Welcome to episode 186 of the Smooth Stones Podcast. How do I give back in honor of my baby? This episode is so good. I also have something really, really awesome coming up for you. We know that Mother’s Day. Is right around the corner. We’re at the end of March. April’s gonna fly by and there it will be.

And for a lot of people what we end up doing is dreading Mother’s Day. We dread it for all the same reasons that a lot of women do. Maybe your partner isn’t that into it. Maybe you have complicated relationships with the mothers or mother figures in your life, and there’s such a high bar that it feels like it can be a disappointment.

Then you add baby loss and it’s real complicated. Maybe you don’t have any living kids, but you’re a mother. Maybe you do have living kids, but. People can’t see all of them. They can’t all draw you a picture or bring you breakfast in bed or whatever it is. It can feel like this emotional minefield that you’re trying to navigate, but I don’t want that for you.

In past years, I have planned and given people free Mother’s Day coaching. I opened up some slots on my schedule. I said, Hey, I will just help anybody who’s struggling with Mother’s Day, and that has been amazing. I’ve actually had some of the most powerful sessions. There’re in those Mother’s Day coaching.

Uh, I feel like last year especially, it was really, really beautiful. And I remember one of the people that I helped had said, you know what, I’ve been in therapy for a long time, and this 45 minutes together was more helpful than all of it. Now. I love therapists. I love therapy. I think therapy and coaching go together.

Great. I also know that sometimes just sitting with someone who gets it, who understands and who has the tools to help you get what you want is the best thing you can do for yourself. So I’m gonna tell you what the problem is though. When I do free Mother’s Day coaching, I can only take a few people ’cause I don’t have a lot of extra time.

So I wanted to do something different this year. Invite everyone to come. What I wanted to do is a Mother’s Day challenge, and I’m calling it the Embracing Mother’s Day Challenge. Instead of dreading Mother’s Day, we are gonna embrace this day that celebrates motherhood and womanhood and actually has a really beautiful history.

We’re gonna do that with an email challenge. Now, what’s an email challenge? You might not have done one before, but I actually have done a few of them. They’re really cool every day for a month. So starting in mid-April, I am going to send you an email every day. Each email is gonna have a really actionable step for you to take, to take care of yourself, to take care of your feelings, and to actually plan your mother’s day out.

So that you can feel good about it so that you are ready for this, so that you trust yourself to handle whatever that day ends up looking like. This is gonna be so powerful. Not only are you gonna get those daily emails from me, you are gonna get a bonus of doing some coaching calls with me. These are gonna be group coaching calls so everybody can come and.

I’m gonna coach you on anything that’s coming up. Any questions you have, any struggles, any frustrations. I am going to be there to help you and answer you. If you’ve been listening to the podcast, you know how powerful these tools are, but I’m telling you, sitting and getting coached is so. Powerful. It will take you to the next level in what you can do, in what you can do, in your grief, in your life, your goals, whatever you want for Mother’s Day, you’re gonna create it because we’re gonna do it together and I’m gonna support you in that.

That is ready to go. The link will be in the show notes, or you can go to my website, smooth stones coaching.com, and there’s like a little thing at the top of the page that will take you right over to the Mother’s Day challenge. This challenge is only $25, which I did the math. It’s like 83 cents a day in order to feel rock solid confident in your Mother’s Day plans in order to stop dreading Mother’s Day and start actually thinking.

This might not be so bad. This might be okay, or this might actually be great. This could be the best mother’s day you’ve ever had. Right? When you communicate, when you figure out what you want, when you are confident and you know what to do, if emotions come up, it’s so, so powerful. I don’t want anyone to miss out on this, so go right on over to my website.

You can even pause this sign up. It’s like such a no brainer. Even getting these like weekly coaching calls is worth so, so much. Come on in, join me. I cannot wait.. I just love this idea so much and I’m so excited to do it with you.

smothstonescoaching.com/mom embracing Mother’s Day challenge. I want you to join us. This is my personal invitation to you. Okay. Let’s get started on today’s topic, which is so good and so needed. Recently I was chatting with someone who wanted to start a support group in her area, and I loved how thoughtful she was about it.

She knew what was needed. She knew how she wanted to fill that void, and she just wanted like a little bit more information in order to get going. And I sent some resources that I had, like looked up some things, found some things, you know, near her that, and, um. I mostly just cheered for her so that she could keep doing what she already was doing and what was on her heart, what was on her mind, and that’s what I wanna do for you today.

Now you don’t have to give back in any way. You don’t have to do it on a certain timeline, or if you are already doing something to give back, you don’t have to do that forever. What I want you to know is giving back can be really, really healing. It has been a huge, huge part of my grief journey from starting sewing tiny diapers to helping people, to serving families in hospitals, helping them make memories, being with them in their darkest hour, um, to coaching and having a podcast like.

There’s so many things that we can do, and I have just loved seeing different friends of mine who have done really cool things. I think that serving in your baby’s honor is a way that we use our mothering energy. It’s a way that we allow our love to be expressed, and it is an incredible thing to do.

I just wanna share what’s worked for me and some important points that you may not have thought of yet. My goal is to inspire you today and get you moving forwards towards giving back if that’s something you wanna do, and whatever that looks like. There is no right way to do this. And my first tip is, and these are in no particular order, I just thought, what would I wanna know?

What would be most helpful for you to hear? If you were wanting to give back and honor your baby, number one is keep it simple. I think it’s easy to get really overwhelmed with the details and the amount of information there is out there, and you kinda look at people that you are inspired by and you say, oh, they’re doing this and, and they’re doing this.

And look how cute their social media is and look at, you know. How many packages they’re sending out or how big their 5K is, or whatever it is. Right. It’s normal to compare, but I think especially when you’re starting out. Keep it simple. I remember, so when Lauren passed away, we were living in a small town.

I had a friend who had started an angel baby thing to kind of come to the hospital and help. Well, she just put a jar in our local pharmacy and people just put change in there. People put a little bit of money, she took that money. She bought fabric. She made little tiny clothes. She. Talked to some friends, um, like a friend that was a photographer and a friend that was a dentist wife who had access to alginate to make hand prints.

’cause that’s the same thing that dentists use. And she just did it. She saw another group that was doing it. She got a little bit of training and she just did it in our town. And because she made that decision. She helped so many families and she couldn’t have known when she started that that year in our little tiny hospital that had barely ever had any later term stillbirths.

There were three of us, there were three families within six months who had full term stillbirths and she was able to be there for each one of them. And I think that’s just such a miracle and a testament to when you follow your heart. You’re gonna be able to help people and the timing is gonna be perfect and we don’t wanna necessarily hesitate.

And I think what sometimes we hesitate because we make it way too complicated.

Keeping it simple means you don’t need a ton of people involved. You don’t need a ton of money, you don’t need a website. You don’t need all the things. You just need to follow your heart and get started. Number two is, listen, I. Listen to your heart, listen to your mind. What is it saying to you? Now, there’s two parts of listening.

One is, listen to the, the thing that your heart wants to do, the ideas you have, follow those, go with them, and then listen. To those voices inside your head that are telling you you can’t or you don’t know how, or it’s too complicated, it’s too expensive, it’s too, you don’t have the time, you don’t have whatever.

Notice that anytime we make a goal as a human, any goal, even if I’m like, uh, a personal example, I have like three baskets of laundry to fold. If I think I’m gonna fold the laundry, it’s like something’s distracting something else. It’s like my brain is gonna do anything it can to just not have me fold laundry.

So if you’re like, I wanna do organize a 5K fundraiser, your brain is going to come up with so many obstacles. So when we know that ahead of time, it takes all the power away. ’cause we know we just don’t need to listen to that. We just need to keep going.

So what we wanna do is turn down the volume on that inner critic that’s asking all the questions and telling you why you can’t do this. We wanna turn up the volume on the part that is telling you that you have an idea as a way to give back in honor of your baby. Listen to that more, right? It’s okay that we have those, that inner critic or that.

Whatever, because that’s the other part of it. You’ll hear that you, you know why you, you’re not whatever enough. That’s a lie. The good things in the world get done by everyday people, every day who just are willing to do it, who just say yes.

So keep listening. Number three, check in with your capacity. This goes along with that inner critic, right? It’s gonna say, well, I don’t, you don’t have time, you don’t have this, you don’t have whatever. Um, you’re too sad or you’re whatever. This is gonna be too hard. But we wanna really be intentional as we check in with our capacity and just say, look at this season I’m in right now.

Am I able to do what I wanna do? Am I able to do it at the scale I wanna do it as or can I adjust? Um, how are you doing emotionally? How are you doing physically? I. There’s no right answer ’cause I could say that I’m sure that there have been late, late nights that I have stayed up and I should have been sleeping.

And I was too tired. I was too sad. But you know what I did? I sewed little tiny diapers ’cause I couldn’t sleep. And I know for sure that I gave back a ton in the hardest year of my life, which was the first year after Lauren died, I got pregnant again and. I had to do something to get my mind off the fear and to help me process my grief.

And for me it was sewing little flannel diapers and blankets. And you could say, well, I didn’t actually have the capacity on paper. I had four little kids. I had a lot going on and I needed it. I needed to serve. So. As much as we wanna make sure you’re kind of in a place where you feel like you can take something else on.

I also don’t want you to think that taking on a project like this is necessarily like one more hard thing. It might be the thing that keeps you going. It might be the thing that brings you joy and replenishes you and is. All the goodness that you need in your life so that you can keep getting outta bed every day.

But check in with your capacity and then also question when your mind is like, I don’t think we can do this. I don’t think we have time. You can do way more than you think. Always just test it. You can always just say, well, I’m gonna start, I’m gonna see what happens. And go from there. Because if you plan on having regular checkin check-ins with your capacity, you’re gonna be fine.

You’re gonna know what to do. You’re gonna know when you need a break. You’re gonna know when to like pour the gas on the fire. You will know, but just checking with your capacity and then keep checking in regularly. All right. Number four, network. There are so many people out here doing this work, but unfortunately, a lot of times we feel like there isn’t.

Uh, I’ve heard a lot of people say, well, nobody’s talking about baby loss, nobody’s talking about miscarriage. And it’s like, we are the, like so many people are, yes, there are people that aren’t, but so many people are.

Okay, where was I? It’s nothing like sitting down to record a podcast and everyone’s just coming to my door. Okay. Um, there are so many people doing this work. I don’t think that we need to reinvent the wheel every time. Like if you want to do a 5K fundraiser, talk to someone who’s done that before. Take the things they did, take the things you like, maybe change some things that, that you don’t like.

If you, you know, wanna do care boxes at your local hospital, it’s like you gotta find. Someone that you know that works there, or just find the person in charge of the bereavement team. Figure out what they’re doing now and how you can add to that, or how you can make it better, how you can support them.

And I fi find that the more you talk about it, the more you just follow your heart, the more receptive people are. Now there might be roadblocks. It’s kind of funny. Weirdly enough, sometimes people don’t want free tiny clothes for stillborn babies. Sometimes they’re weird about it. Sometimes there’s bureau bureaucratic red tape that you just shake your head and say, why don’t you want this thing I’m offering?

But you can overcome those obstacles. You can figure it out, and it’s better to do it as a team. And I would say networking, even with. Someone, like a coach or someone that’s gonna help you stick with your goal, help you keep going when it’s hard, help you get over those hurdles because you don’t wanna do this alone.

You don’t wanna feel alone. And I would say, even if it’s one other person, I remember, um, during that first rainbow pregnancy, I did that. One of the friends that had also lost her baby that year, um, because we were in a small town, everyone, and I didn’t actually know her, but everyone was like. You need to talk to this family.

You need to talk to this mom. Like they just went through this. We ended up being really good friends and we went through that whole pregnancy together. Now, it wasn’t a giving back project, but we networked in the most beautiful way because the two of us could just text, we could call, we could check in on each other all throughout our rainbow pregnancies.

And it’s been a beautiful thing. So again, networking doesn’t have to be hard. You don’t have to like make it big and overwhelming and like get. A billion corporate sponsors or, or whatever, although you can, and I’ve seen it and that’s amazing. But don’t do it alone. Get someone to be on your team, share the love, share your story.

It’s amazing what can happen when you do that. Number five, watch for opportunities. You might have something that’s been on your mind and been on your heart and you’re not really sure if you can have, have it happen or make it happen or when it’s gonna happen. Just keep your eye out. I think if you just let it sink in a little harder, you keep your eye out, you will find the opportunities they are there.

And again, share your story. Be brave. Say I’m thinking about doing a 5K. And just see what happens. See what someone says. They might be like, oh my gosh, I have the perfect spot for it. Oh my gosh, my brother did one of those last year for cancer. Oh my gosh, like I have this great idea or this great contact, or whatever.

You will find those opportunities. That goes right into number six, which is watch for miracles. I have seen miracles that are cannot be explained except I believe that it’s our little angels helping us from the other side. But I. Things will fall into place. When you start putting that energy out there, when you start putting your mothering energy out there, when you wanna honor your baby and you have an idea and you are going for it, miracles will happen.

They’re gonna be everywhere, and they’re undeniable. I’ve seen it time and time again with so many people and things that I’ve done, um, myself, it’s like. There are miracles and they will help you. , how powerful is it to believe that some of these obstacles, you don’t even have to figure out on your own because your babies are gonna help you.

Right? Or all the angel babies, I like to imagine them all up there. Just, you know. Giving us a little push, helping us out where needed, connecting the people that need to be connected and the resources that need to be connected in order for us to do this work. To heal hearts, to prevent hurt. Some of us are serving from a place of having terrible experiences.

Some of us are serving because. We got the best and we want everyone else to have the best, and then like everything in between. But I know for me, I had some really good support with Lauren. I had nothing with river, uh, and it was awful. And I’ve seen awful things and I’ve seen amazing things. So watch for those miracles.

Number seven. These all are really like, they, they blur together. But number seven is set your intentions and speak it. So I am gonna challenge you to take action on this one. Get in your phone, grab a piece of paper, whatever it is. But I want you to speak your idea into existence, right? What is the quote that it’s like a goal not written down is just an idea.

So write it down. Say it. Tell someone text like your best friend or your partner, whoever it is, your mom, and just say, Hey, I’m thinking about doing this thing. Someone that you know is gonna cheer for you. Um, it’s awesome. You can DM me too. Aim. I’m @amy.smoothstonescoaching on Instagram. Send it to me.

I will cheer for you, but set that intention and say. I want to do this thing and I want to do it by this time. I think giving yourself a timeframe can be scary. It can also be really powerful ’cause it means, Hey, I gotta get moving on this. So set those intentions. Then there is number eight, be smart and do your research.

So this is really important to me. I’m an Enneagram five, five if you do the Enneagram, which means I really like to learn. I really like to know things. Uh, I probably like to be right. I’m sure there’s lots of, you know, kind of more, uh, negative things with an Enneagram five. But one of my strengths is learning and.

Like I said before, you do not have to reinvent the wheel when you’re doing this. You can find out what’s worked for other people. You can find out what hasn’t worked. You can find out like how to do a fundraiser. That’s really, really good. I. Especially in our climate now, like people are struggling, people are struggling to volunteer, they’re struggling to donate, they’re struggling to, you know, go to an auction and buy something where a few years ago maybe they could have, but people are being really intentional with where they put their money.

And so sometimes when we’re trying to do giving back projects, that might be a factor, but it’s like. How can you make it easy? One of the year, so it must’ve been the year Lauren turned six, I asked everyone to Venmo $6, which this didn’t work out because like Venmo is, I won’t comment on it, but, uh, there was some problems with that because we overloaded the charity.

They got so many donations that it got flagged. And because I said, Hey, here’s this easy, easy, easy thing to do. It’s $6. Like everybody can do $6. It was their sixth birthday. I was like, just send $6 to teeny tears and we will call it good. Right? So how can you create these goals with good information? So be smart.

And it doesn’t mean, again, that you need to get it to be complicated, just. Get started, ask good questions, ask the right people the right questions.

Okay? Number nine, done is better than perfect. This is my motto. Always, always, always, please, if you take nothing else from this episode, done is better than perfect. As you’re moving forward, as you’re using your mothering energy, you’re checking on your capacity, you’re talking to people, you’re looking for the miracles.

Remember. Sometimes you just gotta do it and it’s not going to be perfect. Perfectionism holds back so many people, and I think as a generation of women, we need to get over it. I’ll just say that it’s time to get over perfectionism. It is time to just stop it, get moving. You do not have to be perfect, and you don’t have to be afraid of how you’re gonna feel if it’s not perfect.

Like I said, I love the example of putting a jar in the local hometown pharmacy, getting a little money, getting a couple people to sew clothes with you and just winging it. Uh, that changed my life. My friend making the choice to do this with very minimal training, but with something on her heart. It, it changed my life because it changed my grief because if she hadn’t been there, there wouldn’t have been anybody.

Now, the nurses were great. My doctor was great. You know, everyone was really kind, but there weren’t, it just wouldn’t have been the same, and I’m so forever grateful for that. And. She did it. She showed up. Just show up. Just do it. Don’t get stuck in the details. Don’t get stuck. Even if you, you have a vision and you’re trying to do it and like it ends up that there are obstacles and there are stuff and, and stuff Shifts and stuff changes and whatever.

It’s fine. Just do it right. Be willing to make mistakes. We will be better for it and our living children will be better for it if we’re good examples of not having things be perfect all the time and letting that stop us. And number 10 is, I cannot stress this enough, be unique, be you. As much as I want you to reach out, I want you to look around.

I want you to learn. I want you to like see what other people are doing. I want you to do this in your way, for your baby, with your heart, with your skills, with your talents, with what you think is cool. Do that. Be the You-est you that you can be.

You don’t need to be anyone else. You don’t need to be like anyone else. I don’t want you to be like anyone else. I want you to be like you. I want you to make this unique to your situation, to your baby. I think sometimes we get stuck and even I do. I think there’s so many things under this umbrella of baby loss.

It’s a lot, but like if you had a termination for medical reasons and you wanna help people who are experiencing that do that, you’re not excluding the other types of loss. You’re helping the people that need you, the people that you connect with most. And you know, if you had a miscarriage, I have a friend who did like these tiny little miscarriage kits and they’re so cute and they’re so awesome, and that spoke to her heart.

And if she would’ve said, well, but what about this and what about this group and what about this group? And I don’t wanna leave anyone out. Maybe she wouldn’t have made all those miscarriage kits. But when you allow yourself to be unique, allow your project to be unique. Allow what’s on your heart and mind to speak and guide you.

That is what’s most beautiful, and that is how we get it done. So I’m gonna leave you with that, but here’s my 10 tips really quickly. Again, keep it simple. If you wanna make it more complicated, more elaborate. More power to you. I love that for you. But don’t let thinking that it needs to be elaborate.

Stop you. Number two, listen to your heart and to your mind. Number three, check in with your capacity to begin with. Don’t underestimate the power of service in healing and giving you energy. A focus, a distraction in so many good things, and then check in with your capacity all along the way. One other thing that I’ll add is I’ve seen people who do give back and when they start feeling like, Hey, I don’t wanna do this anymore, they feel a huge amount of guilt and they, they really struggle to shut it down.

You don’t have to do this forever. You absolutely can change as the seasons in your life change and as your heart changes and focuses on other things, that is what we’re meant to do. So please continue to check in with your capacity. Make that part of your plan as you give back. Number four, network. Find people who are doing what you do, find people who wanna help you.

They might not even actually, I found some of the best volunteers are not actually baby loss people. They’re maybe they know someone or they care about someone, or they’re just like someone that has time and really connects with the project and they’re incredible. So. Never underestimate who can be part of your network and help you.

Number five, watch for opportunities. Number six, watch for miracles. Get your idea out so that people can help you. And so the opportunities do come up. Seven is what I just said. So your intentions, speak it. Number eight, be smart. Do your research. Don’t feel like you have to start from the ground up. Don’t feel like you have to do it all.

There’s lots of things you can pull together to do amazing baby loss support or again, it doesn’t have to be a baby loss support, but just giving back in any way in honor of your child. Number nine, done is better than perfect, and number 10, be unique. I cannot stress this enough. I wanna invite you again to go right now.

To Smooth Zones coaching.com/mom and join the Embracing Mother’s Day Challenge. You are going to feel so much better as soon as you just check out. It’s $25. It is the best $25 you’re gonna spend this month because you are gonna get a month of support, coaching, ideas, plans, all of it, and you are going to be okay this Mother’s Day.

And I know we don’t normally wanna just be okay, but for some people I know that you can’t even imagine being okay. And if you are okay and you want it to be better than, okay, this challenge is exactly what you need as well. It it works because it is unique to you, right? I’m gonna give you the prompts, but you get to apply it however you want to.

So join me. It’s gonna be awesome. You do not want to miss this. I will see you next time.