The Motherkind Podcast

This week, I’m sharing a special episode of the Motherkind podcast. We are living in totally unprecedented times of change and unknown. My commitment is to use this podcast to help in any way that I can, so I’m bringing together some incredible guests to support you through this difficult time.   I’m welcoming back Julia Samuel MBE, who appeared on the podcast recently. Julia has a Sunday Times bestselling book out right now, ‘This Too Shall Pass’, which is all about change and I felt that Julia would be perfect to start off this series of experts speaking about the coronavirus. In this episode, Julia shares some brilliant tips and ideas around how to talk to our children about what’s going on right now. She also shares some insight around how to stick together when you’re forced together and becoming aware of each other’s fault lines. We also talk about what you can do to look after your own wellbeing and how to find some positives, and even opportunities, in this situation. I found our conversation really reassuring and calming – and I hope you do too. I am incredibly grateful to have you in my community – please know that I’m here for you so do reach out via email at zoe@motherkind.co or over on Instagram. Now is the time for us to come together more than ever and lead the way in helping others through this challenge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TRIGGER WARNING This week I’m speaking with Hannah Barrett, who you might know better as Yoga Girl London. Hannah is a yoga teacher and has a real passion for helping people transform their lives through yoga. Hannah particularly loves supporting mothers, and she specialises in pre and post-natal yoga. This episode comes with a trigger warning: Hannah shares in detail about the trauma she experienced during her daughter’s early days. It left Hannah with PTSD and a huge part of our conversation is how yoga helped her to save her sanity when she felt totally lost and in a very dark place. Even if you’re not into yoga, I think you’ll get a lot from this episode. We talk about self-care, Hannah’s ‘happy habits’ and how she learned how to ask for help, having found that really challenging to start with. I hope you enjoy the episode. For the full episode show notes, please head over to motherkind.co. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week I sat down for a lovely conversation with Nehanda Truscott-Reid. Nehanda is a holistic wellness coach for women and she has an incredibly inspiring story. Raised by a single mother on an estate in Brixton, everywhere she looked, she was surrounded by stories of motherhood linked to pain, sacrifice and struggle.  Through some inspiring inner work, Nehanda reprogrammed her views around motherhood and her life’s work is to help others do the same. We had a really inspiring, wide-ranging conversation. Here’s some of what we talk about: - Nehanda’s struggles to conceive and how she reframed that - How she was able to conceive naturally - The importance of values in parenting - and how they can change as we become parents - Conscious parenting - The parent we thought we’d be vs the parents we actually are – and how to navigate that gap - How to handle the lack of control we have as parents, specifically around who our children are  One of the biggest things I took from our conversation is that how we are is how we will parent – so the biggest gift we can give our children is to work on our own stuff - our triggers, our pain and our anxieties. I hope you enjoy this week’s episode – and if you did, please do share it with a friend or loved one who would find it helpful too. For the full show notes from this week's episode, head over to motherkind.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week I’m speaking to the wonderful Rebecca Campbell, who is a writer and teacher. Rebecca leads workshops internationally and helps to give people an experience of their soul. She is the bestselling author of the two books, ‘Light is the New Black’ and ‘Rise Sister Rise’. If you haven’t read them yet, I highly recommend them both and particularly ‘Rise Sister Rise’ which really spoke to me about our time to rise as women. Rebecca is a brand-new mum to Sonny, who is five months old. In our conversation, we talk about becoming a mum and the experience of her home birth. We also talk about how to find your purpose and how to connect with that small whisper inside, which Rebecca calls ‘your soul’. We speak about anxiety versus trust, connecting with our intuition and how to really feel our feelings. I really enjoyed speaking with Rebecca and I hope you enjoy the episode. For this episode's full show notes, please head over to motherkind.co. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week I’m joined by Julia Samuel MBE, who is one of the UK’s leading psychotherapists, specialising in grief and loss. You may already know Julia from her brilliant book ‘Grief Works’ and through her work as Founder Patron of Child Bereavement UK, which teaches authorities how to support families to rebuild their lives after loss. We had a beautiful conversation about transition and change. We talk about the change of becoming a mother, which is far more complex and challenging than ever before. We also talk about the constant change of family dynamics and how we can use these moments of transition to help us grow.  Julia’s new book ‘This Too Shall Pass - Stories of Change, Crisis and Hopeful Beginnings’ is released in March and is all about the challenge and power of dealing with change. I really enjoyed our conversation - it’s such a privilege to sit with people like Julia who are doing such profound work in the world. My focus right now is trying to reach more mums and parents with the podcast – if this episode resonates with you, I’d love it if you could share it with a friend or loved one. For the full episode show notes, please head over to motherkind.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week I’m speaking with Dr. Alexandra Kasozi, a chartered counselling psychologist with a special interest in working with mothers. We had initially intended to frame our conversation around the inner critic and how we speak to ourselves. Whilst we do cover that, as you’ll hear it actually became a far broader, powerful conversation about one of my real passions; working on the relationship we have with ourselves. I really believe that this is one of the most important things we can do as mothers and it was so helpful to have Alexandra’s insight from her years of experience working in this area. We talk about how the way we speak to ourselves becomes internalised and affects how our own children speak to themselves. I share some personal insights from my own journey and Alexandra shares some practical tips and simple things you can do at home to start working on your relationship with yourself. I hope you find it useful. Read the full show notes over at www.motherkind.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TRIGGER WARNING. This week I’m talking about intrusive, unwanted harm thoughts with Dr. Caroline Boyd. I didn’t realise this before I recorded the episode, but this is a really common issue – as you’ll learn, most parents will at some point experience intrusive, scary, harm thoughts about their children. However, it’s something that just isn’t spoken about, so I’m really glad we’re having this conversation. Caroline is a clinical psychologist, a writer and a mother. We speak about: • Where intrusive thoughts come from and why they happen • How to manage them • I share my own experience with intrusive thoughts • Caroline shares her experience and those of some of the people who took part in her study Our intention is that in listening to this you feel comforted and come to realise how normal this is. If you’d like more information, you can head over to Caroline’s website. If you are concerned by anything this episode raises please go to your GP. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week’s episode is a re-release with Dr. Rebecca Moore. Becca is a consultant perinatal psychiatrist with over 20 years experience in treating the psychological aspects of pregnancy, birth and early motherhood. Her clinical expertise covers PTSD, birth trauma, anxiety, depression, and the mum-baby bond. She is also training to be an Integrative Practioner - which is a healing-oriented medicine that takes account of the whole person, including all aspects of lifestyle. It was great to chat with Becca and learn more about this vitally important area and the work she does. What we cover in this episode: - What birth trauma is and how we know if we need help- What we can do to prepare for birth- The importance of normalising psychologically challenging births- The power of journaling and other ways we can start to process our birth experiences I hope you enjoy the episode. As always, we continue the conversation over on Instagram, so once you’ve listened to the episode, come and join me there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is with Katharine Graves - founder of KG Hypnobirthing and one of the first to bring hypnobirthing to the UK. She has personally taught over 3,000 couples and trained 2,000 practitioners in her method. We discuss - can birth really be empowering? Where does the fear of birth come from? How can our mindset help or hinder with birth? For full show notes, please head over to motherkind.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Giving birth is an incredible event yet the recovery from childbirth can take weeks or even months. Many changes occur along the way and one of these could be the relationship between you and your partner, especially in the bedroom. Unfortunately, postnatal sex is very rarely discussed and can be a real source of anxiety for couples. In this week’s episode, &Breathe founder Clio Wood shares her personal experience and insights on how to cope and get back to pleasurable, pain-free sex postpartum. She discusses how to deal with potential resentment between yourself and your partner after childbirth and how to ease your way back in to having sex. She also shares her thoughts on women putting too much pressure on themselves and what mindset to adopt to be more positive about this change in your life. For full show notes, head over to https://www.motherkind.co/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices