Ever feel like your project, business, or mission is asking more of your heart than your hustle?
In this reflective solo episode, Heather Hester reframes mothering as a creative, courageous act — not just for parenting, but for anything we’re building or nurturing in the world. Whether you're launching a business, leading a classroom, writing a book, or quietly tending to a dream no one else can see yet, this episode offers soul-level encouragement for those showing up with love, even in the face of fear, burnout, and uncertainty.
Learn why your work matters even when it’s unseen, messy, or slow
Understand the emotional cycles of creating something with meaning — and how to stay connected to your “why”
Discover how to mother your mission with tenderness, vision, and trust
Press play to receive the permission you didn’t know you needed: to love your mission into life with presence, patience, and purpose — and to let it shape you along the way.
Hi, I’m Heather Hester, and I’m so glad you’re here!
Listen to *NEW* episodes every Tuesday and Friday!
At the heart of my work is a deep commitment to compassion, authenticity, and transformative allyship, especially for those navigating the complexities of parenting LGBTQ+ kids. Through this podcast, speaking, my writing, and the spaces I create, I help people unlearn bias, embrace their full humanity, and foster courageous, compassionate connection.
If you’re in the thick of parenting, allyship, or pioneering a way to lead with love and kindness, I’m here with true, messy, and heart-warming stories, real tools, and grounding support to help you move from fear to fierce, informed action.
Whether you’re listening in, working with me directly, or quietly taking it all in—I see you. And I’m so glad you’re part of this journey.
More Human. More Kind. formerly Just Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ Teen is a safe and supportive podcast and space where a mom and mental health advocate offers guidance on parenting with empathy, inclusion, and open-minded allyship, fostering growth, healing, and empowerment within the LGBTQ community—including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals—while addressing grief, boundaries, education, diversity, human rights, gender identity, sexual orientation, social justice, and the power of human kindness through a lens of ally support and community engagement.
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This is the second episode in our Friday reflection series on mothering.
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Last week we explored the heart of mothering, its sacredness, its quiet strength, and how it shows up in all of us.
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Today we shift the lens a bit and talk about mothering as a creative act.
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Not in the traditional sense, but in the way we care for the things we build, our businesses, our ideas, our callings, how we even use phrases such as birthing into the world to describe these projects.
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Because there is a parallel feeling of creating, of introducing something that is required and will continue to require so much work, love and care.
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Whether you're nurturing a side hustle, a classroom, a non profit or an idea still tucked inside your journal, this episode is for you.
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When I started Chrysalis Mama, I didn't know it would become a business, a podcast, or a movement.
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I just knew I needed to do something after our family began the journey of supporting our LGBTQ child.
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At first, even though the feeling was one of urgency and a deep knowing in my soul, it also felt fragile.
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There were days it didn't feel ready and certainly not polished.
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But I kept tending to it, feeding it, loving it, picking it up and trying again when something fell flat.
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And like all things we mother, it began to grow slowly, then suddenly, then in directions I never anticipated.
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Mothering a business or a mission requires the same kind of heart work as parenting.
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It asks us to show up consistently, to let go of perfection, to listen deeply, to hold the vision even when no one else sees it.
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Yet here's what I've learned.
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Mothering something outside of ourselves means being in constant relationship with uncertainty, of sitting in discomfort.
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More often than not, it means nourishing your mission through the seasons of burnout, creative blocks, imposter syndrome, and overwhelm.
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It means fiercely protecting its essence while allowing it to evolve.
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And it means trusting that the work you're doing matters, even when it's quiet, even when the numbers don't add up, even when you're met with doubt.
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Maybe you don't call it a business.
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Maybe it's a movement you're starting, a community you're supporting, a book you're writing or a classroom you're showing up for every single day?
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Whatever it is, ask yourself, am I mothering this with care or controlling it with fear?
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Am I nurturing growth or chasing outcomes?
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Am I honoring the creative cycles of rest and renewal?
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You don't need a business plan to call it a mission.
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You just need to love it enough to stay in the process.
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Take a moment right now and ask yourself, what am I building?
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What am I creating?
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What am I nurturing in my life right now?
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How am I showing up for it?
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And just as importantly, how is it shaping you?
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Let this be a permission slip to mother your mission tenderly, boldly, and on your own terms.
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The world needs more nurturers of vision, more protectors of possibility.
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Whatever your mission looks like, keep tending to it with love.
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And if you have something that has been taking shape in your heart and soul, maybe this is your sign to birth it into the world.
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You never know whose life it might touch or how deeply it might change.
