Ali Young - Work. Mama. Life.

To the women over the years who have shaped me on my feminist ideals. From railing against early injustices with Amanda and Suemaree, to chiro discoveries with Sare, Hails, Vikkie and Laura, to the Perth Fun Days with Alicia, Joce, PD, Spag, Davi, and the Freo Crew, and to my CQ queens who listen to my babble, Jo, Hails, Em, Cass, Em, Ange, Alana and Jode. You've all been part of my mother journey.

To my team in my practice, for putting up with my big ideas with minimal follow through – thanks for keeping me ticking along through 2021. Anna – my right hand woman, thanks so much. Court – your fresh air and vibe is just what we needed and Kate, thanks for making the trek to central Queensland so I could fulfil this dream, and hopefully you can fulfil yours.

To the expat mamas who supported me in both Malaysia/Singapore and South Korea: Samira, Angela and KK, Tam, Leah, Jenn, Caz, Michelle, Yols, Anita, Sim, Nadine, Coley, and Mel, you girls helped me have the beginnings of this flame.

This book would not of been possible without the love-story of my beautiful profession, Chiropractic. If I wasn't entrenched in the deep knowing of its philosophy, and it didn't open my eyes to the magic that lies within each of us, I'd just be another peep doing a job she didn't love. Particular mention goes to James Carter and his gang back in the 2000s, and to Brandi and Don McDonald and all of the superstars in ‘The Engine', for their keen insights and eye-openings, always at times when I needed that little bit of guidance.

Thank you to the amazing Tina Tower, who pitched me to Lucy at Wiley Publishing because she knew I had a story to tell, and that there were so many mums in the world who would benefit from listening in. To all of the other women building their empires in her world, I feel lucky to be a part of it.

To Wiley for taking a chance on me, and in particular to Lucy who saw something in my passion and managed, with Leigh to bring it out onto paper. To my editor Sandra, to Chris and to all of the team, thank you.

To the loves of my life — my own little fambam. For Pete for putting up with the late nights, the rants about how the world is skewed against women, how we need to do better for our kids, and still finding a way to love me. Ditto. And to my beautiful children. You gave me the gift of being a mother. You amaze me often, I love you both so much. Thanks for choosing us as your parents.

And finally, to all of the mums who have crossed my path in practice in my nearly 20 years. Each of your stories, your wins, your struggles, those tears of joy and happiness, and the ones of sorrow and sadness. This book is for you. My love story to say thank you. You have inspired me, and now it's my turn to pass the baton on. We are warrior women, we are strong. Let's lean in. Together.

Welcome to the amazing awesomeness of motherhood!

This book is a happy by-product of my work with mums really taking off in the world. As a chiropractor, I was hands-on with mums all the time, supporting them and their kids and trying to figure out why there is so much stress in our mama world these days. So I branched into the online course world to support more mums than the ones existing in my orbit.

The real, deep-down reason, though, is that I had just escaped from a burnout myself.

I've lived it.

I've had the health challenges from it.

I know there are better ways to look after myself.

I mean, if a health-conscious health practitioner can end up in burnout, then what hope does a mama without a health background but with the same work–life balance and stress concerns have?

Crawling out of that place was pretty hard work, and looking back, I totally did it the hard way. On reflection, that is not what I want for the mums in my world. This book is kinda like my recovery love story for you, Mama. It can help you rediscover your health in some pretty easy steps; it can guide you on shifting if you want it; and my biggest aim is to give you so much info that you don't go there in the first place. This book is exactly what I wish I had been told when I was a mum in the early stages, navigating my return to work and my value as a human.

I am so excited that you've picked up this book, or been gifted it. I'm pumped that it has somehow made its way into your orbit. If this is your first lap around this motherhood game, welcome and buckle up. The adventure is phenomenal — at times tough, and at times easy. I still love it to this day! If you are a returning mama-bear, welcome back to the fray! I can't wait to help you navigate, grow and thrive through this round of your motherhood journey.

The big shift into work-life and mum-life, when and if it happens for you, is a modern ideal that is now the norm for mums and we individually navigate it in the best way possible. Thriving through this time in our life is transformative in one way, and really bloody hard in another. Escaping all the burnout challenges occurring in the world in our rushed and busy society, with the lurking pandemic hanging on, is exactly why I'm here on this earth: to help mums reconnect to their health and their ‘self’, and to find that spark and joy. To connect their health and their heart on this motherhood journey.

Motherhood is many things rolled into one. It's the chaos and the calm, the joy and the frustration, the overwhelm and the total fun! It's the love that you can't fathom for these little beings, who can become all encompassing. But a love that is also 100 per cent too much at times. A love that is expected to fall out of the sky the second your child is born, which happens for some, but that also takes time to build and grow for many.

For some, motherhood is a welcome interlude in a busy life, something that has been hoped and dreamed about for years. A pause in a career trajectory, a family situation or a planned event that has finally come to fruition. Our motherhood can spin in so many ways. Perhaps it will be a new beginning as you traverse back into a workplace, or working from home, or whatever the computation of working motherhood is for you.

For others, it may be more of a surprise. Maybe not planned but not unwanted. Or maybe initially it was such a shock that all the choices ran through your head to explore. Whether it's a surprise pregnancy and motherhood journey, or the whole experience of becoming a mother is nothing like the picture it's been painted as—it's a massive shift.

This shift is called ‘matrescence’: the glorious shift from a woman to a mother. Matrescence is going to be explored thoroughly in this book, but in these beginning stages of motherhood, I just want you to know that you aren't alone, that this is you shifting into a new version of yourself.

Working with mums so intently over the past 20-odd years from pre-conception, through matrescence and into motherhood, and especially working with their kids, I've discovered many common themes around support, annoyances, grievances and knowledge blocks that mums would like true and current info about. And there are a whole lot of ways to help a mama out.

The busy and tumultuous times that we live in require us as mothers to navigate a stress load that is quite extreme. The stress of navigating life with work (I'm a strong advocate that mothering is work, by the way, just FYI), kids, partners and expectations of society can really drive a heightened stress level in an entire household.

In this book I will share some research with you, so if you are the kind of mama who likes to know about things, you should find a lot of direction here. Like the info published in Nature Journal in 2019 by Azhari and others, which outlines that there is an interplay between the level of stress in parents and the synchronicity of the mother–child brain connection. Basically, this means that if the mother is stressed, there is less co-regulation (awareness of behaviours, physiological states, etc.) between mother and child — that is, they become less of a unit and the relationship suffers.