Momma Interviews "Expert Edition" featuring Cassie Owens, LPC

May is Maternal Mental Health Awareness Month, so I've relaunched my "Momma Interviews" series--This time with an extra special set of moms. These mommas also work to support other moms and their families during the transition into new parenthood and beyond. I'm calling it the "Expert Edition", but I think you'll find that while these women definitely are experts in their work, parenthood has a way of making a beginner out of everybody. Even experts get surprised by the unexpected and learn new bits of wisdom while in the trenches! 

This series is all about their experiences with motherhood, in the hopes that it provides you with some validation and new tips to try. Because for all the many different ways there are to be a mom (and there are definitely MANY ways to do it right), it's so amazing how much we moms all really have in common.

Mommas, I'm so excited to share this interview with Cassie Owens, LPC with you!

Cassie is a therapist specializing in maternal mental health and the Vice President of the Georgia Chapter of Postpartum International. 

Scroll down to watch the interview, read the transcript or learn more about Cassie.

Get to Know Cassie:

Unique Family Make-Up:

Married for almost 13 years, with 2 children, a 9 (girl) and 10 (boy) year old

I've had parents tell me that one of the hardest things about being a parent is the comparisons and judgements from other parents. How do you personally cope with that?

I don't give a ****!

What is your favorite maternal mental health resource?

www.postpartum.net in GA, and www.psiga.org

Watch the Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqZjCnsnE-M&w=854&h=480

Cassie's Quotables:

Interview Transcript:

Catherine: Hey, there. Do you ever struggle with boundaries in your home, work, and everything else? I am so excited to be joining with Cassie Owens, Licensed Professional Counselor, out of Georgia today at happywithbaby.com here. We're gonna give you five tips on how to have healthier boundaries. Cassie will be joining us here hopefully any minute now. I know she has some really great ideas. We've had several discussions before. If you haven't seen her, I actually did one of my expert mama interviews with her last year, which I'll put a link below here. She has such great information. She does a lot of work with new moms. She even runs a consultation with Elizabeth O'Brien, who's also an LPC there in Georgia. They run the Georgia chapter PSI, Postpartum Support International. She does a lot of stuff for new moms. I can't wait until she can join us because I know she has some great tips ready to go for you guys. Let's see ...

Catherine: Anyway. While we wait for her, I'll just kind of share a little bit. I know one of the things I've recently been struggling with is having healthy boundaries when I know I have only so much time to do stuff, yet also trying to balance out the needs and the desires of my children. For instance, they're currently in a class, and the time has changed. Now, between their two classes, we have a 40 minute window. Now, I'm trying to decide, do I move them to a totally different day so we don't have that big window at the risk of them not being able to hang out and spend time with their friends, or do I stay there and try to find other things to do and wait and make that a super long day? Trying to figure out what's the best way to go where I'm not taxing myself, yet also being able to meet the needs of my children at the same time. That's one of the issues with boundaries.

Catherine: There she is. Okay. I'm adding her right now. It says it's adding. Can't wait. Sorry for the technical difficulties. I know we were a little delayed in the time we originally thought we would be getting online here. Hey, Cassie!

Cassie: I made it. Oh my goodness.

Catherine: It worked.

Cassie: Okay. I need to figure out where to put my phone. I'm so sorry about all that. Oh my goodness.

Catherine: No, that's totally ...

Cassie: It's been ... yeah.

Catherine: [crosstalk 00:03:19] planned so well ahead of time, too.

Cassie: I know. I know, we did. I just need to make this a little higher. I'm so sorry. I took in talking about boundaries and things, taking Facebook off of my phone, so I had to reinstall it. Then I forgot my password. I don't know if that's better or not. Sorry.

Catherine: No, that's okay. That's okay.

Cassie: Okay. I'm here.

Catherine: I'm so glad. I'm so glad you made it. I know I've actually recently been ... I was just talking to another friend of mine who took Facebook off her phone too. She says how much better she's feeling about that. I'm thinking that I need to do that too. I guess I better be aware of that if I decide to Facebook Live.

Cassie: I was like, "Why is this working?" I'm here now.

Catherine: You're here now. Great.

Cassie: Yes.

Catherine: I was just kinda talking a little bit ... You're gonna go over five tips about healthy boundaries.

Cassie: Yes.

Catherine: Anything else you want to share? I gave a little scoop about you too before you joined us.

Cassie: Oh. Well, I am a therapist here in Atlanta. I specialize in maternal mental health. The women and clients that I see in families are usually from preconception through postpartum. I really enjoy the work. I really find that as a mother and an entrepreneur, doing all the things and wearing all the hats that we wear, not only for my clients, is having healthy boundaries, it comes up, but in my own life, like you were sharing. I kind of thought it would be fun to talk about ... Is this angle okay?

Catherine: I think so.

Cassie: Okay.

Catherine: Yeah.

Cassie: It feels weird to me because I had to switch ... I had it, like I've been spending time making my computer right and now I'm like ... okay. The first tip I feel like in, and I'm just glancing at my notes, in creating and preserving healthy boundaries is to really understand what boundaries are. People can say that word, but what does it actually mean? I think that's important to understand. I think it's a conceptual limit where you and where something else begins. It's like knowing what's yours and knowing what's not yours. Knowing what's your responsibility versus what other people's responsibility is.

Cassie: In my notes I have knowing what's yours and what's not, and really acknowledging that every adult is responsible for themselves. We are responsible for us. No one else can be responsible for us except for us. Having a functional or working boundary is one that we're taking responsibility for our own actions and emotions. We can't expect anyone else to do that for us. We really have to be our own advocate. Sometimes that can be hard.

Catherine: Right, right. What do we need?

Cassie: Exactly.

Catherine: And asking for it.

Cassie: And asking for it. Yeah. I have this note, according to the personal space theory in 1993, we have boundaries and can regulate how permeable they are, meaning what we let in and what we let out when it comes to physical, mental, and spiritual environment. I think that's really true. Just thinking about how if we have really ... you want to have a balance, right, because if you have really rigid boundaries and your wall is always up, then you could run the risk of being isolated and that kind of thing. If you don't have any boundaries and your guard's always down, then people are gonna walk on you and take advantage of you. You become enmeshed with everything else rather than really having a sense of self and who you are.

Catherine: Right, right.

Cassie: Let me see where I was gonna go from that. Oh, yeah, maintaining boundaries is about being the gatekeeper of keeping your life in order. If you want order in your life, you have to take control over that. By taking control, it's like setting these boundaries in order to do so.

Catherine: What would you say to a mom or a parent that's struggling with doing that?

Cassie: Yeah. It's tough. That, for sure, is tough. I think acknowledging that it's hard at times to create boundaries or modify them, and I'm gonna talk about that, in doing that, it's hard. I think it depends on the situation and what that takes, what ... [crosstalk 00:08:32] We're having issues today. It's okay.

Catherine: We're totally having technical issues. Sorry about that. I was just thinking, I think this is ... feels like it's not going to work out for some reason, and there it goes. Okay. All right.

Cassie: I'm gonna answer that, but I'm not gonna answer it right now.

Catherine: Okay. Good. Good to have boundaries.

Cassie: Yes. Another way to think about boundaries is like telling other people what you want or what you expect. It's like setting expectations. I think that's really important. Let's see. Setting limits about who can come into your space and what is expected of others once they are there. Boundaries really help determine your sense of self and your identity, so I think it's really important to really know who you are and what you want in order to create these boundaries. That leads me into my second tip of creating and preserving boundaries, is really understanding your priorities. That goes with your sense of self. I think that is really important because a lot of the times you don't realize ... all of a sudden you're just like, "I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off. My plate is totally full. I can't do anything else. I'm just feeling really overwhelmed and frustrated and angry," and you don't know why. When you take a step back, it's like maybe your priorities are ... things are out of whack.

Cassie: Really when we look to create boundaries, we need to be really clear what's important to us. What is important to us?

Catherine: Right. How, and maybe you'll say this, [inaudible 00:10:31].

Cassie: How do you do that?

Catherine: Yeah, how do you do that? I feel like, what are the questions you have to ask? I think it's to remember too, I feel like, especially as parents, it's constantly changing, right, as our kids get older and their needs are different, and whatever we're doing too. It's constantly changing, and so like needing to reevaluate that on a regular basis.

Cassie: Yeah. That's the last tip. It is changing. I think when you want to look at your priorities, it's like even making a list of what's important to you. Okay, is it ... I will share, as we go through this, I will share some personal stuff. When I think of my priorities, I think of my self-care of me as number one. Some people might be like, "Well, that's really selfish." As we know, self-care is important. If I'm not taking care of myself, I am no good to anyone. I am no good to my husband. I am no good to my children. I am no good to my clients. To other people-

Catherine: I love that you said that.

Cassie: Yeah.

Catherine: Because I think we usually put ourselves towards the bottom. We don't take care of ourselves.

Cassie: No. It has to be number one. We are number one. That's okay. I'm okay saying that. I think that's a good ... providing a good role model for my children, it's important to take care of yourself. That can look like a lot of different things. It could be fitness and exercise and health, but it could also mean taking time for yourself, reading, whatever is important to you, time with friends. If you list out, okay, taking care of myself is number one and then spending time with family is number two, work stuff is number three, volunteer commitments might be number four. That's how I think of getting your priorities straight. What's really, really important? Because then I think from there ... let me see ... Yeah. Once we know that, right, then we can move into number three, which would be evaluating your current lifestyle. See if your ... what you just listed, does your lifestyle reflect your priorities? You know what I mean? Am I putting all of my energy and time into something else that's not one of these top things?

Cassie: I think that's a good way to assess, okay, do my boundaries need to be modified? Is there something that's out of balance? I feel like, as you said, we are always striving for balance in our lives. Things are always changing. If you ... when you look at these priorities and you're trying to evaluate your current lifestyle, does this lifestyle reflect what I want, and I am giving the time and attention to what is important to me? Am I doing that? Or are you drowning in other areas that don't really matter that much to you? That cause anger and resentment and feeling overwhelmed and frustrated?

Catherine: Yeah. I think it's important when we start to feel those feelings come up, what's happening? If I have strong emotions about something like that, like anger or frustration, then I'm like, okay, where ... I need to reevaluate something because I'm not ... if I'm this upset about something that probably is maybe not typically a big deal, then somewhere I'm maybe not meeting my needs or I'm frustrated that I haven't adequately prioritized what I want to do.

Cassie: I think those all fall in. What did I put here? While it can be difficult to assess your current situation, it may be clear that you're spread too thin, but the harder thing is sometimes you want to be doing all these things, right? You're like, I really want to be doing everything, but I'm spread too thin. If this is not compatible with my priorities, then I need to make a change. That can be really, really hard. That can be really hard.

Catherine: We don't have to do everything right now, too.

Cassie: Right.

Catherine: Especially our kids, like I'm in the season, if you want to call it, of my kids are in school, so there's a lot of volunteer stuff. I want to be there. I want to be at their school and do those things, but then I also run a business and I also run a home. This last month has been crazy because apparently I decided to pile on in all three of those areas. It's been totally crazy making. I was finding myself ... feeling scattered and not really doing well in any of those areas.

Cassie: Any of them, yeah.

Catherine: Getting frustrated and angry and irritable. I know my husband doesn't really appreciate that. He's like, "What are you doing next year? Is there anything you're gonna take off your list, because this is a lot." I'm like, "Ah, okay."

Cassie: Sometimes when you're kind of looking at your lifestyle, having a partner be able to say that to you then helps you put it in perspective too. He's like, "I notice that you're a little cray-cray right now. This is too much. What are you gonna change about next year?" I think that is a good takeaway. As my example, when I was in the last couple of weeks really being like, okay, what's important to me? How am I spending my time? I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. I was like, I gotta make some changes. One of the things I talked about is getting off Facebook on my phone because I feel like it was too much of a distraction. Moving into modifying current boundaries. I have a lot to say in this tip.

Catherine: Let's hear it. I want to hear. How do you modify that? Yeah.

Cassie: Right. It can be hard because we've gotta put ourselves first. I think that's the biggest step, is being like, okay, I'm worth it, I'm valuable. I need to put myself first and make these changes because I'm responsible for me and I can make things different. In that though, of course there's certain things you can't ... you might not have control over. We, as owning our business, have a little bit more flexibility than someone who is working 9 to 5. If you're working 9 to 5, that has to stay. That's not gonna change. You have those commitments. It's important to take charge of your decisions and be assertive about it. That's a whole piece too, is learning how to be assertive and what does that mean. Being assertive means saying what you want and need very directly, but with respect. You're not being rude about it. One of the biggest things in modifying boundaries is being able to say no. That's really, really hard.

Cassie: I was learning when I was evaluating myself, I was like, okay, for example, in the beginning of the year no one wanted to be my son's room parent. No one volunteered. Someone who's on the PTO reached out and said, "Hey, would you do this?" I was like, "Okay, sure." She got someone else to do it. Meanwhile, I've been a crappy room parent and I haven't done anything. The other person's done everything and I feel terrible about that. It was just something that I took on and I should not have. I should've said, "Thank you so much for thinking of me. I have a lot going on, not this year." That's how I'll answer it next year. Actually, I already told the PTO person, I was like, "I'm not doing it next year." I feel bad. I ended up getting the other room parent a gift card for doing all the work. I felt so bad. I'm not perfect either. As we continue to go along each season and each year, you learn. I just have to say no.

Cassie: Saying no is hard. I think if you practice certain phrases that can be really helpful. People ask you things on the spot. Will you volunteer to do this? You can say things like, "Oh, I appreciate you thinking of me, but now's not a good time." Or, "I'm so glad you thought of me, but I've got a lot of other things going on. I can't commit right now," or, "I can't commit period." Really kind of being familiar with those phrases so you don't feel caught off guard and you can just answer. "Thank you, I would love to, but I can't." Just leaving it at that. I think turning down opportunities as they come, when you're like my plate's already full, that's good.

Cassie: I think setting limits and expectations, you and I do this and some other people who can, if I'm like, okay, I'm not spending enough time with my kids because I'm on my phone. What am I doing on my phone? I'm checking my email. I'm checking my voicemail. Creating that auto-response, when people email me it says "This is when I check email," so that sets the expectation I'm not gonna email you if you email me at 5:00 at night, but I check my email between 8:00 and 3:00. Then they know this is when she's gonna respond to me. I have that information. Then I don't feel like I have to be on my phone. It gives me the freedom to not do that. Even doing that with voicemails too, if you can, like I said, in corporate America not everyone is able to do that, but that's just an example of ... for me, how that would work.

Catherine: I have clients that have those corporate jobs too, where they're like ... the expectation is I'm emailing at any time, but then maybe it's a point of where you ... between these two hours I'm with my family and I'm not responding. We're having dinner. We're getting ready for bed. We're doing those things. This is the limit. I will not be responding. Will I check it again later when they go to bed? Yes. This is my limit. This is my boundary maybe the other way, too. I think if you set that up and people know, then they don't expect it from you. Sometimes if you've created a bad habit it can be hard to break that, but eventually if they start to see. You'll be like, "Yep. This is my time. This is my time with my family. I want to make that a priority, so I can't get back to you, but I will get back to you later this evening." I think having those auto-responses that puts it out there can make it helpful too.

Cassie: Yeah, it can totally make it helpful. With me and the whole ... Family's up there, right? I want to be more present. I don't want to be checking anything. I don't want to be on the computer. I hold myself accountable, which is another way to help modify boundaries, is figuring out what that means for you. Even with the phone thing, I installed an app on my phone that tells me "You've been on your phone too long. Get off."

Catherine: Does it alert you? Does it say ...

Cassie: It does.

Catherine: Oh, wow.

Cassie: It actually alerts you every 30 minutes that you've been on your phone. I think what's good is if you install something like that, you just see what your natural use is and then you want to decrease from there. For me, that was important.

Catherine: What's that app called?

Cassie: Moment.

Catherine: Moment. Oh, okay.

Cassie: Yeah.

Catherine: I've heard of that one. Yeah, that sounds interesting.

Cassie: Yeah. Another way in modifying boundaries is asking for help, whether it's your friend or your husband or a colleague or a boss or whoever, if you're like, "I'm struggling here. I'm not happy," maybe they have some ideas for you. It's hard to think of everything. Maybe they will give you that encouragement and push to be assertive and ask for what you need if it's something like that, or to make a real change.

Catherine: I just find sometimes putting it out there and getting the other person's perspective can help shift it as well.

Cassie: Yes.

Catherine: And make it ... and either make the change easier for you to be like, "No. I'm not gonna do this," or, "Yes, this is important to me. What do I have to do to make it happen?"

Cassie: Yeah. Sometimes when you bounce ideas off of people and they have other ideas, and you're like, "Oh, yeah, that's a really good idea, too. I could try that."

Catherine: That's much easier. Why I didn't I think about that? Yeah.

Cassie: Right. I think asking for help and being flexible and trying to be kind to yourself, too. You want to be flexible because you don't want to say I'm never gonna volunteer at the school again, right?

Catherine: Right, right.

Cassie: Maybe it's like, okay, I don't want to take on a year long commitment, but I'll volunteer at this event or that event or something like that. It's really about, okay, am I happy in my life? Am I spending the time that ... Boundaries, to me, when I think of boundaries I think of where are you spending your time. How am I spending my time? Am I happy with what I'm doing? What can I improve upon? The last tip I have is continuing to assess and evaluate and modify. Be aware of the warning signs. When people are like, "Oh, hi, how are you," and you're like, "I'm busy. I'm busy." When your answer's always "I'm busy," or when your answer is always, "My plate's just so full," certain times of the year, like right now, end of school year, things are just crazy because you're running from this event, awards, play, blah, blah, blah, but if that's your answer time and time again, and you're getting angry at things or you're resentful of situations, then it's time to think about that and see what changes you can make.

Catherine: Yeah.

Cassie: I think in thinking of that it takes someone to be assertive to make these changes, that sometimes getting support is really needed because not everyone is okay with that.

Catherine: Right. Yeah. One of the biggest struggles in the work that I do with moms is just being able to ask for help. We all need it, whether it's just that emotional support, it's helping us pick our kids up because we have this other thing that we're doing, whatever it is. How to get over it so that you ask for help because we can't do this alone.

Cassie: Alone. Uh-uh (negative).

Catherine: We can't just do it with a partner. I know a lot of single moms, too. It's impossible to do it just by yourself or with one other person. You need to get that tribe where you get the other people to help you, support you, because it makes it so much easier.

Cassie: It does make it easier. There are two quotes that I wanted to share that I really like. This one, actually, Kristen [Mai 00:26:03] sent to me. It's unknown, the author is unknown, but it says, "The only people who get upset when you set boundaries are the ones who benefited from you having none."

Catherine: She's good. That is good.

Cassie: If all of a sudden you start saying no and someone's getting annoyed, well, they're annoyed because you didn't really ... maybe you were giving in all the time and saying yes, yes, yes. The other one is from Brene Brown, of course. She says, "Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves when we risk disappointing others." Which really goes back to thinking about, okay, it's all about ... The number one thing is self-care, right, we set these for self-care, we set these for preservation of self. We've only got one life to live. I want to do it the way that I can, within reason, of course.

Catherine: Right, right.

Cassie: There is more that we have control over than we think.

Catherine: Yeah. Yeah. What would you suggest to someone that's struggling to create boundaries, or to say no or to ask for help? Is there something you would say, how you could encourage them or ...

Cassie: Yeah. If someone said, "I have trouble saying no," I would ask them why. Kind of explore, "Tell me more about why." Probably, it would come up, I don't want to upset someone else or ... a lot of times it's about other people, right?

Catherine: Right.

Cassie: Then getting that person to think about, okay, but how is it benefiting you? When the cost of whatever the situation is does not ... or the benefit does not outweigh the cost, then you have to look at that. Does that make sense?

Catherine: Yeah.

Cassie: I would say if you're having a hard time with boundaries, that's a good thing to recognize. Okay, so now I'm aware that I'm really having a hard time. Then I would say, let's evaluate ... let's go through the process. Tell me what's really important to you. If your life was like a pie, like a pie chart or whatever, going through where you spend your time, maybe where you spend your time versus where you would like to be, how you would like it to look like. Kind of compare that.

Catherine: Yeah, what your ideal pie is.

Cassie: Yes. Yeah, and kind of depicting, okay, so maybe this area I could use some work and really figuring out what that is. Is it like, okay, so I'm on the PTO next year. Maybe I need to resign from that. Is it, I'm part of this club or this volunteer organization, but it's just ... the hard thing is, is that we love so many things. That's the hard part, is that we love so many things but is that going to make me happier than spending time with my family? Maybe not. When I think of the priorities, that's my priority, that's something that's important to me. Even though this I can really like and I could probably do really well and that would be really exciting, but I can't do everything. Really accepting what I can do. Sometimes that's hard.

Catherine: Yeah. Yeah, accepting our limits.

Cassie: Accepting our limits, yeah. We don't want to. I want to do everything, but I have to sleep too.

Catherine: Right.

Cassie: There's only 24 hours in a day.

Catherine: Yeah.

Cassie: I think anyone who's having a hard time with it, I would say, "I'm really glad that this is something that you're recognizing because this is something that really is worthy of taking a look at and assessing. Let's talk about what's holding you back from making a change." Helping them be assertive and helping with some verbiage. I think people get caught off guard a lot.

Catherine: Yeah. I like that rehearsing a couple phrases of what you would want to say, so that when it comes at you, you're like, "I have this." Practicing it when it's not happening so that it easily comes out.

Cassie: Because I did not do a good job, I did say no, but someone at the pool asked me for the first meet, "Would you take over the concessions," which is like a big responsibility, buying all the stuff, dah, dah, dah, setting it up. I was just like, "No." I didn't say, "Thanks for thinking of me," which then I was like, "Oh, maybe I was rude." I was just like, "No, no, no. Sorry, I can't do that. I'll be working an afternoon, but I'm gonna volunteer ..." I still volunteer at the meets, I just prefer a different job. I was thinking then afterwards, I'm like, "Oh, it would've been nice to say, thanks for thinking of me. I'm not able to do that." Instead, I just was like, "No. No thanks."

Catherine: Well, at least you said no, though.

Cassie: Yeah.

Catherine: You had that boundary.

Cassie: Yeah, I did.

Catherine: You just made me think of something else too. I know I'm just about out of time because I have to actually go pick up my kids, but one of the things you made me think of is being able to like ... what are your strengths and sticking to the things that you enjoy doing so that you're not adding on things that you don't enjoy and that aren't where you excel, like me running around to pick up all these things. I could not do that in an efficient way, where I know there's plenty of other people that that's what they're good at. Finding the things that you're good at and doing those, and avoiding the other things too.

Cassie: And focusing on that. One thing even in like ... there's so many different movements out there. There's so many different causes in the world. I could be involved with everything, but you can't. You have to pick one and then just be passionate about that and know that there's other people passionate about other things and they are fulfilling those needs. It's just too hard to do everything and live our lives.

Catherine: Right. Yeah. I was at a conference and part of it, they were talking about some boundaries, and someone had mentioned how if you're asked at your PTA/PTO, whatever it's called, to do something and you say no, it's not like all of a sudden it doesn't happen because you said no, they just find somebody else that can do it.

Cassie: Right, right, right.

Catherine: It still will get done. [crosstalk 00:32:56] other people that can do it. It's not all relying on our shoulders.

Cassie: Yeah. I think that's really important because if you ask someone why do you want to say no, well, I just feel bad. I feel bad. If I don't do it, who will? That's not your problem. That's not what you're responsible for. You're only responsible for the things that you take on.

Catherine: Yeah. Very true. I like that. That's a good way to end it. Yeah. Thank you for joining us today. Is there anything else that you want to say or ...

Cassie: I don't think so. I think every so often it's nice to reassess how you're doing. There's always room for improvement, right?

Catherine: Yes.

Cassie: We're always striving for a better balance. I think as summer comes, things change, and school starts up, things change, and different activities start up. It's just good to keep it in check and to kind of know what your warning signs are. If you know, every time I get really agitated or I'm just like yelling all the time, and I'm overwhelmed. Why am I overwhelmed? Okay, what can I cut out? Sometimes you can't cut something out right away, you just have to know for next year I'm not gonna do this or next time, because sometimes if you've committed to something you have to follow through, to a point. Just keeping things in check and just remembering self-care.

Catherine: Yeah.

Cassie: It's all back to that.

Catherine: Yeah, I think it's that kind of constant reevaluation. I mentioned in the beginning, I think, before you came on, I don't know if you heard me, but I'm trying to figure out this whole schedule for my kids' activity that they're doing. Now we have this big break. I could move it to another day and risk that they don't have friends there, and then I know it's summer so I've just decided, okay, we're gonna try it out and figure out what our schedule is. Part of me was like, "No, I need to know today, at this time, what's gonna happen," because I kinda like knowing and then planning out for weeks in advance. I'm like, "Okay, I'm just gonna roll with it and see what actually feels best to all of us and what works best at our schedule now while we're still kinda ... " my son has a couple more weeks of school and then I can reevaluate when we're off for the summer and then again for next year.

Cassie: Yeah, exactly.

Catherine: It doesn't have to be always a constant, like this is [inaudible 00:35:16] I'm doing great today.

Cassie: I kinda saw it moving. I was like, "Oh."

Catherine: I thought so too. I guess this is time for the call to end.

Cassie: Yes. Okay. Good chatting with you as always.

Catherine: It was great chatting with you, too. Thanks so much, Cassie. I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Cassie: Okay.

Catherine: All right. [crosstalk 00:35:40] Bye.

Cassie: Okay. Bye.

About Cassie Owens, LPC:

Cassie Owens is a licensed professional counselor in private practice with a specialty in maternal mental health. She is vice president of the Georgia chapter of Postpartum Support International, and is experienced in training clinicians, birth workers and healthcare professional regarding perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. While her practice focuses heavily on individual work, she also sees couples and offers a free pregnancy and postpartum support group twice a month. Cassie is passionate about her advocacy work to lessen the stigma of maternal mental health and increase accessibility to resources for new moms and families in Georgia.

View Cassie's Momma Interview from 2017:

Momma Interviews "Expert Edition" featuring Cassie Owens, LPC

Connect with Cassie:

Website: http://www.postpartumatlanta.com/

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