A Mindful Life

24/10/2024

We scrubbed up!

And won!!

This is us at The Independent Podcast Awards last night, where we were shortlisted for 2 categories

And came first in the parenting category!

Such a fun evening, celebrating with all the other independent podcasters, who are a passionate and creative bunch, all podcasting out of love for their topics.

Here’s a link to all the amazing category winners: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWYhD9lyeyCQq?si=trvvbNRsRDqi5zYfRT-5zA&pi=e-BL4vx7VsTIO5

A million thanks to the brains, journalism, ninja like research skills and work ethic of the founder, inspiration and my co-host for the podcast Rachel Richards.

She easily does 90% of the work and I’m so happy she also got to receive the award in person this year. We also won last year (different category), but she couldn’t be there, so I swanned in and took all the glory..🤷‍♀️

Parenting teenagers is such a beautiful, life enriching and, at times, Halloween like terror inducing ride.

I utterly love being mum to my 3 teens and it is easily the thing I’m most proud of in my life.

I feel lucky and grateful that I get to discuss all the different, tricky and often answer-less topics with someone like Rachel.

We discuss sometimes difficult topics and have a lot of laughs along the way. We don’t always agree on our approaches, which makes it way more interesting and useful.

That so many are then listening and finding it helpful is both incredible and a little mind boggling
My teens are part proud, part bemused. (The eldest thinks we’re ‘buying fake listens’ 🤷‍♀️)

Have a listen or share with anyone who is parenting tweens and/or teens https://www.teenagersuntangled.com

13/09/2024

The way out of anxiety isn’t to be calm 
The way out is through 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭

Don’t get me wrong, practicing tools & techniques to feel calm, regulated, able to breathe more easily really, really help.
They can be life saving even. I teach and use them everyday!

But they’re just one piece of the puzzle.

Anxiety is fear - fear of the future, of the unknown, of the uncontrollable. 
Calming tools really help, but often the niggling anxiety returns - perhaps just as a different story.

To really shift anxious thoughts, we need to get quiet, to (courageously) allow and listen to our own personal fear narratives.

When they are clearer to us, we can begin to question them.

And then invite their antidote in : 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭

Trust in ourselves, in our capacity to manage and deal with the ups and downs of life, trust in the universe, trust in life itself.

It’s a practice

Trusting that maybe, just maybe, everything will turn out beautifully afterall. Whatever shape or form that takes.Imagine the freedom 🧡

What are your thoughts on this? I’d love to hear ☺️

17/06/2024

This model changed my life

It’s about communication. Our patterns and the roles we play in relation to others.
Which we’re usually unaware of and often lead to conflict. *

Many of us are pinging around in this triangle, bouncing between the roles, which are dysfunctional and rely heavily on blame and shame.
And exist due to a lack of honest, aligned communication

We all take on these roles at times

But we’re usually drawn to one role more than the others.

Which role is your go-to? At work? At home?

Is your tendency to play the victim? The ‘poor me’ identity?
Or perhaps you are a rescuer? You can’t bear the discomfort of not stepping in to ‘fix’?
Or do you find yourself blaming a lot? Often feeling like you’re surrounded by idiots?!

Both parties in the communication have to play the roles for it to continue.

To step out of the triangle, requires one person to up their self awareness, take responsibility for the role they’re playing and communicate their needs honestly & without blame.

Once you are aware of the patterning and its existence, you cannot unsee it. You start noticing the roles in yourself and in the people around you. It’s amazing information

People use the word gamechanger very freely. This is truly one.

Which role do you recognise the most in yourself?

*The Karpman Triangle is a social model of human interaction, created by psychiatrist Stephen Karpman in 1968

#

10/03/2024

It’s Mothering Sunday and it’s prompted me to think about the words mother & mothering. 

I love this definition:
‘to mother means to treat a person with great kindness and love and to try to protect them from anything dangerous or difficult’
(Cambridge English dictionary) 

Which turns mothering more into an intention and a way of being. Rather than a role that some of us get to play.
It means that we can all be mothering, as we can all choose to offer others kindness and protection, to nurture others.

And the world can really use more of that!
So how about as well as celebrating our actual mothers today, we also celebrate mothering as an intention and as a beautiful way of being with others in the world.

Another use of the word I really like, is when we use it to describe ‘the largest or most extreme example of something’ e.g. ‘The mother of all storms’. 

As I mother of 3 teens alone, this 2nd definition also really resonates… 😁

Happy Mothering Sunday to you all, whatever that means to you and however you celebrate 🧡🌸❤️

10/03/2024