Mandy Martini
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05/31/2026
A few days after giving birth, T and I were at the pediatrician for our little one’s first checkup…
After finishing the exam, we started putting our newborn’s clothes back on while our doctor sat down on a stool across from us. “Any questions for me?” He asked. We both shook our heads.
He clasped his hands in front of him and looked at me with a smile. “Now, how are you doing?”
“Good! Just healing.”
He nodded. “Now, it’s important you know, especially if you’re planning on breastfeeding, and I assume you are,” he nodded at my son, who was now nursing. “Stress travels through your milk to your baby... so whatever you do, avoid stress!”
His advice, loaded with well-intentions, pressure, and responsibility, instantly made me feel stressed.
Considering how most of us live today, where stress is everywhere: in how we live and survive, in the environment around us: the screens in our hands, on our walls (the TV), at work, school, the people around us... for the majority of us, avoiding stress is an impossible task.
So maybe that’s not the answer— avoiding stress. Which can result in more stress, and even feelings of failure, especially for mothers.
Maybe the answer is to learn how to understand stress. How it was made to move through your body instead of piling up inside of you.
Because that’s where the real danger is. In the chronic. Not in the brief movements of reacting to the world around you.
Comment SUBSTACK for the direct link ❤️
04/18/2026
March 🍁 we spent most of the month sick and recovering back to health but still managed to squeeze in plenty of fun ❤️
1. The cabin at night
2. Tapping maple trees, a first for me and Namkú
3. Boiling maple sap (Little man got a fever the first day of boiling, so I stayed in bed with him while watching from the window. Next day we got to join him ☺️)
4. Cuddles by the fire 🔥
5. Banana blue corn pancakes with our freshly made maple syrup
6. Our friend Fluffy
7. processing hides for drums and Namkú’s moccasins 🦌
8. Finding out my story about my grandmother (on the topic of grief, loss and healing) is getting published in a magazine later this summer 🥰
9. Coffee made with maple sap in my favorite Moomin cup
10. Pruning 30+ blueberry bushes at the Beaver Lodge Food Forest (a lot of work since they have not been pruned in over a decade)
11. Library story time and play with new friends in the community ❤️
12. Listening to the song birds 🫶🏽
13. Quick stop on our way to Onondaga to visit family and celebrate our birthdays! 🥳 ( on the 27th and River, Namkú’s big sissy, and I on April Fools!)
When you’re “in it,” it’s hard to see the big scope of things.
When I was living with trauma, I never thought of myself as living in survival mode. I was just someone who was depressed, anxious, and extremely exhausted and unhappy. Same thing when I was living with domestic violence, I never thought of myself as someone living with abuse. I was only someone living with a man who was controlling and who hurt me when he got upset.
It can be hard to connect your problems or symptoms to one root cause. Sometimes we need someone else to tell us how they are all linked together.
If you feel like you’re on the verge of breaking, and many of these symptoms ring true…
1. Exhausted
2. Angry
3. Sad
4. Overwhelmed
5. Aversion and agitation while breastfeeding
6. Anxious
7. On edge, often snapping or losing your temper
8. Feeling alone even around family and other people
9. Numb, like you’re going through life on autopilot
10. Unhappy
11. Spend the days watching the same show over and over or scrolling social media.
12. Have no motivation to do anything.
… maybe your problem isn’t that you’re always angry (as an example). Maybe it’s just you living in survival.
If you are, please know you’re not meant to stay stuck there. Your body was made to finish the cycle of survival, and IMO, as a mother, you need that more than ever… especially in this world we live in.
✨Comment SURVIVAL if you want me the link to a free class where I explain it more.
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