Piece Of Mind Podcast

Ep 23: What Becoming A Teen Mum Was Really Like

ā€¢ Ashley Badman

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This Episodes Show Notes:

Emphasising that personal stories hold immense power can reshape how we view mindset and psychology. Various challenges, such as teen pregnancy, serve as vessels for valuable lessons and narratives.

ā€¢ Sharing personal narratives builds connection and understanding among listeners
ā€¢ Emphasising the importance of experience in shaping one's perspective
ā€¢ The balance between academic knowledge and lived experience
ā€¢ How motherhood has provided growth and understanding
ā€¢ The significance of decision-making in personal transformation
ā€¢ Advocating for personal development irrespective of past experiences

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the Peace of Mind podcast, today's episode. It's a little bit of a different one. Usually I come into these episodes with some sort of a topic that I'm going to talk about that is going to be beneficial to you or educate you on something, because obviously I'm obsessed with mindset and psychology and I want you guys to be able to take away things, something that I'm realizing and that actually keeps being brought to my attention, even from just an inner knowing from myself, but also from things outside of myself or people outside of myself that what is going to be impactful from me or how I'm going to create impact in the world, is actually through my stories, through me sharing openly. And it's so funny because I've always had this narrative inside my mind that I need to learn more and have more knowledge and more information and then I'm going to be able to be impactful. And it's kind of funny because I'm doing a whole psychology degree now and probably based on that idea and I do think there is some truth to that. I think that knowledge is beneficial, knowing more, especially when it comes to humans and helping humans and I don't take that lightly and I definitely don't take it for granted, if there are people that trust me to help them on their journey of you know whether that's healing. They're actually healing trauma, or they're learning to let go of the past, or they learn to understand themselves on a deeper level, or not even healing, but actually just wanting to be the best version of themselves, wanting to understand their brain, their thoughts, why they think the way that they do, so that they can make positive shifts and changes in their life. That's a big responsibility for me to be able to safely guide people through that and ensure I'm actually helping them and creating impact and helping them come home to themselves and who they authentically are. It's not about me fixing somebody else or me telling somebody else what they should do. It's me guiding and helping people and holding space for people, for them to actually understand themselves and who they truly authentically are.

Speaker 1:

Because I truly believe that we are the most powerful people in our journey and while sometimes we need mentors or we need coaching or we need therapy or whatever it is to help us, because quite often we can't see our own blind spots and even me, who is studying psychology, has done mindset for years and years and years and help people with mindset when I'm going through challenges in my life. I still value the input and the support from the people around me. Even though I know all the information, I know how to get myself through challenges, I know how to regulate my nervous system, sometimes we just do need that voice outside of ourselves to help us and being a part of people's journey. In that I don't take that for granted and I think it's my job and my responsibility to learn as much as I can to be able to help and guide in a way that is actually beneficial. But in the same breath, I also know that everything that I've experienced in my life and all of the different challenges that I had faced, and all of those things are actually just as powerful. And sometimes it's not about sharing what I know and the knowledge and all the things that I'm learning during my degree and I've done other courses and other programs and things like that to help me with my knowledge. Sometimes it's sharing what I've experienced and being evidence for you of what's available to you, something I really do I do try to be mindful of, because for me, when people want to work on themselves, I want them to want to work on themselves because they want better for themselves. They want more for themselves, not because they think they're broken and not because they think they need to fix themselves.

Speaker 1:

I've worked with people who have had beautiful childhoods, beautiful upbringing, still have a beautiful relationship with their parents, haven't had really anything in quotation marks bad or wrong happen in their life, and sometimes it's those people that can think, well, I shouldn't work on my mindset or I shouldn't, you know, put myself in spaces where I'm working, because actually just working on me, because that should just be for people who are healing. And I wildly disagree and it's it's hard to disagree with that when my story is one of hardship and challenges and trauma, because then people listen to my story and they're like, well, you know, I need to have gone through that to want to work on myself, or I have to have gone through really shitty things to I don't know is it deserve. I'm not sure. But I do find, with a lot of people who haven't had trauma, they're the ones that hesitate the most to work on themselves and I just really want to emphasize that I personally believe on themselves and I just really want to emphasize that I personally believe, and I hope that you guys can believe that too, that mindset and psychology and working on our inner selves isn't about fixing something that's wrong, and nothing actually has to have gone wrong for you to want more for yourself. We are so complex, our brains are so complex, we have so many different beliefs and whether you have had the best life ever or you have had a really challenging life, we all have beliefs that limit us in some way, because we're humans and our brain is really adaptive for survival. So permission for everyone to want to work on yourself, regardless of what your experiences have been.

Speaker 1:

What I'm actually going to talk about today and what I was actually saying God, fuck you guys. I'm like, so I go off on so many tangents, like when I have episodes where there's no like this is the thing that you're talking about or teaching on. I'm like a tangent queen and it's just the fucking chaos of my brain. Like I'm almost certain I have ADHD under my fist. Like welcome to that chaos and I hope you love it here.

Speaker 1:

But why I was saying that is because I don't want to feel like, every time I jump on the podcast or every time I create a piece of content, that it has to be from an educational standpoint, because I have come to learn that there is so much power in my story and there is so much power in the lessons and the knowledge and the the takeaways that I've had for my challenges. And that doesn't mean that for you to get value out of hearing my story, you have to have had to go through the same challenges, but it's the lessons that I take from those challenges that I think are of most value, and I truly think that every single one of us, whether you choose to share on social media and you choose to share your life or not I truly believe that each individual person has so much value to give to others through our story, through our unique lens and how we view the world and what we've navigated. I genuinely feel to my core that we all offer so much value. But there are people that have this desire to share, and I don't think everyone has to have the desire to share and I don't think everyone does have the desire to share.

Speaker 1:

I have connected with some really beautiful people who have, you know, told me bits and pieces about themselves and I'm like, wow, that is incredibly impactful and you have been through so much, you have so much wisdom and so many lessons, but they have no desire to share that online, and that's okay, and they've no desire to kind of share their story at all, and I feel that that's so okay. But I feel like, for the people that are like, I genuinely feel like I'm here to share. I feel like I'm here to share what's going on for me or what's come up for me, and and I just feel that it may help someone or may impact someone, then we should be doing it more. We shouldn't feel that we need to be smarter or more educated to share our wisdom from our unique journey.

Speaker 1:

I actually saw on social media the other day and I won't name like who, because I'm not about like calling people out and I definitely don't think this is like a negative thing but I saw someone share a story saying that personal experience is the lowest form of knowledge or something like that. Like when it comes to educational, being like you know someone who knows their shit or whatever, personal experience is the lowest form, meaning that going to uni or reading books or learning about something and learning about the ins and outs of something is the highest form, especially when it's like evidence-based and all the things, and this is what I've learned in uni as well. Like I hear this actually said in uni and I'm not sure I agree with it, because it's like if someone's trying to teach me something about parenthood, whilst I know that they don't have to be a parent to have learned things about children and all those different things I know personally for myself and this is just a personal thing. It's not saying that everyone has to feel this, but for me personally, I know I absorb the information so much more when I know that I'm learning from someone who has personal experience in that and I know not everybody feels that way and you definitely don't have to learn from someone who has had personal experience and I definitely don't think it's necessary. But I do think for certain people there is so much power in hearing other people's personal experience or learning from other people who have experienced something that you have or similar to what you have. So I just want to preface that and I want to share more.

Speaker 1:

Like surely I didn't go through everything that I've been through in my life. Surely the universe is like yeah, fuck, you take this and it not be for any type of purpose or reason. I really do like to believe, like to my core, that everything I have been through, I don't know the cause of it and I don't think we ever need to know the cause or like the why. I sometimes think when we get caught up in like but why did this happen to me? But why is this happening in my life? It can just lead us to be like kind of miserable. But when we can think about the reason rather than the cause, I feel like there's something so empowering in that and for me, I have to believe that everything that has happened to me in my life is so that I can learn the lessons to help other people. Like that's what I feel, like I'm here for. And sometimes it can be a bit woo-woo and I don't know if you're here for that, but that's totally fine. Like each to their own.

Speaker 1:

But like I believe that all of the challenges that I have faced, all of the hardships, all of the really tough moments that I thought were just so shit in the moment have taught me so much and the reason those things have happened to me is so that I can, I can help other people and I can take all of the lessons. I also think it's to help myself as well. Like every time that I've been through something challenging, like now, when I look back at it, I'm like shit, like if that did not happen. And it doesn't mean that I'm like I love that that happened, because I don't love shitty things that happened to me or any other human being, and I don't think we fucking have to be like I love that that happened, like no, but I know if that didn't happen, I wouldn't be where I am now. Like even becoming a teen mum, right like at that time it felt like my world was crushing around me, like it felt like the most isolating, lonely, scary, am I fucking my entire life moment. And now I look back at that and I'm like, holy shit, if that didn't happen, if I didn't become a teen mom, like I would not even be the person when would I be today? I don't even know. Like I would not be the person I am today because being a mom has taught me so many lessons. Being a teen mom has taught me so many lessons and the resilience of becoming a mom at such a young age when nobody really supports you in that oh my God, it is just. It is just mind blowing. And also that person I was pregnant with.

Speaker 1:

My beautiful little Charlotte is such an incredible human being. I learned from her every day. She turns 13 in, oh my God, three days. You guys, I don't know when this is going to come out. I'm recording this on the 27th of February Two days. No, oh my God. So she was actually born on the 29th of February Leap year baby Just so magical, isn't it? Of course, that's so fitting, because she is just a magical, magical human being, but at the time I was so scared that I was ruining my my life, and that was actually what I wanted to talk about. Today.

Speaker 1:

I feel like I'm going to do different podcasts around different aspects of my life, because there are so many challenging things that have happened in my life and cramming them into one episode is just way too fucking much and it's too much of an overload. But I've decided that I do want to use this platform and this podcast to just sit down without a plan and just fucking talk to you guys. No pressure, just riff, just share, just say what's literally on my mind in this current moment no notes, no scripts, no idea of what I'm going to say, and I was just feeling really cool to sit down and talk about that moment when I found out that I was pregnant and share that story with you and share kind of where I was versus where I am now and my motherhood journey. So when I found out I was pregnant, I was living at home and we were still living in government housing. So at that time I was 18, I had finished high school. So I finished high school in 2010. Did I Fuck? That makes me sound so old.

Speaker 1:

I finished year 12 in 2010. I definitely had big goals and visions for myself. One of them was to definitely be in the police. I was like I really want to do that. It's going to be really cool. But then when I left school, I was kind of confused at what I wanted to do. I didn't want to go to uni. I kind of got some admin jobs, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1:

Anywho, fast forward. I turned 18 in March of 2011. Must have been. I hope I'm getting these timelines right. I don't actually know. I'm 31 now. Does that make sense? I'm turning. Anyways, who cares about the timeline? We get the gist my daughter's nearly 13,. So we have an idea of how long ago this was. But basically I lose my train of thought. What was I even saying? Oh yeah, so I graduated school 2010 and end of 2010, lordy, and then June of 2011,. I fell pregnant. So like six months out of school, six months out of year 12.

Speaker 1:

And I found out pretty early on, which is pretty crazy, like I must've been getting a regular period or whatever. But I remember I was going to go out clubbing that weekend, like I was going to go into the city and it was always like a train ride away about an hour and a half. So I went to the shop to get a new outfit and I was like you know, like, wear this new outfit, go clubbing. Go to candies in um King's Cross in Sydney that's that's where I was like hanging out and I'd go clubbing. And I remember thinking to myself I haven't had a period.

Speaker 1:

My boyfriend and I were not safe, like I did not take any contraception and like I'm pretty sure we were relying heavily on the pullout method without the pullout happenings. When I look back I'm like lol, like what the fuck did you think was going to happen? It's also so funny because me and him we'd actually not been together that long and my parents let him come live with me in my fucking housing, commission government housing house, in my bedroom he like literally lived with me and we were just like having sex and all things. So I was 17. So that's pretty wild in itself and but actually when we got pregnant, it wasn't actually at my house, it was at my sister's house. That's funny, hey, if you're listening to this. So yeah, anyways, I fell pregnant in June and I remember not wanting to tell my mom because I was terrified. I didn't want to tell anyone and the person who I had fallen pregnant with had just gone away because he was in the army, so four weeks prior. So we did the deed and then he went away a few days later, and this was four weeks later, so he'd been away. For then he went away a few days later, and this was four weeks later, so he'd been away for four weeks.

Speaker 1:

I bought the pregnancy test after I bought my clubbing outfit, went into a cubicle at the shopping center and my stepdad was there that day. So we drove in together, cause it's about a 40 minute drive, 30 minute drive, and he was going as well. So I had my life and cycle drive myself, but we went together which is funny and he was waiting for me and I'm like trying to pee on this bloody thing and I'm like getting all my bags, pulling my pants up. I put the pregnancy test on the floor of the bathroom, got myself together and I was just going to pick it up as I was walking out and have a look and chuck it in the bin, obviously not expecting it to be pregnant. Spoiler alert I was pregnant.

Speaker 1:

I freaked the fuck out. I was like hyperventilating. I quickly text my best best friend, jen, and I was like, can I please come over? And then I said to my stepdad I'm like, oh, change of plans, I don't want to go out anymore. I'm going to go to Jen's, can you drop me there? So he dropped me at her house. I told her bless her soul, she was so loving and so supportive. She's like you can stay here tonight. And also, we're still best friends all these years later, which is crazy. We've been friends since we were 12, but she was the first person that I had told and I did sleep at her house that night and I don't think I actually slept a wink.

Speaker 1:

She took me to the doctors the next day. We did a couple more pregnancy tests where you pee on the stick. They were all coming up pregnant. The line was very faint. The doctor said let's get a blood test and come back tomorrow. Got the blood test, went back the next day, found out I was pregnant. I remember ringing my boyfriend at the time, who was the dad in the car, and like for both of us like it was a lot. He wasn't coming back for a little while. So I was 12 weeks pregnant by the time he came home.

Speaker 1:

I did not tell a soul. I was still living at home. I was going home every single day knowing I was pregnant. I went to all of my appointments in secret on my own. I had to have internal ultrasound, which I did on my own, um freshly 18, having no fucking idea what I'm doing, what's going on, and the only person that knew was Jen. He came home. We decided to tell my parents. Together we told my mom I'm not really going to get into it, into this episode, just because I just have to be mindful of like how I word things, because me and my mom still have she lives like five minutes from my house all the different things and it's a bit of a sensitive topic, I guess you would say.

Speaker 1:

But long story short, uh, the reaction was not a positive reaction. She was very, very disappointed, very unhappy with the decision, especially when she found out. The decision was I was going to keep the baby because I think initial reactions were cool, just get rid of it. Um, and I'd already kind of decided because I'd gone to the ultrasound, I'd made that decision on my own. The days after that were really tough. I had to tell my brother and my sister and my stepdad and, yeah, reactions were just disappointments, um, anger, frustration, a lot of trying to kind of like pressure me into not having the baby. And like now, 31 year old me sitting here, can see exactly why that was and I can see that they were, you know, trying to come from a place of love and probably come from a place of their own fear. But from my perspective, as 18 year old me, that was really hard and it felt really lonely and really scary.

Speaker 1:

The ultimate decision was that have I said ultimate a lot of times, so sorry if I have was that if I was to have the baby and I was making that choice and I couldn't live at home, so we moved out, I'd never lived out of home before. He, like I said, was just in the army. We looked for rentals and we got approved for this rental. That was $360 a week and I remember feeling very scared by that because I didn't have a job now that I was pregnant and who's going to hire someone who's 18 and pregnant? Fucking no one. And I was scared that we weren't going to be able to afford it. We were broke as shit, you guys. Like we were so broke.

Speaker 1:

We had a box trailer, so my bedroom in my government house that all went into a box trailer and we moved into this house with that. We had nothing like. There was a tv unit that people had left at the house so we used that a coffee table. We used that. Um, someone had loaned us like oh, not loaned us, I think they gave it to us because they were like literally throwing them out these blue couches. I'm not even kidding, they were so hideous and disgusting but we needed couches so we took them and then just whatever furniture I had in my bedroom, like a stereo and a fucking bed, like literally 18 year old girl room vibes moving into our own house, the walls were like mustard yellow, in the kitchen with brown benchtop and brown cupboards. The floor was slate everywhere. So, like that does anyone know what slate is? It's like hideous. Sorry, if you have that in your house, love that. That for you Probably looks great for you. But in this house it was not a vibe, it was freezing cold.

Speaker 1:

I didn't know how to cook. I didn't know how to do anything. I was so scared. I remember the main food sources that we ate were like ravioli. You know the hot dogs not burnt them, but you know when they boil and they all crack open, I was like, oh, I'm gonna look after a baby. I can't even look after a hot dog. Like the emotions were, were high, took a pretty long time for my family to come around. I lost basically all of my friends except for Jen, bless her soul. Like what an absolute dream. She is just the most supportive friend in the world. And then, when I had Charlotte by this time, like my sister came to the hospital, my mom, like everyone, was there. Everyone was supportive. I'm like I'm not going to go into a birth story right now because, like, I just feel like this is probably not the vibe, but maybe I should do a birth story. I see that everyone does them now, but back then, like 13 years ago I think, people were doing birth stories online, um, but I can talk about it at another time.

Speaker 1:

I had her, we brought her home. Her partner was still working in the army and I remember it was like by the time she was, what, two or three months old. It was like winter and and the house was fucking cold. We could not afford heating or any type of like. I went to Kmart and bought one of those tiny little air air blow heaters like that, just blow air, and we put that in our bedroom. Our bedroom had purple walls, by the way, like this house, lord, um, I put the change table in there right next to the bed and her bassinet and we basically I only utilized that room and the kitchen and to go to the bathroom, but I was like I wouldn't say locked in that room because I could leave.

Speaker 1:

But, like I was 18, I had a fresh new baby. I'd never seen any like. I'm the youngest in my family, so I'd never experienced a baby before, other than I had looked after my niece a little bit. None of my friends obviously had babies. I lost most of my friends and I was alone with a new baby, with no money, in this house with the purple fucking walls and then no heater and freezing cold and no money and just no car, because my partner needed the car to take to work. So I couldn't go anywhere and in that time I just felt so. I had no aspirations, I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I didn't know what I was going to do with my future. I basically had everyone telling me that I'd fucked my whole life and I had no future. I'm just going to be this person who's popping out babies from western Sydney that never leaves on my biggest holiday that I call this the Gold Coast. And when I think of that time in my life and my my start to motherhood, I have had to do some work around that, because when I had my son, it was 18 months later.

Speaker 1:

We'd moved house by then because by that time the army because I was still with the kids, dad had kicked in of like benefits that you can get. So we had gotten a house that we had helped paying the rent through the defense force, which so so lucky at the time, like so needed for us. Otherwise I don't know. Like we would have just been in that freezing cold house forever. I had my son. No one was really excited when I said I was pregnant with my son. It was kind of just like oh, like we knew this was going to happen. You know, two babies before she's 20. This is her life now.

Speaker 1:

Like I was just a disappointment, I feel, in everyone's eyes. No one looked at me and were like you're a disappointment, but I just I could feel it. You know, like there was no excitement for pregnancy. There was no, like there was just none of that. It was kind of just like you're fucking your life. How sad. And when I think about that time now, I feel sad for myself because I feel like having babies is like it's such an exciting time, it should be such like a joyous experience and it just I just didn't get that. And I don't like. I don't feel sad for myself now when I sit here. I'm okay with it now, but when I, when I think about that version of me, I'm like that's sad, that you didn't get that, that you didn't get the celebration, the joy, and like I had a baby shower and like people want me presents and all those different things. My family came to my son's baby shower but I just knew that people thought I was making a mistake and that, you know, maybe because I felt quite lost in my life. I didn't know what I was going to do next. I had gained lots of weight. Because I felt quite lost in my life. I didn't know what I was going to do next. I had gained lots of weight.

Speaker 1:

My relationship with my partner, who was a kid's dad, wasn't very good During that time. I felt lost. I wasn't confident. I became more and more insecure. I became more self-conscious.

Speaker 1:

I loved my babies so much. I loved spending time with them, but I was, at the same time, very isolated. It's so interesting how two things can coexist. I loved them, I loved being time with them, but I was, at the same time, very isolated. It's so interesting how two things can coexist Like I loved them. I loved being a mom. I did enjoy it so much.

Speaker 1:

It was very challenging and it was very challenging to deal with, like sleep issues and you know all the different things at such a young age and so alone. Because my partner at the time you know he was a good dad, but he was also in the army and he was doing his thing and our communication probably wasn't very good. We both were very emotionally intelligent, we both were very self-aware, we both had heaps of trauma that we hadn't healed from. So like there's that, yeah, but I had no aspirations. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I used food to soothe myself and eventually, obviously now sitting here, I'm doing my degree, I've studied lots of things, I'm running my business, I have a beautiful relationship, my kids are amazing, and it took me putting that one foot in front of the other. It started with my weight loss journey. It started with just one decision to do another like an admin job. I think I actually signed up to a certificate at that time to do assistant in nursing.

Speaker 1:

I've made so many decisions along this journey to get to where I am now that were just the wrong fucking decisions, where I just was like I need to do something and I wanted to impress people and I wanted to feel like I was doing the right thing and like and that's okay, like I wouldn't be here without those bad decisions. When I see people being like, what if I make the wrong decision? What if I make the wrong decision. What if I fail? I'm like and who fucking cares? Because you're going to fall forward. That wrong decision is going to push you forward. That failure is going to push you forward. If you do nothing and you make no decision and you never fail, you're going to stay exactly where you are and that, to me, is so much worse than making a wrong decision or failing. I signed up to that course. I don't even think I finished it.

Speaker 1:

I did Nutramedics for a little bit, where I had like, literally, parties at my house to sell people makeup and try and make a commission from that, which is so funny. I did so many different things. I worked at a bowls club in admin. I worked at like this aerospace place in admin, and then I was like maybe I could go to uni. So I went to uni to become a primary school teacher and then I switched while I was doing that degree to law and then, when I was doing law, I was like, oh my god, you know what? Maybe I could fucking join the police, maybe I could fucking do it. Like are you kidding? Like can I? It's just gonna happen. Am I still gonna like fucking make my dreams come true? Like the excitement in my voice is because, like me then was like it was spent years of just being lost and like isolated and unsure and no aspirations and no dreams and no kind of like vision forward to. All of a sudden, just little steps, little steps, little steps and by this time I think the kids were like four or five. So like that's four or five years of just fucking trying things and seeing what sticks.

Speaker 1:

And I applied for the planks in Victoria and it was a long process. I had to drive to Victoria to do the aptitude test to begin with and drive home and I didn't tell anyone because I was like so scared I was gonna fail. I had to drive to Victoria to do the aptitude test to begin with and drive home and I didn't tell anyone because I was like so scared I was going to fail. I had to fly to Victoria for the fitness test and I had to fly there for the panel interview. It's like an eight to 12 month long process. And then I got accepted and I was like what the fuck? I was living in New South Wales at that time. I packed up my whole family, like at this time my partner had left the army because he was like hating it and didn't want to do it anymore. He wanted to study human resources and I was like I'm going to fucking provide for us. I'm going to be in the police. Like you know what I mean. Like I'm going to fucking make my dreams come true, move the whole family to a different state to join the police.

Speaker 1:

That didn't end up going well, but I think the purpose of this and I am going to wrap it up in a second because it was more meant to be about my teen mum experience and the isolation of feeling alone and feeling like no one is supporting you, no one gets you, losing a lot of friends, feeling like a disappointment, feeling just like what the fuck am I doing with my life? Have I actually failed? Like I get it and at the same time, I don't feel like you have to experience that to want more for yourself. I think we should always want more for ourselves. Like there is no one who can sit here right now, surely, and be like, oh, I've experienced everything there is to experience in this lifetime, because that's not living. Like the purpose of being alive is, because there's always more to experience, but we can't experience it if we're limiting ourselves, we're blocking ourselves and we're fucking like not taking those steps. So this is why I'm so fucking passionate about making the decision trying something new, doing the thing thing, quitting the job, ending the relationship, starting something new, trying a new hobby, signing up to a fucking course, whatever the fuck. Give it a red hot crack, because if I didn't do any of those things, where would I be right now? I don't even know what example would I be setting for my kids. I don't even know.

Speaker 1:

And I think a big part of this as well is it's also okay to grieve parts of your journey that you wish were different, like I wish that those my my entry into motherhood, which motherhood is such a beautiful, powerful experience in our life and I just feel like I wish it was different. I wish that. I wish that I experienced it differently, and a part of that is also on me, which is the part that I have to like let go of, and it's that like if I didn't have my kids as early as I did at 18 and 19, the experience would also be different on my end, because I'm so much more self-aware now. I know so much more about life, about humans, about just like I have so much more wisdom, so I would parent differently and when I was 18 and 19 I didn't have all of that. But then I can flip that and be like but if I didn't have all of that, I wouldn't be who I am now and I wouldn't have my beautiful, beautiful children who I have now, who are just the fucking most epic kids. Like I just feel so blessed, they're so epic. So it's like I choose not to live in like the grief and the regret, but I also choose to allow myself to feel it and then move through it and then move forward. I'll leave it at that. I just wanted to share that with you, that you know where I was to where I am.

Speaker 1:

It's fucking possible. You guys like you can fucking achieve anything, you can do anything. You can change your life in any moment and whilst it might not happen like straight away, you make a decision, your whole life changes. That decision is leading to something and you might not know what that something is. You might not happen like straight away. You make a decision, your whole life changes. That decision is leading to something and you might not know what that something is. You might not know where it's leading you and can you surrender to that and can you be okay with that? And can that be the joy in the experience that each time you make a decision that scares you, you don't actually know how it's going to work out. But it could work out better than you've ever expected and it could work out completely different to how you expected, but can you trust that that is exactly where you were meant to be and exactly where life was always directing you? Love yous, can't wait to talk to you again.

Speaker 1:

Would love to hear your feedback on this episode. Remember to DM me or tag me when you've listened to the episodes. I love hearing from you guys Like I truly, truly do. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating. It really, really helps. It helps get the podcast out there and I appreciate it. It helps me. I sit here by myself doing this little podcast, talking to this little fucking microphone, and I'm like does anyone care? Is anyone listening? Is anyone enjoying this? So the ratings are just a little bit of a nice little reminder and a bit of a gentle hug to me, to be like keep sharing, keep going. It is helping.