Remembering my why: A mothers path to healing, community and embodied wellness.

A grounding exeperaince with a mothered centred heartwork coach.

I have been working over the last week with a beautiful soul called Lauren Barbour. Lauren has a wonderful business supporting others in thier heart work and last week she held a 5 day devotional. I have been reading her work and listening to her podcast unravelling for some time and couldn’t wait to experience 5 days of connection with her…

One of the the things my experiance raised was a remembering. A remembering of my why behind my heart work. 

Supporting Mothers through every season

So what is my heart work? My heart work is supporting women, mothers to be precise. Women who want to birth their babies themselves who believe that it is possible to do so but don’t quite know how to make it happen. Mothers who have birthed 5 weeks ago, 5 years ago, 15 years ago.

I love providing postnatal women with the love, care and softness they deserve after birth (no matter how it unfolded for them)

Working with women fills me up. Changing the narrative that we don’t loose ourselves in motherhood but find this incredible power. This transformational self belief, trust and love. I beleive Motherhood is the catalyst for complete regeneration, transformation, growth IF we can slow down enough to let it all happen.

So often I see busy mothers juggling it all, in a state of heightened stress, anxiety. Exaughsted, juggling work, child care and house hold tasks and when asked how they are they reply, “oh ok, it’s just the season I am in I suppose” 

You can work with me in so many ways from online pregnancy yoga, to birth preparation retreat days or postnatal yoga.

Motherhood doesn’t have to be a season of struggle it can be a season of discovery

Now I blooming love our cyclical life. I love the gentle tip from summer to autumn, the fact we get to winter every 28 days (roughly) during our bleed. But this early phase of motherhood often gets described as a season of hardship and struggle by the very people living in it. I see so much heartache, grief and sadness in so many mothers. I hurts my heart. My work puts mothers back in the centre of it all. My work supports you the mother to feel less alone, heard, seen . Through self regulation, self enquiry and community. We bring it back to your beautiful body and slowly you will begin to find the beauty even in the midst of chaos.  

You are always postnatal:Honouring the life long journey

My why 4 years ago was to create a business that provided expert movement knowledge for women in pregnancy, the first year after birth and even beyond that. You are always postnatal after birth there are life long transformations that happen physically and hormonally and mentally. 

As a keen exerciser before my first pregnancy I found it really hard to access good recommendations around movement in pregnancy and postnatally I found it even harder. With a feeling of heaviness everytime I ran I was told by the doctor that “it would pass”. And by a PT that I j”ust needed to give myself time.”

Time was required she was right but I also needed more. 

And so I set about finding out what that more might be. I did the accredited pre and postnatal training. But like most things related to pregnancy and postnatal it is very general, basic and quite frankly is a disservice to mothers and the babies we carry.

So I have had to really search out the information I was so desperately seeking. I’ve trained with midwives to fully understand how physiological birth happens and how that impacts the body. I’ve trained with pelvic health physios and done further work with pelvic floor PT’s and bio mechanic experts to understand the feminine body how pregnancy alters preasure on the system and why that might result in pelvic floor dysfunction or pelvic girdle pain in pregnancy. And further still I am studying a women’s health yoga teacher training, combining eastern practices with western science. And of course I have had my own personal experiences of pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period.

Over the course of the last 4 years and through a second pregnancy and birth my why has evolved significantly. After I had Beatrice I no longer wanted to just support women in movement. Because exercise in its traditional sense has lost its purpose for me. I no longer train to be thin, or even to build muscle… I move my body to help regulate my nervous system. 

From exercise to nervous system regulation

Because I now know that has to be the foundation. A regulated nervous system. The ability to support regulation when you feel anxiety, failure, guilt, overwhelming love, fear, disappointment, crippling frustration and even the absence of all feeling. ( these are just a few of the emotions that motherhood has gifted to me) and through it all I have to come back to myself. Because I am the container for it all. And how I respond changes the game for so many others… 

Healing after birth beyond the physical

So after the birth of Beatrice my intention was this… to hold space for women to heal… whilst allowing myself time and space to heal too.  my bussiness is an extention of me. It is who I am at my very core. If I am not doing the work along side you then I cannot serve you as I want to. As I feel deeply that I need to!

So what does “holding space for mothers” actually mean? I want to support mothers to heal physically after birth of course… But the healing runs deeper than just the first. 12 months after birth. In fact my biggest healing triumphs came in my second pregnancy. 

Preparing for an empowered birth experience

I knew if I wanted to have the birth I desired I needed to:

Stop people pleasing

Stop saying yes when I meant no

Carve out time for me, before anyone else 

Listen to my body when it told me something was not right 

Spend time alone 

Sit with the tears

Reach out for support from women that I knew would hold space to listen and share wisdom without judgement. I worked with Jessica (Now Doula) from positively pregnant. We just had a one to one in her beautiful home space near Alnwick and just talking through my feelings very honnestly and openly was just so transformational in itself. You can check her beautiful work out here.

Doing most of these things felt scary, wrong because I was taught to be a good girl… but being good is pretty self destructive! 

Building a community of safe, sacred space

So now my why is more about building community, about creating space for women to explore their emotions, thoughts and feelings safely without judgement. 

We sit together, I ask questions, women journal, draw, think, often no sharing happens. And that is ok. But when women do voice thier vulnerabilities they are met with quite solidarity. Privacy, trust. This could be in one of my Northumberland a pregnancy retreat days or postnatal yoga classes in Morpeth. It could be in a one to one sessions to support with pelvic girdle pain in pregnancy in my home studio in Northumberland or online.

A holistic approach to movement, birth and postnatal healing

Movement will always be a part of my sessions as will breath work. I believe you have to first connect into your body in order to get to the really juicy stuff in the mind. We also weave essential oils, self massage, card pulling, intention setting and guided visualisations into our time together too. The ancient ways of being. They hold so much richness and value especially as we walk the transformational path from maiden to mother. 

Combining science and intuition in Womens Wellness

My inquisitive mind still enjoys western science and I like evidence based studies but I take them with a pinch of salt and use my intuition to inform the content of my classes too! I also tap into eastern medicine too. Meridian lines, chakras, reflexology, acupressure, herbs… a true holistic experience in pregnancy, antenatal education and postnatal healing. 

My offers will never be one thing, they will blend all of my learning. They will provide evidence and science back information but also a heavy dose of connecting into the incredible woman/women in-front of me. My journey into motherhood has taught me a valuable skill. Self trust… I never really trusted my body until after the birth of my first child. And the ability to trust your physical body and your intuition is a powerful, powerful tool. 

Self-worth: The hardest yet most important work

The piece I am continuing to work on for myself is self worth. And this I find much harder to embody. I bring the energy of self worth to all my spaces and actively encourage the women I work with to put themselves before others because when they do I see incredible things happen. It’s something I find incredibly hard to alter in myself. My upbringing and social environment make this belief the hardest nut to crack. But I am determined to get there. 

This is my invitation to you

Hopefully this piece gives you a bit more if an idea of the women I am and my vision for you if you join me in my heart work. I will provide you with movement that will heal your pain and or dysfunction. I will also give you tools to support self soothing your nervous system and improve your wellbeing each day.

If you just want to loose weight I am not the woman for you.

But if you want to learn more about your body, how to make it physically strong and your mind resilient, calm and quite honestly the force it is on this plant to be… then join me. Let’s change the way motherhood feels for ourselves and for future generations. Step into your power I can’t wait to journey with you.

All my love Chloe