Abortion: A Personal and Nuanced Decision
Rachel Redmond
Rachel Redmond is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine and Ayurvedic practitioner specializing in women’s health and self-care. She is the Founder of The Yin Way, an online women's wellness program designed to help busy women and moms improve their health while simplifying their self-care. She helps her clients maximize their potential without burning out. She’s also a wife, toddler-mom, and has a golden retriever named Honey.
To learn more about her work and The Yin Way program, visit her website www.rachel-redmond.com or find her on Instagram @rachel.e.redmond.
Social media and contact information:
Instagram: @Rachel.e.redmond
Podcast Transcript:
[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents. Where hopeful, intuitive, trusting people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.
Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damaged self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges.
Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is a damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side whole.
Those who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero.
Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.
Today, we're going to talk with Rachel Redmond. She has many roles in her life, wife, mother, sister, daughter, aunt friend, dog-mom, and more. We'll talk about how she terminated her pregnancy at 21 weeks due to severe fetal anomalies and how she found health and healing. Let's talk.
Welcome back to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We've got Rachel Redmond here today. She is a doctor of Oriental medicine. Ayur- oh my gosh. I always mess this word up, guys. Ayurvedic practitioner specializing in women's health and self care. She's also the founder of The Yin Way, an online women's wellness program designed to help busy women.
And guess what? She's had struggled too. Rachel, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm so glad you're here today.
[00:02:32] Rachel Redmond: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to dive in.
[00:02:35] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Yeah, we were talking about there's so much going on right now, around your topic. And I don't want to spill the beans because I think that you have such a beautiful story to share and just a deep and lovely story that I'm going to let you go ahead and just start off and we'll go where we go.
[00:02:58] Rachel Redmond: Okay.
sounds good. Yes, five years ago I was living in Santa Fe, New Mexico with my husband and a transition, we were moving across the country to Michigan, which is where I'm from. My husband got a new job. I had gotten my master's degree and became a doctor for Oriental medicine, and we are going to start the next chapter of our lives in Michigan.
And I was also pregnant with my first baby and , I kind of had been planning my whole life to be a mother. And um, so I was overjoyed being pregnant. I felt really nauseous and awful, but like was so excited. Like I was almost like, oh, I feel so sick. I'm like really pregnant, you know, like I don't know.
I just am one of those kinds of people that always wanted to be a mother. And, I think part of my medical training and things like that is like just very interested in pregnancy, postpartum care, even preconception care. And so fast forward, we are in Michigan. It's our one year wedding anniversary.
And we go in for the 20 week anatomy scan, which for people who aren't quite aware, it's a ultrasound, that's done midway through pregnancy and it's very detailed. And I didn't realize this at the time, but doctors are looking at the whole baby. They're looking at the heart, all the organs, the limbs, the brain, they're making sure everything is healthy.
And they took a long time during our ultrasound. And I got kind of nervous. The technician left the room several times and came back, And they let us know that we were having a boy, um, my intuition is that it was a boy. I kind of knew that, but it was kind of a confirmation. and then we left the doctor's office because there was.
A scheduling error. We didn't actually meet with the doctor right away, as you might often do. So we left the appointment and I was just like on cloud nine, it was like this experience of bliss, really? Like, just feeling like, Okay.
like we're having this baby. It's a real, I could see him on the screen.
hear his heartbeat, no, it's a boy. And then the afternoon we just kind of spent hanging out with my husband and I, because it was our anniversary. We're going to go out for dinner. And during that afternoon, I'm sitting on the couch and his name just popped into my mind out of nowhere. And I told my husband and we agreed upon it after, you know, weeks of not like deliberating on names.
And I just knew that was his name and it was such a beautiful moment. And then literally a few minutes later, the doctor calls me and said, I was reviewing your anatomy scan generally, if there's, you know, one kind of marker found it's not a big deal, but there were five markers found on yours and there was signs that there was problems in the brain, the kidneys, the stomach, the heart.
So she said, I can't tell you What any of this means, but you need to go in for a follow-up you know, another ultrasound with a genetic counselor. And that'll be in a week and I don't know anything. I can't tell you anything until you have more information and that
was it.
[00:05:47] Damaged Parents: Oh my gosh. What was that like? you get this phone call, you just received the message of his name. you knew you get the doctors and now you've got to wait a week. You find out about these markers. What was that week? Like?
[00:05:59] Rachel Redmond: I mean, it was surreal. I felt Like?
I had the wind knocked out of me. you know, Even retelling it, I feel my chest tight and my breathing constricted, because even though it was five years ago, it's still, carries a lot for me, obviously. So it was, Yeah, You know, at first of course there was denial, I'm a positive person.
So I thought I was like, just think happy thoughts, you know, , then there was a very realness that I was pregnant and hungry and still having all of those, pregnancy feelings and nausea, even that late in the pregnancy. So there was also this very real, like, okay, I'm very much can't, you know, be away from this picture.
Like I'm here. I can't separate, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. But somewhere during that week I actually knew it was through a dream that I had, and I knew that I had to prepare to lose the pregnancy in one way or another. I just, my intuition and kind of the message I got from this dream that I had just said.
Start preparing for the worst. So we waited that week and went in on Friday morning and had a follow up anatomy scan and then met with a genetic counselor. And she gave us the formal diagnosis, which kind of also knocked the wind out of me. Cause it was something I never heard of.
it's not a genetic problem. It's just this very rare fluke thing. It's called Dandy Walker, Malformation. And it's where part of the cerebellum is missing and the brain tends to be smaller, like abnormally small, but then they're swelling once the baby's born. And it's a diagnosis that is a spectrum.
Some people walk around with this disorder and they're okay. Some people are, is very, very severe. They have surgeries, you know, multiple basically, you know what my doctor told me was and our presentation was very severe and that our child would not ever be able to walk, to talk, to sit up, to have any sort of emotional connection would basically, be institutionalized, and under medical care for the duration of however long he lived through whatever medical procedures he were to have.
And then in that moment, you know, basically in the next breath was then you have options and these are your options and you can terminate the pregnancy if you choose, or you can carry to term and see what happens. So that was, the next step.
[00:08:14] Damaged Parents: Yeah. So what was it like To know that you could see what was, you could carry it to term , or terminate. And how did you come to the conclusion besides the, I mean, I don't know if there's a lot of weights on intuition too, right. Because you know, what's right for you. So did you just trust that or did you also do more research and pondering and talking.
[00:08:38] Rachel Redmond: Yeah.
you know, I sometimes say it was the hardest and the easiest decision of my life, like the hardest to make and to go through with. But I just knew, I think I've cultivated my intuition for the past 20 years through meditation and practices that I've learned.
So I'm very trusting of myself. So I just knew, I just knew that we could not, I didn't think I could bear it, to bring a child into the world that would suffer the amount that this child would have suffered. I couldn't, this is the moment that I actually became a mother.
We think of you become a mother when the baby's born, whatever way C-section vaginally, whatever they're in your arms. And then you're a mother that's was what I expected. But I became a mother the moment I made a decision on behalf of my child that put his needs ahead of my own. And in that moment I chose my own suffering over his, I was not gonna let him suffer the way that he could have.
And for me, I would just, suffer the consequences of that, choice, but knowing it was going to be better for everybody. And knowing I wanted to still, have a family and all these things. So it was, a very difficult decision, but it was also one that I just, knew, like my body told me it was the right thing to do for this baby.
[00:09:58] Damaged Parents: That's really beautiful. How you put it. I chose my suffering and over his, and I made that decision as a parent, not just as a woman of what was best. And that makes me think of the word sacrifice and making something sacred. that's how I look at that word. And it sounds like you really made that relationship that you did have sacred in that.
[00:10:21] Rachel Redmond: Yeah. that gives me chills that you say that I've never connected those two words in that way, but absolutely it was, you know, obviously we're talking about second term abortion later term abortion and of course brings up some of that argument. People say, when I say people, I mean like a man in a suit in the government, who has no idea who I am you know, who are pro life, you know, people or whatever that they'll say your baby is sacred.
And to me that feels like the most. Invasive offensive thing that anyone could ever say to me, because I am the mother and this baby was sacred to me and to nobody else, you know, in a sense. So like take yourself away and let me decide, that, and for women who choose to abort a pregnancy, because it is unwanted or unplanned and they don't attach the sacredness of the baby, that is a hundred percent their truth as well.
you know, I just feel like in this moment in history with the Texas abortion ban and the things that are happening right now, like it is so important to acknowledge this is my story and my baby was sacred, but abortion is complex, it's nuanced, it's so personalized.
And it's important that we just. Let it be private. It's private, you know, like I'm sharing it publicly because it's not yet in the space that we can accept it privately.
[00:11:38] Damaged Parents: Okay. I think I understand what you're saying. Because you're sharing it publicly. You're stepping out, which is fantastic and beautiful. But I think what I also hear you saying is that in that private space, almost there still these judgments and this huge, I want to say like internal conflict that has to go on because of how many different judgements are out there around what abortion means is that where you're going with that?
[00:12:07] Rachel Redmond: Yeah, I think I need that also. I think what I mean by being private is that it, it is a healthcare decision and it's, not, the government's place to regulate our bodies and our choices in that away. That's what I mean, that it it's private, it's personal, it's every woman's right. to choose.
But it is private. There is that judgment and that shame that infiltrates, I think at every level, because of the water that we swim in,
[00:12:32] Damaged Parents: Yeah,
[00:12:33] Rachel Redmond: It's kind of two things at once.
[00:12:34] Damaged Parents: It's a lot of things, right. Because we've got the government, we've got religion, we've got individual beliefs. We've got snap judgements that are made about it. We've got, I mean, I can't tell you how many people I know that feels shame around an abortion. Because I think this societal belief that it still even today in today's world, especially we can tell with what's happening right in Texas and Mississippi and things like , that absolutely it's wrong.
And you had a child that you were going to, if you didn't abort was going to be severely. I mean was really going to suffer on so many levels. And I guess the only person who can decide the line is it's the person whose, whose body that baby is inside of. I don't know the answer for everyone, but I agree with you in that it's very individual.
[00:13:33] Rachel Redmond: Yeah.
and I think that's what, my point is, just like, this is my story, but I also honor and acknowledge everyone else's stories that had an abortion or chose not to, or, you know, I think what I try to bring to the table when I share my story is that we just need to make this more human, like of a human issue, not like to put a face on it, in general, my motto, my way in life is to be compassionate and kind to people.
And I think that is just very missing from this conversation in general.
[00:14:04] Damaged Parents: Right, again, going back to that judgment and I don't know how except to continue to tell the stories
like you're doing, being brave and stepping out. Cause I'm sure there might be some prices you paid too for even sharing this. I'm not sure. Have you had that challenge yet?
[00:14:23] Rachel Redmond: I mean so far, it's mostly been just internet trolls. I kind of don't read comments anymore on things. But I've, read some terrible things. But so far I think, still not, a lot of people have heard my story here and there. I did tell it on Michigan radio or NPR station, that was the biggest platform so far, but I haven't, luckily, had any thing personal, but yeah.
[00:14:45] Damaged Parents: But you still experienced those comments and that and it sounds like you said you quit reading them. I mean, so there was still, I don't want to say buttons that were pushed in yet. I don't know how, what better term or thing to describe? I mean, because it sounds like it's still really painful in some ways that you lost your child.
[00:15:06] Rachel Redmond: Yeah. I mean, I think it always will, there will always be You know, the pain of like that grief that I carry. It is different. Now, five years later, I'm coming up upon the five-year anniversary of the loss. And actually, as we are recording this, I'm in this kind of what I call this kind of sacred window between, the anniversary of the diagnosis.
Um, That first anatomy scan to the termination of the pregnancy is a span of about 10 days. And to me, it's a very gentle, tender place. So it's also an honor to be telling the story within this moment that I'm experiencing the seasonal shift and the light, falling in my yard, at that same way.
It just, in grief, like there's these. It comes up and sometimes we don't even know from where, but now I'm very aware that as the seasons shift, as that air changes and becomes a little cooler, like it just brings up a lot of feelings for me, a lot of memory, a lot of, smells, things that are attached to that emotional brain.
So anyway, just kind of, I forgot my point about that, but that's where I am.
[00:16:10] Damaged Parents: No, I think that's important , to recognize that it is a loss and still emotionally, it comes up for you and still you did the right thing. And, in your heart that, and through your intuition, that that was the right thing to do. I mean, I don't even know how to respond to what's happening in Texas.
What would you say to a woman? Like, let's say this same thing happened to another woman that's struggling, right this moment. And I think I heard that , anyone could bring a lawsuit against someone who helped or supported a woman, even if they went outside of Texas, I think, and got the abortion.
[00:16:54] Rachel Redmond: Oh my gosh. That's scary.
[00:16:55] Damaged Parents: Like anyone around the country could bring a lawsuit against someone. So what are your thoughts and feelings on that?
[00:17:03] Rachel Redmond: That feels oppressive, and , it's really hard to fathom. I mean, I think it's an incredible. Incredibly, challenging, horrific, devastating choice to be faced with in the first place and then to need to make that choice I'm in a support group. , So you know, there's so many reasons, you know, some people terminate because , they found out that they had cancer and the You know, they can't get the chemo if they're pregnant and the chemo needs to save their life.
And it's this very complicated, thing to navigate. So there's already so many layers that people are navigating as they face this, a diagnosis or a choice like this, and then to be afraid for your, life, You know, if your mother helps you, if you have to move, go to a different state, if you have, those means even some people aren't going to have the means and the resources to do that.
I mean, I can't even, it's not even in my body yet. I don't know. Like, it hasn't landed. It's it feels still like a shock. And the trauma is the space that I'm in right now. I don't know what that looks like. I have hope that it won't stay that way. So I think I'm in a state of shock about it, honestly.
Like, you know, you can't quite, know it feels surreal.
[00:18:10] Damaged Parents: Yeah, it really does. You know, My, youngest is 16 and, her big concern was like that, that women were going to use hangers like they did back in the day. And, that she has that knowledge to know how, desperate a woman can get based on whether or not what their personal situation can be. And so her heart just really, she's got a huge heart, like it's hard.
And again, I, don't think anyone else can decide for someone for anyone else. Right? Like just all of the podcasts that I've done, who knows their body best
[00:18:47] Rachel Redmond: Right.
[00:18:48] Damaged Parents: the person
[00:18:49] Rachel Redmond: Right?
[00:18:50] Damaged Parents: and who knows what their life journey is supposed to be. Only that person, even the people pleasers acknowledged that the healed people pleasers are like, I tried.
[00:19:01] Rachel Redmond: Yeah. Well, you know, as you say that I reflect and think this is my work and my professional work is how to help people connect to back to their bodies, to reclaim that space, to interpret the messages their bodies are giving them because we've been sort of, it's been beaten out of us to like just separate into mind over matter and just productivity, everything.
And don't listen to the needs of your body. And don't go to the bathroom all day because you're in meetings and like, so it's like this reclaiming this space for ourselves that like, we know ourselves best. We need to trust ourselves. And we often need to relearn ourselves because we haven't learned our bodies or intuitive sides, because there's been no reinforcement for that.
In fact, it's always, you know, there's a lot of let's do it the other way. I think there's just a lot of work to be done right now.
[00:19:53] Damaged Parents: Yeah. When you say that, it makes me think of even, at church, they teach about praying for instance, And there's not so much out there about listening. And what does that look like? Or how do you recognize that in yourself? And I think maybe on a larger level and, and correct me if you think, if you go the other way, but I just think on a larger level it's because we
are taught not to listen specifically, almost like, even in grade school, you can't go to the bathroom unless someone else decides it's time. Right?
[00:20:26] Rachel Redmond: Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a lot of incentives for pushing past yeah. I have a whole schpiel that I could go into, but then Like,
I don't know if we want to go in that direction or not
[00:20:34] Damaged Parents: about like learning to listen to the.
[00:20:37] Rachel Redmond: I mean, just kind of setting up the context, like understanding the.
difficulties that, women face, you know, that's my market, who I work with women, mothers, just people in general.
you know, If I see everything through the lens of Yin and Yang , that is my training. That's my background. This idea that Yang energy from this Chinese medicine, it's an ancient symbol. it's the study side of the hill. It's about daytime sunlight, heat, energy expansion. To me that translates to productivity and doing, and output.
And then the other side of the half of the circle is, the Yin and that's that the shady side of the hill. .
The nighttime, that darkness, that introspectiveness, the winter, the coldness, and we need both these forces for balance. They are complimentary they're interconnected.
And what I see in the world today is that we live in a society that values and prioritizes the Yang it values. Busy-ness doing energy, heat, fast, active, masculine energy, that's it. And we de-value and deprioritize the Yin which is stillness, quiet listening introspection, like empty space, doing nothing, anything the feminine, like, and we devalued you prioritize that and that is
to me, that is in us, that is in our bodies need to go to, I need to speak. I need to tell myself versus what if I could listen, what if I could observe? And so I would say like, the work that I do is like, is really shifting that. I'm just trying to elevate the Yin principles to create that as balance that is harmony.
Productivity doing this wonderful. We need it, but we have to put it back into balance. Like this is affecting our bodies. Our hormones it's affecting the planet global warming. You can see it on the micro and the macro scale. We're all heating up or all overly Yang energy. And so anyway, that, is my long spiel to that listening.
You know, That listening is that, and we need to cultivate so many qualities to create more harmony and balance in ourselves in our communities on the planet.
[00:22:42] Damaged Parents: Yeah. I mean, I think that's really important. So just to tie the two together, if someone came to you, I mean, if someone came to you right now and they're trying to figure out and listen to figure out what their next step is going to be, what are some things you would say, go do this. And practice and how might they pinpoint what that, my understanding is intuition can show up in very different ways for every person. And so what would they look for? Does that make sense? My
[00:23:14] Rachel Redmond: yeah. yeah. For, yeah, for sure. It makes sense. And it's, to me, it's, starting to reconnect the body in the mind because we have separated those. A lot of us live from the neck up. We think with our heads, we're analyzing all the time. We're living out of our left logical brain and it's really, we have to learn to come back into our body.
We have to learn to connect those two parts of ourselves. And so that could be as simple as watching your breath throughout the day, taking a moment, you know, having some sort of trigger. Like every time you get in the car, every time you sit down at your desk at your computer to put your hand on your chest and take three breaths and notice your breath, notice your heartbeat.
Kind of do a quick little body scan and just start to rebuild that connection of the body and the mind. And I think that is the first place, because oftentimes we don't realize we're so disconnected. It's a practice I can run through days where I've been disconnected all day. So it's, something that we reinforce.
It's a neural network in the brain that we can strengthen and, carve out as a pathway.
[00:24:21] Damaged Parents: So when you were healing from, the abortion and everything, and here you have this clear connection to your intuition and your heart.
Did it seem like it was harder to heal or was it a little more scary? I'm trying to think of how to compare someone who's been living in their mind and in the very masculine side.
And then moving over , to the Yin with the very feminine and just being really connected to who they are. And if that might seem scary or like a free fall or what some of those feelings might be like,
[00:24:53] Rachel Redmond: Yeah.
I mean, I do have clients who are afraid to go to that place for whatever their interpretations of, there's fear of getting quiet. There's fear of listening because then they have to know what is there, you know, maybe they have some sort of, subconscious knowing that if they start to settle, then they will have to pay attention to those uncomfortable feelings.
And once there, I would say when I went through this process five years ago, I had already started studying Ayurveda when I was 19. 19 years old, I learned to meditate at 19. So the practice I still continue and I'm 37. So I was about 32, I think when I, Yeah.
32 when I had the abortion.
And so I had already had many, years under my belt of practices, all these tools from Eastern medicine. And for me, what it felt like was it was still devastating. It was still horrendous. It didn't protect me from any of that, from the grief, from the, all of the discomfort, all the pain and the suffering, but what it felt like for me as I was like climbing Mount Everest, but I had on shoes that fit in a backpack that didn't jab me.
So I felt like it steadied me. It gave me the foundation to climb this mountain of my life in that moment. So that's kind of, I don't know. I think that answers your question, but that's how it felt.
[00:26:16] Damaged Parents: I think so. And I think it's probably really hard to describe. , to someone who is living in their mind and then having to heal, and maybe in that healing process, they do find the Yin I mean, I think with meditation so much more in today's treatments with it, for mental health and things like that, that, may be.
That yen will show up. And it does. I love that you said that it didn't necessarily, it didn't take the pain away, but my shoes fit in my backpack. Didn't jab me. So it wasn't like, oh, I could just go back to normal and be just logical and like you were saying, masculine and work, work, work work.
so was it still really hard to balance in that process?
[00:27:00] Rachel Redmond: yes, it was, this is where I kind of, this is a lot of what shaped the work that I do now is that experience was because in those moments of grief, I had just moved also. I had no community where I was I had my mom and my best friend, but they were an hour and a half away, so they were close enough, but I still didn't
Have roots in my home. And the experience of the loss really did inform my work. And the way that it did was because in this process for me like I call my business The Yin Way, but to me what I knew in my training was that when anything reaches its maximum, it must transform to its opposite.
We have day reaches, you know, its maximum, it turns to night and vice versa. And so I knew this was a natural, this law of nature. And what I found was when I could sit with my emotion, whatever the emotion was, I learned that so much of the pain and the suffering is from simply resisting the emotions of not trying to feel how we feel, not accepting or allowing that emotion to just belong to be there. And so my process was you know, the pain, the grief, the whatever would come up and I would just let it be there. I would let it like roiled through my body and like, cry, like let it, but then there would be a release and a relief from that. I might have to do that like 20 or 50 times a day, but that was my emotional digestion of the experience.
And it took months, years even, but it.
was this way that I learned to understand how to feel my emotions and how to accept them and allow them. And some of that was through therapy, my therapist saying it's okay, that you feel angry right now. It's okay.
That you feel sad because I think my instinct was to
try to feel something different like, oh, I shouldn't feel angry or I shouldn't feel sad. I look at that have this, beautiful has been in many good things going for me. like there's a lot of this internal negotiation happening. So anyway, that was, an emotional process for me that, helped me.
[00:29:04] Damaged Parents: Yeah. I love what I heard about the cresting of the day and the night. And then I thought of waves of emotion, you know, like waves in an ocean they'll crest, and then they'll release, they'll crash down and go back and, it seems like that's what it was like maybe a little more tumultuous for awhile and then maybe a little bit better and then sometimes tumultuous again.
And. And so it sounds like it's just really, because even five years later, you said you're even just at the beginning of this podcast, as we, started talking about it. You said that you could feel that pressure in your chest and that it was a little harder to breathe, I think. And I think that that's one of those things like that.
Yes. That trauma happened and this struggle has been a process and it still is painful. And. Yet, you made the right choice and I think that's really interesting. Would you say that, by going through this, you have a new insight and new compassion for others in any type of struggle.
Did it just really open up your beliefs and ideas about what other people go through?
[00:30:16] Rachel Redmond: Yes. Very much I think it allowed me to see how, low people could go because how low I went. And of course, I'm sure there's people who experienced even lower, you know, than what I experienced, but I learned how hard it can be sometimes to get up and brush your teeth and go to the grocery store and to do those basic things.
And it very much informed my I always thought of myself as a compassionate person, but it, any, any, I think loss and, you know, things that we experienced, it just. It opens us up to even more compassion and to understand, you never know what someone is going through?
Like the other day I was buying makeup and I was talking about my three-year-old son, who I have now and the makeup person trying makeup on me.
She was talking about, oh, this one class is great and it's good for kids. And I just said, oh, do you have a kid? Like, they go to swim class and she just welled up. And she said, no, like , we had one, but he passed away. And, also, we had an instant connection, like this instant, I was like, I get it.
Like I experienced something like that. but it just showed me like anyone you have no idea what people are walking around with what they're carrying. Like we can all be infinitely, more compassionate. Like here's this nice, lovely, jolly woman putting makeup on me trying different shades. And meanwhile, this is what she is carrying, You just never know. And with my clients and everything, it's like, , it helps me to reorient to people and to really break things down sometimes because we can have all these to dos that we want to accomplish. But when you're in the midst of something really challenging, sometimes it's like, how can you offer compassion to yourself and do the bare minimum?
Like, Eat a meal versus not even eat anything like it re-frames everything. I would say.
[00:31:58] Damaged Parents: Yeah, those traumas sure do do that for us. Right. And I'm so grateful that you've come on here and shared your story. Now I always ask or usually try to remember to ask for three tips or tools. And I don't usually warn people about it because I believe sometimes what pops into our mind is exactly what needs to happen in that specific podcast.
So just if you have three tips or tools that you think the listeners could use,
[00:32:27] Rachel Redmond: Let's see why would say everyone, you know, there's a level of grief all around framing it like through the lens of, grief and what you're carrying. I would say the main tool that I have is Is to offer yourself, be kind to yourself and offer yourself compassion and forgiveness for whatever it is for whatever you are holding against yourself, whatever you are, shaming and blaming yourself, because we all do like there's the experience.
And then there's our internalized judgment of that experience. And those are two layers of pain. And so I would say whatever it is, if it's, You think you should be farther in life or you yelled at a loved one, whatever it is, just how can you first come from a place of self-compassion because , that is one way that we can regulate our nervous systems and take it down a notch and get to a place where we can think clearly again.
So self-compassion is a daily practice. Especially I think for parents, another one would be Just, really connecting in with that mind, body connection that, taking pauses throughout the day, deep breathing, if you're in that hustle, productivity mindset Allow yourself to do something that feels like it has no purpose other than it brings you joy, you know, like give yourself that space to enjoy a cup of coffee in the sunshine in the middle of the afternoon, or read a novel for, 20 minutes on your lunch break.
Really follow Those desires are things that bring you joy and see how they can , add more quality to your life. So I think that was kind of two and a half, but I'll leave it there because I get rambly.
[00:34:02] Damaged Parents: That's okay. Rachel, I am so grateful that you're here to share your story and that you've been so open about the emotional journey and really healing from that and that your heart is in this for everyone.
[00:34:17] Rachel Redmond: Well, thank you for having me here and giving me the opportunity to share my story and to hopefully just add more understanding of the nuance and the complexity and that this is a space we need to have more compassion and less judgment. So thank you for giving me that chance to do that
[00:34:34] Damaged Parents: Oh, most definitely. I mean, that's, really, the purpose of the podcasts is to show we are more similar than we are different and aren't, we all deserving of a little bit of love.
[00:34:45] Rachel Redmond: Yes. I love that.
[00:34:46] Damaged Parents: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Rachel about how she made the difficult decision to have an abortion. We especially liked when she talked about how making a decision to abort or not is extremely nuanced and personal.
Tonight with other damaged people, connect with us on Facebook. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week still relatively damaged see you then
