our body as being two separate things, and they aren’t.
Kristen Jawad
Definitely. You know, I was seven years old when I had my first professional massage. And I’m someone who experiences anxiety. And so I was lucky enough to have parents that were interested in holistic medicine and open to trying different things. And I used to complain about tummy aches. And, you know, touch was always important. I’d ask for backrubs and things. But I love teaching people how to calm themselves and how to prepare things at home, so that they can nurture themselves on a daily basis, in between their massage appointments, and when life gets really stressful. Education, self care, education is one of the key components to my practice.
Emmalou Penrod
That is huge. You said you have a studio in your home. So you can work with clients in person, and also remotely, right?
Kristen Jawad
Yes. So I offer some zoom calls, where we can focus specifically on teaching people how to do self massage, and using different tools, calming practices, as well as things that they can do at home to relieve pain naturally, whether it’s taking an Epsom salt bath, or certain essential oils can also create a calming effect. And like you said, you can’t really separate the mind from the body. And so I think that preventative maintenance is amazing. But if our time is limited, finding out the tips and the tricks of what works well, and how to do it yourself on a regular basis, so that we don’t get to a point where our bodies screaming and really in pain, because that’s just not good for anybody. And you can’t really take care of your family if you’re not taking care of yourself.
Emmalou Penrod
That is so true. And I heard the quote that it’s better to listen to your body. No, it’s if you listen to your body when it whispers you won’t have to hear it scream.
Kristen Jawad
Yeah, absolutely.
Emmalou Penrod
So how do you teach people to recognize their body is whispering to them?
Kristen Jawad
Yeah, so usually, there’s an emotional component that sometimes people hear like, they might hear their voice raised. They might notice that they have less patience. They might notice that their heart rate is faster, or their breath is shallow, or they’re like clenching their jaw. There’s a lot of physical things they might notice, but also just irritability, lack of ability to concentrate, saying things harshly that you wouldn’t normally express yourself that way, and then experiencing regret. So I would say, those are all things I have experienced when I was past my limit, or I was experiencing pain. And I remember in our coach training, even they had us demo, putting our thumb and pushing it into our ribs until it was uncomfortable. And when there’s some kind of nagging, physical pain or emotional irritability, it’s hard to be connected with other people at your like top level, right? Like, at your best performance at your most patient. And so I think we all notice, but we often ignore, right? Like there’s a certain level of pain that we can ignore. So I would say that, it depends on if someone’s really in tune with their body. They might notice a keenness in certain areas, but there’s often a signal, like warning signals before it gets to the volcano eruption.
Emmalou Penrod
Yes, yes. It’s just being aware. And that’s how you increase that mind body connection is paying more attention.
Kristen Jawad
Yeah, and I mean, many people are not raised with the idea that their needs matter. And especially for new moms. I mean, if your baby is crying, and you’re sleep deprived, and you’re just struggling, it’s easy to neglect yourself. And I don’t think very many parenting or childbirth classes talk about how low some of those moments can be for people. And that’s one of the reasons why I’m passionate about doing this work. I had undiagnosed postpartum depression. I have experienced that firsthand. And I’m passionate about checking in with moms and making sure that they get the support that they need. Because nobody should struggle alone.
Emmalou Penrod
No, no. Do you have any advice for extended family members? Or to support a woman who’s just given birth? Any suggestions?
Kristen Jawad
Yeah, so I’ve been doing quite a bit of traditional postpartum care training. And unfortunately, Western society, the United States and in Europe, we’ve lost connection with a lot of our cultural practices. But certainly, whether it’s a birthday party or a funeral, I mean, people tend to have food traditions where they care, and they make meals. So we have ways to sign up for meal trains, which is amazing. So even offering and saying, we’d like to make you some freezer meals. Do you have any dietary restrictions? What would be helpful? How much can you store at one time? That kind of thing, like getting the logistics. And, also, I know there’s a consideration right now, because of the pandemic. We’re not really having a lot of face to face interaction. But there are ways to support people, whether it’s paying for a cleaning service to come in, or volunteering to take care of chores, running errands. And right now, with technology, it’s pretty easy. You can pre order things and have it delivered. So there are a lot of things that could be managed. But even having a conversation, most people don’t even know how to anticipate their needs. They don’t know, like how this baby is going to change their life. So yeah, those are just a few ideas. I think that families and friends and community members want to support but they don’t know exactly what. And so often the focus is on buying things for the baby. And yes, having a stroller is nice and can be helpful. But there are some logistics that are critical in the first 40 days to help a family really focus on resting and eating nourishing meals, and not worrying about the everyday kind of chores.
Emmalou Penrod
That makes sense. So, maybe caring for some of the older siblings. I love the home cleaning service. Wow, that sounds great.
Kristen Jawad
Yeah, like if you’re bending over, or even somebody in the family just says, I will unload and load the dishwasher for you. There are certain movements that right after you deliver a baby are not very comfortable, and maybe should be avoided.
Emmalou Penrod
Yeah. Awesome. And do you have any suggestions to the brand new young mother on how to take care of herself?
Kristen Jawad
Yeah, there are a lot of people that recommend having a basket with things that are nurturing and soothing and keeping it close to where you’re going to feed the baby. Whether it’s inspirational books, or magazines, or having a great bottle that you can remember to stay hydrated right next to you. Some really nice hand or foot cream, to just treat yourself. I think, you know, you wash your hands a million, bajillion times a day when you’re changing diapers. So having a nice hand cream can just yeah. I mean, it’s the little things, teas to sip during the day to remember to stay hydrated, hopefully herbal so that you’re avoiding caffeine.
Emmalou Penrod
Yes, you know, you’re right. They’re the little things, but they really make a difference. Yeah, so your basket. So how do people contact you?
Kristen Jawad
So my website is https://illuminatedlifeways.com/ And on my website, people can link to my Instagram or my Facebook account. I also have a online scheduling calendar. So if people would like to have an information session about how to plan their maternity leave, and the types of coaching packages that I have, and I have that online.
Emmalou Penrod
Wonderful. I love it. Well, Kristen, thank you so much for sharing your expertise. And it’s good to know that a service like this is available. Quite often I think there’s the excitement of that new baby and then everybody goes back to their lives and the new mother is just kind of left.
Kristen Jawad
Yeah, I think most people have a birth plan. And there’s a lot of support around that. And certainly there are some people that provide doula services in the home. And I think if we can allow ourselves to spend a few hours planning ahead of time, we can really prevent. A lot of postpartum depression and physical pain that happens after childbirth, I think is preventable.
Emmalou Penrod
I totally agree. I totally agree. And, you know, young mothers quite often feel like, “I need to do it all.” And then they overdo and they’re really hurting. So yeah, absolutely. Right. Well, Kristin, thank you so much.
Kristen Jawad
I appreciate the opportunity. And I’m so glad that we met.
Emmalou Penrod
All right, you have a great day.
Kristen Jawad
Thank you.