Soul Care for the New Mom

Christi Straub is a mom of two and knows the challenges of these years of early parenting well. As a marriage and family coach, she also knows just how vital it is for wives and moms to pursue emotional awareness and safety — and how this has the power to completely transform a home! I just know you’re going to love Christi’s transparency and the wisdom she has to share as we go deep into some common, but painful struggles for moms and what it looks like to come out on the other side so that we are able to live, love, and lead well. In today’s episode, Christi and I chat about: * how the challenges of the postpartum years led her to the coaching ministry she does today
 * finding yourself again after having kids
 * how one 15-minute practice changed her marriage
 * the heart behind their new children’s book, What Am I Feeling?
 * practical ways to cultivate emotional awareness and safety in our homes
 * the 2/5 rule that can set moms free from fear and guilt
 Meet Christi: Christi Straub, M.A., M.B.A. is a native Canadian, wife to an American, and momma to two feisty kiddos. She is a marriage and family coach and leads The Straub Co., an organization where she and her husband Josh coach families to live, love, and lead well. Christi is a Fellow of the Townsend Institute for Leadership and Counseling. She is also co-host of the In This Together podcast and is coauthor of the children’s book, What Am I Feeling? (2019), as well as a Bible study for families called Homegrown: Cultivating Kids in the Fruit of the Spirit (B&H, 2019). When she and Josh aren’t working together, they spend time on the lake in their 1974 Crestliner, train their disobedient puppy, and watch their kids crush karaoke on a stage built in their dining room. Resources Mentioned: What Am I Feeling? Children’s Book: https://www.amazon.com/What-Feeling-Dr-Josh-Straub/dp/1535938188/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=what+am+i+feeling&qid=1576967789&s=books&sr=1-1 Homegrown Bible Study: https://www.lifeway.com/en/product/homegrown-bible-study-book-P005813576 The Straub Co. Wondering how you can encounter more of God’s presence in your everyday motherhood? I’d love for you to check out Moms in Pursuit, my online course designed for mamas of little ones just like you! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too! Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website

Season four is finally here, and I am so excited for what is in store for you all! Starting next week, the podcast will be taking on a new format. Instead of every episode just being me, episodes will now be featuring special guests who I know you are just going to LOVE and be especially encouraged by! I do, however, want to catch you up on what’s been going on in the Ereddia household and how the Lord has been growing and stretching me lately, so today I am starting out the new season by sharing a little bit of my heart. If you’ve ever experienced anger over unanswered prayers or difficult situations, I pray this episode is a comfort and encouragement to you. Scripture Referenced: John 18 Mark 8 John 20-21 Wondering how you can encounter more of God’s presence in your everyday motherhood? I’d love for you to check out Moms in Pursuit, my online course designed for mamas of little ones just like you! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too! Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website

“I have fought battles this year. And I have a feeling that you have too. You may be in the middle of fighting one right now. Maybe it looks like some of what I’ve already described. Or maybe it looks like something different altogether. Unexpected news. Sickness. A job lay-off. Sexual temptation. Resentment. Shame and guilt. Apathy. Intrusive thoughts.  Whatever the case, there is one thing I am certain of: the enemy may think he’s winning, but the truth is that Jesus has already won. There is only one person who has the final say over our lives and it is Jesus Christ, who covers us with grace and has given us all that we need to be victorious. We are overcomers because HE has overcome…” Press play to hear more. Lyrics to “This is How I Fight My Battles + Surrounded”: This is how I fight my battles This is how I fight my battles This is how I fight my battles It may look like I’m surrounded, but I’m surrounded by you It may look like I’m surrounded, but I’m surrounded by you It may look like I’m surrounded, but I’m surrounded by you It may look like I’m surrounded, but I’m surrounded by you Song: “This is How I Fight My Battles + Surrounded (Spontaneous)” by UPPERROOM https://youtu.be/NoAqymNcBTk Scripture Referenced: Romans 8:31-32 Romans 8:37-39 Romans 8:26 2 Kings 6 Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website Join the Soul Care Community! If you are a mom of littles and are looking for Christ-centered community, check out our Facebook Group! This group is a safe, genuine, and fun space to build authentic relationships and find support, wisdom, accountability, and prayer for your motherhood journey! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too!

"Have you ever had a morning where every fiber of your being begged you to stay in bed? No matter how much you knew you needed to start your day, you just couldn't bear the thought of putting your feet on the ground. If you're in the thick of motherhood, then odds are you haven't just had one morning like this, but have had many. Because sometimes being a mom feels like signing up to be in a war zone day after day, and there are just some days where you don't want to fight..." Press play to hear more. Scripture Referenced: Matthew 11:28-30 Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website Join the Soul Care Community! If you are a mom of littles and are looking for Christ-centered community, check out our Facebook Group! This group is a safe, genuine, and fun space to build authentic relationships and find support, wisdom, accountability, and prayer for your motherhood journey! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too!

"We somehow get it in our heads that we should be able to do this on our own, that we should be able to get through the day without needing God. We want things to go smoothly, to be perfect. We want to be the best possible mom or wife. And when we are faced with our humanity and all the weaknesses and flaws that come with it, we crumble apart rather than see it for the humbling reminder of our need for God that it truly is. Which is in his design for our relationship with him. It is good that we need him. And so it turns out that the days of frustration and desperation are perfect training ground for us to learn how to lean into him as he calls us to do, running to the Lord with our needs to receive his love and peace and help..." Press play to hear more. Scripture Referenced: Hebrews 12:1-3, 11-12 Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website Join the Soul Care Community! If you are a mom of littles and are looking for Christ-centered community, check out our Facebook Group! This group is a safe, genuine, and fun space to build authentic relationships and find support, wisdom, accountability, and prayer for your motherhood journey! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too!

"There have been nights when I have felt alone while nursing in quiet in the dark. My husband is sound asleep, the dog is sound asleep, all of my friends and family are sound asleep, everyone on social media is asleep, and yet here I am. Awake and alone. Tending to my baby. These moments are hidden from the world. Its just her and I. And it can be tempting to feel isolated and unnoticed. Maybe this sounds all too familiar to you right now. Maybe you're still in the thick of things with me, waking up far more often than you'd like, taking care of your little one while the rest of the world remains oblivious..." Press play to hear more. Scripture Referenced: Psalm 139:1-3, 7-10 Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website Join the Soul Care Community! If you are a mom of littles and are looking for Christ-centered community, check out our Facebook Group! This group is a safe, genuine, and fun space to build authentic relationships and find support, wisdom, accountability, and prayer for your motherhood journey! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too!

“I’m lacking joy these days. I can feel it. Waves of irritation and frustration and sorrow even wash over me when I least expect it. When I’m in the car with a screaming baby for twenty straight minutes. When I’m watching my toddler deliberately disobey me. When my husband forgets something I asked him to do. When my to do list just keeps getting longer and longer. There have been days where I’ve just felt lost. Even a little empty. Being a wife and mom requires so much of me. I’m always giving. Always serving. Always being poured out. And I reach a point where I just don’t want to give anymore. Do you ever feel this way?” Press play to hear more. Scripture Referenced: James 1:2-3 Psalm 103:1-4 John 10:10 Hebrews 12:2 Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website Join the Soul Care Community! If you are a mom of littles and are looking for Christ-centered community, check out our Facebook Group! This group is a safe, genuine, and fun space to build authentic relationships and find support, wisdom, accountability, and prayer for your motherhood journey! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too!

“I don’t know about you, but I tend to pile way more onto my to do list than is feasibly possible for me to do in any single day. When evening rolls around, my list usually still has so many items not checked off that I end up having to carry those things over into the next day, creating a never-ending problem of having too much on my plate. And that’s when the anxiety starts to kick in and I all of a sudden go from being Supermom to Super Angry Mom. Because all I see is what’s left to do and it leaves me feeling overwhelmed…” Press play to hear more. Scripture Referenced: Luke 10:38-42 Matthew 6:31-33 Colossians 3:23 Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website Join the Soul Care Community! If you are a mom of littles and are looking for Christ-centered community, check out our Facebook Group! This group is a safe, genuine, and fun space to build authentic relationships and find support, wisdom, accountability, and prayer for your motherhood journey! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too!

“To tell you the truth, I was angry at the Lord — angry that this is my life now and sometimes it feels like he’s nowhere to be found. I didn’t have these kids just to make me happy. I had these kids because I thought that this was a calling he had put on my life that would be used to bring him glory. I thought that this was going to be a partnership between him and I, that every day spent loving these kids was going to be rewarding because I was doing it WITH him and FOR him. But lately it doesn’t feel like that’s the way it is…” Press play to hear more. Scripture Referenced: James 1:12 Colossians 3:23-24 Galatians 6:9 Matthew 16:27 Luke 6:35 1 Corinthians 15:58 Psalm 127:3 Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website Join the Soul Care Community! If you are a mom of littles and are looking for Christ-centered community, check out our Facebook Group! This group is a safe, genuine, and fun space to build authentic relationships and find support, wisdom, accountability, and prayer for your motherhood journey! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too!

Today’s episode is a special one because it features my husband Grant as we have a conversation on a topic that’s been a pretty big deal to us the past two years: sex after kids. In this episode we share how our sex life has changed since having kids and the struggles we’ve faced, as well as how we’ve overcome those struggles and gotten to where we are today. We give our best advice for couples while approaching this topic from a biblical perspective because we believe that pursuing a healthy, thriving sex life should be important to every husband and wife and is very much a priority for God, too. So whether your sex life is nonexistent or alive and well, we hope this conversation is an encouragement to you! Scripture Referenced: John 10:10 Ephesians 5:28 1 Corinthians 7:4-5 Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website Join the Soul Care Community! If you are a mom of littles and are looking for Christ-centered community, check out our Facebook Group! This group is a safe, genuine, and fun space to build authentic relationships and find support, wisdom, accountability, and prayer for your motherhood journey! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too!

“Nothing about having a baby was more shocking to me than how much my marriage struggled afterwards. When my eldest was born I felt like I went from my husband being my whole world to my daughter being my whole world — and he could tell the difference too. I didn’t want to touch or kiss or even hug. I didn’t care about his work stories or whatever news he had read on the internet. I wasn’t interested in going on dates or even sharing the same bed. The hormones and adjustments I was going through made me more emotional than usual. More angry. More mean. And when my husband realized that nothing he was doing made things any better, he became angry and mean, too. Until it eventually felt like we were nothing more than roommates — roommates who just so happened to share the amazing gift of raising this beautiful baby girl…” Press play to hear more. Scripture Referenced: 2 Peter 1:3 Romans 6:6-7, 11-14 Hebrews 4:15-16 Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website Join the Soul Care Community! If you are a mom of littles and are looking for Christ-centered community, check out our Facebook Group! This group is a safe, genuine, and fun space to build authentic relationships and find support, wisdom, accountability, and prayer for your motherhood journey! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too!

"Today I yelled at my toddler in the middle of the grocery store and snapped at my husband for what feels like the hundredth time this week. I knew I wasn’t treating them right but I was so angry in the moment that I didn’t even care. It wasn’t until I was alone later on in the day, nursing my newborn to sleep in a dimly lit room with nothing to hear but my own thoughts that I began to feel regret and sorrow over what I had done. Why am I such an angry mom? Why am I an ungrateful wife? Why do I sometimes treat my family so poorly and forget how amazing and beautiful they are?" Press play to hear more. Scripture Referenced: 2 Corinthians 7:10 John 10:10 Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website Join the Soul Care Community! If you are a mom of littles and are looking for Christ-centered community, check out our Facebook Group! This group is a safe, genuine, and fun space to build authentic relationships and find support, wisdom, accountability, and prayer for your motherhood journey! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too!

"I have a confession to make. I’m a habitual Netflix bingewatcher. It started when I was working my way through college and felt completely overwhelmed by everything on my plate, then it continued when I graduated and was both a newlywed and pregnant with no job. And then when I had my first daughter, not only did things not change, but they actually got worse! I was spending so much time breastfeeding, staying home with the baby, and staying up through the night that I continued to rely on Netflix and to an even more unhealthy degree.  But then things started getting better. After months of feeling distant from God, I finally decided to turn off the TV and to begin pursuing time with him and other healthier things..." Press play to hear more. Scripture Referenced: Ephesians 6:10-12 Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website Join the Soul Care Community! If you are a mom of littles and are looking for Christ-centered community, check out our Facebook Group! This group is a safe, genuine, and fun space to build authentic relationships and find support, wisdom, accountability, and prayer for your motherhood journey! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too!

"I used to be able to sit down and have my quiet time with God for hours. Devotionals, Bible study books, journaling, a hot cup of coffee. I absolutely loved my mornings with the Lord, and I couldn’t imagine not having them. But then I had a baby, and then another one, and now I’m in this crazy season of two under two and that picture perfect "quiet time" feels like the furthest thing from attainable.  At some point in my motherhood journey I was finally forced to put away my Bible, journal, and mile-long prayer list and reconsider what I thought was necessary for God to want to be a part of my life. I quit trying to have that ideal quiet time. And what I found was that I had been putting my relationship with the Lord in this box and that there was so much more to be discovered..." Press play to hear more. Scripture Referenced: Galatians 5:1 Matthew 11:28-30 Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website Join the Soul Care Community! If you are a mom of littles and are looking for Christ-centered community, check out our Facebook Group! This group is a safe, genuine, and fun space to build authentic relationships and find support, wisdom, accountability, and prayer for your motherhood journey! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too!

“I just didn’t understand why the labor was the way it was. At the time I honestly believed that because things didn’t go my way, God must not have been on my side. But now, three months later, I see things differently and I realize that not only was he on my side, but he was by my side every step of the way. And mama, today I want you to know that he was by your side every step of the way through your little one’s birth too. I don’t know your birth story. It may be similar to mine or completely different. But maybe you, like me, know what it’s like to feel disappointment, sorrow, or anger because you didn’t have the birth you expected or hoped to have…” Press play to hear more. Scripture Referenced: 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 Links Mentioned: James’ birth story Find More Soul Care for the New Mom Content: instagram // facebook // blog // website Join the Soul Care Community! If you are a mom of littles and are looking for Christ-centered community, check out our Facebook Group! This group is a safe, genuine, and fun space to build authentic relationships and find support, wisdom, accountability, and prayer for your motherhood journey! I want to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave a review and share how Soul Care for the New Mom has been an encouragement to you! Pssst… this also helps more moms discover the podcast so they can be encouraged, too!