Book excerpt: Say goodbye to anxiety, OCD, and alarming thoughts with this compassionate guide for new moms as you welcome your baby with a warm hello. Motherhood is one of the most difficult and demanding jobs to exist. It has led many women to physical exhaustion, mental fatigue, emotional rage, and ultimately, chronic burnout. The expectation to be everything to everyone and be everywhere all at once requires mothers to give and give and give, until there’s nothing left to give. Yet, despite the challenges that naturally come with mom life, new or seasoned mothers are rarely prepared for the endless worries, spiral of anxiety, or frightening intrusive thoughts that disrupt this critical bonding period with your loving baby. Add perinatal mental health conditions like postpartum depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), or psychosis to the mix that is even less talked about, and you have the perfect storm for maternal unwellness. Hello Baby, Goodbye Intrusive Thoughts offers evidence-based cognitive behavioral (CBT) and exposure and response prevention (ERP) strategies to stop the spiral of anxiety and alarming intrusive thoughts, so you can spend less time “in your head” and more time connecting with your child. Jenny Yip, PsyD, not only understands and treats anxiety and OCD, she has battled her own postpartum OCD with the birth of twin boys. Now in this groundbreaking book fueled by a lifetime of professional dedication and personal insights, Yip delivers the essential guide that has benefited countless patients and mothers under her empathetic expertise over the past two decades. Whether you’re a new or seasoned mom, Hello Baby, Goodbye Intrusive Thoughts provides a toolbox for all mothers to worry less, stress less, and do less of mom guilt in order to get back to what truly matters to you—Baby. Enriched with practical step-by-step exercises, heartfelt stories from moms across the globe, and the latest scientific research, you will discover strategies to: Grasp what drives your anxious thoughts and behaviors Embrace uncertainty to engage more authentically with baby Disconnect from the worry train that interrupts your bond with baby Build a flexible mindset to mitigate the negative mind traps that disengage you from baby Let go of perfectionism and mom guilt to restore maternal and baby wellness Establish mental, emotional, and physical boundaries to ease the invisible demands of mom life and honor your motherhood identity Create life-long stress-less habits that better serve your sanity and growing family By practicing the habits that will nurture your bond with baby, you too can reclaim wellness on your motherhood journey with Yip’s humble and compassionate tested approach.