5SR - June 20, 2023

Olivia on parenting with trauma, romanticizing life, and handling food allergies

Author

Hitha Palepu
June 20, 2023

Olivia Howell is the co-founder and CEO of Fresh Starts Registry, the first and only platform for everything you need to begin again, including divorce or breakup, moving, career changes, stepping into your truth, or starting again after grief. After her own divorce in 2019, Olivia had an 'aha moment' when she realized that we celebrate weddings and babies with a registry, but in the moments we really need to restock our life, like divorce, job loss, or any brave decision and major life change, we need the support, both in the form of support items for your home and the experts who become our hype team. From there, Fresh Starts Registry was born, the first Support Registry and Divorce Registry - and the only platform which aggregates support experts for all life changes and supports the Fresh Starts Experts in their marketing, business, and public relations.

Olivia is also the co-host of the top rated podcast, A Fresh Story, and the co-author of Simple Scripts to Support Your People: What to Say When You Don't Know What to Say.

My beloved grandmother passed away 5 years ago; I had a baby and a toddler, and my life had just fallen apart. My grandmother was my best friend and soulmate. And yet, I kept having to take care of two little humans, so I pushed my grief aside and didn't process anything.

I kept walking around the house thinking "Why aren't we talking about how hard this is? Why aren't we talking about how hard it is to grieve when we're parenting and solely in charge of children?" When I came across this piece about parenting with complex PTSD, I felt similarly.

We don't talk enough about how hard it is to parent in the hardest moments of our own lives. We don't talk about how our own trauma and PTSD can impact the way we move through the world as parents. I really appreciated the honesty of this piece, and that we're having these discussions.

How do you handle parenting and your own trauma in the passenger seat? Are you open with your children about your mental health? My kids know I see a therapist and that I'm on anxiety meds. Would love to hear your thoughts!

On the heels of Succession's last episode, this Fortune piece came across my desk and I found it very, very interesting. According to over 3 decades of research and data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, they discovered that men are the sole breadwinners in over half of super rich heterosexual couples – defined as those in the top 1% of households – while the women are not employed; that’s twice the rate of less affluent heterosexual couples.

I'm not shocked by this, to be honest. I was a teacher in an elite private school for many years, as well as attended private school my whole life, and this observation was very clear across the board. Sure, there were many mothers who worked, but for the most part, when we're talking about that top 1%, those women did not work.

Now again, this isn't true for everyone, but I found this article really interesting as they delve into the socioeconomics behind this and why it may not have changed much in the last 30 years.

What does it mean to romanticize your life? I have large Main Character Energy (it's a theater kid thing, alright?), so I really loved this piece on ways you can have a little fun making your life more romantic - and not in the lovey-dovey way, but in the celebrate your own life way!

One way that I romanticize my life is that I turn on classical music to make my bed, it makes me feel like I'm in a Parisian apartment overlooking the Seine! I appreciated the tips in this piece from Fresh Starts Therapist Sarah Baroud and Fresh Starts Professional Organizers Briana and Erica Spirulle. What makes you feel special about your life? Maybe it's having fancy shampoo, or maybe, like my sister Genevieve, it's going for a walk on a sunny day and grabbing a treat at the bakery.

I want to know how YOU romanticize YOUR life! Tell us!

When Jenny was in her 20s, she found out she was really allergic to dairy; it was hard for her to find her footing when it came to eating out and figuring out what to order, but what was harder for her was other people's reactions to her allergy. So much so, that we even included a script in our book, Simple Scripts to Support Your People, for what to say to a friend who just found out they have a new allergy!

I really liked the way that this article was laid out and that it gave really helpful phrases and resources to know what to say! As always, we like to lead with kindness and understanding, and the world of allergies is still so unknown to so many people, so I recommend bookmarking this article in case you need it.

We were thrilled to chat with Westchester Family Magazine about our book Simple Scripts to Support Your People. Whenever I read a book, I always want to know the backstory of it - why did the authors take the time to write this? Who are they writing for?

We appreciated the chance to dish the dirt about how Simple Scripts came to be, what our writing process looked like, and why Fresh Starts is essential for anyone going through a life change. Writing a book was not on our 2023 Bingo Card, but we learned so much and it was exciting doing something new together!

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