We recently connected with Kate Kripke and have shared our conversation below.

Kate, appreciate you joining us today. We’re complete cheeseballs and so we love asking folks to share the most heartwarming moment from their career – do you have a touching moment you can share with us?

The highlights of my work all revolve around my experience of watching women grow and evolve and gain health and happiness. It happens with almost every mother who I work with and when that client realizes their full potential to feel joy in their own lives and in mothering, it’s like watching a sunrise. There is one particular mother who I have worked with for many years, since her first son was born almost 8 years ago. She comes from a tricky background that consisted of family and relational trauma, substance use and abuse, eating disorders, and lots of depression and anxiety. Though she is also a powerhouse of a human- running her own company and creating an abundant life for herself, her deep insecurities, shame, and fear had been running her life for a long time. Through the years that we have worked together, she has had numerous miscarriages, made it through tricky spots in her relationship with herself and others, and birthed two beautiful and healthy children. Her work in becoming healthy and well was not always easy- but she has stuck with it. At one point she was unable to look herself I the mirror for more than a second or two (and those seconds were excruciating for her). She is now able to look at herself and feel beautiful and her love for herself is profoundly impactful in the ways that she cares for and relates to her children, her husband, her employees, and her family of origin. She literally glows. And her children? They are thriving and are being raised by a mother who is doing things very differently than her own mother did. It’s inspiring.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I grew up in NYC and was raised by two high performing, loving, but anxious parents. As a child, I struggled with lots of anxiety myself and had panic attacks too many times to count. I always thought it was me- that I as just an “anxious person” and I had become so used to living life from that perspective that I got used to the feeling of butterflies in my fingernails and didn’t know life could or would feel different. Yes, I was living my life well from the outside, but from the inside I was scared. All the time. As I’ve done my own work in understanding myself and my life better I have realized that all that anxiety I felt for so long was not mine, it was my parents’. And I had inherited it from them.

When I graduated from college, I spent four years traveling throughout Southern Africa. I found my love for adventure, diversity, human behavior, and human connection while exploring and working there (I should mention, however, that I was always drawn to people without knowing that this would remain my path. I was a guidance counselor and peer mentor in Highschool and majored in sociology in college ultimately going back to grad school to get my masters in Social Work). While instructing for Outward Bound both in South Africa and then again in NYC when I returned home, I focused my attention on supporting teenagers who were struggling. I thought that was where my heart was.

Once back in the US, after graduate school, and while working to create a counseling program at an after school program in the mission district of San Francisco, I realized that it wasn’t the kids who wanted my support. It was the mothers, The mothers were so under supported and under-cared for that they couldn’t possible parent their children the way they wanted to. And, of course once they got the support that they needed to be healthy and well, both they and their kids began to thrive.

That’s the magic of it all.

I founded the Postpartum Wellness Center/Boulder (www.pwcboulder.com) in 2008 to provide excellent and evidence-based biological, psychological, and social support to new mothers and their families. Because we know through all the data out there that when mothers are not well enough supported in these areas they will struggle with symptoms of depression and anxiety. It’s inevitable. Our focus at the PWCB is in supporting families with kids of all ages, but we do have a specialty niche in pregnant and postpartum support. This is where it all begins! When I sit at the PWCB with the mothers who I am supporting, I know that they are not my only client. Their babies and children are all metaphorically in the room with them. By helping those moms get well, I am creating space for their children to be well too.

In the last year, I have begun to take my reach out of the psychotherapy office and into the larger community through social media and the virtual space in an effort to support more mothers who want to feel good in their lives and thrive (www.katekripke.com). Unlike our work at the PWCB, this focus is not meant as mental health treatment for issues like depression and anxiety, but is intended to provide guidance, support, and encouragement as mothers break through barriers, recreate beliefs and meaning, and give themselves permission to access pleasure, joy, and abundance. So often we expect mothers to take care of everyone around them at the expense of themselves and this backfires every single time. When moms thrive, their kids thrive. I see it happen over and over.

Most mothers will have deep internal thoughts such as:
* Motherhood is hard
* My job is to make sure that everyone is ok all of the time
* There is no time for joy/pleasure/play and self care is selfish

And they will feel tired, irritated, stuck, bored, and unfulfilled much of the time while their kids are young. I am here to help change that. Because with a refocus away from one’s kids and back on to themselves, finding and having more patience, energy, creativity, inspiration, joy, health, connection, and happiness is inevitable. And from that place, we mother our children well.

What we all want as mothers is for our children to be healthy. But that has to start with ourselves.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

I used to think that my training, my knowledge, and the letters behind my name were the most important things in being successful. While I am completely committed to evidence-based practice and general scope of practice knowledge, I have learned over time that there is nothing more important in the success of my work than allowing myself to show up as I am- people like working with me because of the Kate Kripke-ness that I bring to the table, not because of what Kate Kripke knows. When I gave myself more permission to trust that the essence of who I am makes the work effective, I not only began to have more fun in the work but I became more successful with clients.

Each of us has that essence that nobody else has. When we find it and bring it to the table, everything else flows with more ease.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I believe that I am in a pivot right now. After 20 years of clinical work as a psychotherapist (www.pwcboulder.com), I am bringing my maternal mental health expertise out of the psychotherapy office and into the virtual space as a coach and a consultant (www.katekripke.com and @katekripke). I am feeling called to share more of my own journey towards health and wellness in motherhood (I am turning 50 and have 2 teenaged daughters and feel better than I ever have in my life) and want to support more mothers outside of the state of Colorado to find their best versions of themselves (remember when we thrive as mothers, our kids thrive!). This feels clunky and uncertain at times. But I have always succeeded when my dream and vision of what I am moving towards has been clear, and so I am trusting this new direction.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pwcboulder.com and www.katekripke.com
• Instagram: @pwcboulder and @katekripke
• Facebook: @pwcboulder
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-shaw-kripke-60545a1/

Image Credits
Eli Milner