Eps 7: The Invisible Rulebook of Motherhood with Becky Selbie

This week on Heidi at Home, I'm joined by therapist and maternal mental health specialist Becky Selbie for a conversation that I think every mother needs to hear.

Together, we explore the invisible "rulebook" so many of us are living by without even realising it. The unwritten expectations that tell us a good mum should always be patient, never lose her temper, enjoy every moment, keep the house tidy, succeed at work, and somehow hold everything together.

We talk about why so many mothers are struggling with perfectionism, guilt, overwhelm, burnout and the mental load, and why these aren't personal failings but often symptoms of trying to live up to impossible standards we never consciously chose.

Becky shares why modern motherhood feels so hard, how these invisible rules shape the way we think, and, most importantly, how we can begin to challenge them with more compassion, awareness and self-understanding.

If you've ever felt like you're constantly falling short, this episode will leave you feeling seen, understood, and with a completely different perspective on why motherhood can feel so overwhelming.

To learn more about Becky's work and discover the specific "rules" that may be driving your own experience of motherhood, take her free Rulebook Quiz:

The Rulebook Quiz

You can also find Becky here:

Website: (m)otherway

Instagram: @_motherway_

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow Heidi at Home, leave a review, and share it with a friend who might need to hear this conversation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello! Welcome to Heidi at Home, where we have real connected conversations about motherhood life and everything in between. Because motherhood isn't just one thing. It's messy, emotional, beautiful, and constantly evolving. Here we go beyond the surface to talk honestly about what it really looks like and how we can grow through it, not just survive it. In this week's episode, I'm joined by Becky Selby, a therapist specialising in motherhood, so we all need her. Becky, welcome. Hi. Thank you for being here. Is there anything else you would add to that introduction?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Yes, probably most importantly, I'm a perfectly imperfect mum of two.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

I definitely don't have all the answers.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Amazing. Good to know because I think that's how we all feel basically. Yeah. So you specialise in helping mums kind of through the journey. So becoming a mother, the transition into and then the ongoing basically a drama that is motherhood, right? And in your content, I notice you talk a lot about this idea of an invisible rule book. So I think we've got to dive straight into this concept because I think it sounds brilliant. When I was reading your posts and things, I was like, we need to hear more about this. So tell me more about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Yeah, so the rule book sits um underneath like all the work that I do and underneath most of the challenges that I find women talking about in motherhood. So effectively, the easiest way to understand it is every human being has a rule book. So when we're growing up as a small child, typically the theory says kind of between sort of naught and seven, we take on these kind of messages and these um either explicit or implicit messages from society, from our parents, from our family origin, from our culture, from our I don't know, religious culture if we grow up in one, about how to be okay, how to thrive and how to survive. And some of those kind of go in and they stay in, and then we live with them, we kind of take them around in this little rule book in our head, completely unaware. Um and often they really serve us well. So they might be things like perfectionism, um, being like someone who can really try hard at things, um, someone who is a people pleaser. So often they sound like traits, like character traits that you might use to kind of describe um a friend or family member. But the challenge that I found in motherhood is that those rules, those traits often then start to work against us. So if I give you the example of, I don't know, I work with a lot of really capable, like amazing women who have gone through life trying really hard, having really high standards, um, being really strong, and it's it's really rewarded them, right? They've had like I don't know, good grades at school, got into a good university, had a great career, had great relationships that maybe they've done brilliantly in like sporting, managed teams, yeah. And so so you kind of have lived your life, if you're that woman, with the rule book like feeling really nice, basically. It keeps you feel secure, feel feels safe, feels liked, gets you kind of recognition, gets you compliments, um, and gets you like I don't know, rewards, like literal rewards, like a good job and a good salary and whatever. But you get into motherhood and you have a baby, and you have a baby, there is no such thing as perfection in motherhood, right? If you strive for it, um that is the road to unhappiness and the distress and the discomfort. Um if you are someone who prides yourself, and almost often we we wear those rules as like our identity. So if we're like the woman who is like you know known as like, oh my gosh, she's so strong, like she just does amazing hard things on her own, motherhood is gonna be harder because you're gonna find either asking for or accepting help really uncomfortable. And the problem is that this rule book is totally unconscious, like you just don't you're not aware of it. I'm only aware of it because I do my training, um, my psychotherapy training, and it was taught to me as like a general, just like a general thing for all human beings. So anybody that I might work with in the therapy room, be aware of their rules, see how they're kind of affecting their day-to-day life and causing um friction. And then when I became a mum, I really struggled um and ended up in um a lot of therapy myself and doing my training at the same time. I realised, I just saw like the impact of my rule book. So I I'll give you an example. I uh have three lovely sisters and a mum who all lived within uh an hour away. They've all had kids before me, I was the last one. So I had like I was lucky I had a village that was on hand constantly offering me help, and I would not take it.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Really?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Because I couldn't take it, and I didn't know why I couldn't take it, but it felt so uncomfortable. Um, and it was only through kind of the therapy and my training that I was like, oh, I've got a massive bee strong, like a huge bee strong rule, like in my rule book. And it yeah, it was a light bulb moment for me, and then basically had to kind of work at becoming more and more comfortable with like what's what's the kind of end result? If I if I resist that rule, if I go with the discomfort of not doing it that way, yes, it feels horrible at the beginning, but the upshot is I'm a much nicer mum to be around and a happier person because I've got a bit of help and I'm not burning out and definitely. So that's the rule book basically.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

So your your rule essentially you're saying was be strong.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

I had a and a be strong and a be perfect and a try hard.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Which I see often.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

I was gonna say that comes up a lot. I um in the parenting co parent coaching work that I do, a lot of it is we talk about parenting styles, but we have to go back, like you can't go forwards without just understanding at least where you've come from. And totally. If you look at your childhood, or just as an example for anyone else listening, like what would that look like in childhood? Then the sort of you know, don't ask for help, just crack on.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Yeah, so you might it might be modelled by somebody in your family, like a parent. Like it might be that um, I don't know, maybe you had a mum who never ever rest, like never never ever rested. So, you know, having a break, kind of stopping that kind of productivity cycle wasn't something that they felt comfortable to do. So it was never modelled to you, and almost there will be an implicit kind of to rest is lazy, maybe message. And so you took that on as a child to be like, being productive is a good thing, being productive gets me, I don't know, compliments, gets me kind of recognition, and then you just take it on through your life. It's not all about your parents, it can be authority figures, it can be like I said, like if you grow up in a particular religious kind of culture, then often there's um there's rules that come from that as well, and they just go in, and it's like on autopilot, you don't even know that you're that you're yeah, activating that rule.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah, isn't it incredible that we can go our whole lives really until we hit motherhood without fully understanding why we are the way we are, and suddenly baby toddler, and I think actually for me, the sort of you know, three, four, five years and up the big feelings years is when you really start to realise like, oh okay, this is why I am, how I am, and actually digging a bit deeper on that is so useful and so interesting.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Well, because you strip everything back, right? You strip all the kind of automatic things that you would have relied on to keep yourself regulated, to keep yourself okay before children came along, and then suddenly you've got no, you know, no literal, no physical space, no headspace, no time. And those things that you used to use to keep yourself okay aren't available or not compatible with those early years of motherhood. And so it exposes what happens when you don't have those.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

100%. Let's talk about you mentioned people pleasing, because I know that I definitely identify with that, and I know a lot of my clients and other people that I speak to in motherhood do as well. So presumably that's part of the rule book and making our lives harder than they need to be. So, where does that come from and also sort of therefore how to move forwards with it, or not affecting you as much or impacting you, I should say?

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Yeah, so where it can come from again, similar to um that that previous example, it it's modelled. It's it's maybe it's I don't know, as you grow up, you're told not to bother people, or kind of you always put someone else first, or like the like the family models that so you kind of grow up with the belief that I don't know, it's like a be a good girl, yeah, don't make a don't make a fuss. Um almost like a kind of a one-up, one-down kind of position. Like we always kind of bend for them because you know, just keep the peace basically. Um, I always think a really good uh way to identify if that's one of your rules or just what your rules are, is I give women um scenarios, like common motherhood scenarios. And one of the ones I always say is, okay, you're in the supermarket, your toddler has a massive tantrum in the middle of like the supermarket in front of everybody, and I give them like a five scenario kind of what's your most likely response. And if you have that please others rule, then you're gonna be the one who's like apologizing to everyone and worrying like what everyone's thinking, and you know, the old lady who's behind you is kind of aeroplessing as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Where like I'm so sorry, but it might make a noise.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

So that's a really good like identifier if you've got that, and like most of us would feel awkward, right? Yeah, but if it's like literally that's the main driver for you in that moment, it's like, oh my god, what's everyone thinking? It's a pretty good indicator. To your question of how do I kind of address that? So I do this in my I have a program that I work with mums, um, a coaching program called Rewrite, and the whole point is basically ripping up and rewriting your rule book. And the way you do that is you identify, you get really good at spotting when that rule is kind of kicking in, and then you find relatively low-risk, small, kind of easy-ish experiment opportunities. So you start to kind of widen your tolerance for doing it a bit differently and not leaning into the rule. And what you'll find is that the more often you do that, your confidence grows, like you can kind of deal with the icky feeling. Like, if you think about my example of not asking for help or not, or not even accepting help, I had to just experiment with it, and it was hideous the first few times. It was like I can still remember phoning my mum and actually explicitly asking, could you come up and look after the kids for an hour or two? And it felt horrendous. But once you kind of do it a few times, then you see the like I always do like a cost-benefit analysis. It's like, what's the what's the cost to me? Okay, I'm gonna feel really uncomfortable. The benefit is I get to do the thing I need to do, and I'm a more rested mum, or whatever it is, everyone wins, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:13

And the more of those little experiments that you do, it's so hard to do, isn't it, when you're not used to doing it? So it's hideous. It's um I remember third baby, so I've got three children, it's first and second, sort of lockdown. Honestly, like I thought I was nailing it. Like I had my business, my two children, I didn't find two children under too difficult because of my experience as a nanny, etc. I had my third baby and was like, whoa, what the heck is going on here? And I started to ask for help. If I look back at the text messages, we've got one family member, most are sort of an hour to two hours away, we've got one just about 10 minutes down the road. Yeah. If I look back at the message and I'm like, hi, um, I'm just wondering, is there any chance? Um, like big long message, but don't worry if not, but if so, like and like the longest, most ridiculous, like please, please, but I'm not sure, but if you can come but not, and now I'm just and she always says to me, just ask, like if I'm around, I can do it. Because I think most people do want to help. It's not that they don't want to, it's just they need to hear from you, like I need help. Yeah. Um, and then I'm like, can you have them tomorrow? Yeah, yeah. But it took a really long time of discomfort, actually, and pushing through that to go actually, do you know what? I need this, yeah. Need it for three, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Do you identify with any of the rules that I've oh mentioned? If I if I read like the the kind of there's there's be strong, try hard, be perfect, please others, and hurry up. So I wonder if any of that is hurry up, is like, you know, constantly having to do stuff. Um often productivity is linked to value and kind of identity and self-worth. But I feel good if I'm busy, I feel good if I'm getting lots of things done.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

I definitely can't sit down and rest. But then when I spoke to someone else about rest, they were like, Well, rest looks different for everyone. But I do, yeah, I have the people pleasing, I have the not asking for help. Um the product productivity thing for me is really interesting because I do not stop and I'm like, right, next idea, next this, next that. And I always put it down to validation or lack of validation potentially in childhood and therefore seeking it.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Um, through, you know, I used to drive to three clients in a day when I was 16, 18, and do babysitting for all day and then into the evening and I'd babysit every night, even in my 20s when most people were going out. Like I was, I have never stopped. Um, and I thought that was validation, but it could be something else. Um, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

And the thing that strikes me when you were saying that is I I want to kind of make sure that I get across the fact that the rules aren't inherently bad. And also when I work with you, and I'm I'm not saying you need to ditch that forever, that way of being. It's about being becoming really aware and mindful of when you lean in and when you resist. And that that that kind of awareness just it just means that you you get a nanosecond where you can be like, okay, I'm faced with this, I've got a choice here. Like, do I want to lean in? Does it serve me to lean into that? Like, it sounds like you've got a great work ethic, sounds like you've got lots of energy.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Yeah, exactly. And I think I wouldn't have done what I've done without it. But but sometimes there will be a cult. Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Yeah, and it's just that that's all it is. This kind of recognising the rule but ripping it up and rewriting it is just about just increase self-awareness. And I guess like ultimately that's what therapy does, right? That's the one thing I can guarantee when I work with women. I'm like, I can guarantee that you will increase your self-awareness, and that will lead to change.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

So interesting. It's I I feel like this is the sort of work, and I say this as well about the parenting and the reparenting piece that we all should do, like it should almost come in like an antenatal type package. It's hard to do before. So that's my dream. Because you don't quite know, but it's I mean, I've talked about sleep for you know, whatever, 15, 17 years. I've thought the same about sleep. I'm now looking at the parenting stuff I'm doing, thinking everyone should do this. Like, there's no one that wouldn't benefit from this.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

My my dream is that, and I don't know if it's possible, my dream is that women would go into motherhood, first-time motherhood, knowing themselves way better than they do. And I said that like for myself, like for you know, pretty much every woman I know, if you went in knowing just some key things about yourself and what you what keep like what makes you tick, basically. Like, I had no idea going into motherhood. I'm actually quite an introvert at times, and I need solitude, like I need time on my own. And I when I now look back to like my pre-kids life, I used to give it to myself like automatically. Like I would often have a weekend, I had a really busy, intense, very social job, and I would give myself a whole weekend where I didn't see anyone, and it was lovely, and it was only a neighborhood touched, and and I I would never have said that about myself, I wouldn't have described myself in that way, and so yeah, my dream is that there would be a course that a bit like either in your antonator or like an additional thing where you just go and it's like okay, let's just I'm gonna help you just identify a few things that will be really useful information when you're in the thick of it. Yeah, um, but I think the challenge is when you when you're a first-time mother or you're pregnant with your you know your first child, you don't know what you don't need.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

You're just looking at birth prep. I think that's what I come up against. Yeah, however, I don't know if you have um sons or daughters, but what I would say is I am very much rewriting that for my daughter. So there's a lot of like it's important to stop. And I think interestingly, rest was modelled to be in childhood, so I'm not sure where that lack of rest comes from. But if I do sit down, I'm like, it's really important for mummy to do this, that's so important that you take breaks with yourself or I see because they moan, you know, oh don't go out and see friends. Like, we'll miss you at bedtime. Yeah, like you have me all of the time. It's absolutely fine. And I think that's also something to think about or talk about is that a lot of people do feel guilty for taking time out, but actually the opposite way to look at it is it's role modelling for our children so that they're not in the same position in 30 years' time.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Yeah, I have a girl and a boy, and I often think kind of my almost always my third first thought is always like what am I modelling to her? And then I was thinking of that, I was like, well, who knows whether my son will end up with um a man or woman, who knows? But if they do end up with you know with a wife and and they have children, I want him to know that the yeah, that the woman needs like to be able to give herself permission to to kind of look after herself, like not become a martyr, not please everybody to the point that she's the bottom of the pile.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

I really like this for anyone listening. I think it's that sitting in the uncomfortable in order to move forwards, yeah. Like the growth is always out of your comfort zone, right? And actually, if anyone's listening thinking that's kind of me, I'd identify with that. I think already just you saying, just test it out. Just kind of do it with my hands like that. And he's like, Whoa, she answers back and she's telling me no. And it's a bit of massive shock for him. But I've just started, he's like, Can you just can you just and I'm like, Have you seen my list today and what I'm doing? No, yeah, and it actually now it's quite fun, but for a long while I was like, I can't, I can't look it.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Yeah, but it's just testing and it's increasing your window of tolerance for that discomfort, and and it does, yeah. I can't promise it ever like completely goes away, but it definitely you become more and more comfortable, I think. It takes yeah, okay, and that's all it is, it's experimenting.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

It's so for anyone listening to think about what those possible invisible rule might rules, sorry, might be, and then just kind of sitting with them and maybe thinking, journaling on it.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

And so I have a quiz that I'm about to launch, an interactive quiz on my website that will literally identify your main like your kind of combination. So um, yeah, I built it last week and it there's like 20 questions, 20 scenarios, motherhood scenarios, you answer them and it will tell you, okay, this is your dominant rule, and here are your others that are going on. And then it's just, yeah, it's just notice.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

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SPEAKER_01 18:50

Yeah, 100%. I think the gap between the reality and the expectation is is so big and it is so multi-layered. And I think it starts way before like the last five years of social media. I think the the more kind of impact, I was gonna say damaging, but it's not done, but the more impactful kind of um images and ideas that that we kind of carry in unconsciously into motherhood of how it should look, like they're from books, they're from TV programmes, they're from.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Like the kind of bottacelli kind of Yeah, yeah, yeah like it babes everyone, everyone happy.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yeah, and it's it's everything. It's uh it's a bit like I remember that I think I maybe it was when I had my antenator, and I think I I learned the fact, and I don't know the exact statistics, but it was something like only something like 60% of women's waters actually break. Whereas growing up, you're led to believe that your waters will break in a supermarket, or like yeah, so there's it's a really small thing, but it's like all these things that we just take as like this is what it looks like. Um and what I find is that women who struggle, or all women to a certain degree, but the women that that I work with that that are struggling, usually the gap between the reality and the gap between their expectations, they fill that gap with a kind of personal sense of failure. It's like it's like the gap is in them. Like if they were more, if they were able to be the mother they thought they were gonna be, then it would all be, you know, swimming along nicely and they'd feel amazing and they'd love every second because that's what we're supposed to do. And yeah, I um when I first started my Instagram account, I called it Stop Keeping Mum because I just had this like real passion about opening up the conversation so you can talk about the hard bits and you don't have to add that caveat of of course, like my kids are the best thing that's ever happened to me, like I love them more than life itself, and it's also the hardest thing that I've ever done. Yeah, and sometimes I don't enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um it's it's oh gosh, there's just so much to it. There's so many layers, and I'm trying to think of all of the sort of things that come up often, and one of those things I think is is the self-care element. So you become a mother, you lose all sense of who you are, your identity, etc. And then in the process, we also forget to take care of ourselves. And on top of that, we've been sold this kind of I don't know what we call it, like a dream or a lie about self-care being like have a nice bath and then you'll feel much better.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

It's very rigid, it's very prescriptive. It's like this is what self-care looks like in motherhood. Again, it's it's that one size fits all kind of experience of motherhood. That's that's to go back to that previous question, it's like same-storm, different boats. Like it's there is no one way to look after yourself. You and I, before both becoming mothers, would have looked after ourselves differently. We would have needed different things, wanted different things, enjoyed different things. So, why in motherhood would we both be revived by a scented candle, even if it's a lovely diptyque one?

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Like, I'm not saying to my husband I don't like them, yeah, but it's not it's not always what I need when I'm approaching burnout. Um, and so there's something about helping women to understand that in motherhood there are certain psychological hunger. That we have that need feeding, and often they can just you know you can drop to kind of almost empty on those on those and not know, like just be completely unaware. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Um certain so we essentially what you're saying is we have certain needs, not just like feed and sleep and you know the sort of basic, but over and above.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Yeah, I'd call those like they're sort of physiological. Yeah. So yeah, of course we need those, and of course, like they're in, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

But even then, like sometimes we don't have dinner, right? Because we're busy laughing and we have to get to drink water. So even the basic ones we struggle with. And then psychological hungers, you're calling them. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

So um so it's a psychotherapeutic um theory, um, and it's it's psychological hungers, and there's six of them effectively. Um, but there are things like contact hunger, like that need to actually connect with another adult and have a meaningful conversation or actually meet someone adult to adult. Um, recognition hunger is a massive one. So I I paused my career, I left my corporate career when I had my daughter, and it was intentional. I knew I was going to retrain in psychotherapy. This was like I was felt really fortunate to have to do it. Um, had this crazy idea that it was gonna be really easy to do it while having two small children.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

I mean, that's just like how many people have done that and like, I'll do this once I have a baby. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

And what I realized, my recognition hunger in those early years of motherhood when I didn't have a job title, I didn't have my kind of shiny, exciting career to hide behind in terms of my identity, my recognition hunger was absolutely starving because no one really sees what what you do as a mum, particularly in the early years. So, yeah, things like recognition hunger, contact hunger, structure hunger is a massive one. So, especially in that first year, especially if you are a high achieving, capable woman who's used to control, used to kind of filling her day with lots of activity, lots of productivity. So, structure hunger can be a real, a really difficult one.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Um you can get to the end of the day and just feel like with a baby you've done nothing, even though you've done everything.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

I mean, it's yeah, it's one of the things I feel saddest about when I look back and I think, God, like the way I viewed myself in those early years as like not being productive and not being kind of valuable. And now I just think like that was the hardest that I've ever worked and also the most important work I've ever done. Yeah, but it didn't feel like that because well, society doesn't value it. Um, so yeah, so understanding psychological hungers, understanding what you're actually hungry for, and then here's the tricky bit working out what is feasible to feed yourself and like being really honest and realistic, like in the early year or two, like it's really hard, there's not a lot of headspace, there's not a lot of ability to kind of get away and be on your own. But it's about again a bit like the rule book, it's that self-awareness. So identifying what it what is it that's going on here? What do I need? And what, like, how much can I give myself? Can I even get a snack? And things like um stimulus hunger. So I don't know, I speak to lots of women who are like, it's really boring in the in the early months, like being at home with a baby who doesn't talk back to me and doesn't really interact yet. So, like listening to podcasts, listening to audiobooks, um, it's always been again another dream, it won't happen because I don't have the time, but I've always wanted to organise a mum and baby group where you actually go along and have like an interesting discussion about something or like a talk from somebody.

unknown 25:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Because that that that hunger for being interested and being stimulated is still there.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

That's the thing. And just because you have a baby, it doesn't mean that you don't have that kind of intellectual side or that curious side, it just sort of gets put to the bottom of the pile because you're just doing the everyday stuff.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

And if you had a career, if you have a career and you're on maternity leave and that career is really intellectually stimulating and exciting, or you get the ability to be really creative, then that suddenly feels like almost like going on a detox, right? So you need to find other ways to kind of feed that part of you. And I think there's a direct link between that and burnout, but also that and that identity loss or that or that kind of um disconnect between identity, especially in the early in the early years.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

So almost almost what you're saying is it's like who am I, who am I? What do I need? And what bits can I bring in either from before or that look different but to fill the same cup, yeah, that is a possibility that I can actually do with two small children and maybe not a village around me, or you know, childcare, etc.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Like, I don't know, it just popped into my head. If you were someone who I don't know, loves reading and you'd always gone to like the hay festival every year and like devoured loads of like three days worth of talks from authors, like that's like a Michelin star feeding of that stimulus hunger, right? You're not like that's gonna be virtually impossible. But you might better go to like something, a talk at like a local, I don't know, local bookshop, or listen to a podcast or something. It's not gonna be the same, it is gonna be a snack, but also it's not forever. So it's sort of saying to someone like you need to feed these things. The meals will get bigger as as your kids get bigger and the that freedom opens up where you can go and do more and more things, but it's just yeah, it's keeping that part of you alive.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

And I think that's brilliant ways to look at it. And I think for anyone listening, watching, um almost on a practical level, because I think all of this theory is so brilliant and great. But how what would you suggest? They sort of sit down, maybe with an eight-pad and just kind of spide a diagram or something like who am I or what do I need? Like, how do we coax those out of us? Because we do push it all down as mothers, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

And it's hard. Like, I I I work with women in in my therapy room, and and this comes up, and and sometimes you feel so disconnected that it's really hard to even uh if someone's approaching burnout, a mum, often they'll they'll just sort of say to me, I don't even know what I want to do. Like I literally, even if I even if you said to me I've got uh an afternoon, I don't know what I want to do. So sometimes it's about going, okay, just tell me a bit about life pre-kids. Like what did you used to do? Like, what did you used to do on a weekend? Like, what did you used to do with your friends? Like, is there a particular friend that you used to spend lots of time with? Like, what did that look like? Was it, I don't know, did do you miss going out for meals? Do you miss and it's and it's just kind of working out, yeah. It's there's not an easy question. It's just kind of sitting with it and going, what did I used to do? What did life used to look like? Yeah, are there any like obvious gaps? Is that what I'm missing? And sometimes it'll be sometimes it will just be really obvious when you read the kind of the hungers and the descriptions, you go, oh my god, yeah. Like I think an easy way to um to understand like contact hunger. Like if you think about COVID, like COVID, we were starved of contact, and everyone was just like absolutely kind of like beyond hangry for some contact, but for some meaningful contact with their loved ones. Um, so I would say sit with it, read through the hungers. I again this is on my website, so if anyone wants the resource, they can have a look, um, and just see what resonates, and just and if and if that fails, if you're kind of so disconnected, just think back, like go back to kind of when life felt good and you felt kind of yourself and and and what did it look like.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Yeah, there's a gap also, I think, between the self-awareness piece. So having heard this podcast, you know, gone onto your website, got the results, it's been like, okay, I need this, this and this, yeah, to then advocating for oneself, which is very challenging, I think, as a mother.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

And that connects directly to the rule book. So it's kind of these things are all kind of like interconnected because if you're someone again, like who doesn't feel able to ask for help or it feels uncomfortable, it's gonna be hard for you to not impossible, but it's gonna feel uncomfortable to say, actually, I really need I don't know, I need a day away.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

I need a night away.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Yeah, yeah. And and maybe it's solitude, maybe it's like I need an I maybe you've binged on contact. That's the other way of looking at it. Sometimes in motherhood, you could end up having too much of something. So um you might just be like a bit like me, I just need to be away.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

It's interesting because my husband said to me um the other day, he was like, I think we both need a break. And I'd already had this idea in my mind of like one or two nights without the kids and we're on my own. I think we need a break, you know, nowhere fancy, just take a book and just go and read and be. And I was like, uh what did you need? I was like thinking without him, and I know that sounds awful because he's my husband, but actually in my mind, it's like I just want to be. Yeah, like I just want to be, and yeah, it's just different when you're there with someone, whether it's your best friend and your husband. I've got also an option to go away with my best friend, but I'm also like, I think at this stage of motherhood I just need to be on my own.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Yeah. And it's so it sounds like your life is very full, you're often with people, you're never alone, and actually you've binged on kind of contact, you know, like I need to kind of recalibrate a little bit, and it's not about not wanting him or not wanting to spend time with him, it's about what what are you most hungry for? Because I bet I bet this part of you that is is that there will be a hunger to spend time with him. Oh, yeah, it's just no way it's just nowhere near as as hungry as I said to him it'd be really nice as long as it's not instead of.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

Yeah, but then you look a bit like I was like, Oh, I feel greedy now saying that oh, I'll have two nights with you, but can I also have you know a night on my own? But actually, to your point, it's just those needs there, I suppose, and it's just really listening to them and yeah, and they change, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Yeah, they will in in in three months' time. It might not be that you're desperate for that, it might be that you're actually really wanting to connect with him. And yeah, I think it's yeah, I've just had a weekend with my husband the first in two and a half years. We couldn't believe we'd left it that long. And it was amazing. Because we just, yeah, and we just did really like actually what we did was just like we didn't want this, we don't we felt like we'd over like um over consumed like structure. So we were like, we just want a really open weekend where we just like mooch and we did really seemingly really boring domestic things. Like we went away, but it was just like we just mooched around shops and had a coffee and then and just had that like freedom of time to kind of make it.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

So powerful anywhere, going anywhere, where you don't have to do that tea bath bed piece, yeah. Like how much longer the day is when there's no 5, 6, 7 pm that comes into it. It blows my mind. Like you can sit in a bar, and I remember going away once and having um, I don't know, like tapas and a drink of wine or whatever, a glass of wine at 5 30. This is god, I mean that's yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

And I I and I can also remember my husband in the early years, kind of I remember once he offered, he said, Do you want, I think, like, do you need to go to like a spa or something like dark? Like he's been really lovely. He's like, Do you do you want to go away for like a weekend or a night to spa on your own? I was like, truly, what I'd really like is for the house to be really tidy, for you to take the kids to your mum's, and I just be in the house. Like, that's that I didn't want a fancy spa, I didn't want anyone else. I just wanted to sit in a house that was tidy, that wasn't going to get messy in the next like two hours, and that I could just be.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Yeah, it's so sometimes it's we can just gone, just just 24 hours of just being in the house, and I just tidied, it's so boring. And I did read a bit of a book. Um, I just needed to like get everything sorted. So that that to me wasn't the need for like a night wave to be on my own. It was like, let's get shit done because the house is a complete.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

That was you, I think that was you feeling your structure hunger. It was like getting organized, it was getting everything kind of, yeah, which made you feel better because maybe you felt slightly out of control or chaotic or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Annoyingly, um, my daughter came back with a broken leg, so it's actually made the next four weeks even more challenging. But there we go, you take the risk, right? Yeah dear. Yeah. Um, you spoke at the beginning about being a let me get this right, imperfectly perfect mother.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Almost perfectly imperfectly. Perfectly sorry, the other way around.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

So perfectly imperfect mother. I think we hear a lot this phrase like good enough.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

What does that really mean and how can someone listening use that to maybe improve the way in which they're feeling about their motherhood or their parenting?

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Yep. So the good enough mother is um from Donald Winnicott, um, who was a psychiatrist, I think he was a psychiatrist, uh, back in the sort of 50s, 60s, so you would probably have come across him in your own studies. Um and effectively what he says is we need to help our children experience being let down, things going wrong, um, in order to build resilience. So, for example, if you, I don't know, you're late to pick up at the nursery and you're absolutely beating yourself up about it because your child is upset, like of course, I'm not suggesting you wouldn't feel you know, that you wouldn't have an emotional response to that. But what I would be saying to you is that you don't want your child to kind of go off out into the world at 18 or whatever, and that's the first time that anybody ever lets them down. And also the really important thing is that you did turn up, so you've shown them that they can that they can kind of sit in that again, that dislike that uncomfortable place of oh my god, mum, like where's mummy? Mummy's not here, but then you were there, so it's like that's that's where the phrase comes from, basically. It's from a kind of really old piece of research, but it's basically saying that there is value in us um not always being perfect, not always delivering this kind of perfectly um I think it's the scripts, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 34:32

The the parenting scripts and thinking because I work a lot in um parent coaching regulation, we do that whole piece around like the responses, how to react versus respond, etc. Respond versus react, sorry. Yes, and it's that we're never gonna get that right all of the time. No, as long as you come back and repair it. Yeah that's the key part, completely, yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

And I think that repair thing is like a really if you can view it as a an opportunity to model something, like I think that's really important. Um I know that often when I work with kind of high achieving women, the good enough kind of phrase it gives them the ick. It's like, well, I don't want to be good enough, like it's mediocre. I don't want to be so there's something about helping them to understand that like perfection is not possible. So like it's just not possible, and actually, there is a massively positive benefit to being a good enough mother. Like, like there is, like I said, there's there's there's proven benefits for the child and how you help them to yeah, to kind of build that resilience.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Um and that's what we want, right? I look at the world as it stands, scary as it is, and then I look at and do a lot of research into my husband works in not in AI, but like works on AI. Yeah, and I just don't think we know where the world is going at all. And actually, it's for me, it's kind of a bit concerning for my children. So if we can give them that skill of resilience, that ability to go through hard times and come out the other side smiling eventually and laughing and whatnot, that's probably like one of the most powerful things right now we can give our children.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Well, it feels yeah, because it feels like almost AI kind of negates that. It's it's almost like you know, it's gonna give you an answer straight like straight away, and you don't have to wait for anything. It's probably not gonna disappoint you, it's not gonna, yeah, I yeah, I don't God, yeah, it's terrifying. I hate even thinking about um yeah, the future at the moment. Um, so yeah, I think it's it's that thing about seeing the value in like what is it you want that we're trying to prepare our kids for? Like we're gonna send them out into the world, whatever that looks like, and there are gonna be people that let them down, there's gonna be people that don't, you know. Yeah, it's it's gonna be a lot, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:38

It's not gonna be a lot of COVID and there's all sorts of stuff that could happen, but if they are able to ride that in a way that means that they have had practice dealing with uncomforta uncomfortable situations, etc.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Yeah, and knowing that they can get through them and knowing yeah, and the important thing is that you know, in that example, mummy did turn up. So it's not you know, they haven't been abandoned by mummy, it's just they had to learn that sometimes mummy won't be on time because she got stuck in traffic or whatever. It's real life, but that's okay, and mummy will come. Um, so yeah, but I but I also know how much of an ick it can give women, and I think I guess the most important thing is to sort of get across that good enough mothering is not mediocre mothering, yeah, it's realistic for the world mothering.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. And I think you're always doing better than you realise, which kind of goes on to my next question, which is if someone's sat there thinking they do get it wrong all the time or they're not even at the good enough part, yeah. What advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_01 37:34

So, again, not to sound like a broken record, but it all links to the rule book, and I would ask them, what does good look like? Who are you meant? Like, who is what does it look like? Tell me what a good mum, like describe her like an avatar. Tell me, like, what does she do? What does she look like on a day-to-day basis? How does she feel in motherhood? How do her kids view her? Um, and then I would want to know, okay, do you know her or does she sound familiar? Or like, where is where has she come from? Because my guess would be that it's completely unrealistic expectations. Um, so I think what you have to do first of all is get in, help kind of them to understand what what's their frame of reference, like what's the bar basically? Because my my bet would be that their bar is too high and unrealistic. Um, and would probably come back to all of that conditioning we talked about, like what we've been led to believe motherhood is too much.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

So it comes back to that piece, isn't it, on expectations versus reality.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Yeah, and the other thing I would say that's I think is really important is to differentiate between motherhood and mothering. Like motherhood is the patriarchal institution that we're in. It's that's where all the expectations lie. That's the that's the kind of the doing, it's the things that we think we should um be doing, we should be feeling. Mothering is is actually the important bit. That's that's the being, that's the relationship with our children, that's the bond, that's the love that we pour into them, it's the um unconditional love, it's the all the kind of hidden, invisible stuff that we do or that we think about them. And that's the bit that matters. Yeah. So I often say to women, if you're if you if you equate not enjoying motherhood with being a bad mum, the first thing to do is to just to kind of separate those two things because motherhood is not is not you and your your child.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Okay, that's interesting. That's a really good way of viewing it, I think, as well. Yeah. Because you do, it's that it comes back to also that identity piece, like you put it on yourself, like if I don't feel like I'm doing well, I'm a bad mum. Yeah, that's literally who I am. But it's not, yes, you know, that's completely different identity, and you don't need to be that.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Yeah, and and and going back to that bar, like what are your values? Like, whose whose values are you measuring yourself by? If you're measuring them yourself by your values, fine, let's have a look at those and see how kind of realistic they are, or are they kind of really punishing? But if you're measuring yourself by values from society, from Instagram, from wherever, they're not your values.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Doesn't Instagram have a lot to answer for?

SPEAKER_01 39:53

It does, it does. It is a it's a tricky beast, like I love it, and it helps me to kind of yeah, to engage with so many um mums. I love it for that, but then it's also yeah, it's tricky in terms of what you see. I totally, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

Um sometimes not on purpose either. Sometimes just you you cover the best bits, and I always think uh over the years I've covered a lot of the sort of down times, but I'm also not gonna post, you know, my eight-year-old screaming at me in the world.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

It's really hard things, so yeah, I find that hard to I find that difficult, and it's why I always say I'm a perfectly imperfect mum too, because I'm for my kids' privacy, I'm not gonna be posting about like the things that I find difficult or the things that I this week have failed at or whatever. I I might do in a sort of more general way, but I don't want anyone to think that those things aren't happening. Yeah, like I don't I'm not everyone's yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

Yeah, there's no such thing as a perfect mother.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

No.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Or perfect person, full start, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

They don't they don't exist, but we think that in motherhood it's like a non-negotiable that we should all be uh striving for that, and if we're not then we don't care. It's just not true.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

So the invisible rule book is all available on your website. On my website, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

If you're curious, if you're curious about yeah, what your kind of makeup is, um you can do my quiz and it will give you like a kind of pie chart which will basically say, and then it yeah, I'd be I would love people to do it and then reach out and go, yes, this resonated, yep, it got me to a T, or actually no, I think, yeah, I would love people to tell me how they get on with it.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

By the time this episode airs, so that's perfect. And um just remind everyone where they can find you again.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

So I'm on uh Instagram, my handle is really annoying. Uh it's underscore motherway underscore. So you need the underscores. Oh, to be the side. Yes, okay. It's really annoying. Um yeah, if the person who owns motherway without underscores is watching, I'm you know, naming the price. Um, but yeah, and then my website is motherway.co.uk.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

Amazing. And just one question that I ask all of my guests on this podcast at the very end, and that is just very simply, but I think it's so interesting. Like, what does support look like to you in motherhood? What is the support you've needed, had, wish you had more of?

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Oh, that's a really good question. I'm really lucky. My sister, my little sister lives three roads away from me, and that has been like I don't think I could have done it without that. Um for me, it's finding mums who are really honest, and also kind of the same flavour of mum as me. Like, you know, we're all different, we all have different kinds of things that we prioritise, like, don't like, whatever. So for me, it's about finding a group of mums that I can be really honest with, that I can say, I've had a really awful day, I don't like my child today. Um yeah, it's that it's that ability to be really honest and authentic and for them not to feel the need to rescue me and just to kind of listen. Um and I think yeah, support, what could what did I need? I needed what I eventually got, which was therapy, to understand myself, because then I could stop getting in my own way and I could then yeah, reach out for help.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

I don't think there's ever a better time. I mean, there's loads of great times obviously to do therapy, but ever a better time to understand yourself than in motherhood. You're almost forced to do so.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

It strips everything back, yeah. Yeah, so and I do have mums who come to me with with the baby, um, because um, yeah, it is. It is like a it is because that's their life, and I don't want it to be a barrier to them, yeah, getting support and getting that that ability to kind of start that process of really understanding themselves. But yeah, for me it's about honest, honest mums around me who yeah, will have a laugh. I'm very much the kind of motherland vibe. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very honest, dark humour.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Yeah, it's almost like motherland, motherway could have your own version.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

Oh, I mean, Kevin does live where we live, and I saw him in Wake Shows on Saturday, and yeah, and it is, it takes everything not to go over and just go, I just love it so much.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Yeah, that's so funny. Becky, thank you so much for coming. It's been an amazing conversation, loads of I think real nuggets for everyone to come hoping about. So um put all of your details in the show notes and um yeah, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

Thank you for listening to this week's episode. Don't forget to subscribe on whichever channel you find your podcast on, Spotify, Apple, or other podcast players.