Last week I asked why becoming her mattered.
This week I kept thinking about those early postpartum days, when I was tired in a way that went deeper than sleep. Not just from healing. Not just from waking up at night. I was tired from the constant stream of advice, tips, routines, and opinions telling me what I should be doing next.
There is so much information now. Every postpartum tip, every recovery routine, every “no one told me this, but you need to know it” post is right there, all the time. And instead of helping, it sometimes made everything feel heavier. I did not know what I truly needed anymore. I only knew there was always more I could be learning, more I could be doing, more I could be fixing.
At first, I just wanted to feel like myself again. To heal. To get through the day without feeling like I was falling apart. But then I started seeing one thing after another. Pelvic floor work. Postpartum nutrition. Hormone support. Milk supply supplements. Recovery routines other moms swore by.
Suddenly I was not just healing. I was researching healing.
I was collecting information instead of resting. Trying to optimize a season that really needed gentleness. And somewhere in all of that, I realized I was no longer asking what I needed. I was asking what I was missing.
That is when I started asking a different question.
Would she do this?
Her, meaning the woman I actually want to become. Not the perfectly polished postpartum version of motherhood I might see online. Not the woman who looks like she has every answer. Her. The woman who is healed enough to listen to herself. Present enough to slow down. Gentle enough to let things be simple.
Would she spend the one quiet hour she gets reading another article about what she should eat, or would she sit down and actually rest?
Would she buy one more trending shortcut supplement because everyone says it helps, or would she make something warm and trust that her body needs care more than pressure?
Would she chase doing this perfectly, or would she let this season be slow, ordinary, and real?
That question changed things for me.
It did not ask me to know everything. It asked me to picture the kind of woman I wanted to become, then let her lead. And once I started doing that, the noise got a little quieter. Not because the internet changed, but because I changed how I was listening.
It stopped being only about postpartum, too. I started using that question everywhere. What I read. What I wore. How I spent a quiet morning. Whether I was choosing from pressure or from peace.
Instead of asking, What is the most optimized way to do this? I started asking, What would she naturally do?
And honestly, that gave me more clarity than any perfect routine ever did.
She did not need to know everything. She just needed to know herself a little better and give things time.
So if you are in that place right now, the one where there is too much to read, too many opinions, too many things you are supposed to be doing, especially in a season as tender as postpartum, try this instead.
Picture her.
Ask if she would do the thing in front of you.
If the answer is no, you can let it go.
You do not always need one more article. Sometimes you just need to pause long enough to ask what she would do, and trust that answer.
You do not always need one more article.
With love,
Kristen
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