3 Powerful Ways to Connect With Your Inner Wisdom And Be A More Present Parent

[Want to feel more confident in the decisions you make as a mom? Connecting with your inner wisdom can help you to feel more confident as a mom and help you to be a more present parent. Discover powerful ways to connect with your inner wisdom and improve your parenting.]

So often as women, we are trained away from our inner wisdom over time. We are asked to say “yes” even when it doesn’t resonate with us. We find ourselves people-pleasing and moving further away from the truth of who we are. And often we end up feeling lost and depleted. If you have ever felt this way, Mama, this episode is for you.

You can also listen to this conversation on iTunes or your preferred podcast platform.

[Disclaimer: we are not health professionals. This chat is solely based on research and personal experience. If you have any concerns please seek out the help of your trusted health professionals.]

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Hi there, Soulful Mama. Welcome to the Soul Care Mom Podcast. I’m Catherine Wilde of Soulcaremomcom. I’m a mom of three amazing kids. A Soul Care Mom Coach and a yoga and meditation teacher. I’ve helped hundreds of women and I’m here to help you feel calm and find your unshakable confidence as a mom. If you’re ready to stop living in survival mode and you’re ready to drop the mom guilt and overwhelm, this podcast is for you.

Think of this as a lunch date with a girlfriend, grab a cup of tea and get cozy. It’s time to get honest and vulnerable and shift the traditional mindset around motherhood. Be sure to subscribe to be the first to know when new episodes are released, get ready to grow, and feel empowered as a mom. I’m here for you, Mama. Let’s get started.

Today on the Soul Care Mom Podcast, I’m chatting with Deborah Chuck, a certified Wayfinder life coach who shares with us how we can stop people pleasing, reconnect with our inner wisdom, and tap into our creativity as moms.

Catherine Wilde

Hi, Deborah.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Deborah Chalk

Hello, Catherine. I’m really glad to be with you.

Catherine Wilde

I’m so excited to talk with you about how to tap into our inner wisdom. Would you mind starting by sharing a bit of your journey with us?

Deborah Chalk

Sure, I’d love to. So started off I was born in Scotland in Glasgow. And went to school there. And then I went to University and studied English and philosophy at Glasgow University. And there weren’t many jobs in Scotland when I graduated. So I went to London for my first job, very much becoming the town mouse in the city of London. And I worked in a merchant bank there, which is very different from what I’d known before. And I couldn’t see myself retiring in the merchant bank. It just wasn’t me.

Deborah Chalk

And so I went on quite a journey to figure out what to do in life. I eventually came to teaching. And I taught in state schools and in private schools for a number of years.

And we were moving very regularly to do with my husband’s work. And it was really hard to keep leaving people behind and leaving the classes behind and the teachers behind and everything. It was just heartbreaking. So I thought, I’m going to have to figure out something that I can take with me wherever I go. And I worked with a coach, and she said to me, you’re really into all this coaching stuff.

Deborah Chalk

I’d been reading self help books since my teens. And she said, “you love this stuff. Why aren’t you a coach?”

And I said, well, “is that a job you can do? Are you kind of allowed to do that?” Because I had this idea of what a “proper” job was.

And in working with her, I was able to give myself permission to do something that I loved. And I think that we don’t stop being creative people when we become parents. And so another part of my dream was to be a writer, and it’s still a big dream to be a writer.

Deborah Chalk

And I’ve had nonfiction writing published on various blogs. And I’ve done creative writing confidence courses that I’ve given in England. And I think that it’s important for mothers to remember that, of course, it’s really important to us to be doing the best job that we can as a mother. And that’s massively important to me, too. In my work with parents, with mothers, with people who identify that role, whatever their sexuality or gender.

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Inner Wisdom and Confident Parenting

Deborah Chalk

I think that it’s important for them to be able to feel their full self. So they’re able to feel calm and confident and creative as parents. But they also don’t lose sight of who they are as a person. And I think that tapping into intuition is one way of keeping track on what’s important to you as a parent and what’s important to you as a creative person.

Catherine Wilde

Yeah. That can get so lost in the shuffle just over time, all the messages that come in about what we’re supposed to do, all of the “shoulds”, and we lose track of what our inner knowing is, our inner wisdom.

Deborah Chalk

Absolutely. And I think by doing that for ourselves, like with anything, we model it for our children. So if they notice that you’re kind of tuning in and you’re listening to how you’re feeling or you listening to something that inspires you and you’re following it, then they can learn to do that for themselves.

Catherine Wilde

Yes.

What Is Your Inner Wisdom?

Deborah Chalk

But I’ve had a whole journey towards listening to intuition, which we can certainly talk about as well, if that’s something you’d like me to go on to.

Catherine Wilde

Yeah.

So what does that mean and how can it help us as parents?

Deborah Chalk

Sure. Well, your intuition sometimes has different names, sometimes called the wise self or your inner knowing. And I was pretty closed off to it for a long time. And I got my information from what other people were doing or books, especially if you’ve had an academic background. You’re going to look for something in a book.

You want to know something. You want to know how to be a mother. You’re going to read the books about it. And then you read the books about it. And you know what, Catherine? Not all the answers are in those parenting books. They really aren’t.

Deborah Chalk

They don’t tell you what to do on a Tuesday when you got to get to that place and things are going crazy. And your child’s got this particular thing that’s bothering them that nobody else has ever had bother them. They don’t tell you always about these things.

Catherine Wilde

Right.

Deborah Chalk

So I started listening to my intuition, first of all, when I was figuring out what to do after teaching. And I worked through Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist Way. Which is a program where you write morning pages each day. She says, write three pages long-hand.

Not all mums and dads are going to have the time to do that. So write in the morning from your inner wisdom. And so you write down just stream of consciousness, just what comes to you. You can write absolute rubbish. But the point is you’re giving yourself a creative outlet.

And eventually, as you do that, you’re in the wisdom goes, “oh, my goodness. They are listening to me. They haven’t been listening to me for ages. I might as well tell them stuff if they’re going to listen.”

How To Practice Inner Wisdom Wellness

Deborah Chalk

And so your inner wisdom will start to come through as you do this journaling inner wisdom started to come through and journaling. And it started to say, hey, this coaching stuff is fun. Go and do more of that. And so it also said things like you need an art table. So there was me telling my husband, I need an art table.

You were there in Ikea, like choosing your art table and stuff like that, because your inner wisdom has told you get an art table. And it’ll take you on weird and wonderful adventures that you wouldn’t, not just to Ikea, it’ll take you wonderful adventures. That was the first step.

And then things got helped a lot by the Martha Beck coach training that I did with Dr. Martha Beck and her newspaper to do with integrity. And the integrity is actually listening again to your inner wisdom. It’s listening to your intuition. It’s following your right path and overcoming limiting belief.

The KIND Process For Connecting With Your Inner Wisdom

Deborah Chalk

So I did a lot about going on your path, dealing with change, dealing with negative belief, how to turn those beliefs around, how to move past them. And then things got taken to a whole new level last year.

I did Abigail Morgan’s Mind Body Magic Coach Training, and she teaches something called the KIND Process. And the KIND Process is just a fantastic way of tuning into your intuition. So I’d love to take you through the process.

Deborah Chalk

I’ll just give you the simple version of it. And then people listening or people watching can just play with this and start off tuning into it. And then the more you do it, the more will come. It’s just an incredible tool.

So this tool comes from Abigail Morgan. Abigail is absolutely clear that we can share this stuff. But it’s her idea and she’s come up with this. So let’s go through it.

Deborah Chalk

So the kind process the “K” stands for “Know Your body.” And this is where the mind body connection comes in.

I used to be so tuned out from my body, especially if you’re a thinker and you’re worrying and you get a bit anxious. You’re up in your head all the time and your body is there. And maybe you move it around when you do your yoga or your exercise, but most of the time you’re just in your own little head world and knowing your body is about mind body connection.

Deborah Chalk

And I’ve done a lot of work on this over the last year. It’s been amazing. The simple thing you can do to just start that off is to notice your feet.

I know that sounds crazy. It just is so simple. But just in your everyday, just say, oh, I’m going to notice my feet. The reason you notice your feet is they’re the furthest away from your head. So that’s a good start.

And also your feet are also they’re grounding you. You can notice the texture that they’re on. Whether they’re on the floor, whether in slippers. Just notice your feet. Notice your shoes. Notice your in-step notice your heel. Notice the top of your feet wriggle your toes. Feel your toes wriggling. It’s just noticing your feet.

Deborah Chalk

Oh, my goodness. And then you can go advanced and you can do things like body scans. And I have a fantastic relaxation exercise to do with people. Oh, it’s so lovely, Catherine. You do a body scan from your toes to your head and then you imagine a picture or a jug of golden elixir above your head.

This is again from the Mind Body Magic Coach Training. And you imagine the golden elixir pouring through the Crown of your head and it swirls all through your body and it takes away the tension as it goes. Takes away the tension and stress and it goes out through your feet.

And you imagine that the Earth repurposes this energy and makes it into positive life force energy. So you don’t have to feel guilty, you don’t have to think, oh, no, I’m not helping the Earth because I put all this negative energy out there. You just trust the Earth is able to repurpose that energy.

So that’s the first step is knowing your body. There are so many different tools that I use to help clients with that part of it, but it’s the first foundation is the mind body connection.

And it’s really weird when you’re walking along, you know, I walk my dog each day, and one day I was walking along and I could see my shadow. You know, there’s a sunlight behind me. I could see my shadow. And I felt that I as fully inhabited in my body, and it was almost as if I could see the shadow of that on the tree.

Deborah Chalk

So it was just like, oh, my goodness, this feels really different. And it’s not where I used to be because I used to be so much in my head. It doesn’t mean that I’m always connected to the body now because we’re human.

We never get it. All right. We never always perfect. But I’m more able to recognize when I’m going on track and bring myself back to that connection. And then the wonderful thing is when you have that connection, when you have that groundedness, people sense it, children sense it.

And when you have somebody around you who’s regulated within the body, it helps the person who’s disregulated to get regulated. And that really helps when you’re having those moments where it’s all going a bit crazy. If you can get grounded, if you can get centered, it just eases everything.

Catherine Wilde

Absolutely.

Deborah Chalk

So that’s the key. The “I” stands for “Inhabit your emotions.” And so much of the time we push emotions away because emotions are uncomfortable.

We maybe got told when we were younger that those emotions were very untidy and could be, please tidy them up away because they’re just not convenient at this time.

So dealing with emotions, being with emotions, handling emotions just helps you. If you’re able to do that for yourself, then you’re able to model that for your children. You allow them to be with their sadness, to be with their anger, to feel it, and to process it.

Deborah Chalk

And so we talked about the easy first step with the “K”, and the easy first step with the “I” of inhabit your emotions is just throughout your day to ask yourself the simple question, “what am I feeling?”

When you ask yourself, what am I feeling? You don’t even need to know what that feeling is called. You don’t even need to know if it’s anger or it’s sadness or whatever emotion it is.

You can even think to yourself, oh, it’s a kind of fuzzy feeling just here, or it’s a feeling that feels kind of red and blue, and it’s swirling in this part of my body, and there’s a tingling, as in my right shoulder and a heaviness in my stomach.

Deborah Chalk

You can actually think of it in color and movement and energy patterns within the body. And the more you do that, the more you’ll get comfortable with being with emotions.

What I would say is that if you’re not handling your day to day, then you wouldn’t be diving into feeling lots of heavy emotions. You would instead go and get the support that you needed. Yeah, that’s really important to say, because what I don’t want is people saying, yeah, I’m going to hardcore this and I’m going to really go over those horrible emotions and I’m going to feel them and I’m loving the feel them. And then things going really downhill. That would be so unkind to yourself. So don’t do that.

If there’s negative emotions and you are generally dealing with your day to day, even if it starts to get the water starts to get too deep. So you know when you’re swimming and you’re learning to swim and you suddenly feel, oh no, this water, I can’t quite feel the bottom. The water is a bit deep and so you go back to the shallow end.

Deborah Chalk

So when you’re feeling your emotions and you start feeling yourself going into water that’s a bit too deep, bring yourself into shallower water.

And you can do that by thinking of a happy time. Thinking of something lovely. Opening your eyes and looking around the room, bringing yourself back into the everyday. Treasuring something a lovely experience that you’ve had. Or patting your dog just to kind of calm yourself. Hugging a Teddy bear. Getting a blanket and snuggling under a blanket with a nice warm drink.

Don’t feel that you only get benefit out of feeling emotions if you go into them in a really dark way. It’s not needed. This is needing to be trauma sensitive work. And for it to be trauma sensitive, you never want to go into emotions beyond what you can handle. So we’re talking about noticing emotions, but in a safe way.

Catherine Wilde

I love that, Just being gentle with yourself.

Deborah Chalk

And then the “N” of the kind process is to notice your mind. So I didn’t used to be very good at this. That’s all my mind used to be going on with all its stories and its beliefs. “And it has to be this way. And you have to do this is a parent. And people will judge you if this happens this way. And people will judge you if you relax about this.” Oh my goodness, it’s so hard when we have all these mind stories.

And it’s the part of it is trying to keep us safe. It’s trying to do its best for us. And it’s not as though you need to be angry with yourself because that negative voice as a human being, it’s going to be there.

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Thoughts, Emotions, & Inner Wisdom

Deborah Chalk

You’re never going to eradicate it completely. No matter how light and fluffy coaching can get. There’s always going to be things that happen that can be tricky or hard in life. And I think that what you can do is you can give yourself ways of handling it with more ease, with more grace. And there are various ways you can learn to help with the mind stuff.

Deborah Chalk

So when I did Martha Beck’s training, she teaches us about Byron Katie’s “The Work” and Byron Katie’s books.

Brooke Castillo has the Life Coach School Podcast and she talks about the Self Coaching 101 method and will take you through that, which is another great software method.

Russ Harris has a book called The Happiness Trap, and he’ll take you through Act Therapy and how to use that to turn your beliefs around.

With Abigail’s training, I learned about her system of thought work, which is called Mind Whispering. With Mind Whispering, you notice, first of all that your mind is going, “oh, it’s off on its negative stuff.” So the first thing is the noticing.

Deborah Chalk

And then you bring yourself back into the body, which we’ve already talked about. And then you say to yourself, you look out for the three P’s. And the three P’s are “Perfectionism”, “Self Pressuring,” and “Pushing.”

As parents, we’re pretty good at the free P’s. Sometimes, you know, we pressure ourselves. We are perfectionistic and we’re pushing. And so you notice which of those is coming up or maybe multiple ones of those are coming up. And then you make the choice to go a different path.

Make the choice that you’re not going to go along with the P’s, and instead you’re going to listen to your inner wisdom. And we talked about that as well, about tuning into inner wisdom. And we’ll talk a bit more about it in the last step of the KIND process.

Deborah Chalk

And so that takes you to the noticing your mind. So there are many things you can do to notice your mind. And again, as a coach, I have many tools that I help people with, all the mind junk and gunk and gloop that we have.

And then we come now to the “D” of the KIND Process, which is “Discover your inner wisdom.” When I’m doing this as a written exercise, I will literally write down K-I-N-D on the side of the page. And whatever comes up. If messages from my inner wisdom comes up at any stage, I’ll just jot them down.

Deborah Chalk

Ideas can come up, just words can come up. Things you need to buy, the shops can come up. Various things like fill in that form for school, or whatever. Just write it down when it comes. But you’ll eventually get to the “D” of discovery inner wisdom.

So Abigail says to start off with one hand on your heart and one hand on your third eye. And you just gently rub those energy spots. And then you take the hand from your third eye and you place it on the Crown and you gently rub the Crown. And then you just ask your inner wisdom. You tune in and you say to your inner wisdom, you can ask any question, but you can just ask it the simple question, “what do I need to know?”

Ask “what do I need to know?” And you just wait for what comes. The first three steps open the door to the inner wisdom. The more you do this, the more the inner wisdom will come through.

Deborah Chalk

So don’t be worried if you do this at first. And nothing comes. Don’t be worried if something you think is stupid comes, because either you’re needing more time to tune into inner wisdom or the stupid thing is not as stupid as you think it is. It’s one or the other.

And you will start to have a relationship with yourself. You’ll start to have more of a relationship with your inner wisdom. You’ll start to trust yourself more as a creative being, and you’ll start to trust yourself more as a parent.

And you’ll be more forgiving of yourself when you mess up, because none of this is about being a perfect parent because that’s impossible.

Deborah Chalk

Give yourself Grace. It’s not always going to go right. You’re not always going to get it right. You’re a human being doing the best you can. And you’re brilliant.

And then two kind of questions you can use to follow up, which I really enjoy. “The first one is what do I need?” This is bringing your Soul Care that you talk about, the self care that you talk about. So “what do I need?”

And then the second one again links so much with your work, Catherine, which is what is the kindest thing I can do for myself either now or as soon as possible? “What’s the kindest thing I can do for myself either now or as soon as possible?”

Deborah Chalk

And so that is a whole practice. You can spread it out for the “K” part. You could do yoga before you could do a meditation before it. One day you might just do the “K” or the “I”. Or you might do all four parts.

But it’s just a really beautiful holistic practice that will bring you into mind body connection, and it will bring you into communication with that beautiful knowing part of yourself, the part of you that believes in you, the part of you that trusts you, the part of you that knows the goodness that’s within you.

Catherine Wilde

Yeah. That’s so powerful. And I love those questions, too.

Doing what you’re talking about, over time, it becomes more second nature. Right. These steps can kind of be a part of your day. And you mentioned the three P’s. Another thing that I think ties in well with that is that as moms, a lot of times we end up we’re very nurturing and we have a lot going on, but we people please, which takes us away from our inner wisdom I feel.

And we’re saying yes to all these things when it maybe doesn’t resonate with us. We have all these tasks that we need to do, and we end up feeling drained and burned out. So can we talk about that a little bit and how we can start setting those boundaries so that we can listen to our inner wisdom more, to let that guide us as parents?

People Pleasing & Your Intuition

Deborah Chalk

Yeah. Well, I think that you’ve said something really important there. That it’s sometimes how you say “no” and how you are if you allow yourself to say “no”. And having boundaries as well.

And I think it’s realizing, yes, that is sometimes going to be hard. Absolutely. It’s going to be hard sometimes. And that’s okay. That it’s sometimes a bit hard. And if you set boundaries in small things or you say “no” and small things, and it can in time make it easier to say “no” with the things that are harder to say “no” to.

Deborah Chalk

I think that you can sometimes buy for time if you need to have that time to tune into inner wisdom. And say, “I need to get back to you on that, I need to figure out what my other priorities are at the moment and see if I can work on that.” Or sometimes it’s just going to be a “no,” sometimes it’s going to be neither a “no” or “yes,” but some kind of compromise can come across.

And I think that as with parenting with boundaries, it can be hard for it to be perfect. You’re not always going to get it right.

You’re not always going to be the firm no person. But even if you get it a bit more right, that’s pretty good. That’s heading in the right direction. When you’re making your priorities, you’re deciding what you value, you’re deciding where you want to spend your time, you’re putting time on your calendar for the things that matter to you first.

And then you’re fitting the other things around those times wherever you can. And again, I say, don’t beat yourself up if this isn’t perfect. I don’t think I’m perfect at all saying “no” or having those firm boundaries in place. But I’m better than it was.

I think if you’re an empathetic person, if you’re a caring person and all of that, it is hard. But, you know, if you can just edge in the direction of making more of a priority of the things that really matter to you, then that’s great.

Catherine Wilde

I love that starting out small with small “no’s”. And our whole life is a journey. So as long as you’re moving in a direction that feels good, you can keep adjusting and shifting.

And you mentioned creativity earlier, and you also shared with me that you chose to take piano lessons as a way to reclaim your creativity. I love that. And I find that taking time for creativity myself helps to nourish me and brings me so much joy. And it changes the way I show up as a mom.

So could you share your thoughts on taking time for creativity? And do you have any tips for us on how to bring more of that into mom life?

Deborah Chalk

Okay, great. I love this question. Thank you.

So creativity, I think, is just a massive part of being an inspired human. And there’s cultural stuff around it. You get to do art and you get to do the fun stuff. You get to do music and drama and all of that stuff when you’re at school.

Deborah Chalk

But when you grow up, you have to be serious and sensible and cut off those things that are really fun. And what kind of way is that to show children how to live inspired lives? It just isn’t.

It is giving yourself, again, permission in small ways. Martha Beck calls them turtle steps, because there are steps that even a small turtle could take. So if you decide something that interests you and even if you’ve got hardly any time, you’ve got a busy job or something, lots of children, for example.

Then I think that you’re going to do a better job at work or you’re going to be able to show up more for those children, or you’re going to be happier within your own heart if you make that time for your creativity.

We realized in the pandemic as well when so many forms of creative expression were cut off, the theaters were closed and the concerts didn’t happen and museums were closed. And I think it helps you realize just the richness that all of that brings to life.

And so I invite anybody that’s listening or watching to have even a little bit of that richness in their own life. It can be in the smallest of ways, but it starts with just allowing yourself it. And saying to yourself, “this is important. This is important for me. This is important for the people that I love.”

And then some of the things can be hugely brain regulating. We’re talking about the piano. You’re using left and right hand. So it’s left and right brain at the same time. There’s the crossbody movement can come up in sports that you can play as well, if you’re sporty. And there’s so much that you can do creatively that also helps with your brain regulation.

And then with brain regulation, you’re also helping yourself, again, to be a better parent, to be more patient. It just has a knock on effect for the rest of your day. You don’t have to be the best at any of these things. You don’t even have to be good at them. You just need to be able to enjoy them.

Catherine Wilde

Yeah. I love those tips, and I love your perspective. There is that kind of feeling that when you get to a certain age or you become a parent or you graduate from University or something, that you have to switch on “the responsibility switch”, and there’s no more fun.

Deborah Chalk

Yes. So turn on that fun switch again.

Catherine Wilde

Yes. You get to decide how you want to live.

And bringing that into your life is doable. It’s doable in little ways you can bring in, especially if you’re a new mom or something and you don’t have a lot of time. Like you said, maybe just doing some writing or you mentioned that you got an art table. Those little things that just spending a few moments a day to do can bring that fun into your life.

Deborah Chalk

That’s interesting you say about the art table .And the art table is like creating space within your home. To say that this creative thing is important to me.

And I think there’s something about even if you don’t have lots of time for the thing you want to do, if you can create a little space within your home that represents you working on that thing that you love, it’s like an energetic touchstone.

It just acknowledges that part of you. That part of you that is inspired, that part of you, that’s part of your whole person that is going to be expressed more through allowing it more. So even if you have just some kind of reminder in your space, some kind of space that is claimed and it needs to be a tiny space. You need only a tiny space.

Deborah Chalk

It’s something that says that creative thing is important to me. Virginia Woolf, wrote “A Room Of One’s Own,” which was about a woman creating, having her artistic space within the home. We’re not all going to be able to have a room of one’s own. It might just be a small corner in your home.

But just or say you did wild swimming. So you went out and occasionally you went wild swimming. You’re obviously not going to be able to have your wild swimming area in your home. But you could have something that represents that. You could have a picture or a calendar relating to wild swimming. Or your little bookshelf where you have information about wild swimming places you’re going to go in the future.

So sometimes it’s not always going to be practical to have it in your house, but you can still have a representation of it.

Catherine Wilde

Oh, I love how you put that. That’s so beautiful to create that space for yourself. Because often we do feel lost in motherhood. It takes over in so many ways, especially at the beginning. And so to find yourself again.

Deborah Chalk

Yeah. Catherine, when you think of this as thoughtfulness that people put into their baby’s nursery. There’s a huge amount of selffulness goes into there to make it really lovely and welcoming for them. And choosing the things and making it really nice.

Even in the simplest of homes, love and care is put into that. So it’s just allowing yourself that same love and care. This is a special place to me. I’m going to acknowledge that. I’m going to make it special for the birth of creativity.

Catherine Wilde

Oh, that’s beautiful. Okay, so we’re talking about homes. You mentioned that with your husband’s job, you had to move often. And that can make it challenging to find that sense of home even in little ways. Even if you’re not moving homes, just little shifts in our life can feel stressful when we are faced with the uncertainty of things.

Just the other day, my girls and I went somewhere new and so they had so many questions and they were so excited. But I was also trying to navigate where we were going so that can bring some stress for everyone.

How did you approach your moves?

Deborah Chalk

We’ve lived in ten houses in the twenty-one years we’ve been married, so it was a lot of moves. And to be honest, Catherine, they were hard. You leave the people that you care about, you go somewhere new. There are issues with houses and it’s just a hard thing to do.

Well, I personally sometimes after moved I got really down and I made it my fault. I made it my fault that I found it hard and I made it my fault that I felt so down after the move. That wasn’t fair. So if there’s anybody listening or watching and they’re making it their fault that they’re finding it hard, it’s really not your fault. Because it is hard.

So I think allowing gentleness and letting go of perfectionism, that’s also something that has been and is still hard for me. And it’s something that the coaching stuff that I’ve done and learned and keep learning and keep expanding really helps with because I love beauty, I love a beautiful environment. And when you move somewhere, it’s not always going to be that way straight away. So just again, we talked about small spaces being nice. I think start small.

Deborah Chalk

I think look for an area that you’re going to improve and make lovely for yourself. Don’t expect to do the whole house. This is weird. I always find baking in a house helps to make it home. So baking a loaf of bread in a house helps to make it home. I don’t know why.

It must be like smudging with sage, but instead, you just do it with bread. You smudge your house with bread smells. So bake some bread if you can. If your oven is working, sometimes you move in a place and the oven isn’t working yet. So you’ve got to wait till your oven works before you can do that thing. But baking bread helps.

I think that personalizing in small ways helps. So even if it’s a rented place, if you can make it your own in small ways, that can really help.

Deborah Chalk

Before I moved to a place, I would send for the travel brochures of that place and read up about it as though I was going on holiday there and I would decide about the things that I wanted to do when I got there. So write to the tourist board of where you’re moving to and get them to send you stuff.

And then read it and look at it and think about what it would be like to be there and visualize yourself being there. So that you can prepare mentally. So again, you can start to visualize yourself living there.

I found when my daughter was younger, there was a lot of baby groups that we could go to. In England at the time they were all organized by the government. And you could go along to< they called them, Play And Stay’s. And I found this massively helpful just to give some structure to my week because I knew that on a Tuesday we would go to Play and Stay, and on a Thursday we would go to Sing and Sign.

Deborah Chalk

And it just meant that you felt almost like it just helped me to have a bit of structure because if you have no structure and you’re in a new place, it’s very disorientating. I used to always join the local library because then again, you can take your child to the library and go and look at the books there.

And as I used to be a teacher, reading with children from an early age, from an educational viewpoint is fantastic. So you’d be able to speak to the librarian when you get there. A lot of libraries are opening up again now as we come out to the pandemic.

So join the local library, find out what’s there in your local area that you can take children along, too. You will probably meet people through your child’s school as well. So go along to things where you can meet people there.

Deborah Chalk

But all the time realize that if it feels hard, it’s not your fault. If things are tricky between you and your partner because of the stress of it. It’s also not necessarily something wrong with the two of you. It’s just because it’s stressful moving. So give yourself a break. And just be gentle.

Catherine Wilde

Oh, I love that. Okay, so you have been on this incredible journey full of challenges and growths and ups and downs. If you could go back in time, what advice would you give yourself?

Deborah Chalk

There’s so much, Catherine. There’s so much. I think it’s the mind body connection that we’ve been talking about. I wish I’d known that earlier in life.

I wish I’d known this intuition and stuff earlier in life. Because it would have made the whole thing so much easier. And I think I would have not taken so long to figure out what to do in life. I think I would have trusted my path more.

When you have these little inklings of what your creativity wants you to do, I would have listened to them and I didn’t know to listen to them.

Catherine Wilde

Yeah. I think that’s something that so many of us could benefit from earlier, right? That trusting the journey and listening, being open to what our inner wisdom is telling us.

Deborah Chalk

Yeah.

Catherine Wilde

That’s beautiful. I love this conversation so much. Will you let us know where we can find you online?

Deborah Chalk

Yeah, sure. I’m at deborahchalk.com. I’m helping parents who are creative and want to enjoy the moments now but also want to work towards their own creative dreams as well.

Catherine Wilde

We’ll share that in the show notes so that everyone can find you.

Deborah Chalk

Thanks, Catherine.

Catherine Wilde

Thank you so much for sharing your story and all of your wisdom with us.

Thanks for joining me, Mama. I’m over here smiling from ear to ear and giving you a big virtual hug. I love spending this time with you. You are amazing for showing up and carving out this space to nourish your soul.

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Sending you so much love, Mama.

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