Mum As You Are

You find an hour to yourself. A moment you’ve potentially been anticipating for weeks. What do you do? You fantasize about what you *could* do - book a massage? see a friend? read a book?

Then the moment comes. Is this excitement or anxiety in your body? Is this feeling calm or am I just frozen? Somehow you can’t think of a single thing you want to but instead are filled with thoughts – I’m feeling ok now, maybe I should just fold laundry. I’ll just go online for a bit, just to get ideas and chill.

Next thing you’re looking at photos of your kids on your phone and the hours is almost up. Now you’re all frustrated and angry at yourself again for not doing alone time ‘properly’.

What happened?

As a mother, I’ve found myself fantasising about the second I can hand the kids over to be alone, only to find that the moment I’m truly alone, I don’t know what to do with myself.

Social Media Detox for Mums

Getting up at dawn to journal, exercise and smash goals might work well for well-rested people. But what if you're not yet a member of the well-rested Mum's club? Is getting up earlier the answer?

Social Media Detox for Mums

Wintering doesn’t have to occur in the physical season of winter. It can represent a time in life that’s challenging and depleting. A time when your soul needs to rest and pull back.

Today I share 4 lessons I've learned in wintering

This book might also be helpful:

Wintering: The Art of Rest in Difficult Times

Some of the best anxiety tools around are ones that people often assume are just for kids. I'll share with you a few fun, playful tools to introduce or re-introduce into your stress and self-care practise.

Like pretty much every mum I know, I have too many tabs in my brain open: when did I last worm the dogs? How am I going to find time to go to the dentist? Does my youngest have allergies? Is it bad that I stopped taking my kids to swimming lessons? Is every choice I make as a mum somehow always "wrong"?

The internet regularly gives the message that if only you tried a bit harder, or focused a bit more, you could have the cake and eat it. But don’t eat cake, OK? Because of sugar, white carbs and gluten, oh my. Am I doing anything right?

Turns out there's a is a word for this experience: Paro

It means the feeling that everything you do is somehow wrong.

It works best as a visual example, so if you haven’t seen this short video explaining it

One of the dirty secrets of parenting that not too many mums seem willing to talk about is that sometimes parents don’t enjoy playing with their children. Or maybe they never enjoy playing and would go so far as to say they hate it. There’s a few reasons for this, and with a few tweaks the concept of ‘play’ might shift for you.

*NB* that's cockatoos in the background in case you're wondering. I live in the bush, this is life!

Social Media Detox for Mums now on sale!

Something like 90% of new parents will have intrusive, scary thoughts. I'll explain what they are about, how to cope with them and a bit about what situations are expected or 'normal' and what situations would be considered problematic or a psychiatric emergency.

Social Media Detox for Mums now on sale!

Following on from last week's episode about EMDR for birth trauma I thought it would be useful to delve into birth debriefs. They've become popular, and I do offer them myself but are their practice standards? What does the research say? And, in what circumstances could they make trauma symptoms worse?

In this episode, I explain as best I can in lay language what EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) is and how it can help process past and future births. This type of therapy is intense but it tends to work faster than exposure therapy or CBT based techniques.

Four times a second your nervous system will ask "Am I SAFE?"

We can find a lot of relief by using practical tools that appeal directly to our 5 senses.

If I asked you - which sense do you think you've been neglecting lately? What might your answer be?

Recently I was reading a book and came across some useful ideas for what to do while you're waiting for therapy or in between appointments. Usually when someone books an appointment there's been a big wave of emotions. Sometimes the emotions subside a bit while life gets in the way, sometimes we block them, sometimes we forget exactly what was happening or what we were thinking in the times when it felt intense. Writing things down to remember when you have your session helps. Having a list of energy light ups and energy dim downs can help too. 

This is the second part of a conversation about the science of why parents judge each other. What happens when we attribute fault to someone else based on their character (e.g, they are an idiot), but we assume people will give US the benefit of the doubt when we have our own crisis?

Social Media Detox for Mums now on sale!

Today I'm sharing one of my favourite Easter books that is such a surprise and a delight. 

A book written 84 years ago by a white man from the deep south of the USA. Life is full of surprises.

There is research evidence suggesting that women are judged more harshly for their decisions than men.

In The gift of imperfect parenting, Brene Brown says we judge each other so harshly because most of us feel like we are barely holding on. We are afraid of making mistakes, so we perceive anyone who is doing anything differently as criticising our choices.

Leaning into growth and changing behaviours that better reflect and serve your value system is huge. Applying a sense of compassionate self-reflection when it comes to judging ourselves and others is an important part of the conversation.

Judging is an anthropological and safety behaviour. We don’t need to judge our judging (lol) but I think it helps to be mindful of what purpose judging serves. Let's unpack it a little. 

Social Media Detox for Mums now on sale!

We're told to prioritize self-care, but do we ever really hear about prioritizing fun? I'll share some lessons I've been learning in how to make motherhood more fun

Catherine Price also has a book on the topic called The Power of Fun: Why Fun is the Key to a Happy and Fulfilling Life.

When I look back on my early mothering, I'm often wondering "what would I do differently? What was making me miserable then that I now have clarity on?"

I came up with 5 things.

Want to be a course tester?

If you've struggled with motivation and trying to change a behaviour maybe consider that laziness and willpower have nothing to do with it. Maybe you've been trying to make a style of motivation fit when it's a total mismatch to your personality? Today I'll share a tip that has really helped me understand why certain approaches (like bootcamp!) really don't work for my personality type.

This week I jumped to hit record after a client and I pulled out some good nuggets about control. Often, when we automatically go to scroll, we’re not really there for the content (the things we watch, read and listen to). We’re there for the process and the associated feeling (numbing and subconsciously trying to control)

We’re not honest with ourselves (and our therapists!) about our verbs

We tell ourselves we are researching, when actually we are comparing

We say we are relaxing, when actually we are numbing

We say we are checking when actually we are distracting

Instead of surrendering to the fact that we ultimately can’t control things like:

How our children behave (they have free will)

How many followers we will get

How much money we will make

It feels incredibly uncomfortable to surrender so staying with the illusion of control can become a breeding ground for addiction. We ultimately numb, distract, avoid and control things to avoid pain.

Today, I'll share some compassionate tools you can use to recognise when you're using scrolling and checking as a way of controlling anxiety and stress

Social Media Detox for Mums now on sale! with the 21 day online course soon to follow

This is the one I recorded then deleted three times. Then I recorded it, but decided I didn’t want to publish. I went ahead and wrote a few other posts instead, and look, it would be absolutely fine if I never shared it with the world. But then it nagged at me.

In reading The Tools by Phil Stutz (go watch the Netflix documentary, Stutz if you haven’t yet, it’s brilliant) and Barry Michels, a passage jumped out at me:

‘There is a way to find it [self belief]; it involves a profound secret. What appears to be a weak and inferior Shadow is really the conduit for a higher force- and it’s only this higher force that gives us enduring self-worth’

So, I share this today so that someone else (whether they ever share it with me or not) has the sense of “oh thank God I’m not alone. I don’t have to be perfect”

If you’re having a moment where a negative feeling isn’t passing maybe what you need is to just sit with it.

It’s ok to just sit in the feelings and have compassion for yourself that they are there, rather than trying to fix them or get rid of them.

Social Media Detox for Mums now on sale! with the 21 day online course soon to follow

Today I share a little peak inside the 21 day social media detox course I'm working on. This activity will challenge you to try monotasking - listening to an album from beginning to end WITHOUT doing anything else at the same time. Just listening, not judging, just noticing. When I fist tried this for myself it was embarrassingly much harder than I thought it would be. The urge to pick up my phone or do something else was strong, but I think this helps us with our focus. Just one thing at a time helps the nervous system and brain relax. 

Music nerd detour...

I attempt to summarize my new book, social media detox for mums in less than 10 minutes. A brief overview of what you can expect to find in the chapters and what I hope will be the major takeaways from this book.

Pre orders for my new book, Social Media Detox for Mums is open!

I take you through a handful of the books that have impacted me in some way along this motherhood journey. Most are not even parenting books per se - there were so many I could include, but ultimately I chose ones that inform my work and philosophy on life, and even a few that have pictures. 

When getting up earlier, staying up later, or working when kids nap isn't an option...

I'm currently home with my kids for school holidays, but I've still got work to get done (I've got a book coming out afterall!). In this episode I share a little about how I've gotten things done while the kids are around. It's not perfect. It doesn't always pan out, and yes, to be honest sometimes it feels like we're back in lockdown, but hopefully these suggestions help. 

This podcast episode was recorded as part of a video series on my YouTube channel 

Pre orders for my new book, Social Media Detox for Mums is open! It's currently part of Booktopia's New Year, New You promo

5 tools to cope with overstimulation. Brene Brown says we cannot selectively numb, and yet we still try it out multiple times a day. Even an amoeba in a petri dish will move away to avoid a toxin. We all avoid feeling pain. When we pick up our phones for a quick check or a quick scroll, it’s often to avoid pain. To distract from the overstimulation of mothering.

Pre orders for my new book, Social Media Detox for Mums is open!

Is it true that when you heal the trauma you stop some of your trauma reactions? 

Not necessarily!

Sometimes, in addition to managing stress and dealing with out traumas, we need pattern interrupters. AKA tools to help undo some automatic behaviours. Maybe you come from a family of yellers and it's become an ingrained, automatic behaviour? As much as you want to stop, it keeps creeping in? If you've struggled with mum rage then this tool I'll share might be useful for you. 

Pre orders for my new book, Social Media Detox for Mums is open!

A tool to use when you're having one of those days (or many of those days!) where you just feel like you're failing at motherhood. Feeling capable and confident is a practise! 

Pre orders for my new book, Social Media Detox for Mums is open!

Instagram can be a positive experience, no doubt. However, it's also a breeding ground for toxic positivity and a cultural phenomenon that's maybe best described as cruel optimism. 

Today I'll explain where we blur the boundaries between Positive Psychology (a really useful, evidence based and amazing mental health movement) and toxic positivity. 

In other words, what happens when people tout an overly simplistic 'pom pom' shaking approach to mental health and parenting. When we say things like "just be positive", or "practice gratitude" while bypassing some of the complexities of mental health, it can be not only unhelpful, it's downright cruel. 

Pre orders for my new book, Social Media Detox for Mums is open!

My girls have their birthdays 2 days apart so this is the time of the year I think back to their births 5 and 7 years ago. Even though I’m done with babies, I absolutely still use some of the techniques I learned and taught in Hypnobirthing. I used one of them just the other day.

I thought it might be interesting to reflect on what tools I still use. 

If you don’t know, I used to teach Hypnobirthing through Hypnobirthing Australia and it helped with my own two traumatic births. It’s still something I endorse and use, I just think there’s a big variety in what’s taught in different programs. I’m personally not a fan of techniques that use too much frontal lobe activity – counting contractions and breathing in and out for certain counts.  In birth, we want the problem-solving part of the brain to feel safe enough to turn off so that the deeper, mammalian brain can do what’s it’s designed to do.

I’m also not a fan of the cruel optimism culture that can exist within some Hypnobirthing communities. Planning for a positive birth is one thing. Getting self-righteous about ‘natural or nothing’ can be cruel and invalidating. 

There’s no right way to Hypnobirth – drugs or no drugs, interventions or no interventions, you should never be made to feel like you’ve failed or didn’t try hard enough.

I'll talk your through my 5 most used tools!

P.S. If you want to see me use the Chinese Finger Trap exercise, the video format of this episode is on my YouTube channel 👇

Pre orders for my new book, Social Media Detox for Mums is open!

This week I reflect on busyness and its relationship with parental (or any other kind) burnout

I'll discuss:

Why people look at me funny whenever I'm asked if work is "busy" and I say "No!"

My history with associating being busy with being safe - family patterns, coping with school bullying, work patterns and coping as a new mum with birth trauma

How my body has shown me that I'm no longer built for being busy

Why we use busyness to avoid stillness and why we need stillness to grow and learn

The quote about life that made my stomach flip and an exercise you can use to reflect on the life you want

Pre orders for my new book, Social Media Detox for Mums is open!

In this episode I'll spend some time reflecting on an observation I've really noticed in the last 12 months - that more and more women are talking about being diagnosed with ADHD.

I'll cover:

How we can reflect on - what is parental burnout and/or anxiety, depression and trauma from the pandemic, versus what is ADHD?

Is it possible the pandemic has highlighted underlying, undiagnosed ADHD for adult women?

How common is ADHD, really?

A little bit of history behind why so many adults were never diagnosed 

Myths around what we think ADHD should look like

Myths and history around medication

What does ADHD look like in adults? What would you be looking for before you go off and get tested (which is an expensive and multi-step process, but might well be life changing for some)

AND- something I'd always stress - The trickiness of diagnosing a neuro-developmental disorder by using observation, rather than actually looking at the brain.

This week I reflect on how social media impact the maintenance stage of mental health

I wonder how many mums go to therapy or coaching for one hour a week. In that one hour, they work on strategies to feel better. But then, within an hour they are on Instagram scrolling for 20-plus hours before their next session. Do you see what I’m saying about how social media addiction might just be cancelling out the deep mental health work? That it might, in fact, be interrupting the process of maintenance?

I'll talk about the cruel optimism that is telling people to "just use it less" and why overly simplistic solutions ultimately don't work for complex issues

I'll share 4 of my top takeaways about my own mental health I've noticed since quitting socials 18 months ago 

You can watch the video version of this conversation on my YouTube channel 👇

Pre orders for my new book, Social Media Detox for Mums is open!

This week I explain something that's the bread and butter of most  types of therapies - when should you actually feel and process your feelings and when should you use a tool (like distraction) to just manage in the moment?

I'll cover:

What is 'urge surfing'? 

When does distraction NOT work very well? 

Validating the experience of having a child who is upset and just isn't calming down with your usual bag of tricks

Thinking about when is it safe to feel feelings

I'll share an anecdote about how even the late Queen used distraction, and a story about how I sometimes used to pass out when I tried using distraction

SALE!

With it being Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Awareness week in Australia (November 6-12th) I'm running a sale on all my mental health courses.

Use code: PANDAWEEK22 at the checkout

For 50% RRP until November 13th

Today I share an acronym that's used in addiction recovery and why I think it's a helpful prompt to put as a visual on the lock screen of your phone.

I'll cover:

Noticing what your body is telling you about internal stress cues

It's human to want to distract or get rid of pain

Reflecting on your own experience of connection versus communication and are you actually topped up by using your phone? What could you do instead?

I've been noticing myself and other people using the word "still" quite frequently. As in "still" tired, "still" overwhelmed. As if we somehow have an internalized belief that we shouldn't be feeling this way. 

Rather than judging ourselves, I wonder what would happen if we stopped adding the word "still" before our emotional experiences? 

I'm often asked how on earth I managed to write and publish my first book when I still had a baby and a 2 year old. Today, I'll take you through my messy mother's writer's routine and how I wrote More Than a Healthy Baby: Finding Strength and Growth After Birth Trauma. 

This was a book that just had to come out of me! and no, I didn't get up at 5AM or sacrifice any precious sleep to get it done. 

I'll take you through:

How to take the pressure off and maybe rethink what it actually means to write a book (versus what you think it has to mean)

Why I think a lot of writer routines you hear about are unachievable for mothers (and a bit wanky)

The difference between 'shallow' writing and 'deep writing'

How I take notes and research

How to know if a book topic is going to sustain you for the time it realistically takes to write, publish and promote a book

If you struggle to practice self-compassion, know you're not alone! 

In this episode I talk about:

Why telling Mums "don't worry about the mess!" can be invalidating 

How buying my kids stuff from Kmart to get a dopamine hit through lockdowns was OK. How it's also OK to move that stuff along now, along with all the gifts family wanted to give them after not seeing them for a while. 

Normalising mum rage

Why clutter can be triggering for childhood wounds. I talk about my own ancestral patterning around poverty vs having too much "stuff" 

How to practise self-compassion by allowing ourselves to sit with the negative emotions that come up when we have regret or shame around purchases or things we've brought into the house that we don't use, want or even like! 

Black mothers in the Bronx are still 12 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women

For more information about the film, visit: