98: Recognizing postnatal depletion + realities of being a business owner mom during a pandemic
Episode Description
Today’s guest is a business owner and mom of a toddler who is adjusting to social isolation during this pandemic like all of us mommies. Her surf brand Salt Gypsy is a self funded project from the heart that has reached many women surfers worldwide. Seeing that there is so much uncertainty right now with our global economy, Danielle admits she’s trying not to “freak out” and stay calm. I appreciate her candor as I know so many of us can attest to this at the moment.
Danielle Clayton is a longtime surfer, surf guide and mom, who started Salt Gypsy 8 years ago after realizing she needed more sun protection than surfing just in a bikini. This colorful soulful brand consists of surf leggings and female surf wear made from recycled materials. What started as a blog and kindled from the flames of an idea for sun protection, Salt Gypsy turned into a business. One of the driving forces behind her brand is her innate stoke for the water and the frustration of a surf industry & monoculture and in her own worlds “dominated by bland & copycat designs.”
As a surf guide who has worked in the Maldives for years, being in the sun was a daily requirement. And after countless red buns and tender sunburned legs, she decided leggings would be a better idea than slippery sunscreen.
Danielle believes, and I agree, that as women surfers, we have such individual and unique personal styles and I want us to be able to express that while we surf. in taking courageous leaps and jumping before the net appears. She does this literally and figuratively in every facet of her life including the fact that she has dedicated her life to surfing even though she has a serous and rare heart condition.
Today she is going to share about postpartum depletion and her experience with adrenal fatigue and exhaustion. I really appreciate her bringing light to this subject. She believes being a good mom requires a strict degree of self preservation and self care, even if that means a five minute ocean swim.
Take-aways:
The realities of trying to keep a business running during a global pandemic
A heart condition that has led Danielle to face some of her biggest fears
How big life events, tragedies, near misses, health issues can lead us to inner growth
How Danielle used sun-burned buns & legs to start a her women’s surfing water leggings.
How her background in art and working in the surf industry fueled her confidence to start her own brand
Working hard during pregnancy and how “softening” is much needed sometimes
Moving into motherhood; the amazing, the jarring and the challenging
The plight of a woman athlete or surfer-always craving independence & having to prove strength to male dominated arenas
Sleep deprivation and postnatal depletion in new motherhood
Getting her postnatal depletion diagnosed
Learning the lesson of self care when you crash