This One Thing Will Set You Free in Motherhood with Jenn Hepton (Shattering The Illusion of Intense Mothering 2/2)

As I peeled back the layers of my own motherhood at a transformative 10-day expressive arts therapy program, a profound shift occurred within me. I went to learn about the power of expressive art therapy and left feeling like a brand new person. I felt like me again. I had completely lost myself in motherhood, and it was through the healing arts that I found her again. 

Ah Ha Moments:

• Social norms, gender expectations and expectations cloud our true identities.
• Your life will change if you embrace the therapeutic power of play, creativity, and expression. 
• Stepping into the imaginative world helps you find clarity and self-worth in the often-overwhelming role of being a mother.

Jenn provides a heart-wrenching yet inspiring glimpse into the healing that emerges from storytelling (she writes many articles about motherhood). 

By sharing her vulnerable experiences with a dismissive doctor, Jen underscores the importance of feeling the full range of emotions in motherhood and how this can lead us to self-agency and an authentic existence. 

This episode doesn't just tell you about the strength found in vulnerability and creative expression—it shows you how to embrace it with practical insights and powerful personal narratives that will resonate long after you've listened.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Power of Expressive Art Therapy
• 4:37 Authenticity and Writing in Motherhood
• 11:00 The Power of Permission in Motherhood

Transcript

Jenn Hepton: 0:00

And also like coming back to the illusion of motherhood, like once you start to pause and once you start to move away from that a little bit more, you start to understand who you are in motherhood, who, what. Your identity is right, because you're not being fed all these things, but who you are and who you are outside the illusion is enough, is enough is enough. You have to take yourself out of the illusion, because the illusion is telling you that you're not and you are. You are, you are meant to be this person's mom and this person's life, and you don't have to do what the Institute tells you to do or what social media tells you to do you know I do a lot of work from the expressive arts therapy lens.

Kayla Huszar: 0:55

I love that. The thing that I have I struggle with the most in explaining to people about what it does and why it's so important is that it does exactly that. The art process, the creative process, whatever that looks like for people, whether it's poetry or making art or doodling in the margins of their work notes is you can't. You can't lie when you're making art. The truth will always come out, and, and what I love about guiding women in this way is that I don't have to tell them who they need to be and I don't have to tell them how much they're enough or give them those little nuggets of hope or they find it, and the the beautiful part of working outside of a talk therapy lens is that they get to come to those conclusions on their own and and the the power of that is incredible at about two, everything fell apart.

Kayla Huszar: 2:13

For me, too. It was like I couldn't hold it up anymore, right, like the backpack was just too fucking heavy and I couldn't do it anymore and I needed to set some stuff down. And at that time, I was looking at becoming private practice and I wanted to help people through creativity. I never left my talk therapy experiences and I found this training and I went and it was 10 days away from my home. Husband had things you know handled at home, 10 days away from them, and it was like I emerged a new person, because not only was I learning the theoretical pieces of expressive art therapy, but I was actually doing them for like 10 hours a day for 10 days straight. That was the pause, Wow.

Kayla Huszar: 3:03

And so it was like an intensive program where we went 10 days in the spring and then 10 days in the fall and I had to. It was literally written into my course that I had to prioritize this part of myself and I had been using creativity for as long as I could remember to process pain and struggle. And when I came home from that first experience I had uncovered or not totally, I think I'd start to see the glimmer of who I was and who I really wanted to be, and the illusion of motherhood started to fade. It's like I wasn't in the snow globe anymore, being shook up by it. I was like outside of the snow globe, being able to hold it and get perspective on it.

Jenn Hepton: 4:06

That is so powerful, yes, and we know, like is that creative wiring, or creative energy that is being lost, which is incredibly healing, which brings us back to our childlike way, the play from the imagination. And that is where you know, that is where you start to move into a space of observing. You know, I know authenticity that word is being used quite a bit, but Gabor Mati talks about it a lot and you know, while you were sharing that story about creativity, it reminds me of, like you know, childhood. We are born creative beings, imaginative, free, just full of, you know, just wonder and curiosity. And somewhere in our relationship with others parents, someone we felt unsafe in that because we chose attachment rather than being our authentic self. And so now we're moving away from who we are, the true self, into someone where society will, you know, see us, where our parents will see us, where we become something else.

Jenn Hepton: 5:31

And I think what happens with the illusion of motherhood is that starts to be the same narrative, the same cycle. Your story is so beautiful because it reminds me of coming back to that playfulness, coming back to that creativity, coming back to that curiosity, and that I think I know because it's happening for me, it happened to you is the way that we can move ourselves away from this illusion and start to become, you know, really authentic. And I think in that is when we are like oh, you know what intense mothering is not for me. That reels, you know, it's not going to work for me and that's okay. That's okay, I'm okay, that's not going to work for me. And also knowing going okay, you know what? I've been on reels for an hour.

Jenn Hepton: 6:23

I needed that I'm cool. Now I'm doing something else. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's being able to have that race and not always having to judge yourself, because you are that creative space, because it re ignites your brain in so many different ways. It's the somatic as well.

Kayla Huszar: 6:42

Yes, yeah, it's that like that body centered awareness, that felt sense that our bodies hold. So they hold, it's hold so much of our lived experiences that we we can't even understand it at this point. You know how our systems are, why they are, why we're you know. We might know why we're activated or getting a body signal about something, but you know it. It could have been way long ago like something that we wouldn't have even had control over, like, and so I know that one of your really passionate creative outlets is writing. Can you, can you share with us a little bit about how that helps in your motherhood and your working in that authentic space for you?

Jenn Hepton: 7:36

Yeah, I would love to. So when my mother passed away, it was, it was a reminder to live your dreams, to do what you want to do, and I can still be a good mom, a good partner and still follow my dreams. And my dreams have always been, you know, facilitating, educating and and writing. And I love educating, I love facilitating, and I wasn't doing as much writing and so I thought you know what? This is it, this is I have to, this is it, I'm doing it. And so I wrote a book proposal for my memoir about my 11 years of infertility and how I worked so hard to become a mom and, through surrogacy, became a mom and hated it was like this is it?

Kayla Huszar: 8:36

I went from this to my hate.

Jenn Hepton: 8:40

And so whilst I was working on that book proposal and articles as well about infertility, about 针 honk, so many aspects of motherhood and how we get there and how we're in it, I realized that there was parts of my story I was not touching. There was parts of my story that I needed to heal, and I was able to heal those parts by writing. So, for instance, the first chapter of my book is about my mom's death, about her taking her last breath, and as I wrote that, I cried the entire time and it was exhausting and so therapeutic because my body needed to do what it needed to do and I was able to express myself in a creative way. So my body felt safe. My body felt safe because I was in that creative space. My body felt safe because I was pausing in that creative space, I was in the flow of state, and then that's when my body was just. I mean the tears, the shakes and everything and so my writing is able to go back to parts of my life that I have been touched and healed. But also it's a purpose for me because I know a lot of women have gone through what I've gone through or going through what I'm going through and it's starting conversation.

Jenn Hepton: 10:16

You know, like the memoir isn't a hero's journey, you know it's, we're in the journey and so it's creating language and conversation and validation and there's a lot of times in motherhood we get, and in the road to motherhood there's a lot of gaslighting. There's a lot of you'll be fine, don't worry. You know, like miscarriages. You know it wasn't meant to be, try again, you know, and it's just, there's a lot of that, a lot of that, and I talk about that in the book. It helps me to validate my experience, knowing what I know. Now going, that was really shitty and I can't believe that doctor said that to me. Like at the time I was like, oh okay, people proof. So now I'm like no, no, no, I'm writing an article about that, I'm going to get published. The world needs to know it. So it's empowering, it's healing and it allows me to be who I truly am. Yeah, love writing. I love writing.

Kayla Huszar: 11:30

It's so amazing and I think that's a really great place to come to a conclusion of our episode here. And I appreciate all of the pieces that you shared about your motherhood and the illusions and the narratives and the hard and the hurt and the pain, Because just speaking it out loud gives those things a little bit less power, a little bit less weight in the world, and not only for you but for whoever's listening. Maybe give them permission to do whatever they need with their story, whether that's write it or journal it, art journal it, paint it, share it, scream it. You know, call a friend and just scream into the void. And there's so much power and wisdom in the body and in the pause and I think there is so much to be learned about how we move through the world and how we want to move through the world.

Jenn Hepton: 12:43

And I think that in that permission piece is really important as well. You know, it's that permission to feel, all the feels in motherhood, permission to be who you are, who you want to be in motherhood, the permission not to believe in the illusion, the permission to understand the illusion, the permission to self. You know self agency, self advocacy. So permission is huge.

Kayla Huszar: 13:10

I'd like to reach out to Jen or myself. All of our links are going to be underneath in the show notes, and I will be sharing all of this stuff on social media and everywhere, because Jen's message is really powerful and she's been doing lots of really amazing, powerful human writing, and I'm going to include some of the links to her articles below too.