# anxiety

Meet Kristi. She gave birth to her second child just as the world went into lockdown. Through acute isolation and debilitating pain, she sought and found support and strength within herself to reignite her inner light. Hers is a powerful story of resilience.

The words we say to ourselves and to each other are so important. As we all become more informed about mental illness, we can all learn to be a source of validation and comfort. It starts simply with listening and discarding harmful platitudes.

There is a shedding of your old self that necessarily happens when you go through an enormous life change such as becoming a mother. Some of the old layers are gone for good. Others call you back in due time. For me, my yoga practice is calling me home.

I was prepared to possibly experience postpartum depression with my second. It didn't happen. Yet I was subconsciously bracing myself for something bad to happen. ER visits felt like an ominous sign. I didn't realize until after the fact that PTSD had quietly been infiltrating my thinking.

I made the mistake of Googling every little thing during my first pregnancy. It never left me feeling better and it often gave me misinformation. I got caught in the urge to go down the Google rabbit hole again with my second pregnancy. The moral of the story is: Don't do it!