Female-ing – Sarah Denning, The Different Stages Of Womanhood

Hello. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Femaling. We are with women's radio station and I'm your host, Nicole Goodman. Today, the show that we've got is called the Different Stages of Womanhood. And I'm joined by the absolutely beautiful Sarah Denning. Sarah is an experienced midwife. She practices in Hertfordshire, in London. Sarah specializes in treating women and families who have suffered trauma from pregnancy loss during birth. She has always been a huge advocate for giving choice and support to women and has a particular interest in emotional and psychological well being around fertility, pregnancy, birth and the transition to motherhood. Sarah is also a very old friend of mine and I'm absolutely honored to have her here on the show. Sarah, welcome to Femaling. Hello. Thank you for having me. It's lovely to have you here. So I'm going to give a quick insight into how you and I know each other, if that's okay. Sarah delivered both my babies. She was my, I was lucky enough to have Sarah as my midwife both times with both my girls. And my Girls are now 12 and 9, so I've known her quite a while. And the one thing about Sarah, throughout the whole experience, because I saw you throughout it, didn't I? I saw you like every few weeks throughout my whole pregnancy, was your calming nature and your, the peace that you brought. Sorry, sir, Bloody Siri always comes up when I, when I record this show. I don't know how to turn him off and just the, how much you relax me throughout both my pregnancies and if I was ever stressed or ever anxious or ever worried about anything. The minute I saw your face, I just knew that everything was going to be okay. And I think that, well, it's true. And I think that's a real special gift that you've got and that you really give to women. And that's what it says in the, in the bio. There is one time that really stands out that I would like to talk about actually now. So people, get people listening, get a much better idea of who you are and what you bring and what you're going to bring. Today with my second one, she came thick and fast and I'm not going to give, you know, whole boring birth story, but I was under a consultant called Mr. Sheridan, who you worked with. And he's, you know, he's very male, he's wonderful, but very, very male. And when I walked into the birthing suite, I was kind of ready to go and him and my husband were like kind of deciding what was going to happen. And when it was going to happen and I was kept saying, I need an epidural. I need never. They were like, no, no, it's fine, it's fine. You don't need it. And I was literally ready to shoot somebody. And then all I remember I was feeling quite panicked and. And then in walked Sarah and she literally, like came in through a puff of smoke and she like yanked the two men out the way and she's like, right, I will take it from here. I don't know if you lit a candle or. I remember it just felt like you lit a candle and you just put some calming music on. And from that point on, honestly, I remember nothing else apart from your face and this beautiful delivery. And it was one of the most magical moments of my life. So, so I thank you for that. Oh, that's made me feel quite emotional. It's. It's one of the biggest moments of your life, I think. Well, yeah. It doesn't get much bigger, does it? No, it doesn't. And it's. Yeah, that's, that's a terrible description of, of how it must have felt to you. But I think, you know, that happens for a lot of women is they feel sort of. They don't feel in control of what's happening. And I think, you know, my job is always just to support and actually, you know, look that woman in the eye and say, I am here with you, because midwife means with woman. And that's how it should be, is that you are with that woman and supporting her and making her feel like it's, you know, it's her birth, not, not yours or the doctors or mine or anybody else's. It's that woman's birth and you should be facilitating, doing whatever she needs. But I remember that day too. I remember both of your babies. Yeah, not babies anymore. It was just, it was. And the reason that I wanted to bring that story in to start the show off is because the power of what you do and the power of what you bring for women, and you've just, you know, you've just said it beautifully yourself, is so life changing and so magical and, and you do it with such grace. So. And the last time that you and I were talking about this, and when we were talking before we jumped on the show, we talked about the kind of things that we wanted to, we wanted to bring here into this conversation, and one of them was that was how a mother is born when the baby is and how you facilitate that part of a woman's of a woman's identity change, I guess, because it is, isn't it? It's enormous. It's absolutely enormous, the transition. And you. I don't know about you, Nick, but you just can't know how that's going to feel until it happens to you. And there's a lot of talk, especially now, there's a lot of talk about what it's like to be a mother and how it will feel. And you do all the preparation that you can, but you can only imagine what it's going to feel like until you are a mother. And it does change you in I think, most ways you can think of. You're still yourself, obviously, but it does change you physically, emotionally, psychologically, in good ways and not so good sometimes. And it's a huge event in a woman's life. And that is the start of being a mother is when the baby is born. And that means very different things to different people. And it means a lot of things that aren't real in the media, I think, as well. I think it's been portrayed as this sort of Madonna like status. And you can take some elements of that, but actually, real motherhood is hard and dirty and lovely and probably the most difficult thing that you'll do in your life. I hope so. I hope so. In a way. Everything else is gonna be a breeze, honey. Yeah. Especially through bloody lockdown, I tell you that. So what do you mean by Madonna like status? Because that's quite interesting statement. Yeah, it's. It's about, you know, we have this perfect view. Mothers are revered, actually, in. In many societies, many communities throughout the world, as being a sort of almost sort of holy status, you know, and mothers are supposed to be certain things, you know, then they're certainly not supposed to fart. And I didn't think you were gonna say that and get across and be impatient and, you know, all those, you know, all those normal kinds of stuff that we do all the time, they're supposed to be. You have this image of serenity and being ever loving and ever giving and all those things. And of course, you know, most of us, without a second's hesitation, would throw ourselves in front of a bus for our children. They were in danger. But it doesn't mean that you aren't your real self and a real person as well, with all the flaws that come with it. I don't know if you agree or not, but I just feel there's this image of motherhood that has a slight sort of halo around it, and it's A bit of that. But it's not real. No, that's not the reality. That's not the daily experience. And I like that you said there's a bit of that. I would say that you can have those moments, but they are fleeting, aren't they? I mean, you have these, like, euphoric moments of, oh, my God, I just. And, you know, when they're sleeping, for example, when I look at my children and just think, God, I love you so much, I could cry. But they're not. But that's not always the reality. Do you think that that's something that women hold themselves to, this, like, Madonna, like, status? And I think. I think social media has an awful lot to answer for in that respect. There's that, I think. And women look at unreal descriptions of motherhood, you know, these sanitized versions of what they did that day, of smiling mother and, you know, pictures of their children looking all happy and clean, and that's, you know, a tiny bit of it, and it isn't real. And I think other women hold themselves up to those standards and get very upset when they fail and they feel like everybody else is doing a really good job. You know, we've all seen it. We've all seen, oh, you know, my daughter's just done this and she's just achieved that, or my son has just got into this school, or he's done really well in his exams, and that's lovely. But, you know, there's all the other stuff as well. And if your child hasn't done those things or has been particularly horrible that day, I think women feel like, you know, real failures. And do you think that men hold that in the same way? Do you think, like, that informs fatherhood? I mean, I don't think it does, but I'd be interested. I don't think they take any notice of it at all. I think that men difference then. Why? Why is that? Yeah, because they don't have. They're not under pressure. I think men have come under more pressure to be some kind of father these days, but before they could be whatever kind of father they liked, and nobody really questioned them about it, and they didn't question themselves very much, you know, particularly when there was sort of more traditional roles. I think fathers felt that it was just okay to do what they do, and that's good enough. Women, I don't think, have ever felt that, but I think now they feel it more than ever. I don't know why it is. I don't know if men feel they have more. Men are just sort of. They either think about it less or they're more. Just more confident about it or it's just something they do, you know, along with everything else that they do and they don't worry about it. Whereas women worry about most things. Yeah, everything. Everything. Yeah. And I do wonder if during lockdown that this has how it's informing motherhood versus fatherhood. And I know that's not what this conversation is about, but I think there's something changing and dare I say, moving backwards for a woman in terms of equality, in terms of, you know, prioritizing her work or I feel like the load has been dumped back on a woman. Well, and if I know that the doors have been opened, haven't they? The hell pit's been opened and everybody's been thrown in it and the door's been shut. Yeah, let's see what happens. And. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I've been reading lots about people's perspectives of how things have changed since lockdown and it has been a movement backwards. I think women have ended up in a lot of cases, not all by any means, but in a lot of cases with the bulk of the childcare and the bulk of the housework. Again, I think that has helped. Again, you know why I think this is, and this is just my theory is that we haven't, you know, women kind of. They outsource stuff. So it's not that the men have been picking. And I'm sure there's exceptions to every rule. I'm being very generic here, very generic. And I think what women do is they'll outsource it to other people so they'll get cleaners in to maybe help them with the house if they can, or they'll get some childcare in. But I don't see it going over to the. It's not that the men are stepping up. So during lockdown, you know, we haven't been able to have access to that extra help and therefore it's fallen back onto a woman. Yeah, I absolutely agree because I think, you know, men. Men are lovely. Let's not. This is not a sort of a dad bashing session by any means. I think dads are absolutely wonderful, but I think they don't mind so much about. About stuff. You know, maybe it's something to do with our need to have control of our environment. But I think most men, if the house is untidy, are not going to be that. They just either don't see it or it doesn't bother them. Whereas for women, I think it does bother them and it can make them feel less in control if there's all that, you know, mess going on. And let me be completely transparent. Absolutely. This is not a man bashing situation. I actually think that we should. They are showing us the way to be. I think it is, it is simplistic and it is, there is freedom and it is that. There's something very easy about the way in which my husband parents and he's a great father by the way, he's incredibly hands on. But the things I'm haunted by, he just simply is not. And the things that my friends are haunted by, their husbands are simply not. And I think that that is something that we can learn from. I don't see that as. I think it's a great thing. Okay, let's take this forward. Let's take this forward a little bit. And put yourself in your house during lockdown and there's mess everywhere and you've decided that it's not your, your responsibility and your husband is quite happy for it not to be his responsibility. And the kids are not even taking any notice of it and nobody does anything about it. Okay, what, what is going on in your mind at that point? I mean, I'm already having an anxiety attack. Just as you're saying it, Sarah. Exactly. Because you're thinking about it, you're looking at it in your mind and you're thinking, what's going to happen with all that? I can't, I feel out of control. I feel anxious about the situation, you know, and that's why women do it, because they feel those feelings of anxiety. It takes away some of their control over what they, what women still see as their environment. Yes. Where in fact, it's a shared environment. You know, your children are old enough to have responsibility for some of that environment. But the amount of shouting that would have to go on to make them do the things you do, you end up doing it yourself in the end. So how do we, how do we work around this? Because this is one of the stages of womanhood, isn't it? And I think it's an enormous one. An enormous one that we need to take the pressure off of ourselves. I don't think we help the situation. Like, like you just beautifully pointed out. A woman wouldn't be able to sit there with the mess around her, whereas a man can. Well, I can sometimes, but not always. You've got to ask who's got it wrong and who's got it right. Well, you've got to have a look at. Yes, you have got to look at that. You've got to look at this is the situation, what can we do about it? But it depends where you're coming at that situation from. So if you've got a partner, the father of your children who isn't bothered by that situation and you've got the mother who is bothered by that situation, he is going to be much less likely to do something about it because it doesn't matter. Yeah, you know, it's. If you turn it around and let's take something, let's be really, really sexist and take something really sort of traditionally male, like, you know, if he's got a motorbike and the engine's not working, you just think, oh dear, it's a shame. Whereas he would be very worried about that and want to sort it out. And it would matter to him a lot. And to him it may be that things that happen in the home feel exactly like that. So you're not going to get much, you know, you have to have a very grown up discussion about why that matters to you and what it makes you feel like and perhaps compare it to something that he has or does that feels the same way to him. You could say what would worry you if it wasn't working, if it was in a mess. How can we solve that? That's how I feel about being in the house. So it's getting the other person to appreciate what that means to you. And if you've got a good partnership, they will mind that it matters to you. Like if you've got a good partnership, you will mind that what happens with his motorbike because you know how it affects him. It's having that kind of conversation, I think. Yeah, it's communication, it's constant communication. Communication and finding a way where you can just understand one another. But the beauty of women is that I can look at one of my girlfriends and I'm sure you have this too, and I can just give her a look or she can give me a look and we've had a whole conversation, a whole conversation. And it doesn't even need to be a woman that you know very well. You still have a whole conversation. Whereas I'm still having the same conversations with a man, with the man that I've been with for 16 years. The same still have to go point by point by point. We still have to communicate so clearly with each other. But women just know how to do that together, don't they? It's so Special. It's special. And it can be. If it's done in a nice way, it is lovely. But if it's done in a way that, you know, we all know, you go into a room that's got other women in it and you've, you've clocked them and sized them up, you know, before you even look at the rest of the room, it can, it can be a blessing and it can be not such a nice thing. And the trouble is we apply those, those standards to ourselves. We over criticize ourselves all the time. We are over critical of our own selves. And one of the things I say to a lot of clients that I have is, is use your observing self. We all sort of in a situation, if you, if you're in a difficult situation sometimes you may talk yourself through that in your head and think, right, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that and I'm going to get through this by doing this, this and this. Don't we, do you know what I mean? It's, we've all done, we all do it. And I say, I say to them that you should try and be with your observing self, your own best friend. Because if you treated your dearest. Think about your dearest most loved friend. If you treated her in the way that you treat your own self in your head, she would never speak to you again. Never, never, never. If you said to her, you look fat in that, you've had too much to eat, you've been really lazy, you're not very clever, nobody really likes you very much, you've done the wrong thing. Would you say that to your dearest friend? No. Because you just want to celebrate one another, don't you? I love my friend. I want her to feel brilliant about herself. Yeah, well, you should want to feel brilliant about your own self as well. But I think a lot, most women don't do that. We are really good at criticizing ourselves and saying we're not good enough and we don't measure up. But we are no good at being our own best friend. And you should like yourself lots and lots the best before you. You can form, you know, really good friendships with other people. Where does this begin, Sarah? I mean, in all your years of working with women, where do you think this starts from? This, this critical, horrible way of being towards ourselves? Well, I hesitate to say this because I'll probably get lots of knives thrown at me, but it starts with other women in the playground. The criticism starts very, very young in the playground. With other girls. And some of it will have come from observing how our parents roles were, observing how women. I remember my mother, for instance, always used to rush off and brush her hair and put lipstick on for when before my father got home from work. I still do that with Adam every day. I get up. No, I was gonna say I get up 45 minutes early to make myself all pretty for him. No, I don't. He wouldn't, he wouldn't notice, Sarah. No, but it was that kind of thing. I mean, and we don't do that and thank goodness your daughters don't see you doing that because that gives very strong messages on what's acceptable and you know, which is the right way. But I think other girls we measure ourselves by, we're very sort of psychologically and emotionally aware, even as very small children. And that's where it begins. And I think now with social media, you know, trying to become a mother since the advent of social media is so much harder because you've got not only your immediate peer group and your own community, you've got the community of the world telling you how to be a mother and what the standards are. And most of them are not real. No, we only ever see, I tell this to my clients all the time. You only ever see a snapshot of what someone wants to show you. It is a snapshot. It is not reality. It is one minute of their life. You don't see, you don't see the rest of it. You don't see the rest of what goes on behind. I talk to people about this a lot, about when they put something sort of picturesque up or pitch perfect because I'm fascinated by the psychology that lives behind it and why we do these things. And one of my clients said to me that she saw her friend put up all of these cooking and baking photos, you know, through lockdown. And one was her daughter sitting at the desk and one was, then they've got like all these lovely cupcakes in front of them. And she said to her friend, like, oh my God, you like, you are completely and utterly rocking lockdown. Like I feel like I'm not doing anything with my children. And the friend turned around and said, oh my God, it has been a nightmare of a day. I just put those up because, well, because I guess she wants to make herself feel good. So it wasn't even true. And then this woman who was so irritated by her friend doing that, went and did the same thing the next day. So it's just this knock on effect of who are we trying to impress? What are we trying to say? Wouldn't it have been great if she'd put up these taken pictures at the time when the daughter was not measuring things in the right way? And you say, let me do it, don't make that mess, don't touch it, I'll do it. Go and wash your hands before I take a photo of the mess that was in the kitchen. The warmth that would have come from other women. Because when women do occasionally put up reality pictures of what actually life is like in their homes, the outpouring of warmth and, oh, thank God, me too, is enormous. You know, you'll get lots of likes for the, for the sanitized pictures of the cupcakes that have been finished and the washing up that's been hidden of, oh, that looks lovely. Oh, you know, that's amazing. And how great. And there will be a lot of secret envy going on and thinking, really, does everybody else really manage that? Why can't I? But if somebody does occasionally put a real post up saying, it was absolutely awful, you know, that everything fell on the floor and I sh. Shouted at the kids and we burn half of them and I wish I'd never started it. They're crying and rocking in their bedrooms. Yeah, yeah. The daughters run upstairs saying, I hate you. I never want to talk to you again. I, I don't want to do any cooking ever again. You're mean. You know, I used to fit. When I used to do finger painting with my kids, I used to think, I don't know why, I used to have a memory blip every time I did it, I swore I'd never do it again. And then a few weeks go by and you think, yeah, let's do craft. Get all the finger paints out. And you get the paint out and they just make an absolute mess and you just end up really cross and frustrated. And it would take you three hours to get all the fingerprints off all the furniture for about 10 minutes painting. And then they got bored and ran off and did something else and you forget and you, you know, even then, when there wasn't any social media, I used to, you know, I was sucked in by this, you know, let's all craft together or let's do cooking or let's do that. You either end up taking over it because they're not doing it properly, which means they lose all interest. And it's the same old thing. It's just, it wasn't plastered all over social media. We didn't have access to it. But we do, we are completely, we get completely seduced by this comparison monkey. And yeah, I mean, I think what's happening now is that you end up doing things so that you can put them on social media, you know, and what's happening there? Yes, yes, agreed, agreed. And it's even like sometimes even down to like having a Fitbit for example, or you know, like an Apple watch. Well, is there any point in doing the exercise if I can't record it? Like, have I even done it? Like we, you know, have I even had a good day if I haven't put the post up? It's this really weird. We have to prove everything. So what are we proving? But what are we proving? That we're worthy, that we're valid, that we are able to take up space. What is it that women are trying to prove? That's a really, really good question and I wish I had the answer to it, but I don't. It makes me very sad actually, I think because, you know, I've looked after. Women are fantastic creatures. I love women. I have two daughters. I loved my job as a midwife. There is. They are the strongest, most flexible kind, wonderful, clever, intelligent creatures. Women emotionally really, really hooked in. And it makes, it makes me sad as the years have gone by to see that there seems to be even more pressure in different ways. I don't think it's changed very much. I think the pressure is more evident. I wonder if, you know, women have always, always been the same. You know, I think back to Victorian times and what life was like then. Pretty awful. Throughout history, things for women have been in some ways pretty much the same. I mean, thank God we have, you know, people have generally realized now that women are actually very intelligent creatures and can hold down incredibly powerful jobs quite rightly. But they still, you still get the woman who, who will be a CEO, earning an incredible salary, doing an amazing job, who will still go home and have the same issues we've just been talking about within the household. I don't know what it is. I wish I did. I always say that and this is part of what fuels me as being a woman's coach. And I am so like you. I celebrate women. I love, love women. I also haven't they. They're the best. They're the best. There's nothing better than being around, around a very open hearted woman. It's just the conversation is, is my favorite that you, I can't have. You can't communicate the same way that you with a man that you can with A woman. And that's no disrespect, that's just a. It's just a fact. It's just a completely different way of connecting and being together. And I love sisterhood and I love womanhood and I think that there's such a gap in exactly what you're talking about, in how a woman sees herself and how she holds herself. Regardless of what she is doing or how she is or what she has in her life, she will always find ways to tear herself down. And my, my big statement, and I probably said it on this show a hundred times, is we can have all the international women's days in the world, but if a woman still looks in the mirror and hates what she sees, then really, how far have we come? Not bloody very. We haven't. And I think in some ways we've gone backwards really. I think women are so self critical. But it comes back again to this inner friend. Yes. And you can change the way that you think about yourself. You can use your observing self and you can do it from now. It'd be a very good exercise for anyone that's listening to try it next time you do look in the mirror. Think about being your own best friend. Don't think about being your enemy. When our bodies are amazing and I know everyone will think, yeah, we've all heard that before. They bear babies and they. But your body is the house that you live in. You live in your body and it does incredible things for you on a second by second basis throughout the whole of your life, including bearing children. And all we do is give it a really hard time. We punish it. We punish bodies. What are we doing? What is that about? Why are you punishing the place that you live in? Do you see that, do you see that a lot in your work in terms of how, yeah. How a woman feels about her body, in terms of her body image? You mean all the time? Body image is one of the things that I say. I ask women when they come in for the initial booking appointment at the beginning of pregnancy to break the ice. I have to ask about sort of diet and, you know, nutritional input. And you could say, do you eat a good diet? And they could say, yeah, yeah, yeah. I could just tick the box and say, yes, they eat a good diet. Do you eat fish and veggies? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't. I generally started off and say, now look, I'm going to talk about food. If you live in the Western world and you are a woman, there is not a woman in The Western world, who doesn't have some kind of issue around food? So you can be as frank as you like. I'm going to ask you some questions, and you can be as honest as you like. I'd like you to be. And there are always, always issues. They may not surface immediately. We may have to chat around the subject for 10 minutes or so, but they'll come. And there are clues. And it's nearly all of them. You know, we all have, you know, I'm 61, and most people would think, well, when you get to that sort of dinosaur age, surely you don't care anymore. Surely it doesn't matter anymore. And, you know, it's not true. I still care what I look like. Absolutely. Absolutely. But. But then I don't. I don't think there's anything wrong in that. Like, I think there's a. There's nothing wrong in it. It's when it gets to a point where you start not liking yourself. Yes, of. And most women will have little, Little patches of their life where they think, yeah, yeah, I'm, you know, I look pretty. I'm pretty cool with that, man. I'm okay with that. But an awful lot of their life, they will think, that's not good enough. It's not good enough. And that is, you know, you would never be that unkind to anybody else in the world. When I was in the. In the sort of deep, dark depths of my disordered eating, that, that. It's not good enough. It's not good enough. I'd look in the mirror every day and it was never good enough. And it's never going to be good enough. And I'm never going to be light enough and. And I'm never going to be thin enough and I was never going to be, you know, muscly enough or ripped enough or whatever it was of the day that I was beating myself up about. And it wasn't until I looked back at a photo when I started to sort of heal and get a bit better about it with it all and get a bit more balance with my food and a bit more balance with my exercise. And I'm glossing over this because I've spoken about this so many times on here, but it wasn't until I looked back and I remember taking a photo. It was. I was on holiday. I just got back from holiday with my family and I felt like, you know, a hippopotamus because I'd eaten God knows what and hadn't trained properly and. And I looked back and that the day that I took that photo, I felt bloated. I felt revolting. I couldn't believe I was taking it. I didn't. I didn't know why I took it. I was in a bikini. I was skin and bone. I was skin and bone and I didn't see it. I saw a fat woman. I was in a size 6 jeans and I saw a fat woman. That is how disordered we can get with our thinking and our eating. Granted, I was not well, I mean, I wasn't ever medicated or anything like that. And I pulled myself out of it, thank God. But what I'm talking to is very, very common for women. And people think that that can. That is just part of their daily experience, but it. But it isn't, and it shouldn't be because it's not healthy and it's sad and it robs you of being you. Robs you of so much. It takes over. Your whole of your day is organized around how you're going to manage your eating and your exercise and the rest of your day, your real day, your real interaction, your real life, secondary to what needs to happen. Yes. In order for you to feel good about yourself. How little food you can get away with eating, how long you can make yourself exercise. And that is so upsetting. It's a terrible place to be. And the other thing, I mean, thank God you have a lovely open relationship with your girls and you talk to them about it and they will have learned from it. The other thing is that children will see you of that if you're a mother, and they'll be absorbing that. And those are some. That is something they will carry forward with them. Unless, you know, you can be very honest with them about why that happened and what it felt like. Because they see, even though we think they don't, they. They get the subtle lessons of what is acceptable and what you should be striving for. But if you think about that on a. On a level going back to your observing self, Nick, and think about, you know, what. How. What hatred you had of your body in order to be able to do those things to it, to inflict that on it. And, you know, this is what's got to change, is that you have to become the best of friends with the body you've got, which is, you know, our bodies are incredible. They are. They are adapting minute by minute to protect us from illness and injury, to repair themselves, to keep you going, to look after you, to house your psyche and your brain and everything that sits inside it. And you know, if we were logical about this, we would look in the mirror every day and say, you're doing the best job ever. Thank you for looking after me and for growing my babies and feeding them and keeping me strong and keeping me disease free and enabling me to live in this beautiful world that we have. Beautiful. That is the way that you should be looking at your face and body in the mirror each day. Because if you didn't have that body, you couldn't be here. And there's that beautiful saying, isn't there, like exercise and eat well because you love your body, not because you hate it. Absolutely. I mean, that's, that's putting into, you know, my dribbly ramblings. Your dribbling ramblings were amazing. That. Be your own best friend. Be your own best friend. And not just, just for your body, but for your mind and your heart and your soul and your dreams and your wants and your needs and honor them all. Honor them all. I do, I do a. I have a six week, I call it a self empowerment boot camp. And I take six women for six weeks and we go through all the different stages that helps them become a much more empowered version of themselves. And it is the most beautiful thing to watch a woman realize and see herself through a completely different lens. Women have this one lens, the lens that you're talking about, which is just, just critique, just rip yourself to pieces. Rip yourself to shreds. And I've seen all these women on the WhatsApp group and on the calls, supporting one another, being so incredible to one another. And then when I ask them to say, okay, now that you've said that to, blah, blah, now say that to yourself. It is such a struggle. You know, when that's one good thing to do is when you look in the mirror or when you are reflecting, self reflecting. If you think a thought like that, think, would I say that to my best friend? Would I think that about her? Would I do that to her? And if you wouldn't, you know, it's the wrong thing to do for yourself. Yeah, you know, it's, it's really, really sad that why don't we give ourselves permission to be kind to ourselves? What is that? I think, yeah, I was talking to another friend about this, something very similar recently. And I think certainly with my generation, there was a lot of repression of any, of liking yourself. Really. There was, you know, a lot of our mothers would say, don't show off, don't, don't make yourself, don't make a spectacle of Yourself, don't stand out, basically. Yeah, don't blow your own trumpet. That was the worst one is don't, you know, you don't self congratulate yourself. You can always be better. And I hesitate to go into it, but I think I used to. My grandmother used to take us to church a lot and I think there's quite a lot of sort of fire and brimstone about, you know, not showing off and not, not thinking you're great and, you know, you're just a, you know, very tiny little speck of sand in the grand scheme of things. And I think, I think there's probably a bit of over that in a lot of families when children are young. Because when I had my children, I used to tell them, you know, not unrealistic things, but I used to say to them every day, you are wonderful. You know, not that they could win everything, you know, you don't win everything. You learn to lose and you learn to know that people are better at you than with some things, but you can get better at it, it's fine. And your best is always good enough. But up until, you know, right up until in their 20s, I used to send them a message or ring them and say, you are a wonderful child. Because, yeah, even 25 years old, you are a wonderful child. Because my view on that is if you can't tell your children that they're great, you know, there are millions of other people outside your front door who are going to be very quick to tell your children they're not good enough or they're not going to make it. But you have to be the one who says, you are a wonderful child. You know, whatever, whatever they can or can't do. Achievements are not the thing. It's the who they are. It's who they are. And I don't think there was enough of that. I think, you know, a lot of children were very repressed when they were young. And you do believe what your parents say about you when you're little. You take in messages that, oh, you're a good example, actually is my mother always used to say to me when I was little is if I didn't do very well at maths at school, she'd say, oh, none of our family are good. We're not a good maths family. Nobody can do maths in our family, okay? And strangely enough, I'm one of five children, none of us did well in maths at school. And some years later, when I was in my 30s, I thought, I don't know about this. I sort of realized, is that true? So I did mass A level when I was after I'd had the kids just to see and actually I really enjoyed it all those years. And I think a lot of messages that we're given as children from our mothers who are terrified that we're going to make a noise or show them up or, or you know, be overconfident or be a show off, heaven forbid. It informs us of who we are, informs us of how we relate to ourselves. It does. That's a much better way of putting it actually. Yeah. And then, and also, and I loved what you said before about the other girls in the playgrounds. They also inform you of who you are. Yeah, they also. All of these life experiences you take on without even realizing. And I think you use the word absorb. You absorb it all to then. And, and it then tells you who you're going to be and you run with it. And then, then you get these belief systems in your head, right? Like I'm not good at maths. I'm not good at maths. My family aren't good at maths, therefore guess what, you're not going to be good at maths. But I love that you, that you kind of defied it and thought, hold on a second, I'm going to challenge that. Not many people would do that. But it took a long time for me to do that. I mean I was in my 30s by the time I did that. It wasn't something I think, you know, there is a transition. Talking about motherhood, once I had my own children, a lot of things, a lot of my self perceptions, I challenged a lot of them because I think you suddenly realize when you become a parent, and this is quite important, you realize when you become a parent, you've got to become, you've got to become the version of yourself that is good enough for these new lives that you're going to be responsible for. And I think you do challenge a lot of your old preconceptions. Motherhood can bring with it a huge amount of confidence that you didn't have before in lots of ways. It can go both ways. But there are some areas where you think I've got to step up here, I've got to step up. There are people depending on me now. These babies are depending on me to be the best person I can be for them. And I think it makes you less afraid in lots of ways there are things that you will challenge and take on and sort out that you really wouldn't have done before. You have to. You have, you, you're forced to do it. You have to, you know, if my kid is upset or I have to go and deal with something for my kid, I don't even question about, oh, I can't say that, or I can't do this, and I don't want to upset this person. I just, I just go for it. Because her needs are the most important thing to me in that moment. But when it comes to our own needs, obviously it's a completely, it's completely different. Well, it comes down to the same thing. See, it's doing that on behalf of your child. You've got two things going on there. You've got your sort of your, your maternal instinct or your protective instinct going on, and you're doing it on somebody else's behalf, not on your own. Yes. And you know, it's like if, if you've got a friend who's, who's having a problem with someone else being unkind to them, you, you have no hesitation in, on behalf of your friend, defending them because it's dissociation. You're doing it on behalf of someone else. But when you have to stand up for yourself and you're doing it on behalf of your own self, that often doesn't happen because this little, these little voices of do you deserve it? You're not good enough. It doesn't matter. Maybe they're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe you get small again. We get small again. Yeah. Because we're not. We listen. We've been taught for so many, for forever that we're not allowed to take up space. We're not. We have to be polite and good and, you know, live in the expectation of what a woman is supposed to be. Of course that has changed enormously because it needed to. But I still believe that the, the same, the same demons follow us and the same expectations follow us. And I think we still live from a place of guilt and people pleasing and just trying to. Within those confines. We do, but we can change, we can change those things. We can certainly change them for our children. Yes. And I've seen that in my own children is that they are not, you know, I'd never use that. They don't show off, but they are confident in themselves going into the world. They are confident that they are, that they are valid, contributing people in society and they have, they have a part to play. They have a role to play. And that has been probably my single biggest achievement in my life, is to see that, because that is just fantastic. That's. That's my lifetime achievement. Yeah, yeah, it's. What a beautiful thing. And all those. Those moments of the finger painting and the blood, sweat and tears and the parenting, all of it. And then, you know, there was loads of shouting. Yeah, good, because there's loads of shouting in my house. Loads of shouting. Come on. It's. It's normal. But I don't. I don't trust people that don't lose it. I mean, how can you not lose it? Oh, I mean, no, that. That is another thing. I look at people that never lose it, and I think, how do you do that? I used to say to my children, after I chatted at them, I got them all together once and I said, now, look, we need to have a discussion here. You know that I'm going to lose it, but because my. My temperature chain is about one centimeter long, don't you? You know that I'm going to shout. And you know that about 30 seconds after that, I'm going to come and say, I'm sorry I shouted at you. And they said, yes, we know. So I said, okay, just so long as we know what the pattern is. It's very difficult for me not to shout, but you know that I'm going to say sorry. Well, you just summed up my parenting in a nutshell. It's normal. It's normal. It's normal. And look, there's. There's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of pressure to be a woman today. It takes a lot of staying calm. It takes a lot of Zen, if I can ever find it. You know, it takes. Sometimes it takes all my energy just to not shout or not lose it. And I admire people that, especially women. I admire them that can. They can keep their cool. I just can't. But I'm a very. Probably like you. I'm a very passionate person, and I feel everything. I feel every piece of joy and I feel every piece of frustration. That's kind of how I'm built. Okay. Will you find me a mother? You stand a mother in front of me who has never shouted at her children. And if you can find one, I would be amazed. Never, ever, I'm thinking, to all my friends. And then there's no one. There's no one. Well, even if they said they haven't, they will have. How could you not? It's because motherhood pushes you to every single extreme. Well, children are designed to do that because they're designed to push that house. And that's how they gain independence. But I think the important thing there is I was never afraid and never felt it was inappropriate to apologize to my children as well. You know, an awful lot of old fashioned parents, my parents never said sorry to me about, about whether if they were wrong about, you know, there's one of five kids, you know, they just sort of pick one and blame them for whatever had happened and quite lost the time, they'd have got it wrong. But I cannot ever remember one of my parents saying to me, I'm sorry, I was wrong. And children have a very well defined sense of justice. And if you are able to say I shouted at you, it wasn't your fault, I'm sorry, it was my fault, I was, you know, I was just having a bad moment or it wasn't you or anyway, I'm sorry, do you forgive me? I think the ability to say that makes, makes things better. But just going back to sorry, I was going to say it teaches them how to apologise too. I think it's a wonderful thing. Absolutely, that, absolutely, really, really important, important point. What were you going to say? Going back to what? I'm just sort of going back to that. Defending, defending our children and defending our friends and being very good as mothers to be able to defend other people and feeling stronger and more able to do that. But it's this ability to defend our own selves, not in a sort of aggressive sort of way, but to be the advocate, be your own best friend. That, that is probably the single most important thing. And the next time you start sort of in your head saying, oh, you stupid thing, why did you do that? Don't do that. Imagine you're talking to your best friend and think, okay, well that didn't go so well. But you know, it's okay. Well it's, it's taking that moment, isn't it, to be aware, be aware of how you talk to yourself so that you can then change it. So it's very important to try and do that because you've got to catch it, right? You've got to catch it before. You've got to catch it. You have got to catch, you've got to be aware that you're doing it. You can do that. It takes a bit of practice. But you'll find that your life is much nicer because in your own body you'll have a really good mate on board instead of someone who's always sort of poking you with a sharp stick and saying, you know, you did crap today. And also you can only not can only rely on yourself, but you'll always have yourself to rely on. And the one thing that I say to my clients when we've worked through something. Siri pops up again. The one thing I always say to my clients that have worked through something and got to the other side, I always say, that's yours now. That's yours. Nobody else's. Not your kids, not your husband's, not your partners, not your friends, yours. And that's just empowering in itself. Right? Because nobody gets to take that from you because you've learned it for yourself, so you just get to own it. Yes. I think that's a really, really big point that you've made there, is that allowing yourself to have some things for yourself. I think a lot of mothers feel like their life is for other people and not for themselves, particularly when your children are small or even young. I think that women feel that, you know, their lives are all about everybody else. And that point that you've just made is that we are still ourselves inside. That person is still the person you always were. And you have to reclaim that back. And be kind. Be kind. Be kind. Be kind. And know who you are, not who you are not. Which goes back to you sitting in your observing self and catching that critical part of you. It's amazing, isn't it? I mean, I've worked with women all my adult life and. Hello? Hello? Sorry, someone just rang through on my laptop. That's never good, not when you're recording a radio show. So forgot what I was saying. Now what was I saying? I can't remember either because I got distracted there. But it is. I mean, the whole message comes back to be your own best friend. Oh, that's what I was going to say. I work with women all my adult life and you've worked with women all your adult life and there's. I always say there's nothing, nothing a woman can say to me that I haven't heard a hundred times over. And there is also. There is also no. Nothing. No one else except another woman that in my experience, that. Where you laugh yourself till you're nearly sick. I mean, there are just situations that you know that. That humor. Because you just know each other so well. Yes, yes. So we get each other onto. On such a different. On in such an incredible level because we can understand what lives deep down in our souls. Yeah, we get. And we can get to that point. Right? I mean, my best friend and I, we. From the second we're together, we are our husbands. Find us so annoying to be around because we don't stop. We find each other hilarious. And when we say, when our kids are around us, they're like, why are they laughing so much? And my friend will say to my kids, your mummy is so funny. And my kids are like, she's not funny. I'm like, she's hilarious. We see, but what we see in each other is. It's just magic. That is what we see in each other. And I hope that we will always remind each other of that. And I think that that's a beautiful thing that women can do for one another, is just to remind them of who we are because we're all in this together and we all have our own doubt and we all have our own little demon sitting on our shoulder and our own critical self that can really take. Can really take a hold. And. And I think that's something that we need to do for each other, with each other, is to be very much in support. We do. You need to put your best friend in your head. That's. That's your lovely best friend that you laugh with all the time and she needs you in her head whenever you look in the mirror. Yeah, that's. Although she's very critical, but maybe I'll pick another friend. No. Is it in it, you know? Yeah, get rid of that one. Yeah, it's like, what is that top you're wearing? It's disgusting. You know, that kind of thing. Yeah, I'll pick another one. But, yes, we do. We need to be. In order for us to get to where we want to get to, we need to be kinder to ourselves, for ourselves and understand what it is that we bring to the table. Yes. And understand the prejudices and the subliminal messages that have probably led us to the place that we. We are now so that we can undo them. Yes. And I always say, and I've probably said this a hundred times too, it's an unlearning to be. To do some work on yourself and be part of the self development and want to grow as a person, as a woman. There's a lot of stuff we have to unlearn that we has just been. That has just been built into us through systems that we don't even realize it's. So it's just social conditioning, isn't it? Absolutely. Yeah. I think you've summed that up beautifully. It is social conditioning, but, you know, women continue to be wonderful. Yes. And just the best fun. Sarah, thank you so much for being here on feedmailing today. You are an absolute joy to listen to. It's been amazing to have your wise words here, and thank you. Well, it's been great talking to you, actually. That's always a treat. Haven't done it for a long time.