Welcome to Conquering Chaos a mom's guide to self-care and sanity . I'm your host , sydney Crow , and today we have the lovely guest Avril Brown , who is originally from Ireland but is currently living down in New Zealand . Welcome , avril , I'm so excited to have you here .
Speaker 2Thank you so much , Sydney . I am super excited to be here . I'm with everybody listening as well .
Speaker 1I am so grateful that you are here to talk more about your story . So we were chatting a little bit before the show and you filled me in . So Avril is a awakened mom coach and she has a ton of modalities behind her , but motherhood really brought you to your healing journey . Why don't we start with where you were and how you got to where you are today ?
Speaker 2Yeah , cool . So my son was born almost 10 years ago so he's nine and a half and before that I had done I had had anorexia from I was 14 . So I had an extensive history with anorexia and I wasn't fully healed . I would say I was high functioning . I also had high functioning anxiety and I'd read self-help books , I'd done a lot of research , I'd studied psychology . I'd done all of this stuff , thinking I would was helping myself , and I'd worked with therapists . But it had remained information in my head when my son was born . It really brought me to my knees . He's neurodiverse .
Speaker 2He was a really high needs baby and toddler and I really felt like I wasn't coping with him at all .
Speaker 2My health , my physical health , really I ended up in burnout .
Speaker 2I ended up barely basically able to just function and look after him but do nothing else . Mentally and emotionally I felt more depleted than I'd ever felt in my life and there was something about having a why that was bigger than myself that forced me to really realize I had to do the healing , because my son needed me and he needed me more than I had needed myself , and because of that I I had to find a way to heal , and that was when I started exploring options as to how to really bring the healing and embody the healing that I already knew and what modalities and support I needed to move me further , because I couldn't be a mom just lying on the floor every day , basically not able to really function except for just look after my child's basic needs . I didn't want that for myself , I didn't want that for my child , and my child needed more , and so that really catalyzed me looking deeper into myself but also looking for the support that I was going to need to be the mom he needed me to be .
Speaker 1Wow , that's really powerful and I'm glad that you're here and you're healthy and that you were able to dig deep and do that healing , because that's not an easy journey . I know a lot of moms struggle with you know similar stories , similar walks , and we always tend to want to do more for our kids than we're willing to do for ourselves . And then , in turn , when we are able to , you know , do dig deep and do that healing . You know we start to pour from a full cup and then everybody else's cup around us filled up too . So what a powerful story . Tell me a little bit more about how you work with ambitious moms who are intuitive . What does that look like for you ?
Speaker 2This looks a lot like creating balance and harmony , but it's balanced from the inside out , because what I learned in my own journey was specifically around nervous system work . In my own journey was specifically around nervous system work Because I had done lots of stuff but I'd never really focused on the nervous system and this was the . This was I won't call it a modality , but this was where I found my most healing was actually addressing the core level of how I could support and regulate my nervous system , and this is what I start with all of the moms that I work with on , depending on their goals . But there's always the foundation of the nervous system work , because I have found there isn't a single mom I don't know really a single person who hasn't done some good nervous system work , who is regulated out there .
Speaker 2There's so many stressors in our world today .
Speaker 2There's so much busyness , especially as mums , especially as mums who are also maybe working or who want to go back into working and have , you know , desires of their own .
Speaker 2The nervous system work is a real foundation because we have to be able to have the capacity to hold all of the stress that is going on as well as be the mums we want to be for our children as well as as ourselves , as well as our relationship or our marriage .
Speaker 2There's so many balls in the air and we can't keep them all moving and we can't keep them all up in the air if we ourselves are not in a place , or like a regulated place , where we have the capacity to hold them all . So this is the foundation of what I support is creating the balance from the inside out , rather than changing some of the external circumstances and hoping that it sticks , because it will stick and it may stick for a while , but long term it doesn't stick . It doesn't . Nothing hangs around . We have to create what we want in the external world by healing it in the inside first . So , and when we do that , it filters through , it does lead to more balance and harmony in our relationship with our kids , in our relationship in our marriage , in our partnership , in our relationship in like with the people that we work with . It's about that deepening the relationship with ourselves first and supporting that balance inside first .
Speaker 1That's really powerful . You know , a lot of the work that I do helps with nervous system and gut level healing . You need to get to the root cause of things right , and I also have a neurodivergent daughter and you know , I think our healthcare systems are a little bit broken in the sense that they want to just push pharmaceuticals and they blanket it . It's like a one size fits all . And if you're not getting down to the nitty gritty and the root level and really working at , you know , that nervous system , that gut level and and working from the inside out , as you said , then it's like putting a bandaid on a broken arm , and so I really love that .
Speaker 1That's , you know , your modality and you you focus on on the nervous system because I think it is such an integral part of of everything that we do . I mean , even when I look at my own journey , I physically knew that I wanted to get to the gym , I wanted to eat right , I wanted to do all of those things . But in those moments of like the survival , what I call my survival years , you know , I just didn't physically have the capacity to do those things and it just compounded day after day after day , or I'd have a week where I was like , okay , I feel good , I can do this , and then I would fall off the wagon again , and so it's such a powerful tool when you can really get to those root level healing and work from the inside out . So I think that that's wonderful . Do you feel open to talking a bit more about your son and your relationship and how some of your healing has led to raising him differently or helping him through some of his struggles ?
Speaker 2Oh , I would love to . I would love to because his journey , because it's so , we're so interconnected with our kids . It's not once you've got kids , it's not them or us , it's all combined , and his journey has influenced my journey so much as well .
Speaker 1So , yeah , okay , great , okay , great well , why don't you tell me a little bit of like , maybe , some of the struggles that you found , or how you were able to use some of the tools that you've been able to use to heal yourself and maybe make his journey a little bit easier ?
Speaker 2so I think one of the big things that I found when , whenever he was very young , it was very obvious um , I don't . I guess the easy way of saying it is that he was different . He was different from his peers from a really really young , very , very young age , and so we initially started with with his healing journey . So , you know , started seeing a naturopath and going down that whole biomedical world from he was about . I had always been interested in alternative health and stuff like that , but I hadn't really been as deeply involved in it as I until then as I was , because then I had to , I had a different reason to do it . So we were going down that road with him and it was on that road that I also saw , you know , noticed so much about the gut health and the stuff that I needed the internal healing on a physical level as well as on a mental and emotional level . But what , where I really struggled with him was , I think the emotions that he brought up . The level of intensity of his emotions and his meltdowns and his personality was really very triggering for me , because in all of my years with anorexia I and this was the nervous system dysregulation I was very much in a place of functional freeze . So I was zoned out . I was disconnected from myself , I was disconnected from my emotions and this kiddo brought me right back into it . It was like you have got to see this , because the emotions like rage and anger that I'd always been quite a calm person , but these came up really big in me and I didn't actually know where they'd come from . It was really quite scary to feel the depth of emotion I could feel about this tiny little infant toddler . So I knew that there was something big inside me , around that emotions that had to heal . And so I had to build the capacity to hold those big emotions because I'd always been a big feeler from I was a child . It was like you're too sensitive , you've got big feelings , you think too much , and of course I shot all that down from I was 14 in an eating disorder . But then he was bringing them up for me . So he really forced me to see and face those within myself and get support around those , and in doing that then I learned the tools and techniques to be able to support him with these big emotions . So he now has he still has big emotions , but he has a greater capacity to hold them and to express them in much healthier ways , because I've had to learn to hold mine and to be able to face mine as well . So that's just one of the many areas and obviously I mean I love the nervous system work because I bring it in in such when we're learning it from the root up again .
Speaker 2We're basically going back to being a child learned . We're learning the real foundational sets , and actually my child taught me about tapping into my basic , like human needs , those real , basic , fundamental needs that so many of us as moms , as women , as as probably men as well but I work with with predominantly women is we ignore our very basic needs and children don't . Children are very good . They go to the toilet when they know they need to . They , you know , they bounce around on one foot telling you they need to go to the toilet . We don't as adults . We hold it in for hours and hours and hours . They tell you when they're thirsty , they tell you when they're hungry . Even if they can't use words to communicate it , they will communicate it through behavior . We also communicate it through behavior , but we often don't even recognize that's what we're communicating when we get hangry , when we get irritable , all the signs of like low blood sugars . We can learn so much from our kids , so he taught me so much of that as well , and I think one of the greatest things that I learned from both of my son's journey and my own was really tapping into and listening to my inner wisdom , because I sought a lot of parenting support around him and nothing really seemed to work .
Speaker 2Nothing ticked the boxes , nothing resonated , you know , for him , I just didn't have , you know , the scripts , they didn't have you know the scripts , they didn't work . For him . He's clever , he could see straight through them , you know , and tell them . Tell you know , just repeat them back to me and tell me why he wasn't going to do what they said . And so I would tear my hair out because there was nothing parenting out there that seemed to tick all of his , you know , meet all of his . You know , meet all of his boxes .
Speaker 2And it was the same with my health . I went to numerous integrative practitioners , I spent 1000s on trying to support my own health , but again , what I realized , and what I realized now , is I was outsourcing my wisdom all the time and I wasn't listening to my body , I wasn't listening to my inner wisdom around how I knew deep down how to parent my child best . I wasn't listening to myself around my body . I was thinking that an integrative doctor who had so many letters after his name not dismissing them because I love integrative like practitioners , and I still work with them , but I do it from tuning into me first , and I will work with people who say to me what does this feel right for you , does this feel right for your child ?
Speaker 2And so that was one of the greatest things that I've learned in this journey is really tuning into my inner wisdom and trusting that . Trusting that and it's one of the reasons I took our son out of school and I now homeschool him is I really trusted my inner wisdom around what felt right for us as a family to do with him and his schooling . And that was definitely because moms have this most incredible inner wisdom . We all do , but we have , especially when it comes to our children . But we outsource it so often and we look for somebody else to be our savior when it comes to parenting , or our savior when it comes to health , or our savior when it comes to any other area of our lives , and when we do that , we disempower ourselves absolutely .
Speaker 1You know and I think not to dismiss men in this case , but like you said earlier that women as a whole , we were raised to be such people pleasers at least our generation was , and so , and generations before that . And I'm so glad that you know we're at this level where we're doing this inner work and doing the healing so that our kids aren't going to have to unlearn these habits . Because , like you , I had turned off my intuition and I always knew that my daughter was different , as you said it's a nice way to put it because I would go out with mom groups and I would share the experiences that I was having and they would all look at me like you have to deal with what , like I don't know , and like it was like I had grown two more heads or something
like that . They were like oh , that's you know . And I was like and it was such an isolating experience because at that point my intuition was telling me that something was different , something was off , but at the same time , everything that I had gone to every doctor's appointment , there was no answers for us , and so I was like starting to feel like I was losing my mind . It's like wow , these are the things that I'm dealing with , but nobody has answers for me . And so then I started to turn off that intuition because I was like , well , maybe it's just all in my head , maybe maybe I'm crazy , you know , and I think as women we tend to do that a lot .
Speaker 1It's not just in motherhood , it's , you know , when we're young girls and we're labeled too chatty or too whatever in school and we're like , oh , maybe that's a bad thing , and you start to turn off those pieces of yourself and lose that connection . And so it's such a powerful tool to be able to , you know , go through this healing journey with your son and then really , in turn , be able to guide him and teach him in ways that you wouldn't have been able to do if he hadn't taught you first . So I love that . It's like circular and you guys have come full circle here and , you know , really been able to close that gap and do what's right for you and your son and your family . I think that's a really , really powerful lesson for everybody to hear . So you mentioned that you love to help women with their mystical learning and their mystical intuition . Can you tell me a little bit more about that ?
Speaker 2Yeah , it's around once again . It's around that intuition , it's around really tapping into that and tapping into your spirituality . Now , whatever spirituality looks for everybody you know everybody is different For some people it might look like religion , for some people it might look like crystals , for somebody else it might look like out in , you know , just being out in nature . But I think this is a part of us that we often again shut down . It's a part of us that we don't explore , especially if it doesn't fit into us , like the stat , you know , if it doesn't fit into a like religion . Often I mean , I'm from Ireland religion was the easy I guess it's the easy form of spirituality , um , or the more um accepted or the more acknowledged part of that um spirituality . But often there's it's deeper than that , it's much deeper and it's about tapping into that trust and that faith in something bigger than us .
Speaker 1And maybe for some moms it might not be bigger than us , it might be like out in nature , but I love exploring that with people as to what that part of them really needs and guiding them back to that yeah , I mean that , mean that's so powerful , right , whether it is religion or I mean , nature has a ton of power and it definitely , I believe , is bigger than we are , and there's so much to be said about just getting out and getting some fresh air that it just creates such a healing effect , right , you just get that fresh air , you get a little bit of sunlight , and it does wonders for our health , and so I think that there is such a beautiful piece around that where you're able to tap into all of these different areas , depending on what your clients are looking for and needing , and be able to guide them through that . So , if there was any last piece of advice on motherhood or raising a neurodivergent kid or anything like that , what would you want the listeners to hear ?
Speaker 2to do your own inner work first . No , to do your own inner work alongside , because I don't think you can do it first once you become a mom . I don't think it's that we , that we have to be a hierarchy where we're above our children's needs , because it's never going to be like that . I think we have to do our work alongside them , but with a ton of compassion and grace for yourself and the journey , because it's not always a quick journey . Sometimes it would feel like there's road bump after road bump after road bump .
Speaker 2I think , along the way it's about realizing that you're not broken . You know , no matter what you've been through in life , no matter how you know incapacitated you feel , no matter how much you think your parenting is rubbish , you , no matter how much you think your childhood has impacted you , that you're not broken
. Anybody can do this healing work , but we have to do it in a way that we hold ourselves with tons of compassion along the way and and I do think that when we do this first , it filters through to every single person . It filters through to our children , our relationship , our businesses , every single person . But it's everything starts inside first .
Speaker 1I love that so much . Well , avril , thank you so much for being here today . It was so great to hear from you . And thank you , guys , for tuning into today's episode where we help you conquer the chaos , one day at a time .