Getting real about post op depression - featuring Make it Pop USA

back in Mexico. And I was through one of my coaches at the time, dominic, who's actually one of my coaches now, she recommended me to Stacey. And I talked to Stacy at first to partner up, but then when I talked to her, I liked her so much, I was like, actually, I need some, um, help. I need someone to help me get through these feelings. I'm not going to be able to go where I want to go in my life and be who I want to be if I keep getting trapped in this cycle. So that's how I found

Stacey. And she has been absolutely amazing for my mental and to help me overcome those days that still come even now, and especially after having the baby. I just did all that work, and then I was looking so fine, I got pregnant, and then now I just have the baby. So you got to go through it again. But I am well, much more well equipped to go through right now than I definitely was when I first had surgery.

Okay, Stacey, so tell us a little bit about what you specialize in and how you help Laura. Okay. I am a life coach, or a, uh, mind coach, mental coaching. So what that is, is I have dealt myself, like Laura said, with addiction. And then after I dealt with addiction, I come to learn the term

codependency that's dealing with people. Because it's one thing you handle the addiction or I quit putting drug chemicals in my body and thinking that the whole world is going to be just fine, that I'm going to know things that I didn't know before because I'm not using drugs, right? But the thing is that we don't understand the psychology

of that. And I'm not a psychologist or doctor by any means, but I've studied a lot and I've had a lot of therapy and coaching myself to be comfortable in my own skin because that's why we use drugs, right? It's so we can feel comfortable in our own skin and feel like we've been in and we've arrived and all of this stuff, uh, it's the

power, too, of all of that. So when we deal with addiction and having to admit that we're powerless over that addiction, that our lives are unmanageable because of that, because we're living from the outside in, we're looking for things, we're grasping things. Addiction is so expansive. It is. It's addiction to food, it's addiction to. Sex, it's addiction to drugs, it's addiction. To money, it's gambling, it's addiction to whatever

is in excess. What Laura was saying earlier was that living in excess and she's a very savvy woman, very smart. I learned so much from Laura that she could do that. And so we're taught in this society, if you can do it, do it. Uh, but it's not really getting authentic with ourselves because we're living from the outside in rather than getting comfortable in our own skin. So that's really what I worked with Laura on, is getting comfortable because she's beautiful. You

can see she's just beautiful. But that doesn't mean we're comfortable in our own skin because there's where the codependency comes in, is that society is telling us that we're supposed to be like this, we're supposed to be like that in all of these old tapes. And then there's that childhood trauma of what society told our parents they were supposed to be and what our grandparents

were told they were supposed to be. And all of that comes down the line in the DNA, which cosmetic surgery doesn't address that kind of thing. So that's where we start unwinding the tape, right, is that all these tapes are in our head of what we're supposed to be, what we're supposed to do, and reacting rather than

responding. And that comes from the trauma. That's what Laura was dealing with a lot, was reacting rather than responding because we're not slowed down enough, because our body is getting dysregulation. Dr. Bruce deeper and Oprah talk about that in a book. And there's gaborama, there's many doctors, psychologists that talk about it. And I'm not a psychologist, like I said, but I read this stuff and I study this because I

do work with reiki and energy work and things. And that's what I did with Laura is to help her dysregulate. Because what happens is when we feel a trauma or somebody says something to us that makes us feel. For me, if somebody says something to me that makes me feel stupid, then I kind of want to because that's something that wasn't focused on maybe, uh, in my childhood, is my education. So I've worked really hard to learn a lot. Now, that might be what we call a trigger. So

it was helping Laura with these triggers. But sometimes these triggers are emotionally in our body. We may not even understand that because somebody talked crazy to us back in the day in a certain way when we were growing up. That when somebody says something to us that may be not even offensive, that we may be offended by. And that's what I think a lot of people are dealing with today. So many people getting offended. It's that unhealed trauma and everything. And that's what we

worked on with Laura. She did, she had that place up in the sky. When I walked in, I'm like, Dang, this is something off at the TV show. She was living like they do on TV when you're living the life, right? And so I got to talking to Laura, I listened to Laura and you hear chapter all she is here for her to feel safe, to be herself. So that's what I offered her, is to feel safe, to be herself. And then she did allow me to do the energy work on her, which is really we've got our

cerebral spinal system in the back. All this stuff that gets fed through our eyes and our ears, if you've ever noticed, everything gets fed into your head. And so all that stuff that gets fed into is transmitted by stuff that's in the back of our head. When people say in the back of my mind, this is in the back of my mind, well, so is that trauma? And it goes down that autonomic system. The three were spinal systems. So when I worked with her, I worked on pushing energy out. Because

when we get upset, we constrict, right? We're like ready to fight. Uh, if you're ready to fight or if you get scared, it's like so pushing energy out. So it's being aware of our energy and other people's energy and learning how to respond rather than react to trauma. To understand why, like she's mentioned the wise, why am I feeling this way? Why is this affecting me this way? Why did I choose this and being able to stay focused and not go from the old stuff. But, uh, remember what we

have facing us in the future. And that's what I do with Laura and with other folks is just help them remember their whys, like she said. And we start from there why? Because we do question like she was saying, why did I do this? And if we understand initially what our why is, then we can see a different picture. But when we're dealing with those old tapes of the past. And that trauma sometimes that wants to come back and be an issue and make us feel not as smart as we want to be or

not as beautiful as we want to be. And so then we can live authentically, like you see Laura now from the inside out, rather than grabbing all that stuff outside to go in. Laura whenever you found me, when you found me, I'm always very candid with my girls. I tell them everything because they're my girls, so they know everything. So when you came to me and you were taking care of your little baby, but I could feel your passion behind that first message that you

sent me. And if my girls know anything about me, it's that when I see somebody who went through something in their journey, and it was so significant in their life that it propelled them to do something, like, we'll get into what you decided to do. But for example, the faha doctor, she made she started altering faha. I have, um, another girl who suffered or she was really struggling with finding a good fleet position. So she made, like, a temporary post stop bed because

we need it, right? So it's very important to me to support people who had an experience. And then, oh, my God, I have to help other people so they don't go through this. So when you came to me and you told me your story, and I was like, oh, my God, this is hard. Yes. And actually, I didn't know. I, uh, thought that I was the only one who went through what I went through, because that's how also self absorbed I was. In the process of getting my surgery, all I was thinking about was me, right?

So I was like, I'm probably the only one going through this. And that's also something that Stacey helped me to overcome, was being I am very generous, so you wouldn't think that I'm selfish, but I am self absorbed in different ways where I was, and I'm working on being better. So as I started doing more research and talking to other women and just going through even the community groups, so many women are like, why did I do this?

And it could be because they have more pain. It could be because they have blood coming out of an incision. It could be because it could be any small thing that triggers it's all going to be a roller coaster ride no matter what. But depending on how well you ride that ride and if you're going to throw up or not, is based on the support system

that you have. So the fact that I didn't have one, and then finding your podcast and finding how all you do is help you talk about everything, I was like, Man, I wish they had this when I was getting my surgery. Or at least that, uh, they should just have this in the intake form of everybody's surgery, like, hey, we're not going to help you. So since you need some help, here's a couple of instagrams that you can follow because you're going to spend a lot of time on instagram anyway

while you're healing. And that wouldn't cost them nothing. All they would have to do is just make a little pamphlet, some IGS to follow, and at least they do more than what they're doing right now. Excuse my wife. Uh, you know what? I think that leads us to a really important point. Because now that you've been talking to more practices, you have a mission and now you're like, wait, hold on. You all don't care?

Well, yeah, those conversations floor me. And I'm also getting better at Stacey knows, like, I have a vicious tongue. Okay, I can come at you verbally if I want to. I never came at her, but I talked to her about how I've come at others and she's helped me work through that and not leave any more casualties behind it than my tongue lashes. But, yeah, the fact that they just are like a couple of offices that I've talked to just being like, well, that's their problem. Well, that's not something

that we deal with. And, um, they don't come to us and tell us that, well, okay, maybe they're not telling you because they don't know the offer that well, they would tell us if they wanted something. Well, if you don't know if you need something and you don't know how to express it, then how are you going to tell them? But it really floors me on how many doctors are willing to take your thousands of dollars but aren't willing to address something as

important as mental health. Because I don't care how strong you are. I think that a lot of people, if they hear my story, they may envision a woman that's like meek and insecure. And if you go and you look on my page, you will see I'm everything but that I'm being more vulnerable through my postpartum, having my baby. Because I think that's needed as well. And I do have a platform to be able to share. But I was not a woe is me kind of girl. I'm the kind of girl where I might cry, but

I'm going to get my butt up 8910 thousand times. I went through it, too, and I went through it heavy. And so if I'm going through that, imagine about the woman who's going through it and doesn't have the support of her family and doesn't have the support of her spouse, or is going, uh, by herself to do the surgery all alone. Uh, it's happening a lot. And with the doctors having an opinion, not all of them. I'm going to give some of you all some credit. You're trying to do it, but you

ain't. None of you. None of you. Yes, I said it. I said it. None of you are addressing this the way it should be addressed, which is a very direct this is what it is. These are some systems, not pamphlets. These are some systems you can follow. And if you can't create that system, doctors and you need to find one. I created one. So I can help you. But there's different resources. You have, um, mavi, um, big butt? Snow lies. You have

nutrition, plastic surgery. You have cosmic you have a fit BBL all these women are coming up. Katherine, I can't remember her name, but she did a surgery about the massages and stuff like that. All of these things are important, but that's like five accounts and five people trying to do things. And there's millions of surgeries being done. And so this just needs to be a mainstream thing. Just like making these filters on Instagram is a mainstream thing. You want us to have filters so

that we can see what we might look like? So we can go into the plastic surgery offices. I mean, there was a thought process behind that. I don't care what nobody says. There wouldn't be filters available if you couldn't test out what you might buy later. Big but stuff like that. So if you're going to have that so readily available to society, to where it's okay, now we're getting surgeries, well, we need to make it mainstream.

That mental health and sustainability, doing it right and sustaining the results and having a healthy view on I mean, I'm not saying that if you have wine or if you drink tequila, that you're alcoholic. Some people can control that, and they can just do it on an entertainment type basis. But you're going to find out. If you have surgery, you're going to find out. Well, Stacey, tell me this. How many drinks a week is considered an alcoholic?

It can vary because it just, you know, uh, like I said, I'm not a doctor, but for me it was several. And when we kind of know consciously when we're out of hand, when we've had too many, some people, you know, may consider if somebody drinks a drink a day. I don't think so because that's not my experience. If you drink a drink a day. But we know if we're drinking too much, we know. And, uh, if we have to monitor ourselves, then we're probably an alcoholic. If we have to say, okay.

Because I know for me, I would be like, I'm only going to drink two beers while my baby's taking a nap. But then I'd look around and it would be gone. I mean, I would have a lot of more beers than two and two. We're talking about family stuff, too. And two and three was our family, how much they've been drinking. That always I've only had two or three beers. The usual. Just two or three. Okay, well, then how many shots did you do? It varies. I can't say but consciously, people know.

They know if they're an alcoholic, if they're drinking too much, we consciously know. I would say that what it is, is when you're putting your drinking, and that's the hard part. And that's part of the first step, is being honest with ourselves. If you're putting your drinking ahead of other things, then you've probably got a problem drinking. If you put your drinking, you're using your addiction before everything else, before your family, your jobs, your friends, if

you're dependent on that. And for me, I had a different mindset when I was using drugs and a different judgment, because when I was using, I was more judgmental than I am not using. But the thing is, when I was using, I thought that people were judging me, and that's because I was judging them. Yeah. So, uh, I got to learn through recovery to take my own inventory rather than taking other people's

inventory and judging other people. But to answer your question, if we're looking at how much somebody else is drinking or trying to justify our own drinking and wishing we hadn't done what we did, we probably have a drinking problem. Yeah, I would say that, um, just to see what she said. You don't really know how much, but when I was like, all right, just put some kalua, uh, in my coffee. I need this. I need this to start my

day. This was before my surgery. I was in, like I said, stressful sales, but I was also in vacation sales. So you're selling the dream. You're selling a vacation. You got it. Well, this is my justification, so I got to look like I am vacation. I had a full bar in my office, so every morning was kalua and the coffee, champagne during lunch. Just because it sounds fancy don't mean. Mimosa for Bright. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to drink these two bottles of Moet. Oh, don't carry on that don't make it

better. Honey, it's still alcohol. Okay? It's still alcohol. And it's really bad for you after you have your surgery, especially because it's swelling. It helps contain the sodium and the sugar. I mean, girl, I'm just saying. M let me tell you, whenever I had my surgery, right after my surgery, and I was really feeling myself, and I started to go out more, and I started to drink more, it got to the point where I was like, my fingers are I'm waking up, and my hands are

swollen. Like in pictures, I could see that I looked swollen during the pandemic. Really? It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to quit drinking. I'm not in the environments that I usually am to drink. When I'm not in those environments, I don't drink. So through that, I went on this, like, I just don't drink anymore. Um, I don't buy it. And for a while, I was like, I do drink. I like wine. Wine is delicious. I'm going to drink some wine, and I go to buy the bottle and bring it home and

then think about it. I'm like, man, I might be hungover tomorrow, but I haven't had anything to drink in a long time, so one glass is probably going to get me drunk, and then I'm going to be hungover tomorrow. And slowly do I really want to do that? And it'll just sit there in my fridge and tell them, like, yeah, you know what? I don't drink anymore. It does not appeal to me anymore.

But that doesn't mean that if I get put in the right environment with the right people and the right alcohol and the right music, doesn't mean I won't drink. That's the thing. For me, I always struggled with what I'll, um, never drink again. So I just stopped thinking like that. I do know one thing. My husband will kill me if I drink tequila again. We will be divorced. And that, to me, is more important than my drinking. Apparently, I turn

into the devil. And he doesn't want to be married to the devil, so he wants to be married to Laura Alexis. But also, I know that I'm embarking on this, uh, fitness journey to lead to surgery in one year. I don't want to have to come off of it again. And I just know, because of how body composition works and how science works, that if I don't have sugar and I don't have alcohol in my diet, then my results are going to be better. So for me, that's my new trick, to motivate me not to

drink. Because otherwise there would be no question I'm triggered if I'm on a plane, first class gives you free drinks. I'm triggered if I'm in a lounge. If I'm in an airport, go to American Express Lounge. It's all free, everything's free. And then they like to give you, when you get to a resort, uh, here's your alcoholic beverage. So I have to daily, just daily say, and today is another day. I'm going to be strong today, because if I start thinking about those environments, then

I'll be really overwhelmed. And if you have ever thought, like, uh, you've ever been overwhelmed by the thought that you can't drink anymore, you probably have a problem. And that's the thing, is it's about that excess, but we do feel like we're validated to have that excess, but we're not validated to have our own feelings. And then once we take all this stuff off at the top of our feelings and start discovering, as Laura did, what am I feeling or why am I

feeling? We're talking about health. So in health, I work with people who they think a bowl of ice cream every night is okay, but back in the day, a, uh, bowl of ice cream was a treat. So a drink could be a celebration, a treat. But if you're drinking and it's not a celebration, you know, or if you're eating ice cream every night, do you need to eat? Why are we eating ice cream every

night? Because ice cream really is a treat. And so we have felt, as society, that you have arrived or what if you are able to do these things just because you can. But just because you can doesn't mean that we should. Is that healthy for it? So when we ask ourselves what is healthy for it? I think that what got me was I was at, um, SLS in Cancun and at a beach party that they had combined with Miami. And I drank a lot that day. I can't remember what celebrity it was. There were a few

there, but I was trying to show off. So I bought a bottle of Don Perry on to come out, and they do the whole thing. And so I was sharing with the I was sharing with his cabana. I know it was a guy. I just can't remember which one. It was like an instagram person or something. But they had always in their instagram had talked about drinking like it was, and they didn't drink. I was like, oh, here, you want a glass? You want a shot? He's like, no, I don't drink. I'm like what?

Many people don't drink. People who didn't drink? Yeah. I mean, a lot of people do now. Yeah, you're right. I don't trust people who don't drink. Like, what do you drink? I don't trust you. What's wrong with you? Not anymore. But that's how I used to feel. I mean, I think Stacey was the first person I hung out with a while that didn't drink at all. That was a red flag for me because I didn't want anyone judging me.

Laura so when you went through all of this, and then you decided, you know what, I know you have three babies, four babies right now. So why don't you tell us about your baby? Were you talking about my physical babies? Are you talking about my kids? Are you talking about my husband? Are you talking about my business? I'm talking about your business, baby, yeah. Because I got four babies. Yes. And one is a grown

man, but yes. So make it pop is my baby. It started out as La Mad Spa a couple of years ago, and, um, it was a vision to help as many women as possible going through the plastic surgery process. At first, who were coming into Cancun for the surgeries, but, um, then through a trial of events and God works in mysterious ways that we rebranded to make it pop in 2022, focusing on women undergoing surgery in the United States and partnering up with doctors who actually care about

their patients. Enough, uh, to speak about this subject. And we created a system, a system that guides the women for twelve weeks through their plastic surgery journey, very hands on. So for four weeks, pre surgery and eight weeks post surgery. They have weekly meetings with all of our coaches. Stacey is one of them. We have two others. One that focuses on mental health and nutrition. One that focuses on mental health and sustainability. We have a, uh, customer success

who focuses on the happiness of our patients. But it's designed to be the support system that I never had. Be that best friend, that girlfriend, that's going to tell you from the beginning to end what to expect, but also not just tell you about it, but give you tools so that you can be able to work through it. So we have a platform where there's weekly homework. We have webinars that we do live sessions. Girls, uh, will typically go

through the system three to five at a time. So they're all having surgery right around the same time. Mostly tummy tucks, BBL, lipo, uh, mommy Makeover. So they're feeling all around the same feeling. They go through our nutrition, which is very intuitive. It's not like a very rigid, you got to eat this way, you can't eat that way. Dominic works with them to find what works for them. And this is important because we want to

sustain the results. I mean, that's the biggest thing because in those twelve weeks, and we chose those particular twelve weeks because they're so sensitive, you know, mabi the month before and two months after, it's a very critical time. And the habits that you create during that time set you up or push you down. And so we design Make It Pop to set you up. I call it Make It Pop because it's like, have that surgery, girl. Have that surgery. Do the work. Make it pop, though. Make sure your

mental is in order. Make sure you have a nutrition plan. Like, a nutrition plan doesn't mean that you have to only eat eight grapes and 2 grams of cock protein during snack. It's about feeding what you just did to your body to give you the results that you really want. But if you don't see that woman on the inside, it doesn't matter what's on the outside, you're still going to struggle, just like I did for up to, I mean, uh, we're talking a year

until I found Stacey, you know what I mean? And so the struggles that I go through now, thankfully, my husband the other day, I'm emotional anyway, because I just had a baby. So he's like, you're just emotional. And he's like, and just know I love you. I think you're attractive. You're still the most beautiful woman. I was like, Excuse me, I know that I'm attractive. That is not my problem. I don't feel nothing like that, okay? So don't worry about that. I know I'm attractive. So that

came from the hard internal work. But it took me a year to put all these resources together. And so we're giving it now to women with just a, uh, message. We have a templated like system that we created just for the woman who's going under plastic surgery. And it's a very hands on approach. It's really hard to explain, except for, in a way, as a patient, this is exactly what I needed. It would have helped me get to my mental

goal a lot faster. It would have helped me appreciate the time during recovery a lot better. It would have made me a better perspective. And in the end, um, the end result that took me a year and a half to get to, it could have happened a lot faster. Because mentally, as long as you're okay mentally, you're able to be patient for your body to catch up. And that's what we are teaching and giving with make it pop.

I love it. And now that you all heard that, I'm sure you all understand why I was like, heart emoji. Heart emoji. This is exactly what I want. I'm so happy because I know this is my mission. I knew there's a gap between what we can do in the plastic surgeon's office and what women actually need when they get home and recover or, uh, when they're going through recovery. And I'm so happy to have more people joining. The cause of this is

so important. And in order to have really great results, not only physically, but emotionally transform ourselves using this journey, you all know I'm putting together my course, which is, um, becoming the woman of your dreams during your plastic surgery journey, because it's so much more than physically becoming the woman of your dreams. It's emotionally and mentally becoming the woman that you want to be. And I'm so happy that we have now tools to help with this transformation. Uh,

because I like to use the analogy. Like, during the recovery, it's kind of like you're a butterfly that's in a cocoon and you're building. And if you look at my ring, it's like you're in a cocoon. You are going through recovery. You're swelling, you're bruised, you're in pain. You have mental battles because you can't get up. You can't do

everything you are used to doing. Maybe you didn't know it was going to be like this, but then after if you use that time while you're in the cocoon to emotionally and mentally grow by the time you're done with recovery and you're evolving your brand new beautiful butterfly. Even if your results are not what you wanted, you're so happy and thankful for everything that your results are what you wanted. And if you have to have another surgery, you are equipped to go through that process. So

make it pop. I'm so excited. Before we sign off, tell us about the event.

but also transforming. Theresa Marie, who was just on your show, she will be talking about her fabulous transformation. Down £400 amazing. Um, we have IG Famous by Dana. I know that's one of your besties in this, but she's also so equipped and informed in this industry. Just, uh, before this call, I got Dr. Goodwin who just signed on, a therapist who wrote a book about the subject. So it's all coming together. It's everything that the

listeners need. Any patients that are going to have surgery, have had surgery, you are welcome. It's for doctors, supporters and women who want to go under surgery. If you go to App, make it Pop, USA. You can register right there. And we're going to be coming to you with a lot of advertising coming within the next six weeks or so. We're just getting started. So, um, I'm really excited though, because with the amazing women that we have coming together and men coming together for

this project, it's just going to go boom. And the idea is to help as many women as possible, just like you said, become the woman of their dreams. Starting with the inside. Because being oppressed as a woman for so long and then being shamed for wanting to have things done to our body and all these other things that they do to women, even though we make human beings, it's crazy, but they

do it to us anyway. To be able to support these amazing women who are making a choice for themselves to get things done and us being able to support them, it means the world to me. So I'm really excited for what's to come. And it will be my annual conference that I plan to hold every year. Me too. I'm super excited. I firmly believe that this is going to disrupt the industry as far as what we are doing after surgery. So change is

happening. Post OPC care is changing. And, uh, like we've talked about on the show in the past five or six years, it's exploded. And I feel like this is part of what needs to be addressed as well. Because so many times women are going through the journey and they're not seeing the other side. They're like, disappointed. Maybe the results weren't what they wanted to emotionally. Maybe they didn't get what they thought they were going to get if they had surgery, for example.

Staying in relationships and stuff like that, it's hard. And I'm so excited to have something for our girls to get through their journey. Me too. I'm so excited. So if you're a doctor, if you're in the US. And your doctor doesn't have anything, tell them that make it pop does. Tell them that you know somebody you know if you have a good relationship with. I

hope I hope you all do. If you're listening to the show, you should have a good relationship with your surgeon and they don't have any systems in place to help you through your journey. Tell them because they don't know what the patients are going through unless they've gone through it themselves. And the more we speak up about what is going on, I think the louder we get, the more change will happen. Yes, I agree with that 1000%. Okay, guys, so that's the end of the episode.

Laura, thank you so much for being here. Stacey. Thank you, Matt. We appreciate it. So I will see you guys next week. Bye. I would like to end this episode with a huge thank you to all of our listeners. If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure to subscribe to Big But No Lies podcast and follow us on Instagram at big. Butts. No lies. Podcast. If you have a topic you want me to cover, please send it to the DM. If you know anyone on their plastic surgery journey, be sure

to recommend them the show. You can also visit us on our website, big. Butts. No lies. You'll see the online surgical recovery store. We're adding new items all the time. If there's something you think I need to have on there, send me a DM. Don't forget to leave us a five star rating on Apple podcast. And don't forget new episodes every Monday. I'll see you then. Mhm.