Hi mamas. Today, I’m excited to have Joy Netanya Thompson on the podcast. Joy is a writer who covers the intersection of motherhood, culture and identity and whose writing has appeared on sites like Parents, Motherwell, Romper, Coffee & Crumbs, and she’s also the author of the substack newsletter, Midweek Joy. She lives in LA with her husband and 8-year-old daughter.

This is a rich and raw episode where Joy shares with me her experience of becoming a mother, the traumatic birth of her daughter and how this, amongst other factors including postpartum depression, shaped her decision to have no more children. We discuss the inner conflict this decision has brought about for us both, the considerations of both our own needs and those of our existing children in this decision, and how the lack of societal and personal support plays a role in this too.

In this beautiful conversation, we also discuss:

• The journey to knowing yourself better through motherhood, in terms of the mirrors your children hold up which allow you to see yourself in a more honest and truthful light than what you might have experienced before. We discuss parts work and the journey of seeing and accepting the different parts of ourselves that live within us and have been shaped by our own childhoods.

• Our experiences of mothering without a blueprint, how this can play out with regard to our desire to parent differently, and the process of reparenting while parenting.

• Joy’s experience of birth, her feelings of failure surrounding it and her journey towards acceptance. We also touch on her experience with EMDR as treatment for this trauma.

• The beauty of the moments where we delight in our children, the honour of having a front-row seat on our children’s lives, and the importance of them feeling this love above all else.

And so much more. I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation today as much as I loved having it.

Here is where you can find out more about me (Yara), how to work with me and some resources:

Why Am I So Angry Workshop

*** Waitlist for The Rebirth, Group Coaching for Mamas ***This is my signature 3 months online group coaching container for mothers which covers family of origin, inner child work, nervous system basics, anger, boundaries and much more.

@lifeafterbirthpsychology

www.lifeafterbirth.com.au

Free Inner Critic Workbook

Free Values Aligned Living Workbook

Find out more about Joy:

@joynetanyathompson

www.joynetanyathompson.com

Looking for support for anger while you mother? To access my Why Am I So Angry Workshop click HERE

Hi mamas. Today on the podcast, I’m joined by Jacqueline Kelly, a matrescence coach who supports mothers who feel like they’ve lost themselves in motherhood. Founding Our Brave Hearts, Jacqueline works to challenge the unrealistic standards of motherhood that we are encouraged to aspire to and to support mums in rediscovering and reclaiming their confidence.

In this beautiful conversation, Jacqueline reflects on her own journey of matrescence and her transition from the freedom, adventure and spontaneity of living overseas to having her sense of self imploded when she became a mother. We discuss the romanticism of her notions of motherhood prior to having children, the identity crisis she experienced within the reality of it, where she has experienced the most growth along the journey, and the duality of the joys and the losses of motherhood.

We also discuss:

• The experience of meeting yourself in motherhood by seeing parts of yourself in your children, the complexities of this and how the parts of our children that we struggle to hold are often the very things we never had held for us in our own childhoods.

• Privilege and how the abundance of the times we live in allow us the space to have awareness and insight to be intentional on how we raise our families and create a different future for them.

• The complexity and the emotional load of motherhood and the importance of having safe spaces to talk and work through these feelings, voicing our lived experiences in order to survive in, and surrender to, the process.

• How deeply entranced idealised values and norms around mothering still are, and how the patriarchal structures of the societies we live in are so inextricably linked with our experience as mothers in this world.

And much more. I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation today as much as I loved having it.

Here is where you can find out more about me (Yara), how to work with me and some resources:

Why Am I So Angry Workshop

*** Waitlist for The Rebirth, Group Coaching for Mamas ***This is my signature 3 months online group coaching container for mothers which covers family of origin, inner child work, nervous system basics, anger, boundaries and much more.

@lifeafterbirthpsychology

www.lifeafterbirth.com.au

Free Inner Critic Workbook

Free Values Aligned Living Workbook

Find out more about Jacqueline:

@our_bravehearts

Our Brave Hearts website

Looking for support for anger while you mother? To access my Why Am I So Angry Workshop click HERE

Hi mamas. Today on the podcast, I’m joined by Penny Moodie, a writer, OCD advocate and mum of three. In 2023, she wrote the incredible book, ‘The Joy Thief’, sharing her personal journey and the stories of fellow OCD sufferers, exploring OCD stigmas and treatments with raw honesty and zero judgement.

In this conversation, we talk about Penny’s experience of becoming a mother, and in particular her experience of this while suffering with OCD. Undiagnosed at the time of her first child’s birth, she reflects on how the transition to parenthood prompted her to seek diagnosis and help, wanting to be fully present for her son.

We also discuss:

• Penny’s preparation for motherhood, and her reflections on how her OCD consumed so much of her energy and brain space that she spent comparatively little time thinking about and preparing for the shifts and changes that parenthood would bring.

• How OCD showed up for Penny in the early stages of her motherhood, and how perinatal OCD can affect both men and women.

• The significance of finding the right therapist, with the right interest or specialism in what you are seeking help for, and the importance of attuning to your intuition and sense of knowing when it comes to what is working for you, and having the confidence to seek an alternative therapist if you don’t feel it’s a good fit.

• The role of self-regulation in parenting and how, by nurturing this skill and the ability to repair when we don’t respond how we would like, we can see real change and growth. We also discuss this in the content OCD, and how self-regulation requires you to sit in uncomfortable emotions.

• Embracing failure as an integral part of growth, and therefore reframing hard and challenging experiences as ones that will ultimately help us evolve.

And much more. I hope this beautiful conversation lands with you today.

Here is where you can find out more about me (Yara), how to work with me and some resources:

Why Am I So Angry Workshop

*** Waitlist for The Rebirth, Group Coaching for Mamas ***This is my signature 3 months online group coaching container for mothers which covers family of origin, inner child work, nervous system basics, anger, boundaries and much more.

@lifeafterbirthpsychology

www.lifeafterbirth.com.au

Free Inner Critic Workbook

Free Values Aligned Living Workbook

Find out more about Penny:

@penny_moodie

Buy ‘The Joy Thief: How OCD Steals Your Happiness - And How To Get It Back’

The So OCD website

Looking for support for anger while you mother? To access my Why Am I So Angry Workshop click HERE