The Heart of a Warrior Mom with Jenn Robb

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (00:00)
Welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now, the podcast where we dive deep into the moments of transformation, the times when not yet shifts into right now and everything changes. I'm your host, Jen Ginty and this podcast is all about those pivotal moments in our life journeys. You know the ones, when the hesitation fades, when we take that first step, even if it feels like a leap. It's in these moments that growth and healing begins. Each episode will explore stories of resilience,

moments of clarity, and the sparks that ignite real change. From personal experiences to expert insights, we'll uncover how people navigate the complex journey we call life and come out stronger on the other side. Whether you're searching for that spark in your own life or just curious about how change unfolds for others, you're in the right place. We'll discuss the ups and downs, the breakthroughs and setbacks, and how to embrace the right now, even when it feels out of reach. Because sometimes,

The hardest part of the journey is realizing that the moment you've been waiting for has already arrived. So take a deep breath, settle in, and let's get started.

Jen (01:09)
Hello and welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now. Today's guest is Jen Robb, a nurse practitioner with over 20 years of experience in functional and integrative medicine. She's also the author of Warrior Mom Rising, a mom's battle plan to advocate, overcome, and thrive. Drawing from her own journey as a mom navigating her daughter's mental health struggles, Jen now empowers other mothers to find strength, faith, and resilience.

Through her coaching and support, she helps moms transform their challenges into healing and purpose, guiding them to rise as true warrior moms. Welcome, Jen.

Jenn Robb (01:48)
thanks, Jen. I'm glad to be here.

Jen (01:50)
Yes, yes, I'm so glad that we're going to have this great conversation. So let's get into it. What is your origin story?

Jenn Robb (01:59)
So my journey started with my daughter when she was about 12 or 13. So her name is Chloe. She's 17 now. But it started when she really started to struggle with her own mental health, right? Her anxiety, depression, ultimate leading to self harm. And so through that journey of struggling and her struggling, not only did she transform, but I transformed too. And I also feel like just mental health in general needs to be talked about a little bit more.

⁓ because it is on the rise, especially among teens. And I think that it needs to be open conversations and not kind of marked with stigma ⁓ because there's nothing wrong with it, right? Like it needs to be in a non-judgment form.

Jen (02:46)
Yes, absolutely, I completely agree with that. Especially for adolescents, for childhood and adolescents. What were the signs that you saw?

Jenn Robb (02:58)
So for her, she had started kind of retreating, right? Like, and this is kind of like the hardest part for like a parent ⁓ is to kind of know the difference between when there's something really going on and just normal kind of teen behavior, right? And so for her, she started like not wanting to hang out with the family, like not wanting to eat dinner at the table, retreating to her room and spending endless amounts of hours like sitting in the dark.

She lost interest in like the things that she had loved which was animals and cheer and all of these things She just did not want any part of anymore But as a mom you kind of struggle with giving them a little bit of their freedom because they're kind of in that weird Teen age where they want some space but then it's like too sometimes too much space is too much because it is telling you that there's a real problem going on

Jen (03:49)
Yeah, very understandable. I myself had, my oldest son had mental health issues throughout his childhood and adolescence and you know, is actually coming out of that now as an adult. And I remember feeling so sad for my son and wondering if I gave this to him.

Jenn Robb (04:16)
And I think a lot of parents, all struggle with that, right? Like, especially for moms, we have this tremendous ability to care for everyone else, but we get sometimes trapped in the spiral of guilt and shame, right? Because we wonder, did we miss something? Did I give it to them? Is there something that I could have done differently? And the answer to that is no, right? I mean, we need to understand that our kids have struggles and sometimes it's because of something that happened to them.

or it's just something happened in the wiring of their brains. But that's not our fault, right? And as moms, we need to hold onto that and know that we are not, we're not able to carry that burden for them, but we can show up every day for them. We can love them, we can support them, we can get them the help that they need, right? But we can't make them heal just like we didn't cause them to have the mental health struggles.

Jen (05:13)
Right? Yeah, absolutely. What was that right now moment that sparked you into, ⁓ I really need to advocate for my daughter?

Jenn Robb (05:24)
You know, like I've been a nurse practitioner for over 20 years. And so like in the, in the health world, like that's just second nature for me to talk to doctors and therapists and all those things. But, you know, we went through endless counselors and we went through therapists and then advocating for her in the school, right? Like making sure that she had the things that she needed when she was at school. You know, we ultimately ended up pulling her out of school. ⁓ and she's homeschooled now and thriving. ⁓ but I think there was a lot of.

moments where we had to go, okay, she can't really speak for herself, right, because she doesn't really know what she's feeling, nor can she really put into words. And so we had to advocate, advocate in the, you know, school counselor's office, advocate her, advocate for her with different counselors and therapists, right, finding the right one that was right for her. ⁓ And then speaking up against some of the the psychiatrist and stuff when they wanted to just put her on pill after pill after pill.

Right? And that wasn't always the solution. While medicine can be helpful, I didn't want her to be dependent on it, right? I wanted to get to the root cause of what was causing her to feel anxious and depressed. What was the root of it so that we could really heal it?

Jen (06:40)
Yeah, what was the moment for you that you said, okay, I have to speak up? who was the first person that you really needed to advocate for your daughter with?

Jenn Robb (06:55)
Well, mean, I don't, there was lots of moments, right? You you think about like back to the journey and there's so many moments. I mean, the first time I kept really pushing back for her was against the psychiatrist. And that was when he kept wanting to add her on multiple different pills for anxiety and depression. But I think the biggest pivotal moment for us in our journey was on April 4th of 23, when my two boys had found her unresponsive, right? And she was laying face down in a pillow in a pool of vomit.

And ultimately we figured out after taking her and rushing her the ER that she had broken into a liquor cabinet that had two locks on it, right? And she was wanting to quiet the noise and anxious and her anxiety that was going on in her head.

But when you bring your daughter home from something like that and they're weak and they're struggling and you realize that that's kind of the moment that you thought things were getting better, but they're really not. And that she was really still deeply struggling with the pain and the burdens that she was carrying. It was kind of like that moment was like, that's it. We have to pivot here. We have to reroute the direction that we were going and really find her a therapist that was really

designed for her, right? And that happened with a therapist that was trained in adolescence, but she was also trained in trauma. ⁓ know, Chloe ultimately found out later through her that Chloe's trauma was really sparked by a sexual assault from another peer.

But we didn't, you you don't know that, but there is always a moment where you figure out you have to pivot, right? And that was the moment for us. We knew that we couldn't keep seeing the same counselors and the same therapist and the same, you know, psychiatrist. We had to shift to find somebody that was gonna be the perfect fit for her. And that's okay, right? Like we don't have to stay with someone just because that's the first one we saw, right?

I think as mental health, as we go through those journeys, a lot of times it takes us kind of re-examining, are we really getting better? Are we really dealing with the root issues? And then making the pivot to something that is potentially way better.

Jen (09:19)
Yeah, going back to that, you know, that right now moment when you found out about what happened to your daughter, that must have been shocking.

Jenn Robb (09:28)
It's shocking. That's a good word for it.

Jen (09:31)
Yeah,

yeah, I grew up in an abusive environment. I received sexual abuse from my abuser. And it took me a very long time to talk about it. My brothers, who were older than me, were able to discuss that. They were older in teenage years. But I was just 14 at the time. And it was so difficult.

Jenn Robb (09:53)
Yeah.

Jen (09:55)
So I think when I finally did talk about it with my family, was shocking to them. Not shocking in the sense that, you know, they knew we had an abuser because he had been abusing us in many different ways, but that I wasn't able to talk about it in the beginning when everybody else was talking about it.

Jenn Robb (10:15)
But that's even true of Chloe. She doesn't really want to talk about her story. We know what happened. And she told us bits and pieces of it. But she doesn't want to tell about and have to relive it. And that's OK. And I think sometimes as a parent, in that struggle, you have to be OK with not knowing all of the details. You need to know just enough so that you can advocate for them and get them the help that they need.

But I also think it's important because I realized after she told us that, she didn't want to tell us the details because she was protecting us too, right? From the hurt and pain. as any parent, if your kid is hurting, you're going to do anything you can to make them feel better, right? And she needed us in that moment to hear what had happened, but not ask her a million and one questions, right? And just support her in where she was.

Jen (11:01)
Absolutely.

That's really important. And I was actually forced to discuss details when going into court, I had to talk about those details and how retraumatizing that is. So you understanding? Right.

Jenn Robb (11:30)
And if your brain's not ready for that, right?

Like it is re-traumatizing. You know, we, I mean, we had the option to press charges. I remember like talking to the police and the DA, but at the same time, like my daughter was in the fetal position, like wanting to, you know, hurt herself. And you have to make a choice as a parent, is it really worth pursuing? Or do we, in this moment, do we need to focus on her?

Jen (11:35)
Yes.

Jenn Robb (11:59)
her healing and keeping her alive. And then if we need to revisit things later. Now I understand that in some circumstances abusers need to be put where they belong, right? And sometimes I guess it is necessary, but for us and for Chloe's mental sake, it was important to kind of put that on the back burner and focus on her and her healing.

Jen (12:24)
Every situation is unique, right? And you being able to take the temperature of your child's trauma is really important and it shows how much you can advocate for your daughter in that sense.

Jenn Robb (12:40)
Exactly, Advocating is huge, right? I mean, just remember, they don't even know what they're feeling. And this is all, know, especially when they finally tell somebody what happened, right? And it doesn't have to be something like to the extent that you went through, you know, that Chloe went through. Sometimes it can just be if it was bullying in a school, right? They still don't want to talk about it, right? It's, sometimes it's smaller things, but they can still have a huge impact on the child. And

So sometimes stepping back and kind of assessing the whole situation becomes really important for us as parents because we don't want to cause more harm.

Jen (13:19)
Yeah.

Jenn Robb (13:19)
You know, we want

to make them feel better.

Jen (13:22)
Absolutely. And what kind of pushback do you feel you got from all of those powers that be around you?

Jenn Robb (13:31)
You know, I think the biggest thing was is that everybody kind of has an opinion on like what you should do, right? Like and how you should handle it. And I think oftentimes like even as a mom, we often think like, if that happened to my kid, this is what I would do, right? But until you're in those situations and you're watching your kid really hurt and struggle and deal with what they're dealing with this huge burden that no child should have to deal with.

you kind of have to step back and pause, right? And sometimes we have to retract our mama bear claws a little bit, you know, like in the instant, you know, because you want to just latch onto everybody. But, you know, for us, was, we didn't really tell anybody. We really kind of kept it to ourselves because of the fear of judgment and people needing everybody's opinion. But I think the biggest pushback was like when, you know, I told the psychiatrist no about him wanting to put her on her fourth medicine.

Right? Like that's, and you he was like, well, that's the only way she's going to get better. And that's just not necessarily the truth. And so it was finding a different doctor that was more willing to listen. Right. And, focus on the fact that we just needed something to help her make it through the day without having anxiety attacks. But I don't need you to try to fix the problem because we have to deal with that, the root of the issue separately. Right. I mean, that's it. And I think people are afraid sometimes to talk.

to speak out and ask questions of the therapist or of the physicians because we're taught to respect them, right? They are kind of in a position of authority and they do know better. But sometimes, especially as moms, we know our kids, right? And we have to rely on that mama intuition to go, this doesn't sound right to me. And it's okay to ask questions. It's a hundred percent okay to push back a little bit.

Jen (15:21)
Absolutely. I think going back to that idea of the implied authority of psychologists, psychiatrists, I like to call it implied authority because I tell people I'm afraid of implied authority. That is one of my freak outs is ⁓ stepping up and telling people I don't think that that's what I need right now.

So learning to advocate for yourself as well as your children is so important. And the other thing is, yes, you do not have to stick with one therapist, one psychiatrist. It's very important for you, again, to take that temperature, to understand what your child needs based on their overall, ⁓ you know, ⁓

personality, right?

Jenn Robb (16:22)
just remember

we're all unique, right? We all have different and like the way that you handle things is different from the way that I handle things. And it's no different with our children, right? And just because we would want to do it one way doesn't mean that that's the way that our child can handle it and deal with it and become a better person, right? And heal from what they're struggling with. But also when you go back to that implied authority, right?

Being in medicine for as long as I've been in medicine, I've watched physicians and therapists and counselors and everybody else practice. And a lot of times what happens is they get very fixated on a box, right? They only know how to treat within that box. So if you come in with anxiety and depression, it doesn't matter if you're 15 or you're 40, we're going to treat you kind of the same way, right? And I think that that's important, right? Is when you're vetting doctors,

And this goes across the board. doesn't have to be just for mental health, right? But when you're vetting doctors and counselors and therapists and all these other people that are there to help, you have to realize if they're just telling you kind of a one size fits all, that's not always the best option, right? Especially when you're talking about your child. And that is so important for us as parents to be able to speak up and say, no, no.

I don't like that treatment plan. We need option B or option C. And if they get mad about it or they get fussy or defensive, then perhaps they're not the right fit at all.

Jen (17:59)
Right. I've been through many therapists in my lifetime, from like 14 all the way up to 51. I just turned 51 last week. And there have been some amazing therapists, and then there have been some clunkers that I had to realize for myself that I wasn't going in the right direction. And so making that same decision for a child

Jenn Robb (18:10)
don't know.

Jen (18:29)
is so much more complicated.

Jenn Robb (18:31)
Well, I remember like the first counselor, she was super sweet, like a very sweet human, right? I mean, out in the real world, she would have been fine to chit chat with. But what I realized is that she was really never asking Chloe the hard questions. And sometimes in therapy, you have to do the work, right? You have to look inward and you have to really kind of relive, refill, re-smell.

all of that trauma that your brain has tried to cover up and hide from, right? Because it's a coping mechanism, right? The body's designed to protect us. And so that's what it does. The brain kind of suppresses it all down in there. But with this counselor, what I figured out is that Chloe, she was just telling her what she wanted to hear. Chloe had learned, and this is the thing, that kids are smart, right? I mean, they learn what that person wants to hear.

to make it look like they're getting better. And I think sometimes it's important for us as moms to go, I'm gonna call BS on this, right? Because sometimes it just is. And if the counselor is not asking the hard questions and you're not seeing really a change in habits or behaviors or patterns in their mental health, then perhaps you need to pivot, right? And you need to find someone else that's going to force them to ask those hard questions.

Now, was that Chloe's choice to move counselors? No. She was happy and content right where she was because she didn't really understand the value or lack thereof that she was getting out of those sessions, right? It really wasn't making her better. And I think that that's important is that we sometimes have to push them along to do things, to do the hard work, to do the things that they don't necessarily want to do because nobody...

in their right mind wants to go back and relive traumatic events.

Jen (20:29)
That's what this whole podcast is about. After putting my abuser in prison, I was in college and I just kept saying, I want to be a quote normal person. I don't want to be dealing with this trauma. I just want to push it away. And I did for 30 years, basically. now I'm sorry, probably like 20 years. And

There have been times where I look back and I say, you know what? I would have been able to cope with such and such if I had done the work earlier. It's scary. It's so scary to do that work. But essentially, it brings you on a path to healing at times where you probably need that in order to be the person that you need to be in the

Jenn Robb (21:08)
It is scary.

Well, but it's all about transformation, right? Nobody wants things to happen to us, right? Or certainly nobody wants bad traumatic things to happen to anybody.

But sometimes those things do happen to us. And part of the healing process is not only dealing with the struggle and the repressed trauma, right? But sometimes it's using that trauma for good in the world, right? And kind of transforming into what you were designed to be.

for people that may need to hear your story, right? Because you think about your story can be a powerful moment for someone else and how you overcame something similar or something completely different, but you still overcame a very difficult obstacle and something that would have taken out a lot of people, right? Some people would have never recovered from that, but when you do the work and you realize like, man, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

then you begin to realize that the hard work, even though it's hard, it's necessary.

Jen (22:41)
Yeah. Let's go back a bit because I have a feeling that there are listeners out there that are going through things that we went through with our children and are just asking that question, what do I do? What can I do to help them? Maybe let's talk a little bit about signs. Signs for our children. Mine were very young. He was showing signs.

as young as like 18 months. And at four, he was given an Asperger's diagnosis, but the signs were there very, very early and they were overwhelming.

And for someone who is seeing signs coming to their children later, like you said, like prepubescence, adolescence terms, what are some of the signs that you saw or that should be looked at?

Jenn Robb (23:46)
Well, I think again, it's, it's, have to in those later years, right? It's, it's determining what is normal patterns for them and what's not right. And Chloe has always, it was always the child that's, you know, happy go lucky kind of involved in everything that, know, when the family comes, you know what I mean? Like she was always smiling and happy and thriving. But when she'd been carrying this burden, you started to see her retreating, right? She wanted to isolate herself.

That's huge. And isolating yourself, it's just not ideal, right? It's not good for your mental health at all. Not to say that sometimes you don't need like your own space, your own quiet time, but isolation 100 % of the time is not good. It's definitely not gonna heal your mental health. It's just gonna send you down a bigger spiral. So isolation, no longer interested in things that they used to be interested in. And I don't mean like one day they learn

they love football and the next day they love baseball. That's not what I mean, right? I'm talking about something that has been deep in their core.

for their lives, right? For Chloe that was cheerleading and animals, right? We've always kind of like had acres and like a small farm and she always loves taking care of the animals. And when they lose interest in that and they're not wanting to do it at all, you kind of have to go, hmm, grade slipping, right? If they're used to being an AB student and all of a sudden they're making Ds, they're sleeping all the time, right? Like, I get it, teens like to sleep, okay?

But when they're wanting to sleep all the time and like they know they don't ever seem like they recoup enough sleep to function, that's another problem. ⁓ And then I look at some of their choices too, like who are they choosing to hang out with? Right? Are they hanging out with people that build them up that speak life into them? are they wanting to hang out with people that want to bring them down, right? Into a further spiral, into the more of a dark hole.

So I think that there's a lot of different things, but that's again where your mom intuition comes in. Like she used to love to play with the animals. Now she doesn't want to do it at all, ever. No day, no day of the week, no nothing. So then you have to intervene, because if you don't, they're going to stay stuck and it could potentially lead to more harm.

Jen (26:13)
Just looking back at your own adolescence, were you given the opportunity to show your feelings?

Jenn Robb (26:17)
Mm-hmm.

You know, I don't think so. For me personally, I'm a Gen Xer, right? And things were very different in that time period. We didn't talk about a lot of things. I think I was kind of raised, I mean, I was raised by terrific parents, don't get me wrong, but raised in a time period where you kind of just stuff it down and you keep moving, right? That's just kind of what we did. It wasn't really ever giving,

Jen (26:33)
Yep.

Jenn Robb (26:58)
given a seat at the table in order to say everything that you were really feeling. Right? So if something had happened, it was, well, that's just too bad. We got to keep moving. But that's not necessarily the best way to do things. I mean, people need to have a safe space where they can talk about what is bothering them. Right? And that was one of the important things that we did with Chloe is giving her that safe space. Like you can tell me how you're feeling or

I can see it. And if you just want to sit next to me and let me hug you and say it's going to be okay, then I can do that too. Right? And sometimes they don't need to say anything at all. They just need a safe space to come and to be. I think if we had been given that freedom kind of as Gen Xers, it probably would have saved us a lot of grief throughout our lives.

Jen (27:51)
Yeah, and that's why I bring it up because, you know, Gen X, we were drinking from the water hose. We were out until the lights went out, you know, or went on. And we did not learn to deal with our emotions. So when you bring up mother's intuition, I found it difficult to trust my intuition. I I also had the background that I had, but

Jenn Robb (28:15)
Mm-hmm.

Jen (28:21)
Having not learned that it's okay to show your feelings, to talk about things that are bothering you instead of shoving them down, my intuition was, I think, a little off because of that.

Jenn Robb (28:33)
You know, and I totally like get that too, but like, feel like, you know, I didn't grow up with the thoughts of share your feelings and let's talk about it. And I mean, even to this day, my parents still don't like want to talk about whatever, you know, it's like, well, that's just the way it is. And we just keep moving. But I think for her, like I wanted something more, right? And I,

I wanted her to feel safe and because we're in a different world than we were in when we were Gen Xers, right? Like when we were young and we were living our best lives drinking out of water hoses and playing outside, like we live in a completely different world now. And I feel like that has to be an option on the table that we can give them a safe space where they can tell us what they need to tell us.

or they can just sit there in silence and just know that we're going to be there.

You know, and I think even though you say that your intuition was still off, but you still knew because you said that you knew when he was 18 months old that there was something that was different, right? And I think you were probably not that your intuition was off, but maybe that you were taught not to trust that intuition because you hadn't grown up that way. I mean, it had kind of almost been beat out of you. And I use the term beat, but you know I'm saying?

out of you in order to make you second guess yourself. But you really knew. Because like when I hear you talk about your son, you knew. You just didn't want to trust that because maybe it's because there was a stigma, right? Maybe you had dealt with a stigma your whole life and then your kids, you don't want them to deal with that too. So you just kind of ignore that intuition that mama's gut feeling because you don't want to place that on.

Jen (30:25)
Yeah, it's true. learning to trust my intuition was a big deal for me. And I think that there are a lot of parents that are Gen Xers like us, a lot of my listeners are, that they want to break that generational, I wouldn't say trauma, but generational, yes, the cycle of not being able to talk about our feelings. And I tell,

Jenn Robb (30:46)
It's a cycle.

Jen (30:53)
many parents, you need to build your own coping skills toolbox in order to be able to help your children.

Jenn Robb (31:02)
But I think that, you know, like that's very important is equipping our children with that skill set that we didn't have, right? Because more than ever, I think it's important now, but you know, but learning also as parents of Gen X that we didn't talk about, we didn't show emotion, we just kind of kept moving. We need to offer our children different options. Like sometimes, like for Chloe, we just created a safe word.

Right? So when she was having a very bad day, if her anxiety was at its peak and she was in all of her feels that day, she would say the word mousse cake because the word she loves more than anything is Olive Garden's chocolate mousse cake. That's what she loves. Right? And so that was our cue. Like, okay, she's in a really bad place today. She's having a really hard time. But A, she doesn't know what to say or how to say it.

or B, she just doesn't want to. But that's our cue for my husband and her two brothers to kind of step in. They would literally go get her a piece of chocolate mousse cake from Olive Garden or sometimes the whole cake and bring it home. And she could just sit and be, right? She could sit with us and eat her mousse cake and still know that she was loved and supported, but we weren't hounding her with, me, me, tell me, tell me everything right now, right? Cause that's not good either.

Jen (32:12)
Aww.

Jenn Robb (32:28)
Right? Like you think about how you felt when you had to tell people and you didn't want to tell anybody.

Would it have been more beneficial for you to have been given a little bit of space and having the safety to sit there and kind of pause until you were ready to talk about what you wanted to talk about or needed to talk about?

Jen (32:47)
Yeah, absolutely. There was definitely a need to have my own safe space as well. So yeah, I completely get that. And I think that's very important for our children to be able to know that they can talk to us, but also not talk to us if that's their feeling. It's OK to choose how you feel in the moment.

Jenn Robb (33:12)
I think sometimes it's often, it's also important to say for the parents like us, that as a generation that we're in, you know, I think often about to something that happened like to me as a kid, right? Like, and how my parents, specifically my mom would react, right? Like if she would like lose her mind, you were less apt to tell them things, right? Because you almost feared their reaction more than you feared whatever you needed to say. And so like one thing that like,

Jen (33:39)
Mm-hmm.

Jenn Robb (33:42)
especially with Chloe, is that I always wanted to create that space for her that she could come tell me whenever and my reaction wasn't going to be like over the top where she was fearful of me or my reaction. And I think that that's important too is because you're building a rapport with your children. It doesn't mean that you're not going to discipline them if they tell you like, you know, they ran the car into a pole. Okay. Like that's not what I'm saying, but

If you overreact and you scream and you yell every time that something happens and they need to tell you something, they're not gonna tell you. They're not gonna trust you enough that you're safe enough to tell them that it's going to be okay. Yes, you made a mistake and that's okay. So I think sometimes as parents, especially those of the older generations, we have to kind of look back and go, how did I respond when my parents...

responded or reacted to me in this way. I want the opposite of that for my children. Right? You want to respond in a place from love and support.

Jen (34:43)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jenn Robb (34:49)
not negating the mistake or whatever happened, but just being a little more empathetic in the moment.

Jen (34:59)
Yeah. So what brought you to writing your book?

Jenn Robb (35:05)
So was really like through all of that, like Chloe, that I realized that I do believe that there's a pain in our purpose. I mean, a purpose in our pain, right? There's a reason that some things happen to us. Not that we would wish them, but if we don't learn from those things and we don't transform through them, then we stay stuck. And what I also figured out was that when I would talk to other moms, a lot of women don't know how to advocate for themselves or advocate for their children. They just, again, feel like, well,

That's what they said, so that's what I have to do. And that's not necessarily the truth. What I want is to create a space for women that they feel safe, they feel heard and seen, right? They feel supported. And I think that that's important. And so that's kind of how the book kind of came out is because I wanted a space for women and something that women could cling to that says, okay, she gets it.

She's been there, right? And helping them to learn how to advocate for themselves in the moment. Because sometimes when our kids are struggling, we're struggling too. But we often are the ones that are pushed to the back burner, right? We often forget that we have to take care of ourselves to continue to take care of everybody else.

Jen (36:25)
Yeah, when I was in the middle of hospitalizations and fighting psychiatrists, fighting insurance companies, fighting social workers, that kind of thing, advocacy was so important for my child. But as you said, also for myself, I was drained. I was feeling like a bad mother because they were fighting me on things that I, as you said, my intuition told me was right.

So women do have to learn to advocate for themselves just as much as their children.

Jenn Robb (37:01)
Absolutely.

Jen (37:03)
Yeah, so when you work with women, how do you start the process?

Jenn Robb (37:10)
So there's different things that they can do. I have free resources on my website, like if they needed, some of them are about tips for how to be self-care for yourself, some are about how to deal with your team. But then there's also different courses that are in there that you can do and kind of work through at your own pace. And then also have coaching, right? So we do group coaching ⁓ where, again, I want to create a community, a space for them to feel safe, right?

and that they feel heard and seen by not just me, but by other women who have been there, right? Because there's so much beauty in community, right? And when women can help each other, and it doesn't matter that our stories are the same or they're not, right? Because most of our stories are very different. They may have the similarity, but there's always a plot twist in everybody else's story that wasn't in ours, right? And I just think it's important in that coaching community that they come together.

and can say whatever and it's a safe space.

Jen (38:15)
Yeah, that's so important. That's the reason why I tell people that a therapist, an individual therapist is so important because it's a third party that isn't a part of your life. You can say whatever you want to them and they can't tell anyone. And it's the same with communities. When I was in high school, I absolutely hated group therapy. I hated it so much. All I wanted to do was go out and have a cigarette.

and not think about what we had to talk about. But when I got older, it became so important to me to be in a group with other people who have had similar experiences. Like you said, not the same experience, but going through similar feelings and similar symptoms, that kind of thing, that that was so important.

Jenn Robb (39:09)
But you know, like in that, like you said, when you were dealing with your son in the hospital and all those things, right, you felt drained and you felt, you feel burnt out, right? You feel emotionally empty because you've given all you can give. And it's not just a place where you create safety, where they can feel seen and heard, but also a place where they can be built up, right? Where each, you can pour into each other, right? And offer,

Jen (39:15)
Mm.

Jenn Robb (39:39)
hope and joy, even in the hard moments, right? There's still something in those moments that you can be thankful for or that you find joy in, right? And if you have someone who is speaking life and really kind of pouring back into you, then it changes your attitude a little bit, right? You don't start to feel so beat down. You start to feel a little more hopeful and joyful and that if something does happen along the way and there is a big plot twist, right? Somebody is going to be there like,

Okay, together we can figure this out. This is how we should navigate. You know what mean? Because a lot of women don't have supportive husbands or they don't have a support system at all. And so that's really the point of what I do is because I want people to know that there is support. You don't have to do this alone.

Jen (40:20)
true.

Yeah, you're right about that. Many women do not have support systems. They don't have a ⁓ husband or significant other or another parent to give them that shot of adrenaline that they need when they're at their lowest. So yeah, I can imagine having a community of

women who are going through such similar situations can help to lift them up.

Jenn Robb (41:05)
Absolutely.

Jen (41:06)
Yeah, so tell us, where can we find you?

Jenn Robb (41:11)
So my website is warriormomcoach.net. And again, it's got free resources on there. It's got links to the coaching. You can even join. separate. I mean, it's on Facebook too, but there's a Facebook community for Warrior Moms too. And that again, is just a community where we again, just try to lift you up, right? And make you understand that you are seen and heard and that you're not alone. And then there's links to the coaching stuff as well.

Jen (41:42)
Great. great. Excellent. That will all be in the show notes. Well, thank you so much, Jen, for coming on and sharing your experiences and your story.

Jenn Robb (41:43)
And my book is on Amazon.

Well, thanks, Jen. I love our names.

Jen (41:58)
Yes, me

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (42:01)
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the podcast. This show is produced by Phoenix Freed LLC and I'm your producer, Jen Ginty. We hope you found today's conversation inspiring. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the podcast. This show is produced by Phoenix Freed LLC and I'm your producer, Jen Ginty. We hope you found today's conversation insightful and inspiring. If you have a story of your own about when a not yet moment came right now,

We encourage you to reach out and share it. You can find more information about being a guest on our show at whennotyetbecomesrightnow.com. Remember, you are not alone on your journey, whether it's a journey of healing, growth, or transformation. Every story matters. Thank you for listening, and we'll catch you next time with another inspiring episode.