The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby
Dr. Julie Smith on finding identify postpartum, mom guilt & social anxiety
Wed, 16 Apr 2025
We sat down with Dr. Julie Smith — a New York Times bestselling author and psychologist whose mental health content has helped millions navigate anxiety and depression. In this conversation, we talk postpartum identity, mom guilt, why your emotions might be lying to you, and how to use comparison well. This episode is sponsored by Hiya and ZocDoc. Hiya: Go to https://hiyahealth.com/UNPLANNED and receive 50% off your first order. Get your kids the full-body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults. ZocDoc: Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to https://Zocdoc.com/UNPLANNED to find and instantly book a top rated doctor today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Dr. Julie Smith and what is her professional background?
I have something kind of embarrassing to admit. I was actually Googling yesterday what a clinical psychologist is because I didn't know the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist.
Chapter 2: What are the differences between psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists?
Yeah, it's probably one of the most common questions I get, actually. Really?
So you're not alone. Okay, okay. So can you explain it?
Because I still am trying to... Wait, and a therapist, because I feel like they all kind of get confusing for me.
Yeah, yeah. So a psychiatrist will train in medicine, and then they'll choose psychiatry as opposed to working in the ER or in general practice. They'll kind of go off into mental health that way, but their focus is generally diagnosis and medications and stuff like that. Some of them,
train in kind of therapeutic um sort of talking therapies and stuff like that but mostly that in my experience of working with them they're mostly focused on medications whereas psychologists uh start with a psychology degree and then go on to do a doctorate in clinical psychology so they're always focused on that kind of formulation and talking therapies and those kind of things so it's you know the same work but from different angles coming from different trainings um
Interesting. So the psychologist one is more of the medical side.
So the psychiatrist is the medical side. Psychologist is psychology.
See, I already screwed it up. I thought I knew the difference. Yeah, I'm tracking.
You're tracking? Don't quiz me on it. But then you can always have a therapist as well that isn't necessarily a psychologist. But they've trained because there are lots of different modalities of therapy. And, you know, some people might start off as a mental health nurse and then they might train in one or two kind of therapies and they just do those ones.
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Chapter 3: How does Dr. Julie Smith approach parenting and managing children's emotions?
Yeah, do you know what? It's been a learning process, I think. Probably early on, when I had children, I read probably too many books.
Really?
Because then you then start to... Add a kind of level of perfectionism to what you're doing. And actually, your children don't need you to be anything other than human. Right. And loving and and part of being a parent then is holding those boundaries and things like that. So I think if you're if you're so focused on getting it, you know, having the perfect response every single time.
then you end up getting yourself into a bit of a spiral, I think, where you're kind of criticizing yourself. And I think it's okay to make mistakes as a parent and do things that you wouldn't normally want to do. And then it's okay to kind of repair that and say sorry if you want to or need to.
You know, if it's ruptured the relationship with your child in some way, then it's okay to say, do you know what? You know, I'm really sorry I shouted then. I felt really angry and I'm going to try harder next time. Yeah. That doesn't mean you don't hold the same boundary that you were holding necessarily. But you, you know, Dr. Becky Goodman does that brilliantly. She's over in the States.
I think she's in New York. And she talks about that kind of, you know, being human, but not being afraid to say sorry and repair anything when you've when it's gone wrong. Yeah.
I think that's really cool. I feel like growing up, I never – I love my parents. I have an amazing relationship with them. But I never saw that response, like them saying I'm sorry to me.
And now as a parent, I'm like, wow, that would have been – I want to give that gift to my kids because then it kind of makes – like you said, it kind of holds both the child and the parent accountable to respecting boundaries and things like that.
Yeah, because I think there's probably a little bit of stuff online where it sort of almost demonizes anger as a parent or frustration, that you're not supposed to feel any of that or show it. And I think, you know, if your child never sees you experience those emotions, then they have no template for how to experience it themselves and how to deal with it.
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Chapter 4: How did Dr. Julie Smith become a bestselling author and social media influencer?
you know if no one listens then we'll just stop and I honestly thought it would be something we did for a couple of months because it felt like a nice thing to do and then it would fizzle out and um but yeah so that was November 2019 and within a couple of weeks I would just get home from school run I would put my phone on the table and I would just kind of say a few words about something from therapy or something um but yeah within a couple of weeks people were just messaging emailing
That's really interesting. What are the next steps? Or can I hear more about this? Or can I have a video on that? And we were just kind of reaching these people who wanted more and more and more. And so by Christmas, I mean, I didn't tell anyone we were doing it, but by Christmas time, we had about 100,000 followers. So that was like a month later. And it was just kind of getting out of hand.
And yeah, so now we're, yeah, 2025. And I think it's about nine or 10 million followers across all the different platforms. That's unreal. It just blows my mind.
What's something that happened recently in your time as a therapist that made you realize people need to have this information? I'm sure there's a story that you can think of where you just wish everybody could have the resources that you were giving to that person that was going through a tough time.
Do you know, I think it was a few, it was a few people really, but all kind of young people, maybe in their early twenties and stuff where essentially they would come in with, the details are all different, but But the theme was the same, which is they just didn't have the confidence in their ability to manage their own mental health or the normal ups and downs of daily life. Right.
None of them had clinical disorders as such, but they just didn't trust in their ability to cope with things that came up. Right. And because they hadn't necessarily been given the tools to know that, you know, you're not at the mercy of your emotional experience, you know, emotions will come and go and you can soothe your way through that.
But there are also things you can do to help yourself in the process, you know, bring yourself back to calm or activate yourself, that kind of thing.
And, and so once they kind of had some of those skills, we used to talk about these, I used to call them kind of cheerleader moments where we would have this sort of like moment of personal victory for them where I wished I had like pom poms down the side of my chair that I could pull out and go, yeah, I did it.
And, you know, so many of those moments where people would just build in their confidence, you know, they'd, they'd learn about a concept or a skill and And then over the next few weeks, they would attach that to an experience. And then they'd come back and go, I did it. And you realize, oh, my gosh, this stuff, you know, it's not rocket science. It's fairly simple.
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Chapter 5: What personal experience did Dr. Julie Smith share about her breast cancer diagnosis?
So we need to... And I think in the room, I kind of went into this business mode of... I probably used a bit of the kind of clinical training there about dealing with high emotion. And I just... There was no emotion in the room. And actually, Matt tried to sort of grab my hand and things. And I didn't I sort of pushed it away because I was just like, OK, what do we need to do?
When do we need to do it? And I just needed to focus on the doing. And then we had a bit of time before I was going to go for these other tests. And that's when we kind of went outside. And then it was like then then allowed allowed the emotion to kind of hit me. And so I don't want to give the impression that I just kind of, you know, dealt with it.
And there was no emotion because there were some dark moments in the uncertainty for sure.
which there should be right the emotions normal and natural um well you talk in your book about how emotion correct me if i'm wrong it's like it's like waves right it's like you're you're in the ocean and you feel these waves coming at you and you can either you know roll with the punches and kind of let them do their thing and know that they're coming and move with the wave or or you can try to like brace yourself against it and so how do you do that you know roll with the punches and
Note that the wave is coming and move with the wave, but at the same time still be a predator and not prey. Because in my mind, when I think about being a predator and not prey, I think about being on the attack and being firm and strong. But then... rolling with the punches and letting a wave hit you is almost like the exact opposite of that.
Yeah. And in some ways they were kind of different moments. So, you know, there were moments where I sort of, um, you know, went up to my bedroom to have a quiet moment from the children and just take a minute or, you know, I know there was another moment where my, um, my son was having, we were talking about, you know, those, you know, big emotions that toddlers have.
And, um, my son had a moment in a supermarket and,
that uh normally everyday life I could deal with but you know having to carry him out the supermarket screaming was not I just didn't have the capacity for it at that point and I remember getting back into the car and just all this emotion coming out and I think it was because I was carrying so much stress at that point you know the all the uncertainty and not knowing and so when those moments happened I kind of allowed that and um you know forgave myself for for all you know my kids were sort of like we've broken her
And it was just, you know, it's just those moments of emotion coming out. And I allowed that to happen. And my husband was great at, you know, kind of comforting me through that. And I guess, yeah, then there are moments when you're able to, Because when you're being active and forward, you're still feeling the fear. You're just choosing a different direction.
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Chapter 6: How did Dr. Julie Smith discuss fear and emotional resilience during her health challenges?
I think it was really natural. But it surprised me that I had it at both ends of the treatment. So when it initially happens, that natural urge is to think, why me? I've always tried to be healthy, you know, exercise and I've smoked or drunk or anything like that. And so you get all of that kind of natural kind of thought process, which is unhelpful.
It doesn't, you know, it doesn't really help in any way.
Did you get some really unhelpful advice from people too? No. I mean, you don't have to call anybody out, but I mean, like, did anybody say anything you were like, that did not help me out?
I don't know. I think because we were quite quiet about, because of the children. Oh, okay. We didn't want to tell anyone until we told them. And we didn't want to tell them until we knew what the plan was and that I was going to be okay. So I think by the time we told people... Um, we knew what the plan was and we were okay.
And, um, maybe it's, maybe it's different for people who are sort of have long-term illnesses and, uh, you know, um, going up and down with it. Whereas mine was caught really early. So it was a very much, okay, here's the plan and then, then I'll be okay. And, um, So, yeah, I don't think I had much of that.
But I did surprise myself with the... I had the why me at the beginning with the kind of, you know, I'm healthy, that kind of thing. But then I had the why me at the end as well.
So, you know, when your oncologist says, go live your best life, we're done here, you can't help but think of all the people in the waiting room that aren't in that place and don't have such an easy ride of it and, you know, who have to go through potentially months or years of...
painful or you know um horrible treatments that make them unwell and um so yeah on the other side I think I felt like how how did I get away so lightly and why me why do I deserve to get through that so easily when other people don't and yeah so I think you have it at both ends but it's never very helpful it's just it's a natural inclination to ask that but I don't think it helps you really cope with it so it's good to just leave it behind I think
I'm curious how you did decide to approach that conversation with your kids. Because I think a lot of people, whether or not it's cancer, have things come up in life where they're like, how do I talk about this in a way that is not overwhelming to my children? It's digestible, but they also understand the severity of things.
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Chapter 7: What is Dr. Julie Smith's perspective on comparison and its impact on mental health?
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It's so interesting how you use comparison as a good thing in the situation with your kids, comparing your situation to your son's situation. But I feel like online all the time we hear, stop comparing yourself to other people. Comparison is bad. It's not good. What do you say to that?
Yeah, I think, you know, saying to people, don't compare yourself. It's like saying don't breathe, right? We are social beings. We live in groups. And if you didn't have the ability to compare yourself to other people, you'd be terrible in relationships.
You'd be a terrible neighbor, you know, a terrible community member because, you know, essentially we have the ability to be in a group of people and measure ourselves against you know, their moral behavior, their choices, what they're doing for each other, how much work they're putting in for each other.
You know, all of those things enable us to ensure that we're being a decent human being in that group. So our ability to compare is actually a real strength and really important. But I think what happens is when it goes wrong, we're making the wrong comparisons. We're either comparing ourselves to the wrong people or the wrong thing, or we're doing it intensively.
Because never before have we had the ability to see people from across the world that we would never meet and will never meet, but are the absolute best at their thing. So anything you're doing that you feel even vaguely good about, you can go find someone who's doing it 10 times better. Yeah. Never before have we had that in the history of human beings.
Talk about a confidence killer. Yeah. When you could just go online at any given moment of any given day and see someone that's way better than you.
Absolutely.
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Chapter 8: How does Dr. Julie Smith utilize social media to promote mental health awareness?
let's say you wanted to get better at, I don't know, what's your sport? What do you love to play? Snowboarding.
I like to snowboard.
Oh, cool. I like snowboard, but I'm terrible at it. So if you're snowboarding and you want to get better at, I don't know, carving or something, it would be good to compare yourself to someone who maybe has another year or two's experience and you could watch them how they do that particular thing you're trying to improve on. And you can say, what is it they're doing that I'm not?
And how can I imitate that? Or how can I be inspired by that to move in that direction and improve based on my goals? Based on, you know, something that will improve my life and the things that I'm aiming for. those kind of comparisons are brilliant and they help you to learn, right? And improve.
But they have to be based on actually something you can use to your advantage and you can benefit from.
Do you ever feel... Oh, sorry. Sorry, go on. I was going to say, do you ever feel guilty posting to TikTok as a clinical psychologist?
Feel guilty?
Yeah. For... Because of how damaging social media can be?
Well, I'm not TikTok, right? So I'm not representative of them. And at the beginning, Nobody even really, well, I was going against the grain professionally because a lot of therapists didn't even use social media at that point. It was all brand new. We had no idea what was going on.
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Chapter 9: What advice does Dr. Julie Smith give about postpartum mental health and adjustment?
And, um, I mean, you guys like in America, the, there's not much in the way of, um, leave is there for, for mothers and stuff. There's lots of pressure to go back to work very quickly and stuff. And, and that's just, um, you know, all of those things take such a toll. And, and I think modern, like you were talking about lack of community, right. That, um,
If you take anyone, take all the babies out of it, you take any human being and you want to kind of break them down, you would mess about with their routine, you would take sleep out of the equation, you would isolate them from other people and you'd kind of mess around with their diet and things like that.
And after a woman's had a baby, all of those things, which are weapons of war, by the way, right? They're used to break people down because it works. But after a woman's had a baby, all of those things are affected monumentally. And...
And then we sort of we kind of question why women are struggling after giving birth and and or kind of, you know, I guess, dulling things down or, you know, the baby blues and things like that. And but it's it's really quite serious. And I think to our detriment, we we talk about hormones and things like that as if they are the culprit. As if it's a fault in a woman's system. But it's not.
A woman is built to have children and to function and do all of those things. But modern society is set up ignoring all of those needs and how important that job is and how important it is to do it well. For our future generations as well.
So I think I'm getting on my sandwich board now, kind of, you know, sandwich board sort of, you know, preaching about, you know, what we should be doing for women and things like that. But, you know, I think.
I guess we can't change things that everybody else is doing or everybody else's opinion or of that period of time but the more women we can tell about you know all of those needs and that they're normal and natural and that you know modern life isn't set up to accommodate that and so we have to
do what we can to acknowledge our own needs and put them first and hold healthy boundaries and to recognise our need for, you know, social interaction and sleep occasionally and all of these, and decent meals and those kind of things, then that can only be a sort of move in the right direction, I guess.
I feel like every, like, new mom or mom, anyone that has ever gone through this stage of life is just, like, clapping in their car right now or wherever they're listening to this because, like, the way you phrase that just so perfectly, like... Put into words something that I felt but never even could acknowledge. And so I just think even just sharing that is just helping so many women.
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