What are the unique tools or techniques Hilary Erickson uses to manage anxiety as a new mom?

I lean on two big ideas I talked about with therapist Kara Kushnir, plus a few personal mindset shifts from my own postpartum seasons.

• Expect a normal “ramp up” of anxiety when you get home from the hospital, then watch the trend. If it keeps worsening or doesn’t ease after a bit, that’s your sign to get help, not to “tough it out.”

• Use Kara’s ACE tool:

  • Acknowledge the feeling or thought (“I’m having the thought that something bad will happen tonight”)
  • Come back into your body (notice your breathing, how the bed feels, what you can see/hear right now)
  • Engage/continue with what you were doing (sleeping, feeding, watching TV), instead of letting anxiety choose your next move.

• Normalize mom-worry as a lifelong companion. I remind myself that worry just changes shape (SIDS, playground falls, teen driving). So instead of trying to erase it, I “make friends” with it and focus on what I can control: safe sleep setup, car seat installed correctly, trusted pediatrician, etc.

• Reframe “what if” into “I wonder.” Instead of “What if something awful happens?” I practice “I wonder what they’ll be like at three… at prom… as an adult.” That gentle shift from worry to curiosity pulls your brain toward possibility instead of catastrophe.

If you’d like, I can walk you step by step through using ACE for one of your specific anxious thoughts so you can see how it works in real life.