Latest / Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell / Guest Episode with Amy Taylor Kabbaz - Motherhood, Matrescence, Divorce & Co-Parenting

Transcript

Guest Episode with Amy Taylor Kabbaz - Motherhood, Matrescence, Divorce & Co-Parenting · Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to my right.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: On the height and your head, I'll cut it.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone want to reply and libraries in your leg and a lot.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Wherever you are, on your life with me.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: A lot and a lot.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Completely alive.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: You're alive.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: You're taking a light and a lot.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're in the right.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to another episode of my boyfriend today.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I like that.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I just got food.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: I need to best sell.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: 15 years and Google by these now the first selling I have school stuff, and Mama Rising first of amazing podcasts that happy mama movement.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And internally awarded last code and online programs modeled all over the world.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: In 2019, I mean launched the world first mammarizing during a unique formula of coaching and supporting to mothers transition through matres.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: And in 2022, Mamma Rising was recognised by the ITF and currently has more than 180 accredited mammarizing coaches globally.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Let's listen to my conversation with the amazing Amy Taylor Cabaz.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: Amy Taylor Kabazz, I am thrilled to welcome you to the podcast.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm fangirling a little bit because I love you and I love your work.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: So welcome.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'm fangirling back.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: I've been really looking forward to this conversation ever since we met.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: Let's launch in then.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do, and I always find more interesting when you why you do what you do.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'll start with the last part of that question because then that really leads into what I do.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: I, as I like to say, I'm a former journalist.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um I grew up desperately wanting to be a journalist.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: I had images from when I was a teenager of being a foreign correspondent.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_03: I was obsessed with the ABC, you know, in a really uncool way as a teenager.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um I obsessively studied biographies and autobiographies of successful women.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: I was determined that I was going to either report about the UN or work for the UN.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: I was such a strong-willed, ambitious young woman, right, from a very early age and have always been really driven by storytelling.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: And now when I look back, I didn't realise at the time, but empowering women.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: So I went on to study international politics, and um, in particular, I did an extra year of international development for women in developing countries, and somehow left uni and landed straight at the ABC.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: Total dream come true.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I was set, or so I thought.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: I had my life clearly uh paved out in front of me.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: I um worked for the ABC in Adelaide for many years in radio and was on my way.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: And then uh, as we tend to do, mid-twenties, met a man, fell in love, uh, got married, and um at 31 found myself pregnant with my first baby.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I honestly felt at the time, and this may sound egotistical, but it it is truly not, it's just how ignorant I was.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: I honestly thought that becoming a mum would be something that I would just add to my life.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: I I know we laugh, right?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_03: I say it was almost like it was a skill I'd add to my resume.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like I would still be everything I was, and nothing would change, especially not my career trajectory.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_03: I'd just get this bonus baby.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: I think I almost had this image in my head of the baby strapped to my back as I kind of, you know, went into the war zones, and I really honestly believed that nothing would change.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I distinctly remember a conversation with my husband at the time where we said the same thing to each other, this isn't going to change us.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: I chuckled because I had the same thought.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: I this wasn't going to change my life.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I understand.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: And no, no, not at all.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: This is what this conversation is about.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_03: And that's exactly uh what I do now is we have these conversations around how it is going to change you.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: But the realization of how dramatically it changed me um came as a true shock.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: I um I had been so self-aware, or I thought so self-motivated, so certain of who I was up until that point, that even if there was a challenge in my life, if I just worked harder, interviewed somebody, you know, found the right person to ask, I'd I'd win.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: And motherhood just slammed me.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_03: My daughter, who's now 15, was born with a few physical challenges.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: She couldn't turn her head, her foot was stuck to the to her shin.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_03: She was in a lot of pain.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: So we had daily physio for the first six weeks of her life.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: And in those six weeks, I I lost myself.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: I thought I was failing.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's so funny, Sallyanne.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's 15 years on and it still makes me emotional.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: And it's literally what I talk about day in, day out.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um I I honestly lost myself.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: I thought I was failing.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: I thought I shouldn't have become a mum.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: I thought I was doing everything wrong.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: I outsourced my power every single day by just going to everybody and saying, tell me what to do, tell me what to do, tell me what to do.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: And um it nearly broke me.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: She, by the time she was four months old, she suddenly became well and we had this beautiful, smiley, happy baby finally.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: But by that stage, um, I'd seen a side of myself that terrified me, and I really lost this belief in myself.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: So I thought if I rushed back to work, then I'll find myself again.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_03: So I went back to work because that's where I felt strong.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_03: I knew what I was doing at work, and then when I got to work, I didn't feel good there either.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: I was only doing it part-time, and I hated that, but I also really wanted to be with my baby.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: So when I was at work, I felt like I was doing a terrible job.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: And when I was at home, I felt like I was doing a terrible job.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_03: So being the journalist that I am, I looked around and said, surely somebody's talking about this.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: Surely somebody is saying what happens to a woman when she becomes a mother, especially an ambitious woman or a woman with a strong identity, a strong life, sense of self.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: And as I said, this was 15 years ago.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't even on Facebook yet.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: You know, this is like pre-social media Facebook groups where all the mums are sharing their stories and everything.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: There really was nothing.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: So I looked around and there was nothing, and I thought, oh well, I'll start researching it myself.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, I've been very privileged over the years to have access to great editors and great media organizations.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_03: So I reached out to one of the editors of the magazines I used to work for and said, Can I write this article for you about what I'm experiencing?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: And so it began.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: So 15 years ago, I started asking this question and it took me on this wild and windy path.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_03: I ended up having two more babies.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, by the third baby, I had finally learned my lesson that maybe this isn't going to work for me, trying to be superwoman at work and superwoman at home.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and eventually, after he was when he was nearly two, I decided to leave the ABC and I studied to be a life coach.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_03: I started to be a postnatal yoga teacher, a meditation teacher.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: I had a really successful blog by that stage.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I got a book deal, created my own podcast, and kind of just started a conversation that connected with women in such a profound way about exactly this.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: You know, how do we think it's not going to change us?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: How do we accept that it's going to change us, not only in ourselves but work, our relationships.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, it was successful to a degree.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I still felt like I hadn't fully answered that question.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: And so it was uh, let me think, maybe six years ago now.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: So I'd been doing this for a long time.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: I'd had, as I said, great success, a book published about it, but I still didn't feel like I had the complete understanding of what we experience.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: And then I was driving around Sydney, picking up and dropping off my kids, listening to this podcast, and I heard the word matrescence.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: And in that moment, again, it's one of those things that I can't tell without getting emotional.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I just got two when you said the word.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: In that moment, I had to physically pull over on the side of the road because I was sobbing so much.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: Ah, see, it makes me so emotional.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: Not because of um finally it made sense to me what I had experienced, and I'll explain what matrescence is in a moment.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: But also by that stage, I had over 3,000 women who had done my online program.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I was crying for all of them, all of us.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_03: Finally, I felt like we had the answer.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_03: And the answer is that we experience matrescence, and matrescence is the transformation from who you used to be to who you're becoming as a mother.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: Just like adolescence is this transformation between child and adult, and it takes years, and it's messy and awful and challenging, and you're a pain in the ass sometimes, and you don't make sense to yourself, and then you make perfect sense to yourself, and everything you question everything: your politics, your people, your body, all the things we understand about teenagers, and we give them a lot of grace and support, recognizing that in this period of transformation you need extra things.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: So too are we meant to do this for women when they become mothers, especially in my own research and in the work I've done since finding out about that word in the first seven years.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: The first seven years of a child's life is really when she is experienced this constant evolution.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: You know, she thinks that once a baby will sleep, I'll be back to myself.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: Once I go to work, I'll get back to myself.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: Once I start school, I'll get back to myself.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: And we know we never get back.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: So, a very long answer for you, but finally, when I heard that word, everything made sense of the last decade.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I went to my publisher, Hay House.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: I was meant to be writing a completely different book, and I turned up at my publishers' offices and said, Oh my god, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: There's this one phenomenal woman, Dr.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: Ourly Athen, who is the lead matrescence researcher in the world.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: She's at Columbia University in New York.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: I have to talk to her.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I was in a plane within three months and walked into her office, and Ugly cried in her office, like literally snot all over my face, like Columbia University, Sally Ann.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like the journalist, the foreign correspondent of me was like, Oh my god, I've made it, and I'm snot crying in front of her.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and she just smiled because she gets it, and from there, yes, everything changed.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_03: I've been working with her for many years, and we now share matrescence through many different avenues and trainings and podcasts and books and things like that around the world.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: So that's what I do.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: And why you do it.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for sharing it.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for sharing so openly and vulnerably.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: What has shifted?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: What have you said?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Let's say five years, what has shifted for women in the last five years around matrescence?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's such a good question.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: I find it hard to just knowing the word, like knowing the word and feeling it land um is is really powerful for me.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm 20 years into almost 21 years into my parent, my motherhood, mummer journey.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I know you would have heard this one million times.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: I wish so much that this work you had been around 20 years ago because I completely lost who I was.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think to losing control and losing power, and just like, oh my god, you know, when you said you were outsourcing your power, oh yeah, just give me the answer.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm successful, I'm smart, I'm educated, I'm intelligent, I have a really strong sense of who I am, and now I've got no fucking idea.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly, this is it.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: So I I literally have grandmothers reach out to me on Instagram saying, you know, I have this beautiful woman who's just finished the mummarizing training, so I now train others how to coach and support um women in this way.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I from from memory, I think her daughter is 28 or 29 years old, and we jumped on a coaching call and she started to cry.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: And she said, It has taken me 28 years to be able to sit down and make peace with that early experience with her.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: I have carried the thought that I did it wrong, that the birth was my fault, all of these things for 28 years, Amy.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: That this word has this power.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's like that fascinates me.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_03: Why does a word make such a difference?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I have to again refer to the phenomenal Dr.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: Athen who says words create worlds.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_03: When we finally have something that just reflects back to us that it's not your fault, you're not alone, it is a thing, it's not in your head, you're not crazy, it's not because you're bad, it's not because you failed, it's not because you didn't do that hypnobirth in class or you didn't breastfeed or you were IVF or whatever it was, it's none of that.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: This is a psychological, physiological, emotional, hormonal change that every single woman who becomes a mother experiences, whether she is rich and white or poor and black, it happens to all of us.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so within that one beautiful little word, we exhale, we go, you mean it's like think about if we didn't understand adolescence, which at one stage we didn't.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I love how in the you know it's it's described that before we understood what adolescence, health, mental health, physical changes, hormonal changes were, even the neurological changes, they used to think that children kind of went a bit mad on the way to adulthood.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like you could say the same thing about not knowing matrescence.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we don't know this, but I wonder how many cases of postnatal depression, anxiety, uh, all of those things would never be like solved, but be dealt with in such a different way if we understood it through the lens of matrescence.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: I have so many women who say to me, I was diagnosed with PND, but you know what?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_03: It never really felt like that.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: And now I know what matrescence is, I know actually what I was experiencing.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, me, 100%.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, listeners, I was putting up my hand to Amy so she could say me, me, me.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: Heartbreaking.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: So me and so many other women I know.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's heartbreaking.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: So you ask me what I see is the difference.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's hard, it's hard because I'm in such a bubble of matrescence that I think that we're changing the world.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_03: And the number of people who know this word is it's like an avalanche.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: There it we've just got momentum around this now.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: Bizarrely, in particular in Australia, Australia is really um latching onto this word very quickly compared to other parts of the world, even the US where it was birthed.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think we're doing a really great job in making sure that we're beginning that conversation and that awareness.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: But when I step out of my beautiful little matrescence bubble and my feed that's perfectly curated around how we can do this better, and I look around, um, I don't want to be too negative, but no, it's terrible.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: After COVID, the rate of postnatal depression has in some parts of the world tripled.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_03: The rate of burnout of mothers with young children because they've done homeschooling for the last three years is horrendous.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: There's something now called the burnout gap.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, instead of the pay gap or anything like that, there's now a uh a new phenomenon called the burnout gap, which acknowledges that women are burning out faster than men because they're still carrying the load of everything else at home and trying to be superwoman at work.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: So, yes, I'm a glass half-full kind of gal.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: I think we're doing a great job and we're starting, but then I look the other way and think, oh my god, we have so much to do.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: So much further to go.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: That burnout question is really interesting to me.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, way back we were sold as women.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: I know I was, I think you were, because it's reflected in your story that we can have it all, you know, you can have everything.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I I recall listening to one of your recent podcast episodes um about how we can we possibly know what's coming for for us.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so I wonder if that's a really messy question, not question, but I wonder if you can speak to that.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: Can we know?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: How can we possibly know what's coming?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: And is it possible for us to have it all?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: My answer is I think most of us define having it all by a patriarchal system that values busyness, productivity, career success, um materialism as the definition of having it all.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I think what I see over and over again when a woman understands what matrescence is and realizes this is a chance for her to kind of recognize she's changing and things will always be different now.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: What we do in our work in Mummarizing is we almost go back to the beginning and say, well, if you didn't assume that what a good mother does is she's there for every school pickup and every drop-off, if you didn't assume that being a successful woman means that you have to reach these career peaks, if you didn't carry all of those stories, and this was your chance to start again, how would you define what having it all is?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I think most of us crash land into motherhood like I did, assuming that we wouldn't ever change, like we said at the beginning, and just add motherhood on, and that version of having it all will never work because we live in a world where the unpaid, invisible work of parenting is 99% in most relationships carried by the woman.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_03: Again, there's some evidence that that's changing, but very, very, very, very slowly and in very and in very small populations.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so we we still define having it all as being that very successful old version of ourselves and the perfect mother, and that's never gonna work.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really redefining what success means for you.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Know personally, I can reflect on that.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, personally, I chose presence and connection with my kids over continuing to pursue a really high-flying career.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's not to say I haven't had a fulfilling work life, absolutely have, but things definitely shifted and changed for me.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's it.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that came down to you know what I really valued, what was really important to me.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: And did I want to be dropping them off at childcare at 6:30 in the morning and picking them up at 6 30 at night as a s and as a single mum, that's potentially what I would have needed to do.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: So things had to shift and change, including my definition of success for myself.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's um, I don't know if your listeners have heard of this concept.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's another one of those ones where when I heard it and when the women in my programs and things hear it, it's like another one of those, you know, tears, kind of goosebuments, which is, you know, the maternal wall.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_03: That more women will run into the maternal wall before they hit the glass ceiling.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_03: Meaning, we think we've made such amazing progress in removing this glass ceiling in so many different ways for women.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, the evidence does show that the opportunities are there for women to go so much higher and do so many more things than they used to be able to do, even 10, 15 years ago, and yet they're still not doing it.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_03: I wonder why that is, because they run into the maternal wall, meaning, if I say yes to that job at that level, it means that I have to sacrifice the way I want to be at home, and I won't do that.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: I'm opting out, I'm leaning back, I'm going to pause, I can't say yes.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: And again, I don't want this to sound like I'm man-bashing in this conversation because that is definitely never my intention or energy at all.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_03: But most of the time, a father will look at that opportunity and say yes because he knows he can have the support at home.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_03: Women don't get that.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: Even in a really trying to be equal relationship, it's just not equal.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so until we acknowledge that most women step back from those huge careers, not because the opportunities aren't there, the opportunities are there, but because she can't do it and be the mum she wants to be.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: Be present, be there for their kids, be the one that, you know, doesn't have to do every school pickup and drop off, but at least not be on her laptop until 1 a.m.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: just so she can try and keep up.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what we have to change in the workplaces if we're going to really get women into the leadership roles, is we have to acknowledge it's actually what happens at home that will stop her from showing up.
• 24:52
  unknown: Yeah.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's like one of my passion topics.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: So please rein me in if I'm going too much on this.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, I think that's a whole other podcast episode because I want to shift the conversation a little bit, take a little side turn and talk about single mamas and divorce.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I wondered if you'd be open to sharing a little bit about your own story.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: You shared with me prior to recording that your own divorce was a catalyst for change.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I really, really wanted to explore that with you.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, look, um I don't come from a divorced family at all.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: Uh on my dad's side of the family, none of my cousins, nobody.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: I'm the first in that whole generational line to tranquilise it, oh yeah, exactly.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: Didn't feel like that at the time, I have to say.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_03: So this was an incredibly big shock to me.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it was not instigated by me.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: There was um quite a long-running infertility on his behalf that I discovered, and even then I didn't want to leave.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_03: Even then, I truly believed that we could maybe fix it and work on it.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_03: I um I just never ever imagined myself or wanted for my kids this experience.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_03: So I feel like I feel like the universe does this to me, that I really I kind of need a bit of a shock wake up to make changes in my life, like I had to do with motherhood.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_03: So I skipped over the story because it can take a very long time.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: But really, after my first two children, I kind of just went back to work and pretended everything was okay.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: And then finally it was my third pregnancy where everything fell apart and I acknowledged, oh, okay, maybe I need to figure out why I can't slow down and why I can't step back from my career.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like my um incredibly painful ending of my marriage was a similar wake-up call.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: I look at it now and I wasn't happy.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_03: It didn't really work for me or for him, but I was never going to shake up the boat.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: I was never going to leave.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: I spent a lot of time listening to podcasts and reading books and trying to figure out how to fix it.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but the alternative was never even on my radar.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so when it landed and it finally became clear that we weren't going to be able to fix it because the relationship he was having continued, um I kind of once again found myself at this crossroads of this realization of I'll never be who I used to be.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: And now I get to redefine who I am and what's important to me, to my kids in a relationship.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so yes, it's been it's been just over two, nearly two and a half years since he moved out.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and a lot of that time was through COVID, and it was all it was a very funny time to be doing all of that.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I feel like to be honest, only now am I starting to put my head up above water and look around and go, oh, holy hell, what just happened over the last two and a half years?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of I'm only catching my breath now about it, but it has taught me so much about myself.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: It has absolutely brought more happiness and joy into my life now, but has also um affected me deeper than I think I even still can acknowledge, to be totally honest with you.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you for being totally honest.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's yeah, it's often hard to be that raw.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: I love that you said that it gave you the opportunity to choose, to choose how you're going to move forward, how you're going to show up in the world, how you're going to parent, hey, because that's something that I work with my clients all the time on.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: You get to choose.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: And even in the mess of an infidelity and all the pain and the grief of losing or letting go of the story that you thought you would be living, and then telling your children and telling your grandchildren potentially about you know your marriage, your relationship, your life, letting go of that.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: I love that you could still see the opportunity to choose, even in the thick of the storm.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I think thank you for saying that.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think I'd spent so long working on myself through the motherhood lens that when this arrived, I kind of had the tools there to pull on pretty quickly, which not everybody does.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: But again, to be totally transparent, I I very, very quickly and in hindsight now, probably too quickly, jumped to the that's okay, we'll just be best friends, because um I specifically remember, literally 48 hours after I found out what had been happening, saying to him, My only goal here is that you and I are able to do the speech together at our daughter's wedding.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_03: So, right from within 48 hours, I I knew where I wanted to end up.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: I was so determined that my children were not going to be the ones who, you know, mum and dad can't be in the same room, they have to be on separate.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: I that was just like my driving force right from the beginning.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_03: We are not going to fuck our kids up over this, was my intention.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: And is still very much my intention.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_03: But again, for the people listening, um, I think in hindsight, I jumped to that pretty damn quickly and didn't let myself get angry or um sad or grieve, and that stuff kicks you in the ass after a while.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: So it it comes back and around it came until and so I am back in that same place of my only intention is to make sure we can do the speech at our kids' weddings together.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but there is more honesty there, and there is more um I I I've faced the feelings I couldn't face in that shock.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_03: It was such a shock.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: I kind of went into robot mode, like that's okay, right.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_03: So you go over there and I go over here, and we're gonna do this, and we're gonna have this parenting plan.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_03: And oh, it's all gonna be great because one day we'll be able to do this, and and then it all caught up with me, as it does.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: And potentially one day you will be able to do that, but you still need to go through the process and allow all the feelings to surface rather than just, as you said, go into robot, which is really a fight, flight, freeze born type.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just yeah, let's just keep driving.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: We're fine, nothing to see here, folks.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes, and again, and again, that's very much my personality, you know.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I'm gonna nail this, you know.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: I rushed out and bought the conscious uncoupling book and you know, bought him a copy for goodness sakes.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, right, this is what we're gonna do, because we're gonna get this right.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like, that's so I laugh, and I can see you're laughing, but that I'm mocking myself, but that is very much my personality.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I'm gonna get an A plus on the divorce.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes to get the A plus, you've got to go through some absolute shit.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: You can still get the A plus.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I work with when I work with my clients, I'm like, how do you want it to be two, five, ten, twenty years time?
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: So you want to make the speech?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: Great, let's let's aim for that, but you've got to go through the messy bit first.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_03: And that's why when we met at the dinner where we met, and you and I sat next to each other, and it was like long-lost sisters, um, even though we'd never met before, I loved what you were doing because um I wish I had known, just like everyone says to me, if only I'd known that you were available in that time, because that's what I needed was a safe place for me to be as messy and as angry and as wild and as sad and as unsure as I needed to be.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: But because of the work I do, the people around me not being experienced with divorce at all, everyone being so worried about me, I really did put on this mask of it's all good, we're gonna be okay.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_03: You know what?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't that happy anyway, we'll be fine.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_03: So to have a safe space like you, like a coach, where you can be all the messy things that no one else wants to see, or you don't want to show anyone else, is it would be profound.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, much like your work, I believe.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: It is profound and it is a great space to just bring it all, all the mess, as well as the joy and the relief, but yeah, all the mess.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and the redefining of your life and your values and what it looks like.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's very similar to what I do with mums and and we do with mums.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: What Amy, what would you, if you could go back to that first 48 hours, Amy, or to someone in a similar situation, and you have the unique capacity to speak to the heartbreak and the shock of infidelity too.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: So if you could go back to that first sort of 48 hours, even the first week, what would you say to her?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_03: I think it sounds so bizarre because when I talk to people about this, they don't understand why I wasn't, but I honestly couldn't access my anger at all.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: And so I couldn't access the anger for months, months.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_03: It was a numb feeling, like a shock, like you said, fight, flight, or freeze.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: So I think I just would have been whispering in my ear, um, it's okay to feel this.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's okay to feel this.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if I even would have been able to because it was so damn scary.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and things happened so quickly after that.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like I was just chasing my tail.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't know if I would say, like, get angry, get what because I don't think I could have, but I would have had someone whispering in my ear, it's all right, it's okay.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: You don't have to be perfect at this.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_03: It sounds so weird to say out loud again, but I honestly was afraid of being the angry ex-wife.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I can see now, sorry.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: No, you you go, you can see now.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_03: I was just gonna say again, I can see now it's similar to what we do in our work with mothers, it's this stereotypical role that has been painted so negatively in our culture of the angry ex-wife or the bitter ex-wife.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_03: And we have put that in a box and judged it and categorized it and therefore denied the truth of those feelings.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_03: And ironically, this is what I teach around being the good mother and the successful woman, and I couldn't see it at the time, but I can clearly now, obviously.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_03: That was a really big fear of mine.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_03: I was really scared that people would think that I was the angry, bitter ex-wife.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I literally bent over backwards to make sure everyone was still nice to him.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I really um once again lost myself in trying to do the right thing for others.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I think if I could go back, I would just whisper in my ear, it's okay, you're allowed to be angry and bitter.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_03: You actually are, and it will pass.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: And there's the golden nugget, too.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay and it will pass.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: And it will pass.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Do you find it has passed?
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: Are you able to co-parent?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: We talked about this before we recorded too.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: How are you able to co-parent in a way that is leading you towards being able to share a speech that your kids significantly?
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, it's been, of course, a process.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and the process has really been about me finding my voice in this.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I I really just wanted us to be one big happy family as quickly as possible.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_03: And of course, it doesn't work like that.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so we started off with things like um weekly Sunday dinners.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, he moved into a very small apartment, so I had the kids permanently um for the first maybe four or five months.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, remembering also there was lockdowns, my eldest daughter had really huge mental health challenges, and there was a lot of things going on, so it was just easier for the kids to stay with me at that stage.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: So for the first five, six months, we would do Sunday dinner together every night.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_03: I've been very fortunate, but also, um, if we have time we can talk about this, it's been quite a uh its own healing process to have met somebody quite quickly, very unexpectedly, um, who I thought would be in my life for maybe a little bit of fun for a few months and is now coming up to nearly two years.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um so he would recognize in me that we would go and have these Sunday dinners at my ex's house and we'd sit there and you know, play Happy Families and everything.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_03: And then the next every Monday I'd take the kids to school and I'd come home and I'd lie on the couch and I couldn't do a damn thing.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't even like crying or anything, it was just it just drained me.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_03: And it was actually um my new partner who pointed out to me after seeing me like this for a few weeks in a row, you know you do this every Monday because you're trying to pretend everything's okay on a Sunday night.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_03: And is this really working for you?
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's it's costing me too much, yeah.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so that has been my process over the last two and a half years is recognizing that although I really want my kids to feel like we are still a family, it was costing me a lot to pretend.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's coming back now where I can sit at the table and we're all okay.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_03: But um, yeah, I really was um not prioritizing what I needed for a while.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_03: And so then as I found my voice and started to say, This isn't going to work for me, this isn't gonna work for me, this is how it's going to be for me, or this is how it's affecting me.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it felt at times like it was breaking all over again, which is awful, but we're now in a much, much better place.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_03: There is still, of course, moments where I feel my heart breaks a little bit again, but compared to those first 18 months, 12, 18 months, um, I feel like he's respecting what I need, I respect what he needs, and we're getting to a much better place.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's just so fantastic.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: And again, thank you for sharing so openly and voluntarily.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: I can see parallels in as you've already drawn, in the matrescence, I don't like the word journey, but I'm gonna have to use it here.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I know the matrescence journey, you know, and as I said, I'm 20 years into my matrescence journey, and it's still changing me, it's still morphing me.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: And similar with a separation, divorce, and a reorganization of a family afterwards, it is a process, it's not just quick, all of a sudden we are a happy family.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: You do have to go through the grief, the anger, the sadness, the betrayal, all that process that so you can come to a point where you can meet as a potentially, not it's not going to work for everybody, but potentially meet as a family, spend time as a family.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: But you can't always do that immediately.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: You have to become the new person or the new version of yourself as a woman, as a mother, as a co-parent, as an ex-wife.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, find your feet there before you can come back into that space and have it feel maybe not comfortable, but okay.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um there's so many parallels, it blows my mind.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like uh, you know, we need we now need a word like matrescence for separation and divorce, like you know, divorce essence.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know, just totally made that up.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_03: We'll work on that, we'll work on that, but but it yeah, it is a very similar ending and beginning.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_03: It is a death and a birth, you know, just like when we give birth, we're never gonna be the person we used to be again, and we're about to become someone that is incredible, but the middle part is messy as hell.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I think what I also see in parallels with the two experiences is it takes so much longer than you want it to.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_03: Like you just want to hurry up and get to the point where you know what your kid's crying about, or you just want to get to that point where you feel like you know you can know what's gonna happen today with your kid.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's the same with this, right?
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's just I just I so hated how long it was taking me to be okay with this, which is so ridiculous.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_03: It was a 20-year relationship, and I wanted to be okay in 48 hours.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: Never gonna happen.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_03: Never gonna happen.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: And again, it's a process, you know.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_02: I always say you're getting divorced for really, really good reasons.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: So don't forget those reasons while you are navigating the messy middle bits, you know.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: If it was because he shut down and didn't communicate, don't expect that to be different just because you're divorced, whatever your thing is, yeah.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: All right, I want to ask you, Amy, the question that I ask all my podcast guests as we wind up.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: If you could share a song for anyone navigating that messy middle, whether it's matrescence or divorces, what song or piece of music would you share?
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_03: When you emailed through this, I was like, oh my gosh, which one do I pick?
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_03: Because I created a whole playlist.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_03: Or maybe we just share books.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm totally happy to share.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_03: It's very my type of music.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if anybody else like I used to be a house girl, like you know, go to the nightclubs and dance to house music until the sun came up.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: So it's very dancy music.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and one of the things that I started to do in those very early days, um, even when he was still living with us before he moved out, was I started to run.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_03: Never been a runner in my life.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I just needed that physical release everywhere.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: Day I would often run through the park with tears streaming down my face, listening to this music and just feeling this release.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_03: So I was looking through which one do I share the most?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the one, and being a wordsmith, being a journalist, I have to read some of the words.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_03: So it's um, I've got it here for you.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_03: So it's called Better Off Without You by Becky Hill.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_03: And as I said, very dancy, very sort of high impact running sort of song.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_03: But she says at the beginning, I thought my world was crumbling when I woke up and you weren't in my bed.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I was left here wondering how you could walk away and never turn back.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_03: Tried to right all your wrongs.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_03: I never thought I'd be lost, but I found the truth.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_03: I was searching for me in you.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_03: Now I'm better off without you.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_03: And it's finally clear to me that the person I was missing, it's not you, it's me.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: Boom.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: Mic drop moment.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: Just that was just perfect.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_03: That was my biggest realization making me emotional here.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_03: That was my biggest realization was that in losing him, I have found myself in a way that I probably never was going to be able to in that relationship.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_03: And whenever the heartbreak or the pain gets too big again, which sometimes it does, um, that's what I remember is that actually, yeah, I'm finding myself through this.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I'll share the playlist with you so you can all dance around.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I love that.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: I love you.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: I love you for sharing that.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: Can you tell the listeners where they can find you?
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_03: So uh my website is amytalercabazz.com.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_03: The podcast I release every week, which is around motherhood, matrescence, womanhood, success in career at home, all of those topics is called the Happy Mama Movement.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_03: So if you search for that, but also I would love your listeners to have a look at mama rising.net.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_03: This is where we have all of the matrescence trained coaches that specialise in all different areas of marriage, life, motherhood, that um you can go on there and find someone in your area who's maybe running a women's circle or doing some coaching.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_03: So if you ever want to work directly with someone who really um understands this matrescence process through this coaching lens, um have a look there, mummarising.net.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll drop all the links to all of that into the show notes.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Amy.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's just been fabulous.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I really look forward to the next time we can sit next to one another at dinner and share some space in person.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: But thank you for sharing this time with us.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was a joy.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_03: It was a really beautiful space for me to reflect on all of this.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_03: You're so very welcome.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Stellan Hartnell, Relationship Coach, and you've been listening to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: You can follow me on Instagram at ReflectCoaching, and if you can be with anyone who would love this episode, please, please share it with them.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'd also be so grateful if you follow this podcast and repeat this episode so we can get into a whole lot more input just like you're waiting to reclaim and liberate.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you'll join me next time for another episode.