Every Womyn & Her Dog

Coping Isn’t Thriving, It’s Surviving

• Joanne Rowan

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 1:29:29

Send us Fan Mail

Every Womyn and Her Dog – Episode 6

So many women have become experts at coping.

Holding everything together.
 Managing everyone else.
 Pushing through exhaustion.
 Functioning on autopilot while quietly feeling disconnected from themselves.

And because they’re still “doing life,” no one realises they’re surviving.

In this episode of Every Womyn & Her Dog, we unpack the difference between coping and truly thriving — and why so many women normalise survival mode without even realising it.

Joined by Katelyn Dwyer-Taylor this conversation explores the hidden emotional load women carry, the conditioning that keeps them stuck in over-functioning, and what begins to shift when a woman decides she wants more than just “getting through.”

Together, we explore:

  • The hidden signs a woman is surviving rather than thriving
  • Why coping is often praised and normalised in women
  • The emotional, mental, and physical impact of living in survival mode
  • How conditioning, roles, expectations, and life experiences shape coping patterns
  • The disconnect many women feel from themselves, their needs, and their desires
  • What starts to shift when a woman stops settling for survival
  • Why thriving isn’t about perfection — but reconnection
  • The discomfort and identity shifts that can come with choosing more for yourself

This conversation is for the woman who quietly feels exhausted by constantly “holding it all together.”

The woman who looks functional on the outside… but internally feels flat, disconnected, overwhelmed, or like she’s simply existing.

Because maybe coping was never meant to become your permanent way of life.

And maybe there’s more available for you than just surviving.


Explore More

If this episode resonated with you and you’re feeling called toward “something more,” you can explore Joanne’s offerings below:

And She Rose — Joanne’s 2-day immersive women’s experience currently touring across Australia

Embodied Womyn 1:1 — personalised coaching and therapeutic support for women seeking deeper transformation

Her Circle - a week long intensive immersion program that honours and seamlessly blends the ancient craft of basket weaving with profound exploration into women’s development, rites of passage, and connection with the Divine Feminine.

And if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, share, and leave a review — it helps more women find these conversations.

Original Soundtrack composed and produced by Flava Productions.

Follow here: https://www.instagram.com/flavaproductions/


Follow Katelyn – Taylor Made Digital Support
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taylormadedigitalsupport


Follow Joanne Lea
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joanneleacoach

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joanneleacoach/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@joanneleacoach

Substack: https://joanneleacoach.substack.com/

SPEAKER_02

Hello everyone and welcome to Every Woman and Her Dog, a podcast where we talk about the things women whisper about in kitchens, voice note to their friends, and think about at 2am. I'm your host, Joanne Lee, coach, therapist, and changemaker. Each episode we explore the realities of womanhood and cover topics ranging from identity shifts, feminine cycles to self-leadership, relationships, burnout, and ambition. Bringing to the surface the quiet reinventions happening behind closed doors for women. This is the being and becoming of personal agency. Let's get into it. Welcome to today's episode of Every Woman and Her Dog. Today's conversation is one I think so many women are quietly living inside of, even if they don't have the language yet for it. We're talking about coping. Because a lot of women have become incredibly good at coping, holding it together, getting on with it, functioning, showing up, ticking the boxes. From the outside, it can look like they're doing fine, but underneath that, many women I talk to are exhausted, disconnected, running on survival mode while calling it normal. Somewhere along the way, we start confusing coping with thriving. We've learned how to manage stress, suppress ourselves, override our bodies, and just keep moving. But not necessarily how to actually feel fulfilled, nourished, connected, or even alive. There's a big difference between surviving your life and actually being in it. So today we're unpacking that distinction. What coping can look like in women, why so many live there for years, if not decades, and what begins to happen when a woman realizes she wants more than just getting through. I'm joined by Caitlin Dwyer Taylor from Taylor Made Digital Support, mum of two girls and woman behind the scenes helping me bring so much of my work to life. Welcome, Caitlin. Thank you. So, ladies, flick the kettle, grab a cover, and pull up a chair as we drop into this space together for today's rich, intimate, and revealing episode with just the two of us.

SPEAKER_00

Let's go. I feel like this conversation is going to hit home for a lot of women because coping is often praised. If you're functioning, still getting things done, still managing everyone and everything around you, people assume you're okay. But I think a lot of women are quietly realizing I'm coping, but I'm not actually thriving. And there's such a difference between surviving your life and truly feeling connected to it. So today I really want to unpack what coping actually looks like, why so many women stay there for so long, and what shifts when a woman realizes she wants more than just a survival mode.

SPEAKER_02

How's this topic feel for you today, Caitlin?

SPEAKER_00

I have so many things to say.

SPEAKER_02

Excellent. I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00

Should have brought some tissues.

SPEAKER_02

That's okay.

SPEAKER_00

All parts of you are welcome. So, what does coping actually look like in women? I think a lot of us imagine survival mode as falling apart, but often it looks very high functioning. And I think in personally, very high functioning followed by a massive meltdown. Yeah, yeah. What are some of the signs that a woman is coping rather than truly thriving?

SPEAKER_02

This is interesting because the signs can differ depending on the women and what setup she has in her life and her world. Some of the signs that you're coping rather than truly thriving is that you're getting everything done but you just don't enjoy your life. That there's not really a lot of positive talk going on for you, either internally or externally. And there's a gentle undertour of resentment, possibly building. Not that they want to be resentful of positions where they're sitting or what they're doing, but they just can't seem to shake that. Or it can be some other signs that um a woman is coping rather than thriving, is that feeling of just getting through things and never feeling like that that dynamic shifts. I mean, in different seasons of our life, we're looking at different versions of what coping would look like. And I think it's necessary for us to be coping in some stages because we can't be on all the time, and there's going to be ebbs and flows of what that looks like. But what I feel like we're talking about here today is consistent, a consistent lived experience of coping, not you know, a cyclical space where oh hey, I'm I'm down in my sort of bleed time and I'm not holding on to my emotions as well as I normally would, or um or and then you know that being counteracted with your superwoman time and feeling the ebb and flow between the two spaces. I think that that is normal, and we have been told it's not normal. So there's a little bit of conditioning to start with, but I definitely feel when I'm looking for signs of not coping, I'm seeing certain things turning up, like uh constantly feeling like you're in the same place all the time, like a repetitive pattern, and that repetitive pattern is not a pattern that serves you. So whether that's a self-self-sacrificial pattern, or whether that's a pattern of same people, same experiences, or different people, same experiences, uh, and not being happy with that. Also, like what's where's your felt sense sitting? Like, are you happy? Are you feeling like it's not okay to be happy? And what would be driving that? Who's told you that? Where does that messaging come from? What meaning-making frame is in place for that? Uh I'd also say that, like we just touched on before about that cyclical nature, which you always hear me talk about because it is at the center of our uh feminine-centered living, is that if we're not in touch with that cyclical nature, we don't have this beautiful, authentic guidance going on for us, we would be just coping because we're sort of living against what's natural, what we how we're naturally set up from the inside out. I had a conversation with someone the other day about how um they always say women are so organized, and I'm like, of course we're organized, we've been organized internally since the minute we cycled, and so and our bodies do that every single month, and we know if we're not living in conjunction with that, things feel off, and you might not even have the language around that because maybe you're not living in conjunction with that, and you can't explain why there's this feeling of off-puttingness, or that you're always trying to play catch up, or that you're always doing those things, and then by fluke, every now and again, you're like, Oh, that's really good, that really worked, but you can't replicate it. You don't know how to, you don't understand the mechanisms going on underneath that. What's what do you what do you feel from your perspective or learned experience or observations? What do you feel like coping is rather than thriving? We haven't really gone into the thriving part yet, but we're still in the coping part.

SPEAKER_00

I thought about it the other night, and I think sometimes it's hard because I'm still in the depths of um baby season. Like because uh you know, she's 12 months so and still not sleeping through the night. So I'm still in the depths of baby season. Um and I did think the other night, whatever lovely hour it was, is this all that the all there is? And I was like, is this is this my life just exhausted? Like, what is the point? I was like, what am I what am I doing this for? If this is gonna be every day. Um and I feel like every day is just just get through it till bedtime. And so I I feel like for me the coping just looks like surviving, just get through the day to the next day. And um, I would love to see what thriving looks like.

SPEAKER_02

Do you think there's an alternative?

SPEAKER_00

I do. I and I'm I'm always like, what what else is like what more is there? And I'm because I always think I'd love to live my best life. I don't know what that is.

SPEAKER_02

Um like what's your felt sense of what your best life would look like at this season because it changes in each season, and there's always gonna be elements of each of our female seasons, you know, maiden, mother, marger, crone. There's always going to be elements of those seasons that we're like, uh you know, there's gonna be that part that is is a challenge, and and maybe um like the the the peak of that period could feel overwhelming at times, or so like that that happens in all seasons of our life as a woman, and also like we know from a a yearly sort of perspective, if we just zoomed out for a second, summer's a full time, right? It's long days, uh warm nights, everyone's sort of you're packing everything into your life, but there's summer seasons of so many periods of a year, even like there's a there's a period of that year and there's a wintering period of a year. So even though you might be in say your mother season from 25 to 50, there's still a an autumn, a winter, a summer, and a spring of that season. So there's always going to be peaks and points of relaxation or wintering in that space. Um, so there's that element of it, I feel like needs to be considered for all of us. Like that's that's gonna come. But what would your what would be looking different for you in this period that would feel and that you would experience better? So you've said your best life in this season.

SPEAKER_00

Um I was looking at some pictures before before today.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

This morning. Yeah. Who says before today? I was looking prior to the podcast. I was looking at some pictures this morning, like going back to like um watch the girls age in reverse. So like going back to Annie as a newborn and then um Ellie and then back to her as a like a newborn. And just looking at the photos of, you know, Ellie 18 months old and us spending the day together and like seeing those photos, remembering how that felt to have the time to spend with her and enjoy it. Whereas I feel like and like I was working when I so I was working from four or five months with Ellie. Yeah. But we still had two days of the week together plus the weekend, and now with Annie and Ellie, one day of the week with them and the weekend, but it all just feels really rushed and everything's a chore. I feel like I would love to just have that quality time with them where I don't have to worry about, you know, getting to work the next day. I think that's what puts the the pressure on them. Yeah. Well it's not that it's not that I like, oh I've got to go to work tomorrow, or things like that. It's that, you know, if they're up during the night because they're sick or they're upset or something, instead of being able to nurture them and care for them and give them what they need, I'm just worrying about how much sleep I'm not getting and that I still have to go to work and function the next day. Because I think, you know, back to whatever time period and they're they're in their village and they have their babies and they're just mothering their babies, they're not worried about the baby not sleeping because they know they can have a nap later. Maybe they can hang their washing out and have a nap.

SPEAKER_02

It does take a village and uh uh we are talking about a a different time in space. But do you think that there's a possibility that the way you might be framing it up could be attributing to how you're feeling about it? Probably because we all do it, right? Yeah, it's not just you, we all do it. I don't know, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I feel like I might have. There was a time when I was like, oh, soccer training, uh you know, I gotta put get out of the night time, but then I had a quick look at it was with my eldest, and I was like, this is gonna end soon. And it changed the way that I looked at things. It wasn't like like the your period of not sleeping at night is gonna end soon. Yeah, so hopefully it definitely, it definitely will. It will end. It will, but we also know the direct link between how a mother feels and her sense of restlessness or exhaustion and and how that transpires through to our children and how they turn up very like sort of replicating our internal frequency, yeah. So it's like how could you set your frequency just a little bit differently? I'm not saying you need to paint it up to be a picture that it's not like that wouldn't work either. Perhaps I wonder if just approaching it with a little bit of like, why do you need to worry about tomorrow today? Yeah. You know, why do you need to be you know you're going to work tomorrow. I heard this really cool statement the other day, and I've been using it a lot, or even on myself. I had a moment with it this morning, I was like, oh, look at you go. But um, I was watching a podcast and one of the people on a podcast. I like how I say I was watching a podcast, because you know how podcasts are like video these days as well. We haven't got there yet, guys. We do snippets, but we haven't got there. Uh but I was watching it and this gentleman suggested, you know, we're talking about how to really get ahead of yourself, like how to set yourself up in right relationship with your day and how to be your best advocate. And he's like, do things that support your future self. And I really was like, that is quite profound, and I've been looking at that. So for instance, if you know that you if you get your clothes ready the night before, yeah, yeah, right, if you know that's gonna help your future self tomorrow without sending yourself in a in a dizzy, it's like it's a five-minute investment, right? If you know that's gonna happen, if that's gonna support your future self, then do it. Yeah. So if it supports your future self to stop worrying about having to get up to go to work tomorrow and just be present and in the moment, then why not do that? Yeah. How's that landing? Yeah. Is that does that feel like something that you could actually use in a podcast?

SPEAKER_00

Because I already started in the last week baby steps, like yeah, we can make some change. Mm-hmm. Yeah, because the mornings are just um trying to get two girls ready for daycare and they're both on different, I wouldn't say schedules, routines, because you know, you've got four years old. A four-year-old and a one-year-old. Yeah. Very different.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And so it's very hard to get them ready separately. Um the four-year-old's getting much better at getting herself dressed, um, but there's still some tricky items of clothing that can't get off. Shirts too tight. So I was like, what can I do that's going to take that little bit of pressure off the morning so I'm not running around like a crazy person and stressing myself out and stressing them out, because the whole point of you know, this new season that I'm in work-wise, being able to have a bit of my own schedule was that so I don't have to rush them in the morning, that was the whole point. So it was just as simple as packing like their bags are always packed with what they need, but for Annie, the baby, she still has formula.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So packing her two bottles and her formula amounts the night before makes a huge difference. It doesn't seem like a big task, but pouring out those two bottles and it's time.

SPEAKER_02

It really is time.

SPEAKER_00

And it's just that that little two things that I don't have to do in the morning to take a bit of pressure off. And it does make a huge difference knowing that it's done.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely. So coming back to the whole the coping thing and and sort of expanding on what you said, coping to me feels like life without design. Yeah. Like life without feeling like you're in the driver's seat and being a victim of what of all the things that you need and have to do in the spaces that you have to show up. Yeah. And not actually making conscious decisions about what's really important to you in each stage and phase. So, like you said about doing um Annie's bottles the night before for for daycare. I remember being in a space where because I had three kids where the mornings were off their head, like just hectic. And I felt like I was getting them out the door, and it was so energetically debilitating to me because I was like, I don't want to be talking to my children like that in them. I don't want to be stressed, I don't want to become exactly. So it was like, what do I need to put in place here for myself first, right? To make sure that it's a more because my mornings are like when I work in these spaces and understand about you know, the setup of your day is really important because it's a flow-on effect through your whole day. I was like, how do I make this the mornings more harmonious and have more flow and be set them up for you know a good day at school, set myself up for a good day working? I don't want to be feeling like that sort of you know, angry aunt in the mornings. I want it to be like I wanted it to be easy. So I did do very similarly to you, I moved a whole heap of stuff to the afternoon evening. I went, lunches get packed, bags are ready at the door, uniforms are out and ready to go, like, and as my children get got older, they're not babies anymore. It's like the eldest is then showing leading the way for the middle child and so on and so on, but it's like a non-negotiable, like these are my this is what we do in this in my house, and having make sure that those things don't and and them taking responsibility for that because I'm also raising, I was raising uh people that I want to see make their way in the world. Yeah, that doesn't happen by me doing everything for them, yeah. Yeah, so I'm teaching them independence at the same time, so they only had to get dressed, brush their teeth, get their lunch boxes out of the fridge, and have breakfast. They were the four things they did every morning, that was it. And it changed my whole entire morning. There was no more nagging, there was no more anything. And early on, I eliminated TV. We don't we don't do TV in the morning. That was just an absolute nightmare if the TV went on, because you know TV and screens and kids go, so it's like off. But what I did do was put music on, music that they liked as well, so it motivated my household into a way that they felt yeah, like they were starting the day on the right foot, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, definitely, yeah. We've we still have the TV on. Um, but that kind of started more as a essentially Ellie would be ready and I'd have the TV on so that she would leave me alone so I could get ready. Um Annie, not so much interested in the TV. But now I have noticed some of the mornings, especially when it's really cold, when we get up, I put them both in Annie's room and I shut the door. To play. And they just play together and I can get myself ready and then I'll get them dressed in the same room so that we're all ready to go. Um, it kind of yeah, sometimes The mornings look a little bit different routine-wise. Obviously, sometimes they're hungry urgently. It just yeah, it depends on how it goes. But when I yeah, I have to notice the more organized and set up I can be, it's more calm. Um, but then also it's allowing time for those unexpected things to happen.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Um because there are meltdowns. Well, there's meltdowns, there's punami.

SPEAKER_02

There's our own personal meltdowns, you know.

SPEAKER_00

You know, unexpected phone calls, there's all there's all manner of shit. You know, trying to find the clothes that that yeah hung them on the line and it rained. So now you've got to find something else to wear. Um, but then the other morning Ellie just threw a big curveball at me. Um, and you know, don't make promises you can't keep. Because the night before I had she had said, Mummy, can I please have a packed lunchbox tomorrow? So the daycare provides meals, but they can bring a lunchbox of extra things if they're still hungry. So one of her friends does this. Okay. So she asked me, Can I please have a packed lunchbox? And I was like, sure, no worries. Forgot about it, and and she reminded me the next morning as we were about to walk out the door, and I was like, Oh my goodness. She had done everything right. She had asked me the day before, she had reminded me, so I was like, I have to go make you this lunch. But because I had already, you know, I'd already done the bottles and everything, I had that time. Yeah. So it wasn't absolutely manic trying to get this. I was it was a bit like I don't have anything to put in this lunchbox. Yeah. But I did have the time to do it.

SPEAKER_02

And like we're talking about things from a mother perspective. If we're if we're if we sort of strip that back for a second and we're talking about just coping when you don't have to be mothering, we might be talking about the fact that you don't get out the door to go to a gym class, or you don't get morning walking or exercising in because you haven't fed yourself in the right way the night before, right? You haven't prioritized yourself because you're dragging the chain, because you keep offering out all of your energy to other people and work and other spaces, and not putting yourself on an even priority. And I know that's really challenging to a lot of us, especially in the mothering season, because we feel like everything else has to come first. But is that actually the deepest truth? Like there can be a place where all things exist and you don't like it's sort of uh it's that whole work on yourself to be the best version to everybody else. So if you prioritize the things that you need to do to set a flow state in your house for either yourself or your family, then we're looking at a very different experience. We're looking at life by design. Yeah, that can be curveballs, but we're looking at intentionality, we're intentionally setting up those spaces and those conditions for us to move into the thrive zone. So when we ask it, what you know, what's coping rather than thriving, if I really narrowed it down, I'd say coping is playing the behind game and thriving is playing the forward game. That's what I would say.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'm definitely juggling the two. Yeah, they're still well, I told you about all the laundry and still haven't folded. Constantly playing catch-up. I've got laundry I haven't folded, and I'm not looking after kids anymore. So yeah, that's right. Yeah, all those things. Um, but I guess at the same time, um sometimes sometimes, you know, we haven't we haven't folded the laundry, we haven't washed the dishes that night because we're exhausted, and sometimes we haven't done it because we've chosen to spend our time with the girls instead. So it kind of comes out in the wash a little bit.

SPEAKER_02

It can, it can. I think you just need to make choices sometimes where it's like what's gonna work for our best our tomorrow's version as well. Like what's more important, and then coming to your other question about um why can this sort of state of coping be normalized? Well, it's been modeled for us. Yeah, yeah. Um, it could have easily been part of your environmental conditioning growing up that you saw your mother or women around you putting everybody else first and not um learning how to normalize that it's okay for you to balance that. Um and you've practiced that, so what you practice becomes permanent, yeah, and then you're not quite sure how to break out, you're doing it even though you don't like it, but it's become habitual. Yeah, and so you have to make a conscious choice to shift that, and that takes effort, and then people go, I don't have enough energy for that effort, but it's like, well, what do you want more? Like when you bring it down to the bottom line, what do you want more? Do you want to keep living like that and you want to keep live having that lived experience, or do you want to make change?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And then the last thing is like I we talked about before, that feminine-focused, feminine-centered living, where you understand that there are peaks and troughs, and you give yourself permission to go, oh, you know, I'm backing off a little bit here because I am in this sort of trough stage, or the dark moon slash cycle menstruation phase of the moon and my cycle, and oh I'm I'm at peak period, I can actually get more done than what I usually do, and noticing the difference and being okay with both. Learning how to support yourself through both spaces and places so that you don't get you know the big B word burnout, because then what are you doing then? Yeah, nothing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so you you touched on um you know it takes effort. That kind of leads into our next question. Yep. Why do you think so many women learn to survive instead of fully live? And I my brain, before you said effort, I was like, it's just so much effort. It takes it takes effort to like and conscious choices to come out of that.

SPEAKER_02

Um I think it's about what's most important to you. That's what it comes down to. So I think women learn to survive instead of thrive because they don't question what's the most important thing here. Like, and I think there's an overall sort of well, let's be real, as soon as you start cycling, we're dictated to by the terms and conditions of estrogen in our body as a hormone. That makes us, I heard this the other day, I was like, oh my gosh, that is just the most profound, tiny nugget of insight that really explains the difference between someone that is under the influence of estrogen and one that isn't. So there's two young ladies, one is under the influence of estrogen, so she's gone through monarch, she's had her first bleed, and there's another one who isn't. Now the the young lady who isn't um cycling yet, she says, I've I'm hungry, right? And she's like, I need to go and find myself something to eat. And she goes and finds herself something to eat. And the young lady that's cycling and under the influence of estrogen goes, I'm hungry. Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat? How are you feeling?

unknown

Do that all the time.

SPEAKER_02

Right? Right. So that just we're that hormone is actually kicking in all the time and putting us in a space, for better or for worse, it makes us amazing mothers, right? Because it helps us become be able to consider other people and be, you know, family and community-minded. And I mean we've got that innately in us as women anyway, but that really sort of puts it on steroids, so to speak. So, and then we go into our our marger stage, and we're like, um, um, we start to move away from estrogen, and then people go, I feel me, or because they've had 35 odd years of being under the influence and being in that space where they've considered others, and it's probably not doesn't feel as natural to us to be, but there's nothing wrong with either perspective, it's just a different stage and place. So when we talk about um you know the survive instead of live, some of that is happening hormonally for us, and then we see what's modelled, and then we don't understand our feminine cycles, so we're coming back to sort of a very similar space where and and so then uh we uh come to that part where we've talked about well, what's important to you? We're not questioning that, we're not we're just rinsing and repeating, rinsing and repeating, and that hormone is kicking in in the background all the time, supporting the rinsing and the repeating, and we're not in that space where we go, so what's more like I can stop here for a second and just consider myself for one minute, which then in turn considers everybody else, uh, and go, all right, so what's really important to me? Oh, what's really important for me to have a smooth morning because that helps me, but it helps everybody else. Do we consider those things? No. Are we asking those questions in other spaces? Not really, not until we move away from our good friend estrogen, but by that stage, for some women, they have become so self-sacrificial that they sort of the pendulum swings the other way. They're also going through their next rite of passage, which is menopause, and they're feeling quite burnt out or angry. I feel like I would be in the minority of women going through perimenopause and menopause. I I'm I'm loving it. I'm excited by it. I'm taking I'm not excited by all the conditions, may I just add? I'm not getting excited about some of those, you know, pathology parts yet, but I know they're there. But I am in this beautiful space where I know what's happening to me, I'm educated about it, I'm acceptive of it. I don't like all of the elements of it, right? But I'm empowered by it and I know what it's giving me.

SPEAKER_00

But it's it's similar to you know, you know, being pregnant, like, well, we don't love the whole thing, but we're excited about it. Most of us are. Most of us, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But I do find that any of us sitting in a space of not being resourced or having that undeeper understanding of what our true rites of passage are as women, we push against them because that's what's been indoctrinated against us. We've been told to spiritually bypass them, or um, there's mechanisms in place for us to just skip over things rather than lean into them. And as women, we have this amazing uh stewardship of the psychic emotional landscape of ourselves and others around us, yet we don't take up the because we don't know, a lot of women don't know that it's normal for us to be sitting in those spaces. Like that psychic emotional landscape is a space where we we tend to our our families, not just our children, but our communities, and we work in spaces and places where we're always, you know, women come in and they're like, okay, so what's the problem? What's going on? What's really going on for you here? Or that we sense though that psychic environment, that energetic environment. We we've got the feels, right? Because that's it's in us as women. We we have got this, you know, unspoken stewardship that we we're managing those emotional spaces for a lot of people, in but we're not doing it very well for ourselves sometimes. It's sort of it's it's there, but we don't truly understand our the deep interaction we have with those spaces. And you can look at communities, families, groups that haven't got anyone tending that space, um, they become highly dysfunctional.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And it becomes like a power over paradigm, like quite dictorial. Whereas when you've got the other going on, when that that emotional landscape is being tended, people feel seen, accepted, held, and safe.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um, just reading one of the questions here. How does constantly being in coping mode disconnect women from themselves, their needs, and even what they truly want? Well, I'd like you to answer that question.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, that's what I was learning to. Um so let me ask you, Caitlin, how does constantly being in coping mode disconnect you from yourself, your needs, and even what you truly want?

SPEAKER_00

When you're in coping mode, and I don't have any time to think about what I want. It's not even It doesn't even come up. Um, Connor asked me last night, for the hundredth millionth time, what do you want to do for your 30th birthday? And I was like, I really don't know. And and then I sat there and I was like, you know what? Because I never actually took the time to sit still long enough to really think about what I wanted. I was like, I don't know what I want. Um, and then I was like, no, I do. I want a quiet weekend, I want some little cabin. I'd love like I'd love to be in like a little cottage in England or something since a week.

SPEAKER_02

But like another, you know, like a nice go Victoria for England. Um I'd suggest Dalesford.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Um I was like, I want like a nice, a cute little cabin where I don't want to hear any traffic. And I was like, I just want like a craft weekend. Okay. Just like and because he was like, Do you want like a weekend with the girls? And I was like, it doesn't even have to be the girls. Like you can come if you want to craft. But I was like, that's what I want. I just want you want time to yourself. Well, not necessarily by myself.

SPEAKER_02

But maybe if you if you weren't considering everybody else's needs here, Caitlin and you were just considering what you truly deeply profoundly wanted for yourself in that space.

SPEAKER_00

And like part of me kept stopping myself because I yeah, because I did because I was like, I just want to be in a cabin, quiet, and I want to do craft. I want to do a variety of craft projects. Um and I kept stopping myself every time I wanted to say, I don't want you there, and I don't want the girls there.

SPEAKER_02

Because you don't think the children's I don't love you, and then I don't want you around. It just means I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00

Because then he was like, What about your friends? And I was like, Maybe, but maybe not the whole time. Like maybe a night just a a night in a bed by myself. And a bath, like a big bath, something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And what feels bad about asking for that about yourself?

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. He did say he was like, 'cause he said, why don't you um 'cause I because previously I wanted to go to Sydney to see some musicals.

SPEAKER_02

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

Um those musicals have been and gone, so I've missed that opportunity. And then I said, but I'm anxious about leaving Annie. Because I do miss them and it like hurts. It's okay to miss that. And he was like, he's like, but I'm gonna go away on a camping trip and I'll miss them, but I am going. And I was like, yeah, but I don't know. It's a little bit different. I was like, I'll Is it different? I'll have a night, I don't know. I think I just think about it a whole lot more.

SPEAKER_02

Is it different or is it that you're framing it up for yourself differently? I don't know. And is it okay for two things to be true at the one time?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Is it okay for you to go, I really need that, and that's what I need and want. And it's okay for me to miss them at the same time, but they are okay.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think part of me is more worried about how they're they all feel. Like Ellie will be fine, she'll have a grand time with whoever she's with. Um, but then yeah, part of me worries like what's Annie gonna think about it.

SPEAKER_02

But what if she's not gonna think anything?

SPEAKER_00

Then I'll be offended.

SPEAKER_02

Well, that's interesting. What's really interesting is you're tapping into this quite unique space where I do a lot of work with a lot of um women in understanding how much you're embodying other people's discomfort. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like our dis there's there's power that comes out of discomfort, it changes things for us, it's a catalyst. But if you are assuming somebody else is a uncomfortable or going to be uncomfortable, and like within reason too, like you know, you're not gonna go and dump your child in a corner for a weekend and go, oh, I'm not taking her on her discomfort. Like let's be you know, we're talking in reasonable terms here, but if you if you assume that they're going to be dis dis like uncomfortable, uh, and you've done all the best things you can to make sure that they're in a space where they are loved and cherished and all that type of stuff, then what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Is she going to be uncomfortable because she's vibing of you worrying about her discomfort? Yes, yeah, or is or is so is she gonna get that, or is your thinking that she's gonna be uncomfortable, is that going to to seed that? Like which way is it gonna go?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And then I won't have a good time. Well, exactly.

SPEAKER_02

I would have manifested and would you have think thought about or what about the other scenario where you would have been thinking about that the whole time and A, you don't go, yeah, right? Yeah, or B, she has a great time, yeah, and you've spent your time worrying, worrying, and and um embodying a discomfort that doesn't even exist, and it's so it's so interesting because like I said before, those places of discomfort are catalysts for us to learn and grow and expand from. So if you've ticked the boxes in terms of, you know, you've got her, she's home with dad, you know, she's loved, she's all those types of things, he's not going to interact with her. No two parents do the same parenting, you know, it's similar things, but they don't do the same parenting. So something that you wouldn't let her sit with in discomfort, he might let her sit a little longer, and that teaches her something new. So then all of a sudden, she might be able to soothe herself a little bit better, or she might be able to play more independently, or there's and it's not we're not talking about big big bits of discomfort, we're talking about small bits. But because as mothers and daughters and sisters, we're always thinking from the East Ridgeon perspective about the comfort of others all the time, it's sort of it can be problematic for us. It's learning how to balance that out.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's a it's exhausting. Um even thinking about not as a mother, um, but it's people pleasing.

SPEAKER_02

Well, yeah, that's always catering to your per perceived amount of discomfort for somebody else. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You're doing you're behaving in a way that is not about you. People pleasing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

People pleasing is always about other people.

SPEAKER_00

Which is interesting because it's been implied and said that I'm doing things for myself and not thinking about other people, but I'm constantly thinking about other people.

SPEAKER_02

I think for a lot of people Especially when I try and plan things, it's not like well, it's so interesting because then what we're talking so somebody else's discomfort in that space might be about the mirror effect. Like if you're doing something quite efficiently and good at it, that can go. Oh, here's an error to that person.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And for some reason they don't like that. They don't like being, and it's only our own ego that says to us, Oh, you're not good at that. Like that doesn't exist. But why? Like if you want to get better at something, get better at something. If you want to model off that person, you know, um, use that as your inspiration to get better at it. But what we do is this the self-sabotaging downplay, oh, I'm not good at that, I'm so shit at this, you know, da da da. Or I become competitive.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And we see that with women all the time. As soon as in many women, not all women, but as soon as we get to a space where, like you've just said, perhaps someone is intimidated by your capacity to show up in that space, and you're doing a good job, and you're coming from all the right places, they see you as a threat. Unfortunately, that's been indoctrinated into us as women to compete against each other all the time rather than straighten each other's crown. We've got to knock it down. Yeah. It's an old philosophy, it's a very old patriarchal, internalized patriarchy that we carry around as women, that there isn't enough, or we can't all work together to find, you know, we're all gonna have our strengths and weaknesses. Like that's the reality of human nature.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But to be intimidated by that, as opposed to being intimidated by someone like through what they've said or how they've behaved towards you in a physical form, that's a completely different way of interpreting intimidation. And it's rife, it's rife through a lot of our feminine lines because of what we've been taught. So then we we we circle back to you know the coping mode, how does it disconnect women from themselves? Well, it sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? Coping is disconnecting, it's it's it's putting everybody else first and playing the behind game for yourself. And I I also will say I believe that there are mechanisms and indoctrination that we have been made to digest that says if you are not being self-sacrificial, you are a bad mother or you are a bad daughter or a bad woman, like that everybody else is supposed to come before you and somehow they need to be. I I I teach the the this um process, or I don't know that I'd call it a process, actually. It's a oh let's just call it a tool. You know how you see a lot of women that when when their kids leave, they become I like they don't know their own identity, right? Yeah. They become quite lost and disorientated, or when when a a woman or a man, when they have a breakup with somebody and they just cannot get it together. They just and they keep sort of going over and over and over like a like like a card in a camel's mouth, like regurgitating all of the details and then chewing on it and then swallowing it back down and doing it over and over again. That is because in the scenarios that they're they've been living their lives, I call it the spoke theory. So at the middle of a wheel should sit you in the center, and then all the spokes that come off the middle of that wheel are the elements of your life. Your children, your family, your career, all of the things that that you have in your life. If you're at the center of the spokes or the wheel, and one of the spokes gets taken away, you can still function because you're the at the at the middle, right? You're holding it all together, you're at the centre of all of those spaces, and then you'll feel the gap, okay. The spoke isn't there, so it won't feel as supportive as it has been before, and then eventually there'll be a spoke that comes into its place again. Yeah, if you're not at the center of that, and you put your partner at the center of the wheel, and you are a spoke, that center is taken out and gone, and that center was the the mechanism for making choices by. So I'll take this career path based on what's at the middle of the center of the circle. In this scenario, we're talking about a partner, right? I'll make choices about my interaction with family based off the center, which is your partner. And then this continues to happen over and over again with the person which is the partner who never asked to be at the centre, may I add, right? Being the main theme of which your decision making goes through. And so take the center out, all the spokes start falling away, and you're one spoke left with a big gap. Yeah, so that happens at empty nest spaces when women have put their families at the centre of the spokes, and all decision making has been about the family and the children and not them. The spokes, they children go, see you later. What happens to the spokes? We see lots of relationships break down because sometimes it's being only the kids that have sat in the centre of that wheel. Yeah. Yeah, we see they've decided not to do other things. So all the other spokes that are sitting there are quite vacant. And then they're just sitting there with their little self-spoke there, not at the centre. How's that land for you?

SPEAKER_00

I could think of so many uh things I can um relate to that. Personally, but then other things I've seen. Oh, for sure. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. It makes total sense. Yeah, and and especially if you're making decisions based on somebody else who's at the center, um and you are losing all those spokes, it's also a bit like relationships you've lost because you've made a decision based on that one person, and then that person's left your life.

SPEAKER_01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00

All these spokes have fallen away in a bad way because you let them control your life. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's an inter it's really when you start looking at it like that, and you I do usually do a visual representation of that, and you start to see the gaps visually and see how it's set up, everyone goes, Oh.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And it's not saying that you can't make decisions with other people in mind.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, thinking about other people, but it shouldn't be the only mechanism that's in place. Yeah. Yeah. But when you're always putting others at the centre and not yourself, you're not being considered at all.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So what actually um starts to shift when we realize we don't want to just cope anymore? What changes in the way we relate to ourselves, our energy, relationships, standards for life? Space.

SPEAKER_02

Space starts to happen. A space where you actually are saying, what's important to me here?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And then you become more intentional with the way that you're setting things up, which creates more space in your life. And then you're able to have boundaries where you're like, actually, no, I'm not gonna do that, or what are my decisions based off? Like, are they based off consideration for myself and others here? Or are they, you know, where where am I coming from? Am I sitting in the passenger's seat or am I sitting in the driver's seat? What's what and and when I say space, I say I mean I also say what comes with space is ease, flow. It doesn't mean you're still not gonna have the peaks and the troughs, right? You're still gonna have the the summery points and the wintery points of seasons and spaces or activities and commitments, but they're gonna feel of your choosing as much as they can. And they're also there's also gonna be a sense of personal agency in everything that you do, and rather than being reactive, you're being proactive, you're out ahead of things, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I think it comes back to our very first podcast topic. Oh wow, doing the work, yeah, like once once we can actually commit to doing the work so that we can stop coping and start thriving, everything like doing the work, pack the lunchbox the night before. Yeah, so like taking the time to put things in place, like we're not just talking about lunchboxes.

SPEAKER_02

God knows. Remember, I was referring to the um looking after your future self, yeah. That that um particular gentleman, um he talked about putting ten bucks in your pocket in your pair of jeans that you're not gonna wear for three weeks. Yeah, and so funny this morning, I pulled out a note in my pocket, and I said, I literally said to myself, Oh, look at you guys, you set yourself up for a nice little future self moment there. But it's like it supports your future self, you know, like that's a nice surprise for yourself. Yeah, that that's a bit of a lift, you know. So where else can you? It's small things, right? It's a lot of little, I always say small steps, big shifts. Yeah, because it's lots of little steps joining together that create big shifts in your life. Yeah, and when you're doing those consistently, not from a chores-based perspective, but from a what's right for me perspective, and how do I turn up in the spaces that I want to be as a mum, as a partner, as a worker, you know, as a career in my career, all of those, when you're starting to consider what type of relationship you want with yourself in all of those spaces, like you said, doing the work allows you the platform, the tools and the mechanisms and the mindsets that support you to continually move forward in those spaces. Definitely.

SPEAKER_00

Anything else?

SPEAKER_02

Um lots. I think I think uh so there, you know, right here, my notes are decisions that support rather than disassemble. So that's like setting it, you know, supporting your future self. Yeah. If I sit up and watch that TV show really late at night on a night that probably is not gonna support me tomorrow morning, that's gonna disassemble me. And and so what am I giving into? Am I giving into an impulse reaction here? Or it and if I am really, really wanting that, why? Like it's getting right to the nitty-gritty of where your decision making is coming from, and it's okay for you to do those things prepared, like prepared that from a place that you're prepared for what the fallout might be, and that you own that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. For the woman listening who is realizing she's been surviving for a long time, um maybe she's holding everything together externally, but internally feels disconnected, exhausted, flat, or like she's just going through the motions. I read this script last night. And I was like, ah, dang.

SPEAKER_02

Why were you dating? It's just it's another podcast about my life in such a great way, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, um, everybody's learning through me.

SPEAKER_02

Everybody's learning through me too. Like I'm learning through me, I'm learning through you. I'm I think for me, that's what this is all about. It's about the fact that we can come together in spaces and places and actually support each other in a way that we're like, oh, it doesn't have to be like that. Yeah, oh that's the huge narrative that is continually fed to us all the time. It's got to be this way. This is about, you know, it's like, does it? Yeah. When do we when did we stop questioning? When did we stop being in a space where we were like, like, just because that works for Arthur, does that mean that works for Martha?

SPEAKER_00

Like Yeah. Definitely, um, I thought last night thinking about, yeah, just coping. Um I know we've spoken previously around, you know, like women, we kind of have like this competitive not nature, like competitive thing with each other. Um I and I thought about it and I was like, I haven't been coping, I've I've just been surviving recently. And which is coping. Yeah. I suppose there's varying degrees of coping. Yeah. Um and I thought about I was like, I I was like, I need help. But I feel like I can't ask for help because there's kind of like this this shadow over it that's like um shame. Shame and like people like it's funny because um no, it's not funny. Uh good reframe. Good reframe. Not funny. I like that. Um I've seen it since having Ellie and with Annie as well. I feel like if I have to ask for help that it's seen that I can't handle being a mother and that I don't deserve to be a mother because I can't handle it.

SPEAKER_02

Alright.

SPEAKER_00

And it's so frustrating.

SPEAKER_02

Let's unpack that. Let's unpack that. I know we we don't have tons of time, but let's unpack it anyway.

SPEAKER_00

It's for everybody else's benefit.

SPEAKER_02

It is, it's and and we could you could take that topic and you could rinse and repeat it in lots of different spaces. Yeah. So so you're saying that you feel like if you ask for help, it's perceived as your incapacity or your failing as a mother, yeah. And that there's shame attached to that, and that somehow you're not enough. Yeah in that role.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, in that space, right? So is that what you think people think of you?

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

And how do you know that? Well I don't know. That's yeah. So you don't know that. Yeah. But it it it's your frame, right? So do you this is gonna be hard. Do you see other people in that space and think the same things about them?

SPEAKER_00

No. Okay. I think maybe the small difference is I was once told that I shouldn't have kids because I wouldn't be able to handle it. So I think it makes it harder now. Okay. Because I'm like, they were right. Here we go.

SPEAKER_02

Here we go, listeners. This is an active session now. We're going here. This is important. Okay, so you were told that you shouldn't have kids.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. As a as a young adult. As a young adult, so still in 20s, yeah. Well no. No. Uh like I was probably like 18. Okay. So who t so someone told you Who tells an 18 year old?

SPEAKER_02

Someone told you that you shouldn't have children.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Specifically because I wouldn't be able to handle it.

SPEAKER_02

Because you wouldn't be able to handle it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Like as it manage your time or manage the stress or like what was the whole thing. The whole thing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um, which is interesting to say to an 18-year-old. Like I know there's plenty of 18-year-old mothers younger, but the person I was as an 18-year-old is nowhere near who I am now. I'm still being constantly reminded of who I was as an 18-year-old. Yeah, well she she's valid, but she's also She's grown.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Um, but at that time that was really hurtful.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so that would that that is a frame that was created for you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You and you've do you remember what we spoke when we spoke about we've spoken about this quite a few times in different places and spaces, as well as I would say it's come up on the podcast or on some content that I roll out, that thoughts, beliefs are thoughts, thought over and over and over again, and then there's an agreement made with it. And that agreement is yes, I believe this to be true.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So there were a few things that happened to you in that moment when that statement landed. There was probably a part of you that felt like she wasn't quite coping with whatever was going on in her world, and so that highlighted that for you. There's that frame. Then there was the next part where you kept thinking about it over and over and over again, and you've possibly forged a relationship with it that you believe that there that that is true. That in a space and a place where you might have felt that was your gaps or an area that you needed to develop, that perhaps you couldn't do that for whatever reason, right? And then, like you said, from your now version of yourself, you look at her at 18 and go, that's not the same person. So this is where we we sit in this space that becomes really hard for a lot of us, men, women doesn't matter, where more than one thing can be true at the one time. As an 18-year-old, you probably you didn't like what you heard. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say it was from someone probably close to you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So that felt like the word I'm looking for here is a violation because that's someone that you felt like you was close to you and that you could rely upon, but they're not seeing you the way that you they're not supporting you, they're pulling you down. Yeah so they're and they're not and they're not doing it in a very nice way because there's obviously something going on for them at well as well at the same time for them to be saying things the way that they've said them. And what's the purpose of saying that, right? You're not supporting someone by saying that, you're just expressing fears that you might have about your discomfort, that person, their discomfort about watching you move through something that might be challenging for you, but in actual fact, it's your making, right? Yeah, so there's so many different prongers going on here, but for you at that time, you have made an agreement with that statement, and it still comes up really a lot. What's the deeper truth about that time of your life and when that statement was said to you? Where were you at? Were you in a in a space that was feeling like you're 18? Like, let's get fucking real here. It's not like we've all got our shit together at 18. Like, it's quite a tumultuous time. You you've just become an adult, and then you know, you're learning the experience of an adult and going, is this what this is all about? Like, and you're a bit all over the place, and like, oh, you can go out into the world, but do you feel safe enough to go? Like, there's a lot going on at 18.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So, what was the deeper truth about what was actually happening for you at 18?

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. I certainly as a teenager, uh, I feel like I'm always haunted about teenage, I'd say decisions, but like I don't want people to be like, teenage decisions, she was wild. I was not.

unknown

Who cares if you were?

SPEAKER_02

Um I will happily say I was wild and free at the at that time.

SPEAKER_00

I think teenage decisions of how I spoke and what I spoke, because a lot of the time in adolescence we don't think before we speak. We're learning. We're learning, and I I was going through a period of learning, still am, everybody is, but I was being very harshly judged for that learning. Right, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So the deeper truth is that you were discovering who you were as a person. And not being supportive. And and if and that person showed up and was quite judgmental of you and what you were learning, and probably used a place of what I would call, you know, a pain point about something that you'd considered that you'd wanted to be a mother?

SPEAKER_00

Well I always wanted to be a mum just from a child. Like 500 million dollars.

SPEAKER_02

You had an association with wanting to be a mother and that felt like quite a a nasty stab.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So what in turn now what that's caused you to so that was the frame and what that's caused you to do now is a matrix of things. So from that frame you go if I ask for help I will be classed as this.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

If I look like I don't have it all together I will be classed as this. Yeah. Was so interesting before because the cheddar in this is that you like you said I'm still being compared to that version of myself or classed as that version of myself but you're also doing that to yourself.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You're also saying I confirm this by doing that. So by not asking for help I confirm that I am still connected to the identity that is that all that was happening. So my advice in that situation is does that serve you? No. But does it actually mean that you're not coping?

SPEAKER_00

No.

SPEAKER_02

I mean I'm I'm still alive the girls are still alive does it just mean that everybody has moments and times and spaces where we just need a little bit of extra help and we're not competing against each other.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Where we should we're here to help each other out.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah I still have those moments where you know they're screaming or something and I've screamed back and I'm like I'm a horrible person. I'm a horrible mother. I can't handle this. Or I you know I think I've done a bad job because confirming that because I've reacted a certain way. But then I look at um I look at how clever they are and I'm like well I did that. And Connor. Yes we both did it. But it's like well if I'm such a if I'm such a you know bad person or I can't handle this how did I produce these two little beings that are so um well I can't say much for the 12 month old but the four year old is so already emotionally intelligent for a four year old. I was like well how did I do a bad job there? You didn't and the point is And I have to remind myself that yeah so you have to be kind to yourself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You have to keep doing the work yeah yeah and learning what loving yourself and putting yourself at the center of the spoke theory looks like yeah yeah yeah and then it'll feed out absolutely to everybody else.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely it will absolutely where are we up to um what does it look like to move from coping into thriving in a real grounded way? Hmm looks like peace. It yeah it does it looks like small steps. Yeah yeah because you're gonna get there no matter how big your steps are my steps are pretty little like I have little legs.

SPEAKER_02

But little steps make big changes like you you two bottles of the night time are making a huge shift in the mornings. Yeah they're freeing you up imagine if you just kept doing lots of little shifts like that lots of little steps. Yeah because they're all light up and you'll get there and then there's a felt felt sense of more um like personal agency and better decision making and and those boundaries and internal internal um uh language and chatter that's supporting you rather than disassembling you.

SPEAKER_00

So I know I need to change some things. But for the you know other women out there that if they know they need to change something but they don't know where to start what's the well what's the first step or what's the next step?

SPEAKER_02

I'd say the first step is is acceptance. Accepting that there is there can be more but it doesn't have to be like this and it's okay for you to say it's not all together. Like it's not working for me. Yeah. Yeah that's the first step it's okay for you to say it's it's not working for me and I'd like to look at what I'd like it to look like. Yeah and I I get like the perfect world scenario and then I get the scenario that I've got going now. How how can I find somewhere in between? And so it's acceptance first of where you're at and then an intention of what you'd like to do. And then from there we're looking at some really sort of specific steps from there. That that's that's the biggest pivot point I believe if we get stuck in this isn't working for me and just talking about the problem then we're caught in that victim cycle where we're where we're talking about the we're in the problem and we're only focused on the problem we're not actually focused on what are my options. Yeah yeah moving from problem to solution and so then um understanding that it's normal that there's a place where she can exist or I can exist as well as all the responsibilities that I have at the same time that that doesn't have to be a one or another an either either approach and that that shift is made in a spiral nature and so it doesn't all happen at the one time and that's the steps that we've been talking about. So if you think about like a spiral staircase of steps then it happens um because if it did happen all at one time we wouldn't cope yeah it would be too much yeah yeah and and our changes don't happen overnight we don't go from zero to five in you know six months yeah that happens over a period of time because our bodies are moving and changing and supporting and our brain mechanisms all of the stuff that happens is internal as well as external stuff right yeah we need to set ourselves up for continual growth just like our body does even though you know I'm 48 doesn't mean I'm not growing I'm just growing in different ways to what I was when I was younger. Yeah should I choose that that's my pathway which I do so the setup for each part of that growth looks different at different intersections and then depending on where you are in your life cycle so in terms of whether you're in you know a maiden or a mother or you're in MAGA or you're a crone um tracking your cycle because your cycle plays such a huge role in how you turn up as a woman and if you're not bleeding we have cyclical knowledge for you to still be utilizing the mechanisms of the menstrual cycle that you've lived with all your life but don't actually have a physical menstrual cycle I mean even when you stop bleeding I I call it the echo effect. You still have the echoes of your menstrual cycle set up in your body like I know one of my female friends who's finished menstruating she's nearly 60 she still got sore breasts at the same time you know every month even though she didn't have a menstrual cycle for over six years. So there's still echoes in our body of those things and we still experience um elements like the hormonal shifts that our body we're used to but they're not happening in the same way internally and then there's a there there's still that capacity to be cyclical even though we might be well beyond menstruating so learning how to track that cycle as well as you know we've got the moon as a mechanism to help us follow that it's it's so important because it has such a profound effect on us. If you're if you're not working with yourself you're working against yourself. Yeah yeah so it's just it's a it's an absolute and utter life changer to know what it is to our what our cyclical nature is as a as a woman and being able to use that to support you through your life in wherever it is you are in your life season and then depending on where you are in your life journey gather the resources you need to start making choices that are sovereign to you that are based off you so that might mean through books or courses or different things and qualify that information get in there and you know what is this gonna you know what am I taking away from this how am I going to take this and implement it like intention without action sits in the dream space it doesn't do anything. So how can I take that knowledge and embody that knowledge and if that's not something that you can actively is my other big word here is it needs to be sustainable. It needs to be something that can be ongoing and sustainable that can be adopted that is always in a space where it serves you or rather than disserving you or becoming a chore if it's becoming a chore it's not in the right mechanism for you. And so then seek a mentor or a guide to help frame up where you're at and what do you need to implement and how do you need to do that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah 100% because um well even just talking now an external person can see so much more than what you can see. I can tell you so I can tell you all these things and still not see my own picture. Totally so yeah having somebody external unbiased well they're there for your highest purpose yeah yeah makes such a huge difference you can put in so much work on your own but I feel like you still don't see the whole picture.

SPEAKER_02

Well you can't you're at the epicentre yeah right so you you've got blind spots yeah you we all do coaches have got coaches mentors have got mentors like that's they all know we all know like we've got blind spots and in order for us to get through our blind spots we need someone else to help us do that. Like I am not backwards in going forwards in telling you that I have mentors coaches and that I seek um like consistently uh professional development in my own field for my for myself and for my clients but I'm more than happy to see a therapist have a coach like I have a mentor I have many different mechanisms because you're right when you're at the epicenter you can't see everything. No yeah I I can easily have someone walk into my space and go oh yeah blah blah blah blah blah blah and they're like what the actual and then like how did you and it's like it's easy for me to see that as you besides the fact that it is my job to see those patterns and help people understand where they're at in the the way that's right for them I can't do that all for I can to a degree for myself and I might be a little bit more advanced at figuring that out for myself because um I do it for for my craft yeah but I still need the help and that looks at in lots of different spaces for me. That's books, podcasts, mentors um workshops, training it's everything like I'm consistently going there with art because it's the only way I get to the my next baseline or I expand my identity because all this is identity work at the bottom of the at the bottom of it it's like how do I identify with myself? Which version of myself am I identifying with or do I need to grow into this new identity of myself because we're as women we're living the birth death cycle all the time yeah it's part of us to shed identities like you said I'm not my 18 year old self.

SPEAKER_00

No I'm not even my 25 year old self. Exactly like I'm not the same person that birthed Ellie which as I am when I birthed Annie.

SPEAKER_02

It's normal and natural but we are not told that and we're not gonna go there but I'm just gonna put a little pin in the fact that what's framed up for us is we need to be a certain way said by society and also you know social media has a huge huge impact on how people are setting frames for themselves about what they should be doing and what they shouldn't be doing and you know what's considered I'm making it or I'm not making it like you said um based off what and who you are your own sovereign guide in your work in your life's work and I am mine. I can adopt things that serve me and control internal narratives based off what's right for me but so many people are giving that authority away to places and spaces that in my perspective and professional opinion are um I'm trying to find really diplomatic words to say this are self-sabotaging. Yeah right another deep and meaningful conversation Joe indeed always we don't do surface level like but we wouldn't be we wouldn't be able to have these conversations if um if we were sitting in a room full of women who had all that shit together because what are we gonna talk about? Um I think yes and no I think those I went away with a bunch of women um on the weekend so a couple of maga women and I think I was the young I'm the youngest in the group so I'm the I'm the the mini mager or the baby magger and then there's um other manga women there and that it's just that the quality of conversations we can go to depth really quickly yeah and then have super different perspectives but not be charged by that. Yeah yeah so that's the difference I think um I and so what we're talking about this is super deep 100% and and it's not talked about everywhere it's not the norm for us to be dropping this deep with people that might be at the beginning of their journey or might be in different spaces. But it's it is these types of conversations that you and I are setting up here that pave the way for permission or permission slips pave the way or create permission slips for women to go it's okay for us to talk about this stuff. Yeah because this is how we shift things this is how we shift narratives this is how we come together as women this is how we heal deep ancestral feminine wounding that has existed for over 6,000 years and this is how we regain right relationship with each other and then we get to go to depth quick and go whoa okay amazing so yeah I think there's so much scope here.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah oh for sure I've already um made little notes in my mind of future topics okay great so as usual Joe gives us a juicy little nugget what kind of nugget are we talking about? I like to think of a chicken nugget but it's a golden nugget I feel like it's a golden nugget. Yeah it's a great thing I suppose if if you're hungry it's a chicken nugget yeah I like to think of a chicken nugget if you if you're looking for if you're looking for a financial reference I suppose it could be gold yeah maybe it could be a seed too yeah sorry I'm gonna go off topic not off topic no I'm talking about nuggets but in the wrong kind of way I'm sorry everybody I I'm I'm feeling like this is but it was so funny you'd think you would never find looking at your child's poo poo nugget as funny as I did last night because she pooed out one nugget in the shape of a love heart. You're joking and it was the funniest thing and I was like I can't take a photo and share this so everybody I'm sharing it.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

A love being vulnerable about your daughter's love heart Joe's nugget is not poo it's not yeah it's good quality chicken nugget it is so for the women listening who spent years surviving coping and carrying everything maybe even if you've if you've own if you've just noticed that um you're surviving what might become possible for her if she stopped settling for just getting through life?

SPEAKER_02

Well it's a it's a fantastic question or it's change change is possible for her good change.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah fantastic change and my nugget on that is invest in yourself invest in your being and becoming and you can never go wrong everybody around you benefits from you investing in your being and becoming in whichever way that is it's a dividend that keeps on yeah for sure for sure for sure for sure I hope everybody certainly took something away from that um like I yeah the more we can share our vulnerabilities the more we can grow like individually but also help others absolutely because I it was once me sitting there thinking I'm alone and nobody else feels like this or thinks like this and I think the more people can you don't have to but the more we can share about how we feel and our experiences the more everybody can benefit.

SPEAKER_02

I think for me my voice was different it was always a voice like there's there's there's got to be more yeah like it was a it was I wasn't I think the the loneliness that you describe or that you're talking about was m how I felt growing up yeah was that I was different and that somehow that wasn't accepted but then later on that showed up as a is this is this really it like is is there there's gotta be more and it didn't mean that I wasn't enjoying my life. Yeah and it didn't mean that I wasn't having exciting periods but I just always felt encumbered like the consistency wasn't there for me. You know I wasn't able to consistently keep getting you know reaching my next space or finding that new identity because there was no shepherdesses to sort of lead me through that and now I reflect and I look at it and I did have leaders and mentors in different spaces which taught me how to seek out those things for myself and that's been part of my quest is to be that for other people is to show up as that guide and that bridge and that um change maker for for women and to bring back the ancient connection that we have with the feminine divine and how we can be in what right relationship with that. So I think for different people it's it it does sit in different spaces and it's good for us to recognise you know there can be different ways that we pick that up it might be through oh why do I keep getting through the same going over the same thing over and over again right exactly rinse and repeat different persons same theme right or it could be that sense of feeling lonely and disconnected and having no way to feel forward or that you're in it alone.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Or it could be like it was for me is this like I feel like there's more but I don't quite know what that more is and what does that even look like not more achieving and not more getting things it's a deeper yeah it's a deeper calling than that.

SPEAKER_00

100% and um so I guess for anybody listening if you want to hear more about wanting more that Joe's talking about episode five is called Wanting More and we we did a big deep dive yeah into what that really means. Yeah not just on a surface material level. Yes. Yeah so definitely I'm sure something something in this conversation resonated with many of our listeners today. If you'd like to explore working with Joe check out the links in the show notes for Anche Rose. Which is an experience that's currently travelling around Australia and could be a really powerful place to begin reconnecting with yourself beyond survival mode. And for women wanting something more personalized and deeper, you've had a little bit of a taste into what that's like today. Jo also works privately with women inside her Embodied Woman one-on-one container. We'll pop all the links in the show notes as well.

SPEAKER_02

And thanks, Caitlin, for your insight and vulnerability. It's not always easy opening yourself up to the big wide world that you're opening yourself up to. It's not the great good. It absolutely is. And thank you to all our listeners for joining us for this episode of Every Woman and Her Dog. Looking forward to catching up with you all in the next conversation. Firstly, a deep thank you to our guests today for their honesty, wisdom, and the courage to have those real conversations. If something's landed for you today, don't brush it off. That pull you feel, it's your next edge calling. If you'd like to explore working with me, hit me up on my socials or on my website at joannlee.com.au. Until next time, keep showing up for yourself because you're worth it. With love. Joe.