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Far 2 Fabulous
Join Catherine & Julie, your feisty hosts at Far 2 Fabulous, as they lead you on a wellness revolution to embrace your fabulousness.
Julie, a Registered Nutritional Therapist with over 20 years of expertise, and Catherine, a former nurse turned Pilates Instructor and Vitality Coach, blend wisdom and laughter seamlessly.
Off the air, catch them harmonising in their local choir and dancing to 80's hits in superhero attire. Catherine braves the sea for year-round swims, while Julie flips and tumbles in ongoing gymnastics escapades.
With a shared passion for women's health and well-being, they bring you an engaging exploration of health, life, and laughter. Join us on this adventure toward a more fabulous and empowered you!
Far 2 Fabulous
Women Heal Women: Reclaiming Our Ancient Wisdom with Mandy Rees
Episode 74
Women Heal Women: Reclaiming Our Ancient Wisdom with Mandy Rees
What happens when a high-achieving corporate lawyer reaches breaking point and realises her true path lies in healing the very wounds she sustained in a male-dominated profession? Mandy Rees takes us on her remarkable journey from burnout to breakthrough.
After years of proving herself in the legal world, Mandy faced a crisis when postnatal depression hit following the birth of her first daughter. "I didn't tell anyone because lawyers don't get postnatal depression," she reveals. Returning to work when her baby was just three months old, she maintained the façade of the competent professional while crumbling inside – an experience countless women will recognise.
The story shifts dramatically when Mandy finally steps away from her legal career and begins to reconnect with her authentic self. Through running yoga classes for new mothers, she discovers something profound: women desperately need spaces to share their experiences without judgment. "I watched women support women in a way I'd never experienced before, and it was that that healed me," she shares.
This realisation forms the foundation of Mother for Life, Mandy's business dedicated to creating supportive circles for mothers. Her refreshingly simple yet deeply impactful approach provides spaces where women can talk, share, and realise they aren't alone. As she eloquently puts it, "Humans are not meant to human alone; we're meant to human together."
Perhaps most compelling is Mandy's perspective on reclaiming ancient feminine wisdom. "The world needs the wise women," she asserts, "and we have to own that space." By challenging the societal undervaluing of motherhood and reconnecting with our intuition, women can heal not just themselves but also our planet.
Ready to join a supportive circle of women or perhaps create one yourself? Connect with Mandy at motherforlife.co.uk and discover how women truly do heal women.
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Thank you for listening.
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We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.
Welcome to Far Too Fabulous hosted by Julie and.
Speaker 2:Catherine, join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candy chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered wellbeing. Let's dive in.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Far Too Fabulous podcast. Catherine's already laughing at me because I'm doing the introduction in as jolly a way as I can. Stop it In a jolly way, stop it, stop it. We've got a guest with us and we're supposed to be on FSP Favour, okay, so today we are joined by Mandy Rees, who I've known for a little while. She is. I've asked her to come on because I think her story is very inspiring and she was a lawyer I'm going to call it high powered a high powered lawyer who kind of suffered the effects of being in that environment and burning out and then realizing when she had her children that actually maybe things have got to change. And now she is the owner of Mother for Life and she is all about supporting women, which of course we love on this podcast, don't we? So welcome, mandy. Thank you for joining us and taking the time. I think we should start with you telling us your story, really, because I think it's really inspiring.
Speaker 3:Thank you, well, first, all, you don't have to be well behaved. For me, excellent Badly behaved women are always welcome in my spaces. That's how we change the world, I think, by being badly behaved Absolutely. And thank you so much for having me here and for giving me the opportunity to share, and it's really lovely to be described as inspiring, so I'm very grateful for that, thank you.
Speaker 3:So I grew up as the classic older daughter people pleasing, perfectionist, high achiever wanted to be an archaeologist, until I was told I'd have to do Latin. My mum said no, daughter of mine is being an archaeologist. So obviously, being the good girl, I thought, oh, oh well, what can I do? That might tick somebody else's boxes. So I did a law degree, um, also because my form teacher told me I was too stupid to ever get into a law degree. So it was a bit of well, if you tell me that I'm going to prove you wrong. Did the law degree qualified? Got the training contract?
Speaker 3:I did do something slightly rebellious. I took a year out traveling, which my mum couldn't see any purpose in whatsoever. Slightly rebellious, I took a year out traveling, which my mom couldn't see any purpose in whatsoever. That was about the most rebellious thing I did before I got to uni and then I qualified and at that point so in my mid to late 20s, loved being a lawyer. I thought I loved being a lawyer because I was playing the game of being the girl lawyer in a man's world with the suit and the high heels and going to the meetings and I got my black brief. So I was successful because I had a black brief. I was going down to London doing the late night completions and I thought it was fabulous and it was to an extent because it was success and externally I looked very successful. It was success and externally I looked very successful.
Speaker 3:Towards my late 20s. My people, pleasing and good girl, undid me a lot and I was working really, really long hours and I ended up in hospital. Actually, I ended up in hospital as a trainee because I had a chest infection and I continued to work. I didn't take the time off, which ended up with a severe asthma attack, a week in hospital, pumped with steroids, all that kind of stuff, worried about what people might think if I didn't get back to work. Because that's what you did. No one took any time off sick. Then, a couple of years later, I had severe eczema, which meant I had to have eight weeks off work and I did kind of start redesigning my life a little bit at that point in terms of nutrition and hydration. So those were a couple of wake-up calls and actually, as a result of my ex-wife, my now husband and I left our jobs, actually went off traveling for eight months.
Speaker 3:Um came back to the same jobs and I think because I'd taken the time off and I'd obviously reflected and refreshed in that time. But I came back feeling under pressure to prove myself even more so, continued to work extremely hard in a team where there weren't really at that point there was one other woman. She was more senior than me and a partner, and we didn't get on. I didn't I mean, I'm sure we'll come into this and didn't really like women very much at that point. So she was just someone to compete with. Everything was fine, got married, then got pregnant very quickly after we were married.
Speaker 3:About nine months after we were married, grace, my first daughter, came along and it was like being hit by a bus. I had postnatal depression but I didn't tell anyone because I was too ashamed of it and lawyers don't get postnatal depression, you know. We just just just doesn't happen. Um, so I went back to work when she was three months old, in the midst of post-natal depression, not telling anybody what was going on, five days a week, just exhausted, under pressure, stressed. I didn't have anyone to share with. I didn't have any friends who'd had children that were close by that I could talk to. In fact I wouldn't have spoken to them anyway because I was embarrassed that that was how I was feeling. I felt like I'd failed at being a mom, felt like I'd failed at life, and I guess then it took me about three or four years to be ready to have another baby. So I had another daughter four years later.
Speaker 3:At that point I was part-time in my organization. Well, I was paid part-time, but working pretty much full-time hours, just not being paid for it. You know the story. My husband is also a lawyer, so, to throw that in the mix, he's a lawyer. So his hours were crazy. We were both transactional lawyers, which meant hours when the clients needed you.
Speaker 3:I think the upside of remote working is you can work from home, but the downside at that point was clients could access you 24-7, but there was no opportunity to remote work. So it was almost the worst of both worlds. At that point, there was no opportunity for me for work from home and I decided well, we decided as a family, when Grace was eight and Eve was four that it wasn't sustainable for me to do that job anymore. I was just banging my head against a brick wall, getting the difficult clients because I'm good with people, getting the difficult systems because I'm good with systems but basically being sidelined, and it was obvious that the guys on the team had been picked as the next partners and going forward.
Speaker 3:So I did get promoted whilst I was on maternity leave, but that meant going down to London on the train with my brass pump pumping in the toilet just before my senior associate meeting, worrying that I'd go in with milk all over my shirt and my mum phoning me saying oh, it's not very well, I think you need to come home. I was like, well, I can't come home, so I'm about to go into my promotion interview. So, yeah, there was a lot going on at that point and I don't think I really took a breath until I stopped working. So this was in 2010, when I was, when I resigned as a lawyer, um, and that's when I took a breath, and that's when the change really happened.
Speaker 1:I'm impressed that you managed to do well. Not impressed is the wrong word really, because it's not something to celebrate that you battled like that for eight years. You know when you describe that you think how the hell did she do that for eight years, right?
Speaker 3:I think. Well, I know it's because my self-confidence and self-worth was pretty low that I couldn't see there was an alternative. You know, I trained as a lawyer. I'd gone to law school. My mum loves the fact that I was a lawyer. I'd gone to law school. My mum loves the fact that I was a lawyer. I had a whole identity built around being a lawyer.
Speaker 3:We do not celebrate motherhood, so I wasn't able to stand true in my I'm a mum faith at that point. And although it was super hard going back to work when Grace was three months old, it did give me a lifeline, back to something I knew, which was a part of me that could still function, because that mother part of me and that self-confidence part of me she didn't exist at that point. She was on the floor. So, going back to work, in a way, although it was practically an absolute disaster, it did give me that, okay, you are a somebody outside of this mess, that's a mum. But it meant I put my heels on and I put my suit on, I dropped Grace at nursery and then I'd sit in the car going right, this is fine, this is fine, get into lawyer mode.
Speaker 3:I'd go into the office with that mask on and with that appearance, and then I'd get home and you know, some days I just just crumble. I. I mean, I was breastfeeding her three or four times a night and going to work five days a week, like you, julie. I look back on it now and think, how on earth did I do that? But women are amazing and when we have to get through stuff we will get through stuff, but it's often to our own detriment. But I was like the rabbit in the headlights then. I couldn't see that there was a different path for me and I was too frightened to let the lawyer in me go, because who was I if I wasn't a lawyer?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So when you did make that decision, how did you feel about it? Were you in this kind of no man's land of I don't know what to do? Who am I? What happened?
Speaker 3:Because I've had such a hard time with Grace.
Speaker 3:When I had Niamh, I consciously tried to build a network of support, and also with Niamh I had a whole year off maternity leave, which was so different to three months, though I was a very different person when I went back to my job, being paid for three days a week, working four or five.
Speaker 3:I felt that I was able to make a decision from a place of not full power but more sovereignty than I would ever have had before. So I felt that it was a decision that because I could have at that point thought I could have gone to a different firm or tried it differently. But actually I think I've been so burned by my experience that I didn't trust that there could be an option in law that would work for me at that time. But I didn't feel like I'd kind of been chased out of the profession. I felt more like it was a conscious decision that I'd made for me and the family to leave. I'll never know whether it's the right one. I think it is, because I've done some amazing stuff since, but I felt I didn't have a choice really, but it was a choice I was happy to make.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting because I don't know if you know this about me. I think you do, but I was a construction planning engineer and so very much in that male dominating uh, dominated industry a bit like you, felt that well, actually didn't even feel like it was an. I had to prove myself because it was thought that the women doing that job, we were less able, so we had to work extremely hard and then when I got to the point where I decided that I was coming out of this job and then going into nutrition, which I trained in alongside working, it was almost a very easy decision. But the amount of times that I was called back to construction or tempted back to construction. But I actually didn't have any desire at all to do it. I had been offered.
Speaker 1:I was walking my kids around Leeds Castle, which is a beautiful place near us, and I bumped into somebody that I used to work with, a project manager, and he said oh my God, I can't believe I've bumped into you, julie, I am desperate for a planning engineer. Would you come back to work? And I said, no, I don't do that anymore. And he threw this figure at me that my husband was with me. I think he nearly fell over, you know.
Speaker 1:And afterwards, as I had said no, and then afterwards my husband said to me wouldn't you just go and do that job for a year? That is so much money. And I said the money it doesn't matter. It was just like the stress and everything that went with that. I just thought I am not doing that anymore to myself and I'm now doing this, and it takes a little while, as you probably know, when you've been in a job that is perceived as being very successful, and you've been in a job that is perceived as being very successful and you've been paid quite well for it to to then move into something that you then you're passionate about but it's not on the same level. It takes a bit of time to to build it up and and know that that that's the right path. I guess I'm is what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's that all body reaction, because about three or four years after I'd left, one of my friend's husband, who's a partner in a firm in Birmingham, approached me would I go and work for them? And my body just knew that the answer was no. As a small child, I trusted my intuition. Then it gets almost taught out of you. But what this space has given me is to go back to trusting that instinct and women are really instinctive and I just knew with all my body that I didn't want to go back.
Speaker 3:I am trying to go back and change the legal world, but from a different place now, not as a lawyer from somebody else. But when I left law I didn't have an immediate. This is what I'm going to do. I didn't. I all I knew was I wanted to do something. My one goal was, if I can stop one mom feeling as lonely and as sad as I did after grace, then that was my mission. And actually I started a maternity wear business because I thought if I make moms feel nice in their pregnancy, um, and talk to them about well-being, it'll make them them feel better. But I realised retail I'm not. My sole purpose is not to be in retail and I learned that pretty quickly, so I didn't leave knowing what I wanted to do. I just knew that it didn't. It wasn't going to be in law anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I definitely couldn't see you in a retail business. I have to say no, no, no. So how did the like the mother's circles come come about? Because when we're thinking about the timing of it, I think you know, years and years ago mother's circles were a thing, weren't they? And women is supporting each other, and we kind of moved away from that. So how did you kind of find that even coming up with this mother circle thing? How did that come about?
Speaker 3:well, it evolved over the years, because I tried, because I started with the maternity wear brand and really didn't like that at all, but I still knew I, you know I've got to make this difference to mums, got to help m somehow, because we're so hard on ourselves. Society undervalues motherhood so much and it broke me. But actually it broke me in a way that enabled me to get reborn, I guess. But also I was in a place where I didn't trust women either. So that's a bit difficult when you want to work with women but actually you're either scared of them or you think I'm better than them so it's okay, you can't get me. And that's kind of where I was in my legal career core group. I'd come judge, assess the room and like, right, that woman looks scary so I'll avoid her. Or actually, she doesn't look scary so I'll go and hang out with her, she'll all right. But probably that guy over there looks the safest of the lot, so I'll go and talk to him. Um, and it was actually my husband who said you've just had a really negative experience of women. They're not all like this. If you want to help mums, you're going to have to help women.
Speaker 3:So I trained as a pre and post-natal yoga teacher and a baby massage practitioner and started doing those classes, and every time I sat with women it was like, yep, they're really nice, these ones are really nice as well. And, oh gosh, there's even more really nice ones. And I just kept coming across amazing women and I watched women support women in a way I'd never, ever seen or experienced before, and it was that that healed me. It was that that made me realize I don't have to be perfect. I can ask for help. Other people struggle with the same things that I struggle with. I'm not a weirdo who can't cope with life. I'm a woman navigating what life throws at her, which is what all these other women are doing.
Speaker 3:And because of my experience with my mental health, I always wanted to make sure all my classes and groups had a space for mums to talk during, but also afterwards, so we always had chance for a cup of tea and a biscuit afterwards, and I realized pretty early on actually that was the most valuable part for most people, because that's where the friendships were created and the communities were created, and I would have like meetups for mums and Christmas parties and things like that, and yoga's brilliant baby massage is amazing, but it was. The essence of them was that well-being thing of women sharing their stories and talking as we would have done hundreds of years ago and we all went into our red tent and hung out together and it was glorious. So I realized that was the most beneficial part for the women. That was the one that brought me the greatest joy because that's where I saw the greatest shifts happen. So I just kind of moved those classes gradually into mother circles, particularly during COVID.
Speaker 3:Obviously, when lockdown happened happened. That was really hard for women generally. I think studies are showing, aren't they? Women took the brunt of caring responsibilities and household responsibilities in COVID, even if they were doing jobs outside of the home as well. I started I still did lots of my classes online, but I started doing like three cups of tea I used to call them and four times a week mums could just come and have a zoom cup of tea with me and whoever showed up I didn't need it to be proved to me, but that's when it did, you know, I got the final nod yeah, these spaces are so, so important for women and mums.
Speaker 3:So post-covid, I just kind of didn't do my classes anymore. Really I just did mother self, because then I did a pregnancy. I did do a pregnancy yoga group, but again, a huge element of that was the well-being and the talking about what you know your birth story is postnatal care, looking after yourself. I just followed my nose, really, if that makes sense. I just basically I've created a business that gives mums what I needed, what the 32 year old Mandy, when she had her first child and she was just terrified created that support network that she needed and I've just trusted my gut on what the mums have shown me they needed and what it was that I really wanted at that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's lovely, isn't it? Do you know that episode we did about communities and we were saying that we both had that issue with women?
Speaker 2:didn't we? Yeah, initially, when I was younger, I was just while you were talking, I was thinking what is it that has created this? Either fear or competition, maybe Competition, yeah, between women when we were younger, because I feel like that has to have happened and, like you, it's not until I was. I mean, I'm a nurse by trade, so there was women all over the place of every type, but I'd still, yeah, it wasn't actually until I was a mother and and now and now, business owner that I have got numerous, like what I said in that episode, numerous circles of women and actually my, my real, my first one, as you're, I'm just thinking about my NCT group, and I didn't necessarily join NCT to get any of the antenatal care particularly.
Speaker 2:I was a nurse at that point and I was well-read. I kind of knew roughly what I was up to. It was definitely about that community and actually I'm going to I don't know if Mary's going to kill me for outing her I'm going to her 50th birthday this weekend, um, and so we've been, we've all been friends out. So all of our NCT babies have all just turned 18, um, and it's a beautiful circle and community, but those were the people that I used to get together with once a week and we go in with these babies and go, oh my goodness, this baby just did this. And then everybody else would go oh my goodness, thank god, because mine keeps doing that as well and you suddenly realize that, uh, yours isn't broken, or I think mine was slightly broken, she's crazy, but but but that they were all doing that, and that that sense of community, that sense of relief that we could just pass all this information around between us was invaluable and we're not born disliking other women.
Speaker 3:Little girls don't come out disliking other little girls. It's the paradigm that we live in. The education system pits everyone against each other. We're testing all the time, exams who does the best. But from a girl's perspective I think we feel like there's less opportunity for us in the world, so there's more of us fighting for fewer opportunities. Social media really doesn't help nowadays. I mean. Luckily we didn't have to navigate that when we were younger.
Speaker 3:But you know, going from the Disney stories of the villainous, wicked stepmothers, you know we're brought up with these stories of women being awful to other women and it kind of serves the masculine paradigm that women are fighting against each other because it takes us out of the competition. You know, teenage girls are horrible to each other. They still are. I've experienced it. Both my daughters have experienced it, because I think a lot of daughters are carrying the wounds and the hurt that their mothers have got, which their mothers are passing down from their grandmothers. So there's that ancestral piece. We live in a society still where you're more successful if you're a white man and that's not saying there's some brilliant white men out there, because there are but it's significantly harder for girls to be successful. So, particularly when you get to professions such as law, there's less room at the table for you. So you compete rather than collaborate because you're worried that if he gets it, you're not going to get it. And it's a very it is about. Although we talk about negotiating, I was sitting there thinking we're not negotiating at all, just falling out with each other. There's a much quicker way to resolve this issue. Honestly, if you've got a woman around the table, we would sort out so many more problems much more quickly, and I used to see that when I was a lawyer. I think why are we posturizing whatever is on this point when we know we're going to give it? They know we're going to give it. Why are we taking three hours to get to that point when you just want to say look, this is where we are, this is where you are let, this is where you are, let's just get to agree.
Speaker 3:But none of those skills are valued in professions. So the skills that women have naturally we learn to hide those away because they're not the ones that are valued. I think it suits women to attack other women because there are less opportunities for women still, but it does also suit the men to see the women and the girls going for each other, that they're not always good at stepping in and stopping that behavior, but we take on what we see. You know, I grew up with LA law. The women in LA law were not soft, warm and gentle, so that's what I thought I had to be to be a lawyer, and that's what our girls see in social media and TV programs as well. And that's what our girls see in social media and TV programs as well.
Speaker 3:So there's a whole cultural conditioning behind who we expect we have to be in certain aspects of our lives. And then when we become mothers, where were the, you know, where were the spaces where we saw motherhood being celebrated and revered and mums returning to work, it being acknowledged how hard it is for them and that they've now got two jobs? You know there's the paid job and then there's the unpaid job. Where is the place to have those conversations like in my world? We need NCT groups in offices that women can get together and say, gosh, has this just happened with your two-year-old?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, how are you struggling with a levels right now? Oh gosh, mine have just got off to university. How does that feel? What's going on with you, gosh? I've just had a baby and I'm perimenopausal at the same time. How am I going to navigate that? We don't. We don't talk as women, because we've been certainly. My experience was I was taught that you don't show your weak, don't let anyone know that you're struggling, because I see that as a weakness, and if your law firm thinks you're weak, you're not going to be on their partnership track if they think you're weak it's so true.
Speaker 1:We've spoken about this before, about not accepting or asking for help because it's seen as a weakness, yeah, or being seen to be able to do everything, everything, ourselves, because that's successful, then, and things like that haven't we? Yeah?
Speaker 2:absolutely. I knew you were talking about the two jobs the paid job and the unpaid job and that society would obviously value the paid job and so, by default, the unpaid job ie you being a mother is worthless.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but if we're not mothering, where's the next generation coming from? Yeah, and if we're not mothering in a balanced and empowered way, how can we give our children the gift of being balanced and empowered? Mental health worries. I've learned that I have to look after myself for my own well-being. I'm a much better mother, wife, friend, human when I look after myself. But also I realized again when I'd stopped being a law and I had some space if I don't look after myself, my daughters are not going to learn that they need to look after themselves as well. And that was probably the biggest wake up call for me how do I want my daughters to treat themselves throughout their lives? And I don't want them to treat themselves the way I treated myself until I had the space to sit back and think okay, this isn't working.
Speaker 1:What kind of self-care things do you do, mandy? Because when we first met you were very stressed and you were running a lot Like. I remember saying to you whoa you are, you know you were still very competitive in sport and things, because that kind of went with your personality of being, like you said, the high achiever and stuff. And I remember saying to you that is another stress. Um, so what's changed since? You know you kind of having that realization?
Speaker 3:I'm still running, not just a spa. Yeah, like I ran with my friends this morning, but we ran for an hour and a half and half an hour. That was a cup of tea, um in a Costa. So it's very much social running. So I run because it's brilliant for my mental health more than anything else.
Speaker 3:Being outside is where I feel free and uninhibited and back to my seven year old self who used to horse ride a lot and be outside. So my running is one of my ways of looking after myself. But it's also yoga, it's also walking every day. It's also drinking plenty of water and eating healthy food. It's having good conversations with family and friends. It's all the things that I can fit into my life. You know I do go away on retreats once or twice a year with friends, but my day-to-day self-care because my life is still really busy is running at least twice a week, going to gym, the gym to do the strength work, doing the yoga. But for me I feel so much better when I eat well and I drink loads of water, so it's nutrition and hydration for me as well.
Speaker 1:How has things changed with your? How old are your daughters now?
Speaker 3:22 and 18.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so have you got your. Is your 18 year old? Are they both still at home, or how's?
Speaker 3:No, grace is doing a post, is doing a master's, so she's been away, for this is her fourth year away and Niamh is just doing A-levels, so she's revising for her A-levels at the moment. And then Grace is going to law school in September, so she's not coming back home and then Niamh will hopefully go off to university. Change, because my husband works in London in the week. I'll be physically on my own for two or three nights. So yeah, it's a big. It's going to be a big shift for us. Yeah me particularly.
Speaker 3:I've been the full-time mum for 22, nearly 23 years, being around for the girls picking the teas and all that kind of stuff and, um, that's going to go go in September.
Speaker 1:I was talking to Catherine earlier on about. I've done this exercise looking at how many hours I spend in my business because I was feeling that I didn't have enough, I wasn't keeping up with things as I would like and I was looking at, right, how many hours versus what tasks I have to do, and and I put into my calendar my weekly commitments. The children, both my children and I know both your children also did a lot of activities and competed in things. And you've got all that commitment at how much time is taken by running them here, you know, staying watching them with certain things, picking them up and all of that. And I had this realization at the weekend because my two are 13 and 15, so I've still got a little, you know, a few years where they're still going to be at home. But I just had this moment where I looked at what I'd written and thought, when I'm not running them around anymore, look how much time I'm gonna have. It's gonna be a big change right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but that time gets filled somehow, unless you consciously don't fill it. Oh, I'm sure it will. Yeah, there's always something to be done, isn't there? Either in the house or when you run your own business. There's always a thing that can be done. I do have more time for myself now so I'm able to go to the gym more regularly. I have a facial every month, you know. I get my nails done. I can do those things now that I didn't have the time for. But it's also realizing that I want to make time to do things with them while they are still here.
Speaker 3:You know Niamh had her last netball match for her club last night and are still here. You know neve had her last netball match for her club last night, and that was a club she joined when she was nine. And emotionally navigating those lasts for me takes a lot of energy as well, because I know I'm wobbling. Is she wobbling? How's she feeling about it? Cherish the moment as well, because it's the last time I'm ever going to take her to a netball match and she could have driven herself. But I said well, can I take you, because I'm not going to take her to a netball match and she could have driven herself. But I said well, can I take you, because I'm not going to take you again. That's really hard. I mean, mothering never ends. That's why I call my business mother for life.
Speaker 2:You know, we are mothers for life yeah, that hit me when I saw that title. I was like, oh my god, yes, I'm still doing it to my mother, so it's absolutely true, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And I have to say, julie, the last swim meet was an absolute joy for me to think this is the last time I'm going to have to sit at a sweaty swimming pool watching my daughter swim for about a minute and a half in a whole day. I do not grieve the swim meets at all.
Speaker 2:No, I bet.
Speaker 3:But lots of other things, lots of other things I miss. And when I work with mums, either in the circles or coaching, and and I do try and say because it's not always helpful when people go, oh, just make the most of it. You know, this is such a precious time it's like it's not, it's horrible. I say let's try. And, you know, look at it, as it is a precious time, it's a hard one as well, but these are really special moments that you're getting. So try to look for the joy.
Speaker 3:And I think the lawyer in me is like no, that's not logical. I need a list, I need to do things, but the me now is able to sit back with myself and with my clients and just go. What's the really good stuff that's happening here as well? There are some really nice things to be grateful for. I do this little practice with this stuff called thinking and thanking at the end of the day, where I lie in bed and I think about what's been good that day or kind of synchronicities that have happened, you know, like when you're trying to rush to get to a meeting and all the traffic lights on green and it's been brilliant and then just kind of think about those things and then be grateful for them as well at the end of the day. And that's a nice little reset to think, even if the days felt like it's absolute carnage and I haven't had a moment of peace and I've hardly been to the toilet when I really needed a wee.
Speaker 1:You know those kind of days to think that there's always some light in it somewhere yeah, how have you found like I don't know how old you are now, mandy, but how have you found transitioning through the hormonal changes because of your background of overachieving and stress, and but then you, you know, really was looking after your health and doing your best with that side of things. How was the hormone changes for you? Well, you.
Speaker 3:You really helped me with that when I was going through them. So I'm 55 in September, so I technically am post-menopause and have been for about four or five years. But that doesn't mean the symptoms of menopause don't go away. So I've been able to navigate them through things like yoga and breath work to help me reset to. Um, I know certain things I eat make my symptoms worse. So alcohol, chocolate, sugar, they'll make my hot flushes worse. They make my stress worse, feel worse. So I'm really I'm not super careful in what I eat. I mean I eat and chocolate, but I don't really eat dairy or much gluten. But it was my journey through eczema which brought me to the place of not eating dairy. So I haven't really eaten much dairy now since I was about 27, 28. I think that was an initial introduction to there has to be a different way. And also, even when I had my eczema I was very much. I don't just want to slap steroid cream on, I want to get to the bottom of this and I want to get it resolved. So I went to see a Chinese herbalist.
Speaker 3:I've always been very open to different ways of looking at things. I haven't gone down the HRT route because I've just chosen not to. I think I've navigated it by being very aware of how I'm feeling and then trying to track what things have either made me feel better or not better, and then adjust my lifestyle. And I also I am. You know, when I was a lawyer, I was totally in that. I mean, my cortisol levels must have been utterly through the roof at that point. I didn't do the breathing, I didn't do the breathing, I didn't do the pause, I didn't go the outside, walk around the block, just reset your system. I'm good now at noticing when I'm starting to feel anxious or overwhelmed and I will put the laptop down, go for a walk, have some water, just those things, I think. Sometimes we think we have to make massive changes to make a big difference, and often it's the really small things that make the biggest differences, just such as putting a song on and having a sing in the kitchen when you can start to feel like you're getting a bit anxious. I do little things like that to help me navigate them.
Speaker 3:Menopause is a pain in the ass, quite frankly, and it's unfair that we get that thrown at us after everything else we've been through. Yeah, but I think it's unfair that we get that thrown at us after everything else we've been through. Yeah, but I think it's again. It's a bit like when you become a mum. You need those people to tell you what it's going to be like and that you're going to be okay at the end of it. You know we need circles for menopausal women, just as we need mother circles. You know, if someone said to me when I had Grace I know this is hard for you now, but it's going to be okay. It's a bit like that with menopause, but now I do have myself, because of women around me that I can have these conversations with, and just you know how's it going for you, how are you feeling. But for me personally, it's that awareness and it's the little things that I can fit into my everyday lifestyle that have helped me navigate it.
Speaker 1:We always come back to awareness, don't we? It's a theme. I find that when I'm talking to my clients because a lot of the time you end up with clients that were like you or are like you, that you know, you end up having in front of you and when you explain I mean we've been doing a lot of episodes about hormones and the changes and what happens when you start to explain it and you, you know, you can almost see the lights go on in someone. Oh, that makes sense. That's why I didn't know that was connected, or I thought that was just me, or I thought I'd done something wrong. You know, and you, you explain it. It's lovely when you, when you're able, I think those, yeah, those circles for menopause probably be really useful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have when you're able. I think those, yeah, those circles for menopause probably be really useful. Yeah, we have.
Speaker 3:Um, we've got a group in whitstable called hot women of whitstable, which makes marketing it very difficult. But it's yeah, actually that's interesting on a google search.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah it doesn't get shared on facebook that much, and it's interesting because the two fabulous ladies that run it work very hard to put together like a great diary of events and stuff. And actually what mostly happens is we all end up just talking and sharing experiences and changes and what have you? And it's yeah. It's exactly the same as when I used to walk into my NCT group and go my body just did this and everybody goes, oh yeah, mine's been doing that for years and you're like, okay, it's normal, that's fine, yeah yes, because my mother circles that I run, they, they have a structure to them and I have a plan and a something to talk about or share.
Speaker 3:But most of the time I don't get to that because their mums just talk, not just talk. Their mums share for two hours and that's the most powerful gift that you can give and it's lovely, women really like giving as well. It's really nice to give your experience to somebody else and share what's happened with you and see that other woman just sit back and relax her shoulders, drop you breathe more easily, you know she smiles and she leaves the circle just different to when she arrived. And also this will resonate with you, julia. Sometimes I say to my mom, just for this week, just please consciously drink more water and eat three meals a day and let me know how you feel next week. It's like, oh, wow. It's like I've had a good night's sleep. You know they're not going to get the good night's sleep, but they can drink the water. It's little things like that.
Speaker 3:And also when we're in that early mothering stage and we just sometimes we simply want someone to tell us what to do, because our brain just doesn't have the capacity to work it out for themselves. But it's recognizing that the holding of other women is a beautiful gift to give, but it it's also a beautiful gift to receive to be held. Going back to the whole, the way the world brings us up it doesn't bring us up to appreciate that allowing yourself to be held by somebody else it's just part of the human experience. Humans are not meant to human alone, we're meant to human together and we've lost that as a, as a Western culture definitely to human together and we've lost that as a, as a western culture.
Speaker 2:definitely, yeah. And that's two things about time that creating that time and that space and really putting value on just I'm saying just and I don't mean just talking just that space and that sharing is incredible. And what you said about giving yourself time for when you were experiencing that last netball match and almost like a grief and it's her last thing and being able to gift yourself the time and the permission that this is emotional, it's a lot, and you can take a bit of time for yourself rather than going all right, well, that's done, stuff that down on we go yes, because we know when we stuff it down it's got to going to come up at some point, or, if it doesn't come up, it's going to be uncomfortable for you at some point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everything has to. Everything needs to be processed properly.
Speaker 2:I get the impression that probably when you were younger you were very intuitive and quite in touch with yourself and that didn't disappear. That was probably what stuffed down when you were a lawyer and it's really re-emerged now. I see.
Speaker 1:You know it's yeah, it radiates out of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does how, how did that feel whilst you were lawyering and how did you uh reignite that?
Speaker 3:well, you know, is that lawyering it would just push down? Probably wasn't, though, because I was pretty intuitive when it came to doing deals and negotiating things, but I would have put that down to logic and strategy at the time, because everything was referenced in that very masculine way. It was the. It was becoming a mom. It was that realization that, if I don't sort my shit out, I'm going to pass on to my daughters what was passed on to me by my female forebears, and I don't want that to happen.
Speaker 3:And I started reading and listening and running, so, being outside, when I rediscovered that I was stopping to have conversations with trees and walls because I love a good wall that I was getting back in touch with a bit of me that believed in fairies and pixies and would talk to horses I mean, horses were my best friends when I was little. I had a beautiful connection with them that I'm so, so grateful for, and I realized that the seven-year-old girl in me needed to come out again. I'm being playful with my daughters, and it was just exploring. I just got curious, and I started reading the books and listening to the podcasts and realizing that there were loads and loads of other women out there who felt the same way as I did and by trusting their intuition and tuning into their instincts is actually that's kind of my business. I trusted my instincts. I followed the breadcrumbs. I just saw what people wanted and sat with it and thought, is that the right thing? And followed it that way. And also reference back to the times in my life where I remember I didn't trust my instincts and it all went horribly wrong. So I guess the lawyer in me looked for the evidence in it. But I've just explored it and, kind of you know, mentioned things to people or when people got really interested in that, tell me more about that.
Speaker 3:I think I've just found that there is a whole world of women in their 40s and 50s who are needing to reconnect back with the original root of what being a woman is our grounding, our earthing, our knowledge of the herbs and the connection with source or whatever you call your kind of deeper knowing that we are the wise women and the world needs the wise women and we have to own that space. We have to own that. We've been through the journey. There was a reason. I was a lawyer, you know.
Speaker 3:I learned a lot in that space, but I'm also wise now, as you are, and the world needs the wise women to be standing up and saying we've got instinct, we have intuition, we are guided by a higher something. We can heal from the herbs and the plants. We need to be getting back to those old, ancient practices because we've got a mother earth to heal and right now we're not healing her and if we don't start changing, we're going to be too late to heal her. And I want the world to be beautiful for my babies and my grandbabies and my great grandbabies yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:That's interesting I feel like I want to stand up and give. I now I've got a little bit goose bumpy yeah, my daughters, they're like you know.
Speaker 3:They like what's your witchy woo saying? Now mummy Grace has just spent a year in her master's studying Joan of Arc. They're back to these strong women, but they also believe that they know we have a knowing and we get taught out of our knowing. But our knowing is going to lead us into the path of least resistance for us as humans and take us to what it is we we're here to do, and I, I would just love to support women and I want my daughters to know that they're here to take up a place in this world as the woman they are, without having to put on a mask, without having to please other people.
Speaker 3:And if that journey is being the archaeologist that the seven-year-old me wanted to be, that's fine. You know, sitting with my one meter square piece of earth somewhere in greece with a little brush and a shovel you know, that is on my bucket list. I'm still going to do that kind of thing. Um, yes, I'm totally yes. People who used to know me and now meet me now are like, okay, what's happened? She's mad. And my poor husband blessing, he's managed to navigate it all with me, so I'm very grateful that he's come on the journey with me as well that's fantastic.
Speaker 2:I just I love that for me, when I was reading through your, your website and Julie was was talking to me about it, I loved, and probably was a bit envious and scared all at the same time, of the what I imagine was the bravery of kind of leaving the job, the big, powerful job, with, uh, with all the perceived success and like following the bread crumbs. Did that feel brave? At that time? Did you feel like you kind of held your breath and took a jump?
Speaker 3:not really, because I, going back to Joan of Arc, I felt like I was burning in that space in an unhealthy way. I'd had enough and my body was saying if you don't get out of here now, there's going to be nothing left of you. Yeah so again that was that, yeah, trust, like you've just got to get out of here, yeah, which is why I take you can take what you learn in that experience.
Speaker 1:Like you said, there was a reason why you became a lawyer, there was a reason why I did construction, and we take those skills and we put them into a more authentic self, which is what we both now do, right, yeah, and, and most of the mums that I've supported have been in professions you know, such as lawyers, accountants.
Speaker 3:They're medics, you know, they're teaching, which is which is a difficult profession you so when they see me sitting on the yoga mat, they don't think Mandy doesn't have a clue what's going on in my life, because she spent 20 years sitting on a yoga mat meditating on a mountain. I've been at the coalface with them. I know what they're struggling with, I know how hard it is, and so there is a gratitude for that experience, because I can talk to them where they're at, because I've been there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, such a great conversation. I know we've got to wrap it up now and we could just carry on talking. Where can people find you, mandy?
Speaker 3:The best website to find me for this one is motherforlifecouk. Motherforlifecouk, as well as the circles that I run, I also mentor women who want to run their own businesses, supporting women and mothers. So helping you hold space for other women, because my kind of ambition is that when my if my girls decide to have babies, there is a mother circle for them wherever they are. So I'm on this mission to populate the world with mother circles because we need it. Women heal women. I really believe that women heal women and we've lost that wisdom and I would love to guide people back to that space.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's motherforlifecouk fantastic mission brilliant yeah, so good, and if anybody wants to carry on this conversation, obviously we'll invite you into our far too fabulous facebook group and um where we we try and build our our community of of women far too fabulous women in there yes, and people are always very welcome to just reach out to me.
Speaker 3:my email address is a contact form on the website, or my email is mandy at mother for lifecouk, and I always reply to every emails I get. So people want to reach out to me, please do oh, thank you, mandy thanks thanks for the chat was really really good. It's my pleasure, thank you.
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