The Laura Dowling Experience
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The Laura Dowling Experience
Self-Worth, Anxiety, and Finding Balance in a Chaotic World With DR. Clodagh Campbell
Dr. Clodagh Campbell, known as The Wellness Psychologist, shares her personal journey with anxiety as an adopted child and reveals how understanding yourself through psychology can transform both how you feel and how you live your life. <br><br>• How adoption and early separation created lifelong patterns of anxiety and abandonment fears<br>• The breaking point that led Clodagh to reevaluate her priorities and slow down<br>• Why anxiety often stems from trying to prove our worth through endless achievement<br>• How pregnancy-related illness forced a complete pause that ultimately brought clarity<br>• The importance of identifying what can "give" in your life when everything feels overwhelming<br>• Using the "four Ds" approach to manage overwhelm: do, delete, delegate, delay<br>• The difference between managing anxiety symptoms and healing underlying trauma<br>• Why boundaries are essential, particularly for those caring for others<br>• How becoming a mother changed Clodagh's relationship with her self-worth<br>• The unique challenges of being a highly sensitive person<br><br>If you're struggling with anxiety, self-worth, or feeling overwhelmed, pick up Dr. Campbell's book "The Steps" - available in all good bookstores and online now.<br><br>
Thanks for listening! You can watch the full episode on YouTube here. Don’t forget to follow The Laura Dowling Experience podcast on Instagram @lauradowlingexperience for updates and more information. You can also follow our host, Laura Dowling, @fabulouspharmacist for more insights and tips. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review—it really helps us out! Stay tuned for more great conversations.
and the people that you see they're busy, they're tired, they're exhausted, yeah, probably anxious as a result of all of those things. So do you tell them to slow down? Yeah, and do they say, but, cloda, I could have fucking told myself that so I think what it is.
Speaker 2:It's about helping people connect with what life is like for them at the moment and if it's not how they wanted to feel, what can change and what can give. So that might be learning techniques to lower your anxiety, looking back at your life and understanding perhaps why anxiety has been such a big part of your life and healing some of those wounds within yourself so that these traumatic experiences no longer have this massive hold on you and life can feel easier. Then using those anxiety techniques like CBT techniques to help you in the moment when the anxiety feels really heightened, slowing down so your nervous system feels more regulated. So, like that question I asked you but, laura, if you had to drop a ball, is there something that you could drop and what would be your readiness to actually let that go? It's like unpacking, untangling out these questions.
Speaker 2:I've had lots of clients that we've worked on this with, and one I actually mention her in my book. She was running this massively successful business that she had built from the ground up. She was winning awards in her industry. She was really well known. I promise to all of the listeners that's not Laura Daling speaking about right now.
Speaker 2:But it was like meeting with her and her saying I just feel so dysregulated, I've no life, no interest or hobbies or anything, because I'm just so consumed by work. My back is really sore all the time I've got issues.
Speaker 1:there are so many people that feel like this and they are living this life, yeah, and they're not necessarily running a million dollar business or something like that. Yeah, this is just their life as it is.
Speaker 2:It can be a stay-at-home mom that has two children at home and the washing basket is always Never empty.
Speaker 1:Yes, welcome back to the Laura Downing Experience podcast, where each week, I bring you insightful and inspiring guests that will open your mind and empower your life. Today on the podcast, I'm joined by Dr Clodagh Campbell, known to many of you online as the wellness psychologist. Clodagh opens up about her own personal journey with anxiety, being a highly sensitive person and struggling with self-worth. So we talk about how understanding yourself through psychology can be truly transformative, not just in how you feel, but in how you live your life. This conversation is honest, it's insightful and it is deeply relatable, and I just know that so many of you will take home something valuable from what Clodagh shares with us today. And, whether you face similar challenges yourself or know someone who has, I would really encourage you to listen to the podcast, reflect on it and pass it on, because it will help someone, because we all need a little bit of what she shared with us today. Before we get into today's episode, I would love to ask you for a little favor. If you like this podcast and I know so many of you do you could really help me out by giving it a nice rating, sharing it with your friends and subscribing to the podcast. It may not seem like a big deal, but actually this really helps to keep the podcast high up in the charts, and that means that I can keep bringing you brilliant guests who are insightful, inspiring and full of wisdom that we can all learn from. Thanks a million. Now let's get to it.
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Speaker 1:Welcome back everyone to the Lordown Experience podcast, and today I'm joined by the incredible Dr Clodagh Campbell, who is also known as the wellness psychologist. Clodagh is a chartered psychologist, speaker, author and host of award-winning podcast Unspoken, where she explores the life challenges that so many people experience but rarely talk about. Clodagh holds a doctorate in psychology from Trinity College Dublin and has over a decade of clinical experience specialising in helping individuals navigate anxiety, trauma, self-worth and emotional overwhelm. And actually that's what I really want to talk to you today about, clodagh, because so many people have anxiety, have overwhelm, and I know that's something that you talk about a lot on your page because you have it yourself, which is great because you can tap into people and how they're feeling. And you've recently written a book and we'll get into that too, because it's a great little book book, really handy, a guide for people how to manage their psyche, manage themselves, manage life. So let's get into it. How did you get into psychology?
Speaker 2:there's like an inside joke with psychologists that we go into psychology to try figure ourselves out. Okay, so that's the answer now. So I struggled. I really struggled in my teens. I felt really anxious. I felt I found it really hard to trust people, to feel safe in my relationships. So I was juggling anxiety, anxiety, but also then anxiety from all of that stuff like different layers and levels of anxiety and do you know why?
Speaker 1:that was why you couldn't trust people.
Speaker 2:That's a grand statement, yeah, so I was adopted and always knew I was adopted. So growing up when I was a child didn't necessarily understand or wasn't consciously aware of the impact that had on me, but certainly, as I kind of got through my teens and then into my 20s, 30s, started to see the massive impact that it had on me. So I didn't trust people because I suppose my first experience of a relationship was being given away. Okay, and you know now, knowing the fuller picture and the full story behind it all, and I can talk about it with that idea of it was out of love and people wanted me to, you know, have that quintessential family like life, growing up with two adoring parents and everything I could ever need, which is what I had. You know I was a much longed for, much loved child, um, but despite that I really struggle to feel safe in my relationships. Even though at two weeks old I was handed to this most loving pair that absolutely adored me, I feared experiencing abandonment again.
Speaker 1:And do you think it's because that is, because you were told that you were adopted from a young age, or do you think it was because that baby, that residual, that baby, knew that? It was adopted. Yeah, which one is the case? Are babies that aware?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was the traumatic separation. That a traumatic separation and particularly as a mother now, it has to have impacted me. You know, when I have had, when I've held my three newborn babies in the hospital, I just can't imagine what it would be like for them if I just put them in a little cot and just left them and I don't know. For two weeks I was in foster care. I don't know what those two weeks looked like for me. Did somebody come when I was crying? Was I fed when I needed to be fed? So I absolutely think that that was a traumatic experience for me and every other adopted person that goes through it. I went on and did adoption research for my master's and my doctorate and spoke about the experience of adoption for the adopted person and also the psychological and emotional impact across the two different research pieces that I did. So many adopted people experience that, whether it's kind of an awareness that comes later, but that just fear of abandonment, the fear of experiencing that pain again yeah, when.
Speaker 2:I held my newborn babies and you know they're so helpless and vulnerable and they would have known my voice and my smell and my touch. So for, if, if I just handed them over to somebody else, I imagine that that would have been really, really hard for them. And I don't remember. I have no memories of that time in my life, but the body remembers. I really believe that the body remembers.
Speaker 1:And have you ever had any kickback from people who've been adopted? When you've spoken about this, saying I didn't experience any of that, what are you talking about? Like I actually actually had a great life. I wouldn't have had as good a life if I hadn't have been put up for adoption. Do you ever experience any pushback or do people accept it?
Speaker 2:I don't remember anyone ever saying to me no. But when I went into those research interviews it was just to explore people's experiences.
Speaker 2:It wasn't that. I was saying to them this is what the research shows. This has to have been your experience. It was listening to their experience and then telling me what it was like for them. And you know, maybe with my awareness as a psychologist and an expert in the field of adoption, maybe I, when I was listening to their experiences, could hold the understanding at a deeper level than maybe they even could, because that was my area, that was my niche.
Speaker 2:I had researched so much about it and both can be true. So I definitely was impacted by my early experience. But also I grew up in the most loving home. You know, there is no part of me that ever has wished that I didn't grow up with my parents. I'm so glad I did. I'm so glad this is how my life has turned out. So, yes, it impacted me, but I also had a gorgeous upbringing and always felt so loved and so adored by my parents, and I now work in this area because of the pain and the difficulty, and I think it probably definitely makes me a better psychologist.
Speaker 1:So then we think about all those people who were placed in adoption and they were never able to find out anything about their birth family. Yeah, or they were actually ripped from their mothers. The mothers didn't even want them to leave. We think of all of those poor women who were forced to give up their children as well. Yeah, the impact of it probably is multi-generational. Yeah, there is that.
Speaker 2:Generational trauma isn't there 100%, and that's the thing, I'm sure, for 99% of women who have had to part with their children, it has been the hardest thing that they've ever had to experience and something that I imagine many, many women wish didn't have had to happen or wish they could have changed that. So when I talk about the impact it's had on me, it's also with the awareness that birth mothers have their own massive trauma that they have to navigate yeah and we all just do our best in life, don't we?
Speaker 2:you know, we do our best with what we have and how resourced we are in the time.
Speaker 2:Some people maybe make the decision for themselves. Sometimes the decision is taken out of their hands. So it's complex and it's hard and it's really sad like adoption is really sad. And you know, growing up there was all there was a part of me that always wanted to adopt a baby, to give to a baby that was in need of love and care and all of the things that I was offered like to be able to give that to a little baby who maybe was abandoned or but now I have three children, like that's enough, three of your own.
Speaker 1:It's difficult to adopt in Ireland now as well, it isn't it?
Speaker 1:isn't easy at all. I don't think. Yeah, so sorry. I totally made you go on a meander there because you were saying you grew up not trusting people. You grew up finding it difficult to trust people in relationships. So that was anxiety in one area. And then also on top of that, you were just an anxious person as well, and I don't say that to belittle saying just an anxious person, because I know that anxiety can be huge and have a huge impact on people's lives yeah but my original question was is why did you get into psychology?
Speaker 1:and you think that this is the reason why. So what did you study when you finished school psychology? Oh, you study psychology, yeah, okay, the reason why. So what did you study when you finished school Psychology? Oh, you studied psychology, yeah, okay. And then you went on and did obviously a doctorate.
Speaker 2:I went straight from sixth year into a psychology degree and then I went straight from that into psychology masters. Then I took one year out to gain relevant clinical experience because the doctorates can be really competitive to get onto. And then I applied for every single doctorate I could and started the doctorate that year. So I was very like this is what I'm going to do and went for it and I'm so glad I did, because I could not go back now and do it.
Speaker 2:It's hard, and I'm sure it's similar for pharmacy. So I'm the type of person that when I have a focus or a goal, I will do it and then afterwards be like thank God that that's over.
Speaker 1:I'm the type of person that when I have a focus or a goal, I will do it, and then afterwards be like, thank God, that that's over. Yeah, I'm right now. Yeah, yeah, tell me what you see in practice. A lot, because I just stuck up that you were an expert in anxiety, because I know that it's something that you talk about a lot anxiety and overwhelm and I only put it up about half an hour before you arrived at the studio and already there was hundreds and hundreds yeah of questions in about anxiety.
Speaker 1:They're all fairly similar-ish. If I was to be honest with you, it's how do I cope with anxiety? How do I help my 13 year old daughter cope with anxiety? She wakes up in the morning. She doesn't want to go to school, is nausea a part of of is that anxiety, all of those things. So maybe we could break it down and just make it simple for people. Do you want to talk about it?
Speaker 2:It's funny, half of my career I worked solely with men, oh, and the second half of my career now, I'm working mainly with women.
Speaker 1:There's another question in there already that I have, and you haven't even answered the first one. Why only men?
Speaker 2:So I worked in the prison service. Ah, okay, only ever worked in the male prisons. Okay, loved it, really enjoyed my time there, but reached a point where I think I had done. I had done my time and then it was ready to move on and actually that really showed me where I wanted to move on to. So now, for the last since my second daughter, since a year after my second daughter was born, I've been working privately.
Speaker 2:I think I've had one male client since that time in, you know, three years three and a half years, because mainly it's women, I think, that are attracted to working with me and my Instagram following. My clients come from Instagram and my Instagram following is 97% women. So I see women mainly, and it's women that are tired, that are feeling anxious, that are like tired for a multitude of reasons, tired from anxiety, tired from being really busy and trying to juggle all of the balls and all of the roles that you know we live with. Most of my clients work so they're balancing successful careers, busy careers, with home life, whatever that looks like. The responsibilities then maybe, of children or older parents, or you know all of the things that we're all navigating and life just has to continue going on and on and on, and then that doesn't even tap into fertility struggles or relationships breaking up. Or you know navigating menopause. Or you know grief loss, all of the things that kind of come Life's tough, isn't it Life?
Speaker 2:is tough and it's busy, and that makes it even harder. The busyness compounds everything because we don't really have that opportunity to catch our breath. You know, if a parent dies or if we have a miscarriage, often we don't really have the opportunity to just pause and look after ourselves in that, in the way that we need to, because we have to go back to work or we have to go back to life, yeah, and that definitely makes it harder, yeah. So actually, what's been really life-changing for me and you know, when you hear these terms life-changing, you kind of think oh, yeah, whatever, but actually genuinely what has been really life-changing for me has been allowing myself to slow down the busyness in my life and it's not always accessible for people, it's not always possible to do that, but even to think how can I do that in a small way, that really changes things.
Speaker 2:It's definitely changed things for me where I don't always have to be in that rush, rush, rush hamster wheel, and the reason I did it was because I came to the end of 2023 and I was sober and dazed, like so exhausted, so busy it felt. You know, when you're in that period where it's like I just need to get to the end of this week, and then things will be easier and you mean it like, you genuinely believe it. I need to get to this deadline, or I need to finish this thing, and then I can slow down. And then the next week something else pops up or you take on something.
Speaker 1:Or 10 other things pop up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or sometimes I misjudge things as well. So it's like I'll get to the next week and I'll realize that actually I had way more things on than I thought were going to be in the diary, or A little bit of time. Blindness there.
Speaker 2:A lot of time blindness, or yeah, it's back to. So either there might be 10 things in the diary that I wasn't anticipating or there could be one thing that I thought maybe would take a day but actually will take me three days. So I was in that like on that hamster wheel where it was like never ending. I was always saying to my friends I had this like really vivid memory of being out for a walk one evening and saying to my friend you know, next week will be easier and she was like yeah, sure, cause she had heard it from me so many times before. Um, so yes, if we can slow down, it really helps, but it's hard to slow down.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the thing. So I would say that sounds great. I'd love to slow down. Yeah, but how do I do it and keep everything going? Yeah, that's the tough part. Is it just deciding what's important and what isn't? Yeah, it's like what can?
Speaker 2:go. What can give? So your kids can't give, obviously.
Speaker 1:I'm only messing. I'm only messing, boys, I love you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as if they listen.
Speaker 1:Come on, laura, do not. You're so mortifying mom, you and your vulva, you and your vulva. Would you put that thing away? Um, stop wearing bikinis publicly. I know the poor little fellas. Oh, when I think about it, they're going to be sitting in an armchair opposite someone like you in their 20s or 30s blaming their mother for for all their woes.
Speaker 2:I just know they are, they will, and so are my kids. I don't have the body to wear a bikini public. If I did, I would we all have the body.
Speaker 1:That's the point. We all have the body no matter what age.
Speaker 2:Thank you for catching that we actually do.
Speaker 1:That is the reality, and you're a gorgeous lady. Problem it's we're always comparing ourselves to other people, particularly like postpartum period. Our bodies are designed to be not what they were when they're 21. You know that's the reality yeah but we digress, we digress. So slowing down is really important.
Speaker 2:I hear that so your question was but how do I slow down? Yeah, and that will be everybody's question and I suppose you know if I were to say to you well, what could give, how does that even feel when I ask you that question?
Speaker 1:I actually have a little bit of a churn in my tummy. Is that? That's very strange, isn't it? Because I'm kind of thinking, yeah, there is something that could give, but that would mean then, you know, I literally just have to park it, but maybe I just need to make my peace with that.
Speaker 1:So there's a consequence if something gives but it's not the end of the world if something gives, actually It'd be the end of the world of. Yeah, you're right, it's what's important in life. Obviously, kids, food, food and boys very important. But then and then the next step, I suppose you know, let's keep the food on the table. So that's business.
Speaker 2:But you don't necessarily have to do everything at once. Yeah, yeah, and for me, I remember I started working with a life coach and I had these massive goals. You know, it was like I wanted to get a book deal, write a book, start a podcast, tick, tick, tick. You know, have a massive following on Instagram. I wanted to be the person that, if a TV show needed a psychologist, my name would come to mind. I'd be one of like three people that they'd be like oh well, ask Clodagh, because she's in her mind now. So I was really ambitious, I was really determined and in that month so it was like November, december 2023 I was sitting with a friend, a really trusted friend, and I was saying to her like paul is so cross at me because in the evenings I've like an hour in the evenings with the girls and I'm on my phone, I'm on instagram or I'm, you know, in that state of I just have to reply to this email.
Speaker 2:Paul, I'm really sorry but like there's a deadline, I have to reply. All your husband together, paul's my husband. I was talking to my friend and I was like I just can't continue like this, because he's cross at me. I'm not spending my time with the girls like I'm feeling disconnected from them. I can't remember the last time that I actually saw my friends, or I tend to have. When I'm busy, I have this pattern of I'll go silent and then all of a sudden, I'll be back and I'll be like Hi, girls, let's meet up next Tuesday. We'll go for drinks, you know, and that can feel very intense then as well, for my friends and then when they don't respond, you're like is everything okay?
Speaker 1:Is everything okay? Is everything okay?
Speaker 2:Yeah, why haven't they replied to me?
Speaker 1:Do they not know who I am? Yeah, why haven't they?
Speaker 2:replied to me Do they not know who I am? We have these ideas about people, don't we? Particularly people who maybe share their lives on Instagram. So at that time, when I was crying to my friend and my husband was cross at me and I was feeling so disconnected from my girls girls there would be people I imagine that were like oh, look at her, go, like you know, she's doing really well at the moment yeah, like she's just hit like a hundred thousand followers on Instagram.
Speaker 2:You know she's just. I think I had just actually signed my book deal. At that time was like delighted, but also thinking, oh, now I have to actually not try to book my book yeah like I don't even have time to say hello to my children. When's the book going to fit in? My husband's not talking to me Like we never know these things, do we?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:We don't unless we share. Yeah, Anyway, I was in that point and I was saying, arguing with Paul, the girls are running, they're running to their daddy. That's the thing as well. You know, if one of them woke up in the middle of the night and they shouted for daddy, that would like that. As a mom, I remember having this fantasy that you know, I really feared rejection. When I become a mom, my children will love me unconditionally. They'll never reject me because all they'll want is me. So then, when I actually became a mom and realized that our children reject us multiple times a day and it's actually the most, for me it's the most painful form of rejection. No one ever tell me that, Laura, I don't know if that's we have to hit their teens.
Speaker 1:Jesus, you're in for a rough ride there. Honey, I know. And three girls as well, I know. Yeah, I know exactly how to get hit your buttons as well. Yeah, they already do oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:So I was in that point. It's like something has to give. And it was only in that moment. I remember just thinking I have to just stop. It was coming up to Christmas, so it was probably, thankfully, a time where I knew there was a pause coming. But I remember just thinking I have to go back to basics, I just have to start journaling because I don't know why I'm in this position, like I'm so tired, I'm so disconnected, I'm not happy. I actually was feeling a bit low at the time as well because of all the disconnection and all like Paul arguing with me, me arguing with Paul. You know all of that going on. So I remember I just started to journal and in the journaling process came that awareness of I am pushing myself so hard in every aspect of my life to prove myself To who Just to prove yourself to yourself.
Speaker 1:To yourself, yeah, because no one else cares.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, it was to me to prove that I was of worth and that I to give you an example, I remember I had the goal that I wanted to meet financially with my business, but but the goal was never set. You, if I met that goal, or with Instagram followers, I would just whack on you know another 20, you know 20,000 followers, or I want to earn 20,000 more. So the goalposts keep moving. Yeah, and I would never. I would celebrate and I was grateful, but the celebration I would. You know, I would have the little moment, buy the little balloon with you know 40k on it, or whatever, but then in the next breath I'd be like, okay, now we go again.
Speaker 2:So I was just continuously trying to prove to myself, maybe to other people as well because that's you know what it felt like that I was of worth, that I was of value, that I was, you know, to my friends, I don't know interesting enough, smart enough, worthy enough for them to keep me in their lives, to my children, do you think a lot?
Speaker 1:of people are like that, trying to prove themselves to others.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, but I think behind it all it was that I was just trying to prove it to myself. Okay, yeah, so maybe it was easier to and it wasn't. I don't think it was conscious. So that's what I'm saying. When I sat down and started the journaling process because I had been I journal a lot, but at that time I wasn't, because I was so busy running from one thing to the next. So when I sat down and started journaling and started realizing that I was putting so much pressure on myself, that's when I had that idea or that kind of recognition of, oh. So, a bit, like I said to you a little while ago, well, what can give? And I was thinking I don't want to be the person that's on TV all the time, like I actually don't get enjoyment out of going on a TV segment.
Speaker 2:Sorry to all of the TV segments that I've been on recently promoting my book, but I actually don't get enjoyment out of going on a TV segment. Sorry to all of the TV segments that I've been on recently promoting my book, but I actually don't really like that.
Speaker 1:It's okay to say that, though, clodagh, I just told you I don't like going to weddings.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it's okay to say that His wedding do you have coming up this year? Now?
Speaker 1:I don't have any Everyone knows now they don't invite me. I have no weddings, actually no. But those big, large social gatherings I just find I love one-to-ones or one-to-threes, or you know where you're in a smaller group and you can really have those deep conversations.
Speaker 2:I just sometimes I find I find the larger group social gatherings sometimes I just find my social battery just drained oh my god, I actually was on a tv segment recently and it was just, it was like they didn't even see me. It was like, okay, we're so busy with this guest and this thing that we're going to have her on now in five minutes. But they didn't even look in my eye, they just like ushered me and then, you know, the minute I was, it was finished. They like ushered me away out the door, chaperoned me to the door, get out of here, and it just. That wasn't meaningful for me at all.
Speaker 2:You know, it was just kind of like why am I even here doing this? And then afterwards the next day, I was so tired, like like you say it like really drained my batteries. So in that moment, throughout the journaling process the end of 2023, I realized actually what's important to me are my relationships with Paul, with the girls, with my close friends. I'm the type of person I have really really close friends and I might not have 50 friends, but I'll have like 10 friends I'm really really close to and really really lucky to have them. They're the things that are important to me my relationship with my mom, my relationship with, you know, paul's family, my in-laws. So what's gonna give for me to actually feel like I can be connected to these people again, particularly my children and my husband.
Speaker 2:I wanted them to have a present mom. So I was thinking, well, I can't work this hard anymore, so what will be the? You know what's going to happen if I don't work this hard anymore? And I was thinking, well, I need to talk to Paul about that, because obviously finances are important and we have a mortgage and we have bills to pay. But actually it was thinking, well, maybe we won't get to go on that extra holiday, you know, next year, but I'll feel happier and more connected to my children.
Speaker 1:You may not need the holiday if you're actually rested anyway, because your life isn't so busy.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I don't know if I'll ever feel rested. To be honest Okay, overstatement I don't know if any mom ever feels rested. But yeah, not as dysregulated maybe. Yeah, if I don't have to work on a Saturday, then I can go for a walk in a forest with my children and that kind of fills up my cup as well so like to say to go on what you've just said, I probably wouldn't necessarily need the escape as much yeah if I weren't as busy.
Speaker 2:But what happened in that period then was I fell pregnant and was really sick.
Speaker 1:I am going to just reduce time work and spend more time filling up my cup, my children, whoops. Okay, now we had hyperemesis, didn't we?
Speaker 2:I had hyperemesis and you had that on your previous two pregnancies. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, my God. I see it regularly in the pharmacy. It's so hard, very debilitating.
Speaker 2:It's so hard. Did the caravan help you? So on my first, it took me a while to get to the caravan. I went to a doctor and she prescribed me really old fashioned meds. That's how the kind of that's how Hollistreet actually described me when I went in. I should have just gone straight into Hollistreet and I lived nearby them as well. You know, it's just I didn't know what to do. I went to my GP. So those meds like I would literally wake up at 5am and have to run. You know, my, my nausea would wake me and then I'd take the meds and then it was just awful. So when I got the caravan it lessened, it made life easier, but I always felt sick, always, even on that. And my first I didn't. They didn't have the hyperemesis clinic. On my second, I went to a day ward once a week and got fluids and that kind of just kept me going for the week. Didn't have any of that.
Speaker 2:On my first it's the second time it was easier because I had more support and straight away I went on the meds yeah like when I was five weeks pregnant I could feel the nausea start went straight away and then on my third, same again went on the meds straight away. We were on holidays and we came home, but Paul stayed for a few extra days and when we were leaving, my daughter, my seven-year-old got a book. You know when you're just about to. We were leaving the accommodation to go to the, to the airport, and I was like, oh, my god, she is going to be vomiting the whole way home from Florida.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah the gift that keeps giving is children and holidays, isn't it? We had one of those coming home from France once. Yeah, delightful, you can all over a rented car.
Speaker 2:Oh my god so, yeah, we I flew home without my husband. My mom was with us with her, with Maya having a vomiting bug, and then my second daughter got the vomiting bug, and then I started vomiting because of the early pregnancy. So my mom went home, we dropped her, you know. We went to our house, my mom went to her house and then a few days later, before Paul came back from the holiday, I had to ring her and say so. I said to her I have the vomiting bug now as well. You have to come up and look after us, please, please. So she came up and she took one look at me and she said are you pregnant? This is what you look like when you are have hyperemesis.
Speaker 2:I was like yes, so straight away I got support on my third, but interestingly so on my first and second. I had it till they were born Like I was vomiting in the delivery room with my first two. My second it lessened Like it kind of really got a lot easier On my third it lessened. Yeah sorry, so actually the second half of my pregnancy on her was much easier than the first two, yeah, so I don't know why I thought she was a boy.
Speaker 2:Actually, I was convinced she was a boy for that reason, little fanny annie so, yes, fell pregnant and then couldn't do a thing. So to go back to I'm gonna slow down now, like, literally, was bed bound for a couple of months on my third pregnancy couldn't, couldn't even look at my phone, I was so sick. So it like the universe is a funny way of sometimes. We say something, we need to slow down and the universe is like here you go, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll slow you down, I'll slow you down, and whenever opportunities work opportunities were coming, I had to say no because I literally couldn't even stand up out of bed because I was so sick. And it taught me a really valuable lesson in that it's okay to say no and even if you say no and you're not taking in money when you're self-employed, you'll get through it. You will survive it, and I guess I suppose I was fortunate that we were able to survive me not working in that way as much.
Speaker 2:to be honest, my book deal really helped me that year okay because I had had just signed my book deal and then I fell pregnant and then the book deal kind of gave me a little bit of fallback because I was earning no money from my business, because I was just lying in bed all day, every day for months. So what that really taught me when I started to feel a bit better because, as I said on her, the sickness got easier to manage it showed me what it was like to feel regulated, like to have a regulated nervous system where I was just like life felt really slow but like manageable. So then I wrote the book. But actually, because I had said no to everything else, all I had to do in those couple of months where I wrote the book was write the book.
Speaker 2:So I wasn't juggling loads of things, I was just actually Writing the book. I was just writing the book. I I wasn't juggling loads of things, I was just actually Writing the book. I was just writing the book. I was doing one day of therapy with clients and then I had four other days to write the book. Now I only had two months to write it in because I had signed a deal. You know, I had a deadline for writing the book and I was so sick for most of that that I had eight weeks to write the book in.
Speaker 1:But actually it was all in your head anyway. It was all in my head.
Speaker 2:Stuff that you do all day, every day, yeah, so I was fortunate but actually writing it was like quite enjoyable because I wasn't juggling all of the things I would have been if I hadn't have fallen pregnant and been really, really sick and you went completely offline, didn't you? Yeah, I kind of just dropped the ball on that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, and that's okay and I think people need to understand that that's okay and you can come back then when you feel more regulated, like would you say yeah, so.
Speaker 2:So then actually I handed in the book in June. My baby was due at the start of September and I just kind of allowed myself to not really do that much for July and August. For August we, myself and the girls and Paul went on a gorgeous holiday to County Clare where we just like went to the beach every day and the girls surfed like they're seven and four, so I say surfed in inverted commas. We went for walks and we, you know, watched movies with popcorn at night time, like just very slow. Rented a really cheap Airbnb, like just very wholesome, very slow. But I didn't put the pressure on myself to do Instagram at that time because I just wanted to like prepare for having a baby. I was obviously heavily pregnant at that stage. I was feeling physically very big and sore but meditating every day, like living a very slow life, connected life felt really connected to the girls. So it's like it was a beautiful month. Went swimming in the sea every day. My massive bump that sounds brilliant?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was gorgeous, but now that you're back into the swing of things, have you found that you're living life more of a fast pace now, and are you able to cope with that, or do you want to go back to to the slowness?
Speaker 2:yeah, I said to Paul recently so if I just didn't work anymore, I wonder, would that be feasible for us? He was like excuse me, no, I'm only joking, I would. I don't think I could ever be the type of person who didn't work, but I'm like maybe I could just do like a half week now yeah.
Speaker 2:And actually mother my children and I don't say that with any judgment, because I was the mother that was doing the emails, you know, from six to eight, when I should have, when I would have, looking back, felt very disconnected to my girls and thought this isn't the mom that I want to be. I want to be there in the evenings for them where they can talk about their day to me and we can sit and have dinner together. So, yes, now I'm at the point where I'm really exploring well, how much do I want to work and how much do I want to be with my kids, and how might I be able to find that balance where I'm still earning money? Maybe it's about working smarter, you know, and not working as many hours, but not being on my phone for not scrolling on my phone for four of the hours when.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to work. I think that's being really honest as well, though, because I suppose maybe we do think that we are so busy and there just is no time in the day, yeah, but in actual fact, if you were to look at our phone use and you pick it up and you say, oh, I've spent five hours on my phone today, yeah, doing nothing yeah, and don't get me wrong, you know, when I don't work as hard, there's sacrifices.
Speaker 2:It's not like I still get to have all of the things that I would have if I were earning more money, but I don't. But it's a choice, I guess, isn't it? It's like what for me at the moment, at the stage I'm at in my life, I want to feel connected to my children and I know what it's like to not feel connected to them when they're very little and I'm really realizing now that they're only little for such a short period. They won't need me as much, maybe in a couple of years.
Speaker 2:So I was very fortunate in that I had the baby at the start of September and up until Christmas was just a maternity leave, wasn't really juggling anything. Then January, I had to start kind of preparing for the book coming out. Then February, the book came out and I was doing 101 interviews. I was very, very lucky to be in that position and to have lots of interviews to do, but it's busy. I was very, very lucky to be in that position and to have lots of interviews to do, but it's busy.
Speaker 2:And I was juggling that with a five-month-old baby that I was breastfeeding, so it was busy but I was very careful to protect time for myself and to protect, build up my feeding supply as well on those days off where we could just sit in the cage and she could like snuggle in and to be available to her and to be available to myself. So I kept time and I didn't go back to like seeing clients in that time. I made a very conscious decision. This is how I'm going to survive this really busy period. I'm going to take time for myself and I'm not going to juggle lots of different things. I'm just going to focus on the book for this month and my mom was there. So without her, like we wouldn't have survived it. She was there like I'd come home and there'd be a wash hanging out that she had done or it was the best she'd have dinner ready.
Speaker 1:So my goodness like very, very very lucky to have her.
Speaker 2:Um, so, yes, now I'm at that point where I'm like, so what's next? You know, do I go back to doing three days of therapy a week and then other things on the side? Do I go back? And I'm not sure. Actually I don't have an answer yet. I'd say Paula's like it's time to decide.
Speaker 1:Clodagh yeah, and the people that you see you're saying that you see mainly females now you've one man they're busy, they're tired, they're exhausted, probably anxious as a result of all of those things. So do you tell them to slow down, yeah, and do they say but, clodagh, you know, I could have fucking told myself that I'm paying you to tell me to sort my life out and how to do it.
Speaker 2:So I think what it is. It's about helping people connect with what life is like for them at the moment and, if it's not how they want it to feel, what can change and what can give. So that might be learning techniques to lower your anxiety. It might be looking back at your life and understanding perhaps why anxiety has been such a big part of your life and healing some of those wounds within yourself so that these traumatic experiences no longer have this massive hold on you and life can feel easier. Then it might be a combination of the two untangling those wounds, working on those wounds, while also using those anxiety techniques, like CBT techniques, to help you.
Speaker 2:In the moment when the anxiety feels really heightened, it might be slowing down so your nervous system feels more regulated, like I've just been describing, and it also might be helping people grow that awareness that I did, you know, back late 2023, where I was like I'm so busy and this is just I'm not happy, I'm disconnected and I don't want my life to continue like this anymore. So, like that question, I asked you but, laura, if you had to drop a ball, is there something that you could drop and what would be your readiness to actually let that go. So it's. It's like unpacking, untangling, teasing out these questions. So I've had lots of clients that we've worked on this with, and one I can actually mention her in my book. I'm trying to remember the pseudonym I gave her.
Speaker 1:I think, it was. Alice. What's her name? What's her name, her address?
Speaker 2:Note to anyone that's giving pseudonyms to people in books remember, because all that's in my mind now is her actual name. I think it was Alice. She was running this like massively successful business that she had built from the ground up. She was winning awards. It was in her industry. She was really well known and I promise to all of the listeners that's not Laura, I'm speaking about right now.
Speaker 2:But it was like meeting with her and her saying I just feel so dysregulated, I've no life, like I literally have no interest or hobbies or anything, because I'm just so consumed by work I wouldn't even know where to begin. If I started to create time for myself, what would I do with this? My back is really sore all the time. I've got issues. My like stomach feels really like there was so much.
Speaker 1:There are so many people that feel like this and they are living this life, yeah, and they're not necessarily running a million dollar business or something like that. Yeah, this is just their life as it is. So we are going to help so many people with whatever you're going to say now, I just wanted to say that, yeah, it doesn't have to be the most successful people in the room that feel like this.
Speaker 2:It can be a stay at home mom that has two children at home and the washing basket is always never empty.
Speaker 1:Yes, because that is the hardest bloody job. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or you're like trying to get the Weetabix off the table Weetabix dries so hard or you're having fights with your husband because you're on your phone too much, or you know, whatever it is, yeah, or he's on his phone too much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do they ever complain to you about their husbands going to the toilet for hours and we know they're not in there doing anything but on the phone scrolling?
Speaker 2:You know what really winds me up?
Speaker 1:Loads that in the conf confessions. On a Sunday my husband goes to the bathroom at 11 o'clock and only comes out at one, claims he's constipated. It is in his arse.
Speaker 2:Excuse the pun my six month old's bedroom is beside one of the bathrooms in our house and every so often I'll hear, like you know, the reels or the oh yeah, and I'm like, if he's on the toilet beside that child's room and wakes that child up from her nap, I will strangle him, go to the other bathroom. Yes, we're talking about Alice, alice. Yes. So she said to me what do I do? And she was like you know, it was at that point, exactly where I was at the end of 23, where she was like I just can't live like this anymore.
Speaker 2:This is not what I thought life would look like and we started to unpack why she was working so incredibly hard and why she like, literally, if an email came through at 11 o'clock, she had to read the email and it linked back to this fear that she would let her parents down. I have to to work really, really hard, because if I don't, I'll let my parents down. She felt she had this perceived sense that she had let her parents down when she wasn't offered a particular college course. She was offered, I think, a course in a different college, that different university, that maybe wasn't as prestigious or something. I can't even remember the details, but it felt really significant for her and she didn't want to see that look on her parents face again, which actually is so heartbreaking, isn't it?
Speaker 1:goodness that you'd carry that well into your adulthood.
Speaker 2:Yeah so we started to unpack that a little bit and then for her to kind of think well, maybe I can do something differently here, maybe my life doesn't have to feel this way. I'm thinking of another client as well, who also is in the book. I can't even. Oh, nikki was her. So you don't know in the book, but she had three daughters and she worked part-time and then, you know, was full-time taxi to to her daughters and was available to them. You know, after school, every day, whenever there was a home ec project that needed tending to or an art project or whatever, she did the project At like 11 o'clock, at nighttime, you know, like when it was literally last minute or there was holes in the clothes or whatever. So for her it was like she was so overwhelmed between her part-time job but then also being so available to her daughters.
Speaker 2:So, as well, for her it was like what can you start to do differently? And with Nikki it was can you take one hour a week for yourself? What would you like to do in that one hour for yourself? And she said yoga, which I'm sure you're like. Yes, I would. If I had one hour for myself, I would love to do yoga as well, because we know you love yoga.
Speaker 2:But it was like but I can't give myself that hour a week, because if I were to take that hour a week, who would look after the girls? I was like your husband would that be possible? She's like he just wouldn't do it right. He wouldn't be able to do the home ec project or he wouldn't be able to. So then it was like well, okay, what about if we put a bit of a boundary in place that you could be 100% available to the girls until eight o'clock on a Tuesday where you're going to do yoga class nine, the home ec projects had to be paused or whatever it was. Could that be a possibility? And it really took a long time for her to say, okay, I'll try it, and just wow, and it was really hard for her.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't have any problem handing over the home ec projects. Yeah to Mr Traveller's to do with the boys, but some everyone's different isn't it. But why was she like that? Why did she feel that she had to be so available to her children? Did you unpack some childhood trauma there, where she wasn't, where her mother wasn't available to her?
Speaker 2:So that's where I went with that. I was like tell me, I'm a psychologist.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm now a psychologist, an armchair psychologist. Yeah See, I could do your job. Now you could. Who needs a master's and a?
Speaker 2:PhD, says the highly educated woman herself. So I said to her actually tell me about your mom's relationship with herself. Where did your, did your mom, take time for herself when you were growing up? And in her family she, her mom, was a single mom and juggling a couple of children. You know was a single mom and juggling a couple of children, you know four or five, I can't remember, it doesn't matter, oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:But she did everything for them and she was two parents all in one and worked two jobs and did the hummock projects and all of the things and you know, I'm sure, absolutely exhausted herself in that process and sounded like an absolutely incredible woman that held the four together when she had to. But you know, with Nikki I was thinking, well, maybe we can take one hour for yourself a week, but by the end of us working together, she had gone to Italy on a week's retreat by herself. Wow, she had taken up a course where she learned like she educated herself and she had. She had done a couple of like nights away with friends and things and shock, horror, the girls survived, probably did better for it as well, because sometimes it's independence that children need too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm all for sending them in without the project being done and them getting their wrists slapped in school and then them learning doing that kind of way. But her husband stepped in as well. Yeah, of course he did yeah.
Speaker 2:And then for going back to Alice by the time we had stopped working together, she had taken a three month sabbatical from her business and set it up that things just kept like she hired a manager and she hired other people that her business was well able to afford and she just set it up for herself that she was able to take three months off, and initially she was like on my three months I was able to take three months off and initially she was like on my three months, I'm gonna do this and this and this.
Speaker 2:And I was like, oh, I don't know about this, like don't take on too much, this is about rest and like finding yourself again. And actually, after the three months, we had a session and she came back to me. She said I didn't do anything, like the extent of it was I went for walks on the beach and it was glorious, and I'm not sitting here saying, okay, everyone needs to like take three months off work because that's not realistic but it's about where can you do something differently, and it might be that could be from nine to ten.
Speaker 2:You watch tv and you put your phone away and you just allow yourself to relax in the evenings. You know, is there anything that can't wait on your phone? From 9 to 10 pm Can you actually just sit down or go for a walk, or sit and have a cup of tea. One of my friends, when she gets the kids out the door in the mornings, gets back into bed with a cup of tea and that's her time to just kind of like, decompress and set herself up for the day, and it's her favorite part of the day. So what little, even pockets of things can you do for yourself? Or are there balls that you can drop? You know, when you think about time management, a lot of the time you hear the four d's. So it's like what needs to be done, what can you delete, what can you delegate and what can you delay?
Speaker 1:it's like what's the fourth one, please? I've never heard that. Now let me think delete, delegate, delay and do and do, yeah, okay yeah, so okay, yeah, do things come to mind?
Speaker 2:yes, a hundred things come to mind yeah, and if you were to sit down with a piece of paper and write out your four d's and you know, get all of those things that are swarming around your head down in the paper in the four categories, how do you think that would feel?
Speaker 1:it'd probably feel great because it's not swimming around in my head.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then, with the delay stuff, you could put them in your diary for July, for example. So you're not going to forget them. They're there, but you just don't need to worry about them until July, just using, you know, this arbitrary time period, whatever.
Speaker 1:Goodness, would you just come and live with me and just work my life out for me.
Speaker 2:And then you know what can you delegate to Mr Fabulous or to the boys? Yeah, the dishwasher.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm good at delegating to them. Oh, they know how to empty a dishwasher, yeah, and clean toilets and do everything. But again, it's like nagging, isn't it Sometimes with the children? Yeah, yeah, sometimes with the children and yeah, but what I do find works really well with them if you just take the phones off them and say you are not getting these back until what I've asked you is done, it's done pretty quickly then.
Speaker 2:I try to get my daughter to take like this is the extent of it. Try to get her to take her lunchbox out of her bag when she comes home from school and put the contents, you know, like the wrappers, in the bin you would swear that I was asking her to like clean the whole house before she got fed. I know, mommy, this is so much work and I'm so tired.
Speaker 1:I know it's funny, but I say that to women all the time as well. Women are just stuck in this vicious cycle of doing everything for everybody and very little for themselves, and they really need to delegate in their own home. Like you know, I do.
Speaker 1:I do online training for the business and I always say to people I said there's no point if someone comes in for menopause consultation to you yeah no amount of men on peri or hrt or whatever they want to take is going to help them if they are absolutely knackered and exhausted from everything they're doing all day. I said so. The first thing you say to them is tell their partner, tell them to tell their partner. There's nothing sexier than a clean kitchen, or nothing turns me on more than you bending over and emptying that dishwasher, and it's done straight away. You know you have to be able to work with the people that you're living with as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know for your pod. Is it mainly women listeners, or do you have a mix of men and women? I'd say it's mainly women. I'm thinking of my husband. So Paul, he feels very overwhelmed as well. So it's not just a female thing. You know, sometimes we can get caught in this narrative that women do everything but say for Paul, he does a lot with our girls, he's very hands-on, he a like a big, like a job like a job where he has a lot of work to do.
Speaker 1:So for him as well, it's the same idea, yeah we do get caught in the whole thing where it's only women but of course men feel overwhelmed but I think that sometimes can men focus on one thing more than women? Can you know the way they say? Women are multi, they, they multitask, and men, you know are, they tend to be able to focus on the singular tasks. But obviously, if men have children, they're multitasking all the time.
Speaker 2:So it's probably an unfair statement yeah, and then it depends on the season of life as well. So I know for us at the moment when, like I will feed the baby, like breastfeed the baby in the morning, so he will navigate the other two, like get them ready for school or you know whatever, so it's very hands-on for him at certain points as well. Now with a little baby he's breastfeeding, so he can't do that. But you know, men carry a lot of responsibilities too, so it's it's not just the women and men can feel very burnt out, and for him as well.
Speaker 2:So often I'm trying to encourage him like what can you do for yourself, like every Tuesday night, like go play football or go golfing or you know whatever? But so it can be hard for them as well.
Speaker 1:It is, and actually that is so interesting because I think it's been wonderful the menopause conversation and the female conversation that's gone on around women's health and because it was so forgotten about for so long I just not talked about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but we've spoken about the male midlife crisis in a kind of a jokey manner before, like oh look, they go and buy their Lycra and they go cycling up mountains on expensive bikes and you know they're a bit moody and grumpy and stuff like that, but it's very real for them.
Speaker 1:They actually not it's not as profound as women but they lose a percentage of their testosterone every year. Yeah, you know, roughly from their 40s onwards, and and it does affect them and it does make them feel less than it does affect their, their outlook in life. And I was actually talking to a male doctor who deals with male health and he was saying they describe it sometimes as like the colours gone out of the television for them and I suppose it's a very different life to when they were in their 20s, having the crack to, you know, navigating small children, and what's expected of men nowadays is very different than I suppose what was expected of their fathers, because men are expected to be there for their wives and their children in a different way than they were years and years ago, I suppose.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it is, we need to mind our men too, and maybe they have this like idea of being the provider you know and having to work incredibly hard to provide. But also I know sometimes Paul talks about like already we've little kids but trying to set them up for like life in later years. So he thinks about a lot of things that I don't, that aren't on my radar, Like I don't think as far ahead as him. You're like I just want to get through tomorrow, Paul.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, it's about what can you put down, what can you delay or delete, and often it can be comparison as well, can't it? We feel like we need to keep up with our friends or with other people, with holidays or with whatever, like business or success or whatever that might close whatever it is.
Speaker 2:So I always think it's really helpful to go back to what your values are and what's important to you and to spend some time actually figuring that out, because that can be hard, like I didn't really know until the end of 2023 what was really important to me, and connection with the people in my life was really important. Peace of mind was really important to me, which probably won't come as a surprise given that I have shared so much about the anxiety that I've experienced in life. In life, so like feeling just at peace within myself was really important to me, whereas it wasn't the fancy holidays that were the thing. So you know, if I wanted to go on five fancy holidays a year, I could work really, really hard and go on the fancy holidays, but actually I would burn myself out aiming for that. It was actually like I said, that holiday in Clare in the really cheap Airbnb on the beach, eating sandwiches that had sand in them.
Speaker 1:That was gorgeous now, we're lucky, we got good weather it rained a couple of days, but it's funny actually one of the days. Just be able to switch off, though, is the important part. Yeah, put everything down and spend time in the moment yeah rather than worrying and thinking about yeah next week. Yeah, next week, next month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and on that little Airbnb holiday we ate out a good bit. But also when we didn't eat out and we ate in the house, it was like pizza and stuff you know that we throw in the oven. It wasn't that I wasn't thinking. This is a time for really healthy, nutritious meals. Do you know what I mean? Like?
Speaker 1:there isn't that pressure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know it is or I wasn't washing the bedsheets. Like you know, when I left someone else washed the bedsheets. You know I wasn't looking at the hamper. That was kind of next week's problem. The dirty clothes were just going in the suitcase. So it is that kind of escape as well. It is absolutely so.
Speaker 1:Anxiety if people are living with anxiety yeah, you know, and the questions that are coming in about it is absolutely so. Anxiety if people are living with anxiety yeah, you know, and the questions that are coming in about it is there's so many of them I can't even you know. How do people start to deal with their anxiety on a day-to-day basis? Yeah, and are there steps? Oh, are there steps?
Speaker 2:that's your book's name the third step of my book is calm the chaos of your mind Something along those lines.
Speaker 2:I actually can't remember, but it's about anxiety and, like I just said earlier, was that I had to reflect End of 2023, I'm really disconnected, feeling really low, feeling quite anxious. I need to figure out what's going on for me. So awareness is really important. So I think that can be a really powerful part of therapy, where you're sitting with somebody and they help you to start figuring out what is working, what's not working, why you're feeling this way Is anxiety always because you experience a traumatic event, or can it be something that's just in you?
Speaker 2:There's lots of different factors that can contribute to anxiety. So we often talk about the biopsychosocial model of anxiety, so biological, so it can lead to maybe genetic predispositions, it can lead to brain chemistry. You know we're talking about these things that are factors that can contribute to anxiety. So is it something that that can contribute to anxiety? So is it something that you inherited in a way? Is it something that in your brain chemistry is kind of at a place where your cortisol levels maybe are really high or your adrenaline is really higher? What's going on in your brain that you can maybe look at to see if it's contributing to the anxiety at this point in your life, psychological factors, so things that have happened that maybe have been very challenging for you in life.
Speaker 2:So it could be trauma, it could be grief, it could be that you are just living a really disconnected, really detached life at the moment. So what are these things that are there psychologically that maybe are contributing to the anxiety that you're feeling? And social so I know, for example, with depression, if you're feeling really, really, really isolated, that can hugely impact your mood. So with anxiety too, it's like in my life, socially, what's happening that maybe is causing anxiety to be present in my life. So am I feeling really overwhelmed and am I living a really busy life? Am I feeling really disconnected? Is there stuff going on, even maybe with my partner, where there's stress and conflict?
Speaker 2:Anxiety and stress? We experience them in a very similar way in our body. So when we think of anxiety and we think them in a very similar way in our body. So when we think of anxiety and we think of symptoms that can be present in our body, we often think of that kind of churning in our stomach, nausea in our stomach. We think of our mind racing lots and lots of different thoughts. We can think of tension in our body, you know tense shoulders, tense fists, tense jaw, clenching your jaw clenching your jaw.
Speaker 1:Clenching your jaw, that one that resonates for you, yeah, I don't realize it until I'll be driving the car and I'm like Jesus. Why is my two stuck together? Yeah, it's literally, because you're clenching your jaw trying to race from one place to the next, because there's 90 minutes in an hour in my head, when there's actually only 60 minutes.
Speaker 2:So I'm always late. Yeah, and even that, like I did an MBS or mindfulness-based stress reduction course a couple of years ago and it was only through that that I really recognized the impact always being late was having on my body, up until that point when I would be rushing and racing from one thing to the next, I would be fighting that fire in my body of lateness. You know, it's like coming here this morning or today I was six minutes late to meet you previously I counted every single minute and every minute of my life.
Speaker 1:I was like that bitch.
Speaker 2:I knew it so previously I would have felt very, very hot and bothered about that. I would have thought will I ring her, will I let her know I'm going to be five minutes late and in that fast-paced, will I text her? No, I blah, blah, blah, blah. Will I text her? No, I'm driving, I can't text her. You know what will she think of me, like that, really heightened fast? Will she think that I'm disrespecting her time? Will we have enough time to do the thing? Am I disappointing her? Am I letting her down?
Speaker 1:I remember one time, Jesus. There's an awful lot of thoughts going on in that head of yours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's what I mean. So the impact, I'm kind of the same, though, if I was to admit it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I can't help myself as well sometimes as in being late.
Speaker 2:Yes, but I know I can, but you can change your relationship to yourself in the lateness. Okay, and that's what changed for me. So I, and that's what changed for me. So I remember really clearly. I was walking to the cinema with my children, so one of them was in a buggy, one of them was on a scooter. They were quite little at the time. My daughter's helmet kept falling off her head, you know. It's like the chin strap was too loose or something and she kept stumbling off the scooter.
Speaker 2:We were late to the cinema. We were walking, we were in walking distance but it was like a 25 minute walk to the cinema so we had to. We kept stopping and starting with the helmet and the scooter, and then the other child in the buggy was crying. I think she was hungry or something and I was thinking I'm not going to stop and get out the food because we're, you know, we're rushing. So she was crying, I was giving it to the other girl but my other daughter told her because of the helmet and the scooter really heightened, really like, come on, let's go grabbing. You know, the four-year-old on the scooter relate and really in a tizzy because we were late going to the cinema to a kid's movie, like it was supposed to go and enjoy.
Speaker 2:Yeah and it was not life or death yeah like the children, my girls wouldn't have even probably recognized that we were late walking in yeah you know, it wasn't like I was going with you.
Speaker 2:And if, if I was going with you and I'd be like, oh no, I've made laura miss the started movie, yeah, that would, that would be a different experience. Well, it could be a different experience, but this was two little children that couldn't care less. They probably wouldn't have sat through the whole movie anyway, it didn't matter. But I was really irritable with them dragging them into the cinema. And it was at that time that I was doing that eight-week mindfulness course and I realized in the course you know the following couple days later oh god, I did not need to be that stressed, but it was just. That was how I lived in my lateness yeah like the fighting a fire.
Speaker 1:If I don't get there, the house is going to burn down you could even relate that, though, to getting your kids to training on time, or getting them to your match on time too, or?
Speaker 2:to school in the morning or to school yeah.
Speaker 1:But you know, I've had that where it's like they're literally like where's your fucking hurling helmet? We're going to be late, but now I have actually been better, but mine are a bit older, now I could just go. If you're late, you're late, it's not my problem, or problem, or you know, just just skip it. Yeah, do I really need the stress of trying to figure out lifts to all the way over across town or all the way to Kildare for a match? Yeah, let's just not go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just my head is so tired thinking of everything all the time and sometimes, if we're late for school in the morning, other parents are late too.
Speaker 1:Like, I'll see them and I'll be like, yeah, it's okay yeah like it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, it's going out in the real now and all the teachers are going to go.
Speaker 2:You bitch, I'm sorry, I really value my.
Speaker 1:It's okay, everyone you can be late for school, not a bother.
Speaker 2:I know it would be different if my daughter was getting in trouble for it, you know, if she was coming home and saying my teacher's giving me.
Speaker 1:We know what you're saying. We do know what you're saying. You're saying it. Obviously we need to be in school in time, but it's not life or death.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, to the education system, um no, so what I'm saying is you're going to be late sometimes. I'm late a lot and I do respect people's time and I I try not to be late, but these things happen sometimes I'm late and I do.
Speaker 2:It is a responsibility that I am aware of. But if we go back to just how you look after yourself in that, so driving to you this today, I was six minutes late and I knew I was going to be late from when I left my house. But I thought to myself it okay, laura will survive the five minutes that I'm late. She will not be knocked down in that period. She'll likely just be sitting on a couch, maybe catching her breath after having a busy morning.
Speaker 1:I was delighted. I love it when guests are late because I get to just unwind a bit before them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I was thinking, even if she is one of these people that hates when people are late, because there will be people listening and I'll be riling them up now and they'll be like I hate people like Clodagh because I'm on time and then people like Clodagh come along and they do disrespect my time. So for those people, I'm very sorry, um, but the thing is, if I were to have really pissed you off on that, I would survive that. Like if you were like oh, I don't want to talk to her ever again, I'm not inviting her to anything ever again. I will survive that. And if, if you want to cut me out of your life from being five minutes late, that's okay. Like I will be able to live with myself for that, okay, I wouldn't be able to live with myself for that.
Speaker 1:Okay, I wouldn't be able to live with myself for, you know, doing something really hurtful to you yeah but I will survive if you cut me off for being five minutes late so I suppose it's about seeing what one of the big things and one of the little things and one of the things that you should be worrying about. Yeah, I definitely want to talk to you about CBT. Yeah, but then I also want to talk to you about being a highly sensitive person too, yeah. So which will we do? First, because CBT is kind of related to the anxiety and the steps. So we've talked about anxiety and how we can try and remove it from our lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you were suggesting, like we need to look at our lives and see what can we take out of our lives. What's causing the anxiety, and I understand that, but is CBT something that people can do by themselves or do they need to be taught it?
Speaker 2:So CBT is brilliant. It really does what it says. On the tip, I'm waiting for the bus.
Speaker 2:When it comes to anxiety. I know for me and for many of my clients there's often a reason that we experience anxiety. So CBT will help us manage the anxiety, but it's not going to get to the root cause. So it helps us manage it in the moment. It helps us If we're one of these people that gets really, really anxious when we're late. It will give us strategies in the moment when we're late to feel better. So give me an example of that. A strategy is to reassure yourself in the moment. So I was doing that this morning. I was like or this afternoon, it will be fine.
Speaker 1:It's not life or death.
Speaker 2:I was reassuring myself, like looking after myself, in that, you know, if someone rings you and says we need to talk, we'll talk tomorrow at 9am.
Speaker 1:I hate that.
Speaker 2:Hate it.
Speaker 1:I left my full-time position in Lloyd's two and a half years ago and I still get like and I'm friends with some of the pharmacists in there and I, whenever I get a missed call from one of them, I still go. Could I be in trouble? That was, and that that was one thing throughout my life. If I got a call from, say, a manager or the superintendent pharmacist, I automatically thought I was in the wrong or I'd done something wrong. Yeah, and I never had really Maybe once or twice.
Speaker 1:But like, isn't that strange? And then I'm like a 45-year-old woman, yeah, and I still experience that. Oh my goodness, why would they go? There's something going wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there would be CBbt strategies to help you in that moment, if you have to wait till 9am tomorrow and you're highly anxious about what that conversation is going to be about. So there'll be things that you can learn in cbt to just help you manage that waiting period.
Speaker 1:So just to reassure yourself. Reassuring yourself rationalizing.
Speaker 2:You know what is the likelihood that actually something terrible is going to happen in that meeting tomorrow at 9am, or is it actually probably going to be fine? You know, if somebody doesn't text you back, what are the chances that they've crashed, and you know they're unresponsive. I don't know, do you catastrophize? I do.
Speaker 1:I catastrophize, no, but I do worry when maybe sometimes it's more those calls out of the blue and I go oh my God, this is something to do with me and I've done something terribly wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so how you can look after yourself in that moment. Cbt is really helpful for that.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 2:I have this thing where I always catastrophize when my baby sleeps longer than she usually does, so there's a lot of moments that relate to that. I really I can even feel it now in my body going in and opening the door and almost holding my breath until I see her move.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I have to look after myself with that yeah, it's that I have this disposition to like kind of catastrophize and then I have to like look after myself and manage that. So CBT can really help with that. But the question is well, clodagh, why do you catastrophize? Why do you? So I do have a disposition, but also I have a background, my background, my history. The cbt can help you manage those things in the moment. But I believe that it can be incredibly helpful to go back and to untangle some of those things that have happened in your past so that they don't have a tie to hold on you anymore, so that you can learn to just live a more peaceful life and untangle those things and for them not to just feel as terrifying all the time, or for you not to be carrying so much kind of trauma or kind of traumatic energy. Does that require therapy, to go into that, so that I in therapy, that can be incredibly helpful. So for me, I definitely have always feared rejection and abandonment and I'll give you like a real life example. I actually told Paul recently, but I've never talked about this with anyone else before. Even with some of my closest friendships. Sometimes I can get that fear of abandonment and rejection like really intensely. So. One of my friends was on holidays and I wasn't expecting to hear from her on. The holiday was grand. I didn't hear from her for like a week after she came home and then I contacted her and I still didn't hear from her and I had that what's after happening? Something's after happening in our relationship? Of course it hadn't, and I do this myself when I go on holidays.
Speaker 2:You know you get back to reality. You go back to getting the kids out the door in the morning, to doing the school lunches. You get back into work like life is back to getting the kids out the door in the morning to doing the school lunches. You get back into work Like life is busy. You know you have that kind of settling back in period and then all of a sudden you're like, okay, now I can kind of, you know, reach out to my friends.
Speaker 2:But recently I had that like some things after happening in our relationship and I felt scared in our relationship. And I felt scared in our relationship and it was a familiar experience for me. That like was stored within me because I've had previous experiences of being abandoned. So it's like that inner child within me was scared that I was going to experience that pain again. So in the past that would have been really, really crippling for me and I would have felt extreme anxiety around that. But when that was happening this time recently, I was able to look at it rationally and soothe myself in it.
Speaker 2:She's busy, she's back to real life. I do this myself. When I'm away, I don't look at my phone. I come back. It takes me a while to get back into the swing of things and then I'll contact my friends. She's in that period right now. She's not cross at you, she doesn't hate you, you haven't done anything to piss her off and for some people listening they'll be like, oh Jesus, like that was extreme. But other people will be like I actually quite understand that feeling.
Speaker 1:I think some people will understand that, yeah, and is that to do with being a highly sensitive person, though?
Speaker 2:So I for me, I would probably both like the abandonment wound that I've experienced, but also that I'm a very highly sensitive person.
Speaker 1:Okay, and that sounds a little bit funny saying I'm a highly sensitive person. Yeah, and the first time I heard I thought God, why is that? That's a funny thing to say about yourself. Yeah, but can you explain what it means and the impact that it can have on someone?
Speaker 2:yeah, I suspect a lot of people have this yeah, so I know I'm mentioning Paul a lot in the in this pod, but it's actually really relevant. We experience life differently, myself and Paul. We were at the St Patrick's Day parade recently and you know, float after float was going by and there was a community of Ukrainian people in the parade holding up this big, beautiful painted banner and it said thank you, ireland.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:And I started to cry and.
Speaker 2:Paul kind of did a double take and looked at me and I was like it's just so, and I was like really crying yeah, it's like, it's just so incredibly sad. Like can you imagine if we had to leave our country because a war broke out and then we felt compelled to thank the country that like we were able to go and live in? Like that's just so heartbreaking that that's happening in real life? And he just kind of gave me a bit of a squeeze and a hug because he knows what I'm like, but like he never would cry at something like that. He's a very caring, kind person, but he just wouldn't feel that intenseness in the moment that I did. Or you know, like watching a movie, movie I could start bawling and he'd just look at me like are you right?
Speaker 1:there. Well, do you know what? I was? At the rugby match in Rome there recently, the Six Nations and Ireland were playing we. We didn't win, but when they were doing their little walk around the pitch after us, I was really emotional and like really teary-eyed because all the crowd were cheering for them and it just felt really emotional. And then the next day the Rome marathon was on, yeah, and the all the runners were running and the, the cheer, the people that were cheering them on were like yeah, yeah, give them those. And I felt really overwhelmed then, like that whole crowd feeling where we're supporting each other. Yeah. But I wouldn't call myself a highly sensitive person at all, but I think that sometimes that that sense of community can really build up emotion inside us, can't it, yeah, yeah, and it's like a spectrum.
Speaker 2:There's a spectrum with everything. I might feel things at an eight, whereas you might feel things at like a five, and noise really bothers me, like you know. When the TV is too loud, that really bothers me. I turn on the TV tv, whereas Paul wouldn't even bother him. Like I remember, this is probably a mum thing too. I went to my daughter when she's about five, did a ballet show on like a big stage in a theatre, sobbing my way through it. That's a mom thing though, isn't it? But I was looking around at the other moms.
Speaker 1:Oh they weren't they weren't. They're like who's that satow over there? What's? Wrong with your one, yeah, yeah, you've already said about your friend. You're worrying about your friend coming back from holidays and not talking to you. Are you sensitive, like could I look at you funny now and you'd be like, oh Jesus, what does that mean?
Speaker 2:Maybe not now, because I'm at a place where I am so much more content within myself.
Speaker 2:And if you didn't, if you looked at me a bit funny, probably now I'd be like I wonder what that was about and I wouldn't personalize it maybe as much, but definitely a few years ago, yeah okay or if we left today and if I said, oh, it's so lovely spending time with you, like let's go for coffee or something, and then maybe in the response part of that, you know the producer came in and said something and you kind of didn't hear me, didn't acknowledge it. In the past I would have really felt that and I would have been like and I would have felt very vulnerable in that, like reaching out and taking that risk of saying let's be friends, and then, if I hadn't received anything back from you, I would have felt that really deeply okay but, now I've learned that often it's not about us and even even if it is, even if you're like nah, no interest in meeting her for coffee, we're just she's not my type person, that's okay yeah like I'm now.
Speaker 2:I'm strong enough in myself to like. But like that's okay.
Speaker 1:But before I would have felt that very deeply and now that links a lot to self-worth as well so, and have you done a lot of work on self-worth recently, or just in the last year, when you've decided to take life more slowly, that you've learned all this?
Speaker 2:no, I. I think becoming a mother really changed things for me with my self-worth. So when I was younger, I and after being given up for adoption, I really struggled with my sense of of worth like am I a value? How can I be a value? People are just going to leave me, abandon me. I've nothing to offer. And then when my daughter was born my first daughter and I just could see how precious she was and how much light and love and joy she brought to the world without doing anything, just arriving. You know that moment where there's this squishy new little baby, and I know you've experienced it recently, but you're your niece oh, my goodness, there's nothing like the love I was.
Speaker 1:I was driving into the Coombe hospital when my sister had, you know, had announced that she'd had the baby. She brought a video. I was bawling, crying, just you know that it is. The love of a new baby brings to everyone in the family is unreal, isn't it? And the baby doesn't do anything.
Speaker 2:No, the baby just arrives, they don't have to. It's amazing, exactly, and that was really powerful for me. But you just said there they don't have to, they don't have to do anything and they are loved and adored and precious and perfect, whatever way they arrive into the world. Having my daughter helped me to realize that and to recognize that that was my story too, so that really changed things for me in terms of my self-worth when you say that was your story too.
Speaker 1:You arriving into the world was an amazing thing and yeah, okay, yeah, here you know yeah, and there was nothing wrong with me.
Speaker 2:So I think I always carry that sense of well, if I was given away, I like personalized it okay and then having my daughter, I was like, of course there was nothing wrong with me yeah.
Speaker 2:I was perfect and precious too, just just as she was and is. So that really significantly impacted me in a really positive way, and it's sad. I feel sadness thinking back to the younger version of me that didn't know that and that was like I had my first daughter when I was 30 30 I just turned 30 so for 30 years I didn't know that and do you think that if you hadn't been made aware that you were adopted from a young age, you're only told maybe older in life, maybe you would have felt something but you wouldn't have known it was adoption.
Speaker 1:Do you think it would? Have been easier for you, like you wouldn't have had that. Oh well, I was, because you keep going back to the fact that you said you were, you were given away, you're put up for adoption, you're abandoned. Yeah, do you think that you?
Speaker 1:you may have known there was something, because you say that the body feels it regardless whether you were two weeks old, you didn't know in foster care whether you were looked after the way you should have been. Yeah, so do you think that if you hadn't been told it from a young age because they do say you should just inform your child, it's really important that they know that it's not just something out of the blue when they're older but do you think that maybe if you hadn't been told that, it would have been had less of an impact on you growing up?
Speaker 2:I think it's a really good question question, and what I would hypothesize is that such a psychology word, isn't it? Um, is that I would always have felt that anxiety and just maybe have grown up as, like, a very anxious child. When I was going from Montessori into primary school, my Montessori teacher said to my mom maybe you should keep her back a year, she's very like. She wondered if I could do with an extra year to just maybe become a little bit more independent. So from really early age, okay, I was like looking around me in the world and assessing who was safe and what was safe, and so that was when I was like three. Yeah, wow, I think I probably just always would have have experienced life as scary in a way, maybe not with an. And look, when I was up, until I was maybe 18, I don't know if I consciously was able to recognize why life felt that way. You know, I made sense of it later in life that how we're all so different?
Speaker 1:isn't it how our brains all work so differently? Yeah you'd know that, of course, being a psychologist, I'm sure you see and hear all kinds of things, even within my children, like my seven-year-old and my four-year-old, so different.
Speaker 2:Are you analysing them and going, hmm, not analysing them, but they're so different and always have been, and no one ever grows up with the same parents. I am not the same mum to them, you know, I'm a different mom to them. No one has the same parents. Even if they're brought up in the same family with the same parents, we react, we treat them differently. Yeah, um, but you know they've had similar, the same upbringing, like with myself and Paul. They've always had the same things, but they're so different and they've come out of the moon.
Speaker 1:It's amazing how different your children look. Mine are like absolute shock and jeez. I was telling you about one of my lads. He'd let you know that there was a tooth coming up. You know, a month before it was coming up, you would know he used to torture me and his dad with his teeth coming up. And then the other fella, you know my middle fella. I remember tickling him on the changing mat one day when I was changing his nap and he burst out laughing and he had about six teeth and I hadn't even realised they'd all come up. Yeah, so, and he's easy going to this day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of my children is really highly sensitive. The other is like she is wild, like wild, but really charming and like gets away with it, like she'll smile at you.
Speaker 1:Funny, they're devils, aren't they? She knows, yeah, they know how to wrap their mum and dad around their fingers as well. Yep. Are there any other things that you see in clinic, a lot that you'd like to discuss and just reassure people about?
Speaker 2:I think our self-worth. Like people really struggle with advocating for themselves, taking up space, living the life that they want to. So many people live their life around their perception of what they should and shouldn't do, or how they should or shouldn't be, even like with their partners, with their parents, even as grown adults. Yeah, so many of us put sheds on our shoulders and can be very unhappy because of that. People come and they feel undeserving to take up space in the therapy room that they're paying for. They'll say I, I shouldn't be here. I, someone more deserving should be here. And it's not. It's not a free service, so that that that's not even part of it. They're paying for it and they feel undeserving to be there. Sad, isn't it? Yeah, like that really gets me. Of course they are deserving to be there. You know we all. We are all deserving of help and support and for life to be easier yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I suppose some people would think that, oh look, I live a privileged life, I can, I have a job, or I have enough money to feed my children, and yeah, and I feel guilty for feeling this way, or something like that. Isn't that? It that? Look what's going on in the middle east? I should be grateful for what I have yeah why do I feel this way?
Speaker 1:you know, I need to just brush myself down, yeah, but you're right. They need to understand that their self-worth is important and whatever they're experiencing is very real for them exactly, and you know we get we've won life and we spend so much of it unhappy.
Speaker 2:Like if I could just like wave a magic wand and just help women realize that we are deserving of being happy and living a life where we decide what we, how we want to live our lives, based on what makes us happy, like I just think that would really change things for people. So how can people improve their self-worth? I think you know earlier I said it's about changing your relationship with how you look after yourself when you're late. You know that kind of thing of maybe I can change. I can work on not being late for things, definitely, but I can also change my relationship with how I am in the lateness too, so where I'm more compassionate with myself or let myself off the hook or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:I was saying to somebody recently I really dropped the ball on World Book Day with one of my daughters, so she told us long in advance what character she wanted to be and I was really busy so I just didn't prepare. Then it got to you know the kind of panic of couple of days before and it's like, oh fuck, I need to pull this costume out from somewhere. And even when I order, you know, next day delivery, it's not going to be here on time. So, long story short, I ordered something, but it was like laughable how bad it was. And so the morning of she started to cry. She said but mummy, I'm not this character, I'm just wearing pajamas.
Speaker 2:Oh, and what did you say? I hugged her and I said I know you're disappointed, darling, it's okay to be disappointed, I'm really sorry. I tried, I was like you, are you like you did? And she's like no, mommy, it's like it's okay, darling. Yeah, I know you're disappointed, I'm really sorry that you're disappointed. Um, so, like, I validated how she was feeling and hugged her and ended up bringing her and three of her friends to Milano's the next day, I'm sure she was delighted.
Speaker 2:But anyway, why I'm sharing this story is I was really busy in that couple of weeks in the run-up to that and I dropped the ball, yes. But I was able to say to myself it's okay, like you dropped the ball, but it's okay, you were doing your best. I was able to just be self-compassionate with myself and not absolutely berate myself and like say you're the worst mother in the world you know she asked for one thing and you couldn't even do it for her.
Speaker 2:You know why are you so selfish? Why are you so? Why do you prioritize yourself? You know I could have done all that, but I was able to say it's okay, she survived this and I brought her, bribed her by bringing her to Milano's.
Speaker 1:You know the way, when you're pregnant with your first child, you're like I'm never going to give them a dodie or processed food or bribe them with McDonald's, and then literally all that shit goes out the window after one year is gas, isn't it. I actually saw a funny take on World Book Day. I think it was Motherland or it was some UK series where they're following all these mothers and they're funny. It's real, real life and this mother turns up to Mother to book World Book Day. She's like fuck Book.
Speaker 1:Day and I go out so fuck book day, and I know one of the mothers that has it all down and has the child with the perfect book. You know the diy.
Speaker 2:I didn't forget.
Speaker 1:No, I didn't fucking forget, fuck you. And she took off dressed dressed for children in her own clothes and then walked off with her brown. It was just, it was funny. But what you're describing is, yeah, like I mean jesus. But there's also so much nowadays. I find the whole whatsapp thing with schools and that overwhelming between you know compass, aladdin, and then all the various whatsapp groups for for school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were sent out to school and my mother and father did not know what the hell was happening in school from one week to the next, from one term to the next, but now it like even one of the kids is in transition year and we're being reminded about the stuff that they have to do in transition year. I'm basically going is transition year not about them taking ownership for themselves? Why am I constantly being informed about this? I do think there's a bit of infantilising of them as well these days, with all of the tech that's available and all the apps that are available.
Speaker 2:I think in a lot of ways, we were better off years ago, where my mother didn't know what I was doing from one end of the week to the next, and they'd send you out for Halloween in like a black sack or a black sheet, a black sack with two holes?
Speaker 1:yeah and yeah.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely not a bother, but, and also on World Book Day, I was seeing, like you've just said, all those mums who had created these artistic homemade DIY.
Speaker 1:No, I never, ever was into that. No, and that's not me.
Speaker 2:Like, even if I was doing nothing for a whole month before World Book Day, that would never be me.
Speaker 1:But fair play to you. If that's what you're into, I totally get it if you're into it, but I just know that it's not even that. It's not even that I'm not talented enough. I've no interest in doing that, and if my kids want to go off and do that themselves, they can.
Speaker 2:But yeah, and I guess why I brought that up. Like I am in awe of those women that do that, like that.
Speaker 1:What a skill. No, just stop pretending. I know that like she's saying that, right, but she's winking at me and making like she's actually making gestures with her hands, indicative of the fact that she thinks that they're wankers. And on that note, we're going to go on to the best questions that I ask all day.
Speaker 2:I just say one more thing though I could have gone to that part, that place of comparison like you know, lucy's mother is so much better than me. I send my daughter to school in a pajamas that's the same color.
Speaker 1:I just told her you're the character in the Bowen striped pajamas. Okay, move on.
Speaker 2:Move on. Yeah, isn't that right? Don't think that quickly. Someone else said you should just hand her your book and just dress her as you. As me, that would have been so much better.
Speaker 1:Slightly narcissistic but that's okay. That's okay, you're allowed it. When you're an author, actually, will you tell everyone the name of your book and where it's available?
Speaker 2:yes, my book is called the steps. It is available in all good bookstores online as well. You know what I actually? Some, lots of people have said to me since I've launched the book it's actually really good. People have said to me it's actually really good. I'm not sure where that has come from, but I think maybe when you read a book like my book that's written by a psychologist, scientifically proven and it's backed, but also it has lots of bits of me in it and lots of bits of my clients that people can relate to, but stuff that actually works and that makes a difference. That's so important isn't it yeah.
Speaker 2:So if somebody is struggling with anything anxiety, self-worth, that inner critic that can be there for so many of us conflict in your relationship, grief pick up the book and read it and do the little exercises and there's also guided meditations and it will change things. It will make life easier. I also think it's a gorgeous book to give to somebody.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like someone in my life recently had a miscarriage, and it was for those people as well that I was thinking I know, sometimes I'll buy something for people, you know if they've lost their dad or they've had a miscarriage or whatever. You want to just do something for them, buy them the book, and the book helps.
Speaker 1:That's lovely and, like you say, just to help people a little bit along the way because life's tough and it's a long road. Yeah, and there's definitely more speed bumps than we ever would have anticipated as children. So yeah, yeah, your questions tell me and it is a lovely book. My questions Thank you book. My questions what bit of advice would you give young people today?
Speaker 2:I actually love the way we're starting to ban phones. I wish I could protect my daughters from phones, and already my daughter's seven. She's like how old am I going to be when I get my phone? I really wish we could protect our children from that. But that's maybe more for parents for children. I do everything I can to build up my children, you know, to just tell them they're deadly. And my seven-year-old like runs up and back in front of the mirror and flicks her hair and she thinks she is like she. I don't know where she got her confidence from. Maybe you're giving it to her, because you're building her up.
Speaker 2:Well, hopefully, but I think there's more. You know, I think maybe she's born with it as well, but anyway, or maybe it's Maybelline. It's like is it Maybelline or L'Oreal? No, maybelline, because you're worth it.
Speaker 1:Both are relevant.
Speaker 2:I wish that we could just sit our children down, or, you know, and when I say children, I mean like, not just my children, children, the youth of our society.
Speaker 2:Help them to see how amazing they are. You know, I think if we could just work on building up our youth and helping them to stand firmly within themselves, that life would be very much easier for them. And that's the gift that I try to give to my clients to let them know how worthy they are, to help them remember their worth, because we can do anything if we believe in ourselves and if we believe that we have the right to look after ourselves and stand up for ourselves and put ourselves first, like take that hour a week to do yoga class, like we're so deserving of that. So I think if I could go in maybe to talk to teenage girls or something and help them to actually remember how worthy they are, that that would make a massive difference to them to their lives yeah and what's the meaning of life?
Speaker 2:I'm like a real romantic at heart and a real softy, I think. I think it's love like. I think there's a study done, the longest study on human development. It's been done by harvard and it's years into the study. I think they've been doing it now for over 80 years, 87 years, 90 years, around that time and it's on what contributes to our health and our happiness and our relationships, time and again, have been found to be the biggest predictor of us living long, healthy lives. It protects our relationships that are significant and meaningful to us, like protect us in so many ways, like cognitively, physically, like emotionally. So I think it's love and our relationships and I think it's about allowing ourselves to nurture them and to show up in them as ourselves in an authentic way, because we work so hard and sometimes we need to financially and that's really important.
Speaker 2:I you know I would hate someone to leave this podcast and think, oh, you know how privileged it is for her to be able to say I want to work less, I need money, I need money to pay my bills. But it's about how can I do both how can I pay my bills but also be there for my children and my husband and my friends in the way that I want to, and maybe, and there has to be a sacrifice for that, like, and it could be a holiday or it could be, you know, fancy jeans or whatever. Yeah, I think it's a purpose of life and the meaning of life is all about love, which sounds so corny no, it doesn't.
Speaker 1:It sounds absolutely right, of course. So where can people find you if they're looking for you on Instagram?
Speaker 2:apart, from in bookstores, in bookstores, on Instagram, at the wellness psychologist. My podcast is unspoken. My website, you'll find it very easily if you look up the wellness psychologist or Dr Claudia Campbell.
Speaker 1:And yeah, if you look up the wellness psychologist or Dr Clodagh Campbell. And yeah, been a pleasure, clodagh, we'll have to have you on again. I'd love to Plenty more to talk about.
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