Living My Most Joyous Life
Noelle Young is an adjunct professor by day, an astrologer by night and a mama of three 24/7.
Connect with Noelle Young on Instagram: @noellethevibe
With such a busy schedule, Noelle entered the Empower Wellness Program to work on her time management, but she left the program learning more about herself than she ever thought she would.
Q: How is motherhood, overall, going for you right now?
Young: Right at this very moment is going great because I am out of the house without any of the children and I am about to run errands by myself. And that is exciting for me! Being able to coordinate those kinds of excursions is no small feat. So right now I'm in a moment where all of the planning is working out and it feels good.
Q: What does Balanced Working Mama mean to you and how has Balanced Working Mama impacted your life?
Young: Originally, I thought it means everything. Before I did this program in the beginning of the calendar year, and before talking with Dr. Amber and the women in my group, I didn't know that other women who looked like me were experiencing the feelings that I was experiencing, I thought that I was having a very individualized experience with motherhood. And it's almost laughable now, because there's not a thing that I was going through, that somebody else in the group wasn't also going through in some way, shape, or form. So it's impacted my life by showing me the power of community. Physically showing me for six weeks what it looks like when people show up for you, and listen to you, and then offer solutions from a place that's non-judgmental, and from a place of common identity.
A lot of the “mommy content” out there - and I use that phrase with quotes in it, meaning the mommy blogs and the mommy TikToks, if you will - a lot of it excludes people who look like me and various things. They're not at the same point in the career as me or they're not from the same cultural background as me, or things that make me feel like, ‘Oh, I could do what you're doing.’ But I don't trust the source as much as I do with these women who all pretty much have similar stories to my own, and that was very powerful for me.
There’s that saying like, ‘the days are long, but the years are short’… they're all long, and I want them all to be enjoyable. I don't think it's too much to ask that they are mostly enjoyable and recognize the ways in which I was in the way of enjoying my own time - because I was always thinking about what I could be getting down instead.
Q: What have been some struggles or challenges you've experienced so far in your motherhood journey?
Young: One thing I put in my evaluation that was very difficult for me was time management. And as I was going through the program with Dr. Amber and doing the exercises and whatnot, and listening to the responses of the other mommies, it turns out that time management was something that I was struggling with on a base level, like on an executive functioning neurological level. So it helped me to see that some of the ways I was thinking about things was actually holding me back. Like, yes, I struggle with time management, but more importantly, I struggle with the way I think about time management. So being able to really get at the root of what the issue was like, Yes, motherhood is difficult. Yes, being a partner is difficult. Yes, the pandemic is difficult. But what is the base issue that's making all of those more of a task than it is joyous? And it had to do with my feelings about time management, which tie back to some neurological things that are now being addressed - but I had no framework to even separate any of that before.
Noelle Young, mama of three.
Q: What are some things you've actively worked on, changed or transformed as you've moved forward in your motherhood?
Young: So I would say time management again because when I say neurological things I'm talking about things like neurodiversity, ADHD, and autism. So learning about all this is coming from a person who is no stranger to special education and has done the training and taught the kids and ran the gifted programs, and should have been doing this in my own house for myself. Applying my skills, as an educator, and as an organizer to my own life, I realized I was the only person not getting the ‘care plan’, if you will or not. I wasn't using all my executive functions for me first. I was using whatever I had on the kids first. Make sure the dishes are done, or make sure I show up to the meeting on time. And now I'm like, the meeting can wait. Because if I show up all flustered, what's the point? If I'm walking through my day, spazzing out thinking about the next things I have to do and I’m so stressed out about all the to-do lists in my mind…that's not the kind of existence that I want on the day to day.
There’s that saying like, the days are long, but the years are short… they're all long, and I want them all to be enjoyable. And I don't think it's too much to ask that they are mostly enjoyable and recognize the ways in which I was in the way of enjoying my own time, because I was always thinking about what I could get done. So shifting that time management piece to also include managing myself and learning that I do need transition times and just going from there. So giving myself more grace and more cushion to kind of just be a human.
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Q: What's the biggest lesson you've learned, or what has stood out to you the most as you've worked to redefine your motherhood journey?
Young: The person you were before the kids is reborn too. And what I mean is that as I'm working through these issues of discovering what is keeping me from living my most joyous life and whatnot, I realize there's a lot of what they call “inner child healing” that needs to be done. And even if I weren't doing my own shadow work or self-development - just by doing the parenting work of my children, and not allowing some of the same traumas to be repeated for them, it makes it so that that the young version of me gets to experience a whole childhood again. I get to make pancakes for dinner if I want to. And shout out to my parents if your reading this. This is not a slight on anything you did. Because generational trauma goes back further than just the house you grew up in. But I went I can do things for my children that maybe weren't able to be done for me and weren't able to be done for my parents.
Q: Has community played a role in how you navigate motherhood right now? And if so, how?
Young: Yes, for sure. When we say community, a lot of us think immediately like Sesame Street you know - the community right around us and in front of us. But the global pandemic situation has shifted a lot of people into the online community, which is exciting for me, because I was there already, as an online adjunct professor and a technical stay at home mom. The internet is where I got most sources of social activity. And now that a lot more people are using platforms like zoom for meetups or really connecting through live events and social media and things like that, it makes it a lot easier to find your community on the internet and engage in various kinds of community. So I've been able to find spiritual support, academic support, psychological support, and financial support, amongst other kinds of support through community and it starts in the online space, but it's definitely not limited to that.
Q: What words of encouragement, wisdom or helpful advice would you pass on to another mom who may be struggling right now?
Young: First, I would say if you're struggling right now, you're doing a great job. If there's something that you think you're not doing a great job at - you are, and you're probably being a little hard on yourself. And beyond that, I would say to seek a source of wisdom that is beyond your four walls. Before talking to Dr. Amber and the other women in my group about how I felt about motherhood, I was not bouncing anything off anyone other than my partner. And my partner is in the same four walls as me. So even if we were to do something in an academic context, that would not be a sound study. That would not be valid. You would have to go outside to extrapolate the data and whatnot. You can't just assess what's going on by only talking to the people in your house. It is very, very helpful, though, admittedly scary and frightening to talk to people who are completely away from your situation and help get some perspective. Not necessarily that you need the advice of other people, but you need this space to be able to speak. And sometimes that space only comes from people who are far away from your context.
Hi there! I’m Dr. Amber Thornton.
I’m a Clinical Psychologist, Motherhood Wellness Consultant, wife, and mama to 2 amazing little ones.
My mission is simple: to help working mothers balance work, motherhood, and wellness. I want to completely change the narrative of what is possible for working mothers.
Learn more about how we can work together!
