This one's for all of the moms out there who are managing family life through a global pandemic. Graeme Seabrook and I discuss what she's hearing from moms all over the country and how we can support the moms in our lives right now.

About Graeme

Graeme Seabrook is a writer, speaker and founder of The Mom Center, an online support community for mothers. Graeme is passionate about helping mothers transform their experience of motherhood. She writes and speaks about postpartum mental illness, recovering from recovery, the myth of work-life balance, and mother-centered motherhood. Graeme believes a mom's experience of motherhood is just as important as a child's experience of childhood.

Graeme facilitates groups online and offline, advocates for maternal mental health at national conferences, and works with mothers around the world to transform their motherhood experience. Graeme is an internationally-certified life coach (ICF) and is also trained in Mental Health First Aid and Peer Support.

Patreon - patreon.com/graemeseabrook

Twitter - twitter.com/graemeseabrook

Instagram - instagram.com/graemeseabrook

Doing the work - whether it's personal growth or social justice - needs to be balanced. Andréa and I talk about the intersection between self-trust and activism, how to keep going with anti-racism work even though you're afraid of doing harm and lots of other things along the way.

About Andréa

You know that kid that's always asking adults "why?" at the most inconvenient times? Andréa Ranae is the Founder and Director of Whole / Self Liberation, a platform and organization dedicated to creating resources and programming to support people as they heal, grow, get free and lead.

As a trailblazer in the Personal Development Industry, over the past 5 years, she has worked with hundreds of mission-driven people looking to use their gifts, skills and resources to make an impact in the world.

Andréa is the host of a podcast titled A Call to Serve, the author of a poetry chapbook titled Love, Manifesting: A Collection of Poems and Prompts for Those Seeking Love and Justice and she's also a singer/songwriter (and that's what really keeps her going when the world is a bit too heavy to hold).

Follow Andréa:

IG: @andrearanaej + @wholeselfliberation 

andrearanae.com + wholeselfliberation.com

In this episode, I'm talking with artist, expressive arts guide and creativepreneur Susie Stonefield Miller about creativity as a medium for personal growth.

About Susie

Susie can be the midwife to your creative spirit! In both online and in-person programs Susie holds space for transformation through creativity. She accompanies clients on the deep dives of life.

Susie helps clients focus on the process, not on the product, digging into the rich soil of relationship with your soul and your shadow because, that’s exactly where the silver linings of life hide. The roots of your truth.

Susie is all about the messy middle of transformation. The goo inside the chrysalis. No longer caterpillar, but not yet butterfly. She wants you to spread your gorgeous wings, but knows how hard the journey to that moment is.

And before you get there, you have to do the work.

The work of the goo.

Working with Susie is like having a guide for that journey of transmutation. Someone to hang out with you in the chrysalis. We all want to be transformed, but do we want to do that

alone? No, of course not.

Susie knows the path well, having transformed her own life and learned to tell her truth through the power of creativity.

Susie is a certified person-centered expressive arts facilitator and a lifelong artist. She's a 4 on the Enneagram (no surprise there!) and she lives and works in Northern California. Susie also has a real life art haven in the wine country where she teaches art journaling and holds retreats.

Follow Susie:

www.unfoldart.com

FB: https://www.facebook.com/susiestonefieldmiller

FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/creativeliferaft

IG: https://www.instagram.com/creativity_midwife/

In this episode, Maya Amos and I talk about trauma - what it is, what causes it, how it lives in our bodies and how it shows up during a pandemic.

About Maya

Maya Amos is a somatic psychotherapist, trainer and supervisor for mental health professionals both at the YWCA of greater Austin and in her private practice. She specializes in trauma resolution, and nervous system regulation. Maya is certified Somatic Experiencing® (SE™) practitioner. Maya has been integrating Somatic Experiencing into other cutting edge approaches including Trust- Based Relational Intervention®, Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning Experience, Internal Family System, Organic Intelligence®, NeuroAffective Relational Model, as well as more traditional psychotherapy methods.

Maya is passionate about somatic and neuroscience. She sees body centered awareness as a path for change and healing at the individual, familiar and cultural level.

YWCA of Greater Austin Website: ywcaaustin.org Instagram: @ywatx

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YWCAatx/

In this special episode, Laura Gomez-Horton explains how the mental effects of the COVID-19 crisis are showing up and we talk about how to take care of yourself.

About Laura

Laura Gómez-Horton is a licensed Clinical Social Worker and Board-Approved Supervisor through the Texas State Board of Social Work Examiners. She received a Bachelor and Master of Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin in 1996 and 1997, respectively. She is currently the clinical director at the YWCA Greater Austin whose adopted mission is “eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all.”

Laura has extensive experience providing bilingual services and working with individuals, children, families, and groups in the areas of domestic violence, sexual assault, depression, anxiety, PTSD, immigration, parenting, cultural identity, prenatal/postnatal mental health, grief and loss, and self-advocacy. Previously, as the Social Services Coordinator at the Texas Civil Rights Project, Laura established the social services program for their statewide offices and developed the Austin Promotora program, a grassroots self-advocacy group comprised of women who had qualified to adjust their legal status in the U.S. as authorized by the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). She also worked at the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin as part of the clinical faculty and provided therapeutic services through SafePlace (now the Safe Alliance), a local non-profit addressing issues of domestic violence and sexual assault in Austin. In addition, she provided therapeutic bilingual services through independent practice and co-founded Within Your Reach/A Su Alcance, a program providing bilingual personal-development workshops.

Her experiences in the Austin area culminated in developing a focus on providing therapeutic services and advocating for clients who are Spanish-speaking, immigrant, and/or marginalized. Laura has participated in training videos, and various English and Spanish-language radio and television news interviews discussing mental health issues and current events impacting the community. She has provided extensive presentations/workshops and has developed, coordinated and facilitated various therapeutic and support groups. She currently co-facilitates the monthly dialogues on Issues of Racism and Discrimination at the YWCA Greater Austin.

Laura is also a Member of National Association for Social Workers (NASW) and sits on the advisory board for the R.E.A.L. (Social Justice) Committee for NASW-TX. She also sits on the board for Wells Branch Elementary PTA and Lone Star Victims Advocacy Project.

YWCA of Greater Austin Website: ywcaaustin.org Instagram: @ywatx

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YWCAatx/

This week, I'm talking with Eli Trier about the magic that happens when we create authentic and engaged conversations to build communities.

About Eli

Eli Trier lives in the wonderful city of Copenhagen, Denmark and is a community builder for Quiet Revolutionaries. She helps introverts with big dreams to get connected and build thriving, engaged communities around their businesses, so that they can make a massive impact, find their dream clients, and make their corner of the world a better place. A long-time business owner, Eli knows first-hand the power of human connection to build a business, and her unique approach got her featured in The FT Guide to Business Networking. She specialises in creating powerful, strategic online community projects and loves every minute of her work (even the boring bits). When she's not working you can find her curled up with a book, painting, or hanging out with her husband Lars.

Follow Eli:

Website: http://elitriercommunities.com

Instagram: @elitriercommunities 

Eli's latest case study: Jo Casey on how her community project filled her client roster for a whole year.

Mentioned in the episode:

Eli's Book:

The Gratitude Project: A Year Of Saying Thank You To The People Who Changed My Life

Jen's Facebook Group: Unquiet Sisterhood Facebook Group

In this episode, I'm talking with Sarah Bishop about how neurodiverse women can embrace their brilliance and find success without succumbing to overwhelm.

About Sarah

Sarah Bishop is a leader, a coach, a change worker. Her Hogwarts house would be Hufflepuff and her favourite Doctor is Ten. She lives on the North West of England coastline with her (absolutely adorable) dog Mabel. As well as being the founder of This Balanced Life and doing change-work and coaching with folk, Sarah is also a full time deputy head teacher - the UK equivalent of a vice-principal. She's been a senior leader in education for ten years and worked across 5 different settings. Sarah is also an associate writer on a mental health curriculum for adolescents.

As a "tick-a-bit-differently" female, Sarah has had to find ways to do working life and leadership her way and that has meant meandering away from the traditional path to find tools to best support her. That led her to becoming a master practitioner in NLP, a qualified hypnotherapist and a reiki practitioner. Sarah weaves those frameworks and skills into her change-work and coaching, as well as using them to supporting her in showing up as fully as she can as a leader.

Find Sarah:

Website: https://www.thisbalancedlife.co.uk/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/thisbalancedlifeuk/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/ThisBalancedLife/

Mentioned in the episode:

Highly Sensitive Person information website

This week, I'm talking with health coach and registered nurse, Jenny Mahan, about the difference between creating sustainable wellness practices versus buying into the health extremism that has consumed our culture.

About Jenny

Jenny Mahan is a Registered Nurse, certified Health and Wellness Coach, and owner of Pine Creek Wellness. She helps folks to reclaim their health, so they can feel better and do what matters most to them. Jenny believes in adding in holistic nourishment, starting with delight, and ditching diet culture and food and health extremism. No diets. No shaming. No "shoulds."  Hers is a Health at Every Size, body positive, Lifestyle Medicine approach to reaching health goals—emphasizing healthy behaviors, habits, and mindsets that go far beyond the conventional (and damaging) focus on weight loss at any cost.

Jenny lives in far northern Wisconsin near the shores of Lake Superior with her husband and son on a tiny spring-fed,  Northwoods-shaded tributary of Pine Creek where they garden, raise chickens, make maple syrup, and live in their self-built small, passive solar, energy efficient home.  

She is an author, gardener, singer-songwriter, and master soap artisan.  Jenny is passionate about promoting local sustainable agriculture and food justice, and enjoys hiking, canoeing, hammocking, preserving the harvest from the garden, and a zillion other crafty, DIY, and outdoorsy things.  When she's not working you can find her curled up with a book in the hammock, unless it’s snowing (which it does 7 or 8 months out of the year on Pine Creek), in which case she's likely sitting by the fire knitting.

Links:

Free NOURISH program: https://www.jennymahan.com/5daynourish

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pinecreekwellnesscoachjenny

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

Sign up for a free chat:  https://www.jennymahan.com/chat