Podcast gestating …
In the spirit of taking “messy action”, I’m developing a podcast called “The Deep Yes”.
I want to bring you those conversations that we are always having over coffee and wine, on walks, and cuddled up on the sofa. Interviews with women who are creating more pleasure, meaning, and vitality in their lives. Women who have been through the stuck and the blah and have found a way through.
Hawkes Bay Radio is gonna sponsor the podcast and give technical support so it’s gonna happen!
I’m a big time nosy nancy about women’s lives — aren’t you?
Fortunately I seem to be surrounded by inspiring, creative, saucy women who are generously gonna share their time and insights with us.
The Deep Yes is going to be full of juicy, personal interviews and stories about what happens when women who are the nurturers, leaders, and caregivers start to show up for their own wellbeing.
Each episode will dive into the stories of women who are stitching together lives of meaning and joy, one messy step at a time. We'll explore the tension between showing up for others and showing up for yourself, and what it means to truly nurture your own wellbeing.
We will broadcast every fortnight or so for 25 minutes of inspiring conversations that delve into the challenges and triumphs of women who are making a difference in their own lives and the lives of others.
We'll be asking questions about inspiration, balance, saying no, turning points, and what kinds of pleasure we want more of.
I hope you’ll listen in — we’ll let you know when we go live!
Welcome to ThinkFRESH Diaries!
It all begins with an idea.
I’m glad you’ve joined me here. I am building this space for YOU. Because you deserve a space to BE, to play, to explore, to learn, to become. You deserve a space where what you want and need is in the centre. Where you are surrounded by other like-minded women who affirm and inspire you. Where you can bring your full self, in all your glory and imperfection.
ThinkFRESH is in the process of becoming. Right now, it is a place where you can get one on one coaching, or coaching for your team or workplace. Soon, it will be a place where you can sign up for online group programmes on topics like:
A Midwife’s Guide to Pleasure
A Midwife’s Guide to Relaxation
A Midwife’s Guide to Self-Care
A Midwife’s Guide to Balance
A Midwife’s Guide to Doing Hard Things
A Midwife’s Guide to Making Choices
And a place where you can sign up for in-person retreat experiences, like:
Deep Rest and Recovery: A Winter Retreat
And a place where you can get access to resources like:
Daily journalling
Guided relaxation
Guided visualisation
Practices for accepting thoughts and feelings
A guided tour to thinking your way through complex decisions
I’d love to hear from you — what tickles your fancy? What’s your deepest need right now?
Deep “Yes” and Easy “No”
I’ve been doing so much learning recently, from my coaching clients and from the study I’m doing. Here’s what I’m learning …
What does “balance” even mean? Does mean we have to pay attention to everything equally? We all dance along the continuum of doing stuff for ourselves, and doing stuff for other people, and between just being and doing. But we can get stuck and spend all our time in just one domain…
When my clients talk about feeling out-of-balance, it almost always comes from a strong investment of energy in the doing stuff for other people sphere and missing out on self-care. It is such a strong source of meaning and identity as women, to nourish everyone around us.
These are the words women use:
I need to recalibrate
I want to get back to feeling myself
I’ve lost myself
I’m burned out
When we have a look, the activities that they are finding easy to say “yes” to, are in service to the important people in their lives. And this is a deeply held value and an important source of meaning and joy.
But … when the energy gets spent all in the domain of service to others, and very rarely in the domain of being with ourselves, we get depleted. We lose our sense of ourselves. We even lose the ability to find our full-bodied YES for ourselves.
A client said it beautifully this week: I want to get to a Deep Yes to the things that make me feel like me again, and an easy No for things that deplete me.
Her practice this week is going to be planning her day with balance in mind — making sure that there are Deep Yes things in her day alongside activities for others. And starting to practice that easy No.
How many ways can we think of to say the easy No?
I am not going to be able to fit that in
Sorry, that’s not going to work for me
Unfortunately I’m not able to do that for you
What is your favourite way to say “No”?
What are you saying a Deep “Yes” to this week?