Joyful Being, Studio 17, First Floor, 105 Victoria Street, Fitzroy (2025)

22/12/2025

While I’m out of office over Christmas, I decided to give you a present:
sassy “Jackie” one-liners to send my vibe your way while I’m on leave. 🎁

These little gifts are reminders to hold onto during the tough days — because you are not failing, you are most likely responding to your context.

I’ll be back in the office Monday 5 January, and I can’t wait to see my clients in the new year.

Need support while I’m away?

You don’t have to navigate this alone. Here are some trusted lines:

• PANDA (Perinatal Mental Health): 1300 726 306
• For When (Perinatal Mental Health Navigation): 1300 24 23 22 (Mon–Fri, 9–4:30)
• Red Nose Grief & Loss Support: 1300 308 307 (24/7)
• Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636
• Lifeline: 13 11 14

💛 Please take these one-liner presents as permission to rest, lower the bar, and be compassionate to yourself!

18/12/2025

Loving your life isn’t always easy.
It means learning how to stay with yourself when it’s hard.
When things don’t look how you imagined 💔
When you’re grieving the family you don’t have — or the support you needed and never got

There is a particular kind of grief in building a life without any experience of or support from a safe, present family.
And there is also strength in learning how to build a support team anyway.

Friends. Chosen family. Therapists. Colleagues. Community.
People who show up in small, steady, human ways.

This year stretched me internally.
It broke some illusions that maybe things might change.
And it taught me how to hold grief and keep choosing my life.

If this resonates, you’re not doing it wrong.
You’re doing something very brave 🫶🏻

11/12/2025

Because honestly?
It’s not the perfect moments that bring us together as parents… it’s the messy, chaotic, slightly unhinged ones.
Share a moment that made you think, “Yep. This is parenting.”
You’re safe here. We laugh with you, not at you. 💗✨

10/12/2025

Connection vs Authenticity in the Perinatal Period

One of the most confronting parts of early parenthood is realising that some of the connections you’ve carried through life weren’t truly built on you.
They were built on who you had to be to stay connected.

The perinatal period has a way of stripping things back.
Sleep deprivation, the intensity of caring for a newborn, the sudden expansion of responsibility, the hormonal rollercoaster, the identity shift—all of it makes masking and self-abandonment so much harder to sustain.

Your nervous system won’t let you ignore your needs the way you used to.
Your baby’s needs force clarity.
Your capacity shrinks.
And for many people, that’s when the truth of their relationships starts to surface.

You may begin advocating for yourself, your time, your rest, your boundaries—sometimes for the first time ever.
You might speak up where you used to stay quiet.
You might push back where you used to over-function.
You might protect your child in ways no one ever protected you.

And suddenly… some connections feel shaky.
Not because you’ve done anything wrong, but because the version of you those relationships relied on is disappearing.

This is where the grief lands.

Grief for the friendships that don’t survive when you stop overgiving.
Grief for the family relationships that feel different now that you won’t play the old role.
Grief for the parts of your identity that feel foreign or lost.
Grief for the safety strategies that once worked, even if they cost you pieces of yourself.

None of this means you’re failing at connection.
It means you’re moving toward authentic connection—the kind that can hold the real you, the messy you, the newly-expanded you.

The perinatal period isn’t just about becoming a parent.
It’s about becoming someone who can’t lie to themselves anymore.

And while that honesty can shake things apart, it can also build something sturdier, truer, and far more connected than what came before 🫶🏻

21/11/2025

You can bring your A-game parenting energy and still get met with a hard NO. It’s not failure—it’s just a reminder that they’re their own tiny people, not our performance review.

I’m sharing for my own therapeutic processing and reminder 😂 But perhaps it’s also a helpful reminder for you ❤️

20/11/2025

Baby loss changes you in ways no one warns you about.

You start meeting a new version of yourself—the parent you were becoming—and then it’s suddenly taken away.
And it’s not just the baby you lose.
It’s you.
The identity you were growing into.

People talk about grief like it’s about missing someone.
But baby loss also means missing yourself—
the self you were becoming,
the self you no longer get to meet.

You’re left in a strange limbo.
Not who you were before.
Not the parent you were becoming.
Just… in-between.

If you feel like you don’t belong anywhere right now, you’re not broken.
You’re grieving multiple versions of yourself.
And that grief makes sense 🤍

13/11/2025

Working is mothering. Full stop.

The income we earn isn’t just numbers — it’s safety, food, housing, and stability. We are ensuring that our kids don’t have to worry about tomorrow

Mothers are told to feel guilty for earning and that it is separate to caregiving, but money and security are part of how we care. We acknowledge it as an essential part of a father’s role and now that women are working more we deserve the same definition 🫶🏻

Let’s start naming that 🙌

14/10/2025

October is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month.

I used to think my Joyful Being business story ended with my pregnancy loss — but it became the seed for something new.

Joyful Being was born twice: once in hope in 2018, and once in healing in 2023.

Now I get to do this work alongside my colleague — .with.bec someone who’s been there through every step of this journey, personally and professionally ❤️❤️❤️

I’m so proud that we get to share this space together and make a difference for others who also know this pain 💔

09/10/2025

I am sharing this for Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month.

Awareness is so important — but acknowledgment alone isn’t support. Women need so much more support in their pregnancy losses. The impacts are ongoing and huge.

To anyone feeling unseen in their experiences of loss: your grief counts, exactly as it is.

You may feel invisible, but that’s not a reflection of your worth — it’s society’s discomfort with grief. We have definitely made progress over the years in our levels of awareness.

AND we still have a long way to go in learning how we can show up more ❤️❤️❤️

03/10/2025

When society can’t hold your grief, you start to think something’s wrong with you. After my pregnancy loss at 20 weeks, people didn’t know what to say. I was discharged with no follow up or supports. I wasn’t coping and thought there was something wrong with me. The silence from everywhere made me feel I was the problem for not moving on with ease — but really, I know now that there was no space held for my grief.

I was all alone with such a complex grief. I discovered the power of being in nature and especially the beach. Just the sound of waves and a place big enough for everything I was feeling. Nature didn’t fix the pain, but it could hold it. The ocean soothed my nervous system and reminded me: I wasn’t broken, I was grieving.

If you’re carrying something heavy and there’s no one to hold it with you, let the sky, the ocean, the trees hold it for a while. It’s not a cure, but it’s a way through until you find the right support for you 🤎🤎🤎

15/09/2025

Menopause is often talked about as a “hormone problem.” But research shows it’s much more than that. Psychologists are now reframing menopause as a developmental life stage—just like adolescence.

What this means:
🌱Menopause isn’t only about physical changes. It also involves identity shifts, role transitions, and meaning-making.
🌱Many women describe a sense of “not feeling like myself.” This often includes:
• Burnout or exhaustion
• Mood fluctuations
• Cognitive changes (memory, concentration)
• Relationship strain or re-evaluation
• Old trauma or unresolved stress resurfacing
• Loss of identity after years of “masking” (especially for late-diagnosed ADHD/autism)

The research tells us:
🌱Menopause is linked with identity disruption and a need to reconstruct one’s sense of self.
🌱The pressure and external messaging from society to stay productive, selfless, and compliant adds to stress and internal conflict
🌱Positive beliefs about menopause can protect wellbeing, while negative beliefs can increase distress.
🌱 Many women experience this stage as a gateway to re-embodiment—a time to reclaim autonomy, shift priorities, and reconnect with authenticity…..perhaps for the first time ever.

Core psychological tasks of menopause include:
🌱Disentangling from old roles and expectations that no longer serve
🌱Re-evaluating values and priorities in life
🌱Rebuilding identity with greater authenticity
🌱Integrating new ways of being that support health, relationships, and meaning in a healthy way

Why this matters:

When we understand menopause as a normal psychological transition, not just a medical problem, women can receive the support they need. This recognition allows menopause to become a time of growth, empowerment, and flourishing rather than simply loss or decline.

💡 Key message: Menopause is not only a physiological change—it’s a psychological turning point. With awareness, knowledge and the right support, it can be a powerful stage of renewal and identity reconstruction for women.

Credit: Concepts and research presented by Kirstin Bouse, . Kirstin is doing fabulous work in this space and I highly recommend following her 🌱

28/08/2025

Motherhood is the time women are most likely to struggle with their mental health. And when there’s no village around you, the struggle can feel even heavier.

Part of the problem is that so many spaces don’t support mother and baby to both have their needs met. Mothers are often feel societal expectations to keep babies quiet, feed discreetly, and often to be apart for appointments- even when separation feels biologically stressful for both of you.

That’s not how it works here. In my therapy room, you don’t need to apologise for mothering. Babies cry, feed, wriggle, and need to be held—that’s normal. We can make space for both your needs and your baby’s.

I’ll hold your baby if you need the toilet. I’ll grab you water. We can pause for feeds, changes, and settling. And if you’d rather come alone and soak up the chance to just be you—that’s supported too.

You do you. This is your space—for both of you. 💜

Joyful Being

22/12/2025

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21/11/2025

20/11/2025

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