How Reflection & Celebration Can Powerfully Change Our Perspective on Who We Really Are

This episode is dedicated to my daughter Saskia.
I refelct on how if we reflect on our life experiences it can teach us who we really are.
The act of celebrating who we are trains our brain to tell us a new empowering story.
So we can live fully being who we really are at a core level.
Not having to shame ourselves into being anything other than ourselves.

For Saskia
" Be Yourself Everyone Else Is Taken"  Oscar Wilde

Find me :
Katie Stibbs @
www.welovepeopleschool.com
If you want to learn to be successful being fully who you are. 
No more BS- 

Transcript

[00:00] Speaker A: You. Welcome to the podcast. Ambitious. Audacious ADHD woman. This is a place where we can really be ourselves. This is my biggest intention for myself and for anybody else that is going to join me. 

I believe that the more that we can use our innate strength, and talents and be fully who we are, the better this world will be and the most successful, fulfilling lives we will experience. So thank you for joining me and enjoy this episode. Hello and hello. And hello and hello. 
Welcome to the podcast. And I have been away for a little while. I have been learning and taking time to be with my family and my friends. And I've taken time off of social media because I just wanted to and I just felt it was really important for me to kind of recalibrate and see and inquire inside of myself what was important to me.

 Now, what did I want to do? Did I just want to go on speaking and talking and not reflecting, not having the time? And quite frankly, my children needed me. I haven't got the brain capacity to deal with everything that I was dealing with. And so the obvious thing was to step back and for me to decide, not for the world to decide for me what I wanted in this next few years of my life. 

But I am here on this episode to celebrate. To celebrate and to reflect and to kind of share with you my celebration of my daughter Saskia Joyce Lewis's life. She is twelve years old today and she cannot be with me because she is on a school trip and she's on a residential away and they don't take their phones, which I'm just thrilled about.

 I'm really having to consider and think about how I myself conduct myself with my phone, seeing my two children now constantly on Snapchat and social media and trying to navigate that because this is the world we live in. And what do I really think about that and how can support my kids as they grow up in this crazy world? But that is another story. Let's get back to Saskia. So Saskia was born on this day twelve years ago at 622, I think it was a. M.

 And I had insisted on having a home birth after a kind of 52 hours labor with my son, who had eventually I'd eventually been in what they insisted that I go to hospital, and I ended up having an emergency C section. So, second time round I was insistent that I wanted to have Saskia at home. Now, in hindsight, this is possibly a crazy decision that I'd had a C section because there is a chance that your scarring can burst, et cetera, et cetera. But I was a hypnobirthing teacher at the time and I really, really wanted to stay at home and I wanted to put my own skills and trust in my body to task really to trust in myself. So that is what I did.

And I had a pool downstairs, a birthing pool and my kitchen had not even been built and we were lucky enough that the water and the electricity had just been turned on in time. So it was a pretty crazy time. 
I also had an 18 month old son and I just remember my waters breaking while in my beautiful big bed upstairs watching. I'd watched Strictly and then I was watching Downton Abbey and as the titles kind of appeared on the TV, my waters broke. And I just remember feeling this excitement, this exhilaration, this fear, this appreciation of the moment and also the apprehension of what was to come.

 I'll never forget that. It's a real visceral feeling that I can still now experience and remember. And within like 30 minutes I was in extreme pain, the same pain that I'd been in for many hours of the first part of the labor with Edward. And I realized Saskia was probably back to back which meant that her spine was against my spine. And if anybody has experienced that pain, it is agony. I

t is a pain like no other I've experienced as of now. There was nothing more painful than that pain. And I got on the phone to my supporter and doula Lucy who was going to be supporting me through the journey and she said, oh, you know, you've probably got a while and et cetera. And I was, I really, really don't think that I have. And can you help me with trying to turn Saskia? Which with the help of my husband at the time and myself,

 we managed to kind of get her moving and she changed position. So within a long 12 hours no, that's a lie, a long 6 hours, saskia came into the world. So I managed to get downstairs and I spent a few hours in my birthing pool and when the time was right, I kind of heaved myself up the stairs. And for the final hour of this birthing journey I spent it, as many people know when they're doing this birthing experience and I spent it on the toilet because the toilet is the exact greatest position for giving birth and it was crazy.

 My doula Lucy was absolutely incredible and she was just so bossy and supportive. And I had two midwives with me. The main midwife couldn't find my address for a long time so I was going solo and then with Lucy. But this last hour was just nuts. And Saskia ended up being born head wise. Her head was born in the toilet of my bathroom at the time. And I just remember being told that I had to get to the bed and I waddled with this little head between my legs to get to my bed to try and get the rest of her body out of my body. And I remember my legs going over my head and to getting in a position where I could get her shoulders out of my body. And this little girl, I didn't know it was a girl at the time. This little girl was nearly ten pounds, it turned out. So it was an extreme experience with no pain relief.

 But I put all my skills and it was painful, I'm not going to lie. And after I had birthed her, I then realized that I had to give birth to the placenta which was as big as the baby. I am not kidding you. Probably TMI for some of you, but I'm hoping this kind of reflection helps you reflect on your extreme experiences in life that have really meant something to you that you can now celebrate. So I was left in my bed totally exhausted. I actually thought that I might die. 

If I'm honest, that was the feeling. It was something that I will never forget. But, you know, looking back, it is one of those obviously seminal moments that you experience yourself at your very edge, your very edge where you think you can go no further, you have to go further.
 And it is something that you can never actually put into words completely, but it is this experience of being pushed and pushing yourself to your far edges, far and way beyond places in your mind, in your body, that you think that you can never go to that really have the most impact on you when you look at them. 

On reflection. Now, I gave birth to my beautiful girl. I really did want a girl. But this was the start of a journey that really, really has pushed me to my edges. Now, this girl was a firecracker from the moment that she decided to wake up after the two week hiatus period where I thought she was a beautiful, calm, sleeping, wonderful baby that I'd never experienced before. 

But I was wrong on many counts. And her spirit, her driving force, life force, has been so apparent from that moment and she has shown me how childish I am, how toddler like and selfish and petulant and angry I am. But she has also taught me my resilience. I have had to learn enormous patience, which does not come naturally to me. Joy, hope, curiosity, just awe at the emotions and the situations I have found myself in. This has been the biggest learning curve of my life and it has just taught me so many things about myself that I couldn't even fathom. And I haven't been proud of myself through many parts of this journey because at some points I just didn't think I was going to be able to navigate bringing up this powerful child. 

She did not sleep, she cried, she tantrumed, she wanted to be heard. The only person who could soothe her when she was really little was my nanny's husband, who has passed on now. But Ken could soothe her. He could rock her and soothe her. And it was just wonderful to see. In fact, I've just found some old photographs of the pure joy on Ken's face while he was holding Saskia. 

So I'm telling this story in celebration of this wonderful human being who has turned into and is becoming and is all of the things. And I see her in all of her humanness, in her rage, in her beauty, in her fire, in her kindness, in her strength of character, in her ability to set goals for herself even at this age and to achieve them. And for humility and self awareness as she reflects on friendships, on her actions that sometimes she kind of reflects and thinks, oh my goodness, why did I do that?

 On our wonderful conversations. And I want to reflect on my struggle. My struggle possibly because of divorce, of being a single parent from when Saskia was very young, from my undiagnosed ADHD at that point, which really, really now I understand and know. So much about ADHD makes me cry almost inside with love for myself, with acceptance, for my younger self that didn't understand the chaos, that didn't understand the craziness of the house that I was living in, of the boredom of motherhood in those stages for me, for my mind, for my restlessness.

So this is dedicated to Saskia, for everything she has taught me and obviously my son Edward. But this is for Saskia because it is her birthday, born on Halloween. And I'm just so appreciative of the moments of humanness that we share together. The laughter, the conversations, the anger.

 We still have huge combative situations which I can manage way more easily because I have spent many years training and learning and guiding and doing my own self development and teaching and that I can impart and share with her and everything that she has taught me and the love that she continues to give me. She is my biggest fan. You know, when she says to me nearly every day, mum, I love you so much, I'm so proud of you, you can do this. And she lists all the things that I'm good at, my strengths, my values.

 I just can't actually quite believe it that here is my daughter at twelve, being able to really know in a really honest and intuitive and kind way how to support her mum like I support her. So I really think that as a woman with ADHD who has many other strengths and talents just like you, that it is important for us to stop, to pause, to think, to celebrate all of our experiences, all of them make us who we are. And on reflection, the hardest of experiences in my personal history have enabled me to grow, to give me perspective and the opportunity to help other people, which is my greatest, greatest honor. And as well as reflection, celebrating who we are. 

My favorite quote. Some of you might know this be yourself. Everyone else is taken by Oscar Wilde. It's not easy to do, I know this. It's hard to know who we are, where our thoughts end and where another begins. What do we want? 

Who are we? Do we conform to society of who we think we should be? Or can we hold true to ourselves? And that is my greatest wish for people. And that is what I am currently supporting people with.

 Because I have found that any other deviation from who you are at a core level will never, ever be sustainable. Because who we are at a core level is where our joys, our strengths are, our personality, our unique brain chemistry, our unique personality. If we can shine and be open and work to our strengths and also care about the parts of us that need upgrading, then we can just be in our own power, stand tall, not feel shamed or the need to be other than ourselves. And the more and more I have the honor of working with people from all over the place, all different kinds of people, the more we are able to just be our ******* selves and to honor the parts that we don't like that. We're embarrassed about that. 

We're ashamed of if we can get those parts from under the table and put them on top of the table and look at them and love them and give them soothing and give those parts of us what we need, then we can become our whole selves. ADHD is how our operating system works. But it's not who we are. We are humans with strengths and brilliance and great talents. And you know what? The more my world is filled with neurodiverse people, there's this obvious correlation. 

There's this mix that is in literally everybody that I work with. This vulnerability and beautiful open heartedness coupled with fire. Even if it's quiet, if you're introvert. I see this combination of will and fire and resilience and vulnerability and honesty and kindness. It's a special combination of ingredients that make this beautiful, beautiful the best cake you've ever tasted. And I really want people to know that that you are ******* brilliant. You are unique. 

You are special. You are you. And the more that we can be ourselves and stand and be counted and not have to fit in to the shame inducing world of work or the office environment or the parenting environment or being correct and normal, well, forget it. Forget it because that is not how it works. And I for 01:00 a.m. There to be counted, to be myself, to endeavor to be honest and keep on being me. And I invite you to do the same. So on that note, I am hoping that you are keeping, keeping on being true to yourself, to be living in your light, to know that there's nobody else like you on this planet. Your unique personality, your brain chemistry, all of the parts. You are perfect and you want what you want. And that is it. You have nothing and nobody to answer to. You are your own person. So saskia, I dedicate this to you. You amazing human. You literally are incredible. And I love you. Speak to you all soon. Bye bye. Thank you for joining us. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you would like more of this kind of stuff, join us at www.welovepeopleschool.com For people that want to create lasting relationships, great communication, and build a life, that means that they can be fully themselves. Thank you for listening.