There’s two more Becoming & Belonging Workshops before the end of the year! Next Tuesday (November 18) we’ll be discussing the losses and grief we can experience when becoming mothers and parents. ✨you do not need to attend all workshops, but we do ask you to complete the registration form ✨ • you only have to register once, not for each session • access forms online through the Deep End website. ⏰ 10-11:30am 📍Birth & Beyond Parent Resource Centre Has anyone had any ideas for theme 9 and 10?

October Cockle Warmers! 📚 The South by Tash Aw. Beautiful coming of age love and identity story. 🌩️ Some pretty incredible desert storms over the last couple of weeks. (RIP trampoline that became collateral damage) 🍰 Last term E V E R of daycare for my youngest daughter. She’s felt too big since she started pre school so this year has been full of morning bribes… sorry, incentives. Not mad about it- I love our morning ritual. 🍣 Sneaky after school sushi train snack with my son. He says he loves sushi train, but what he really means is he loves springs rolls. 🫶🏻 Boasting about the last fish I caught while holding the first Becoming & Belonging workshop at Birth and Beyond. My butthole had been quivering for weeks with nerves but what a wonderful morning it was. Can’t wait for session 2 on November 18. 🎵 Focus music: Matthew Halsall. Still accepting music recommendations for deep focus- my brain requires no clear lyrics!

So grateful for the opportunity to hold my first workshop series at Birth and Beyond, a place close to my heart. This morning we had some great discussions around social stories, expectations and the brave faces of motherhood (and what they help us conceal). There are still two more sessions on the calendar for this year: • November 18- acknowledging the losses • December 2- the messy middle- identifying whats within the scope of ‘normal’ emotional experience and when to seek help.

Is there anything worse than tossing and turning in the middle of the night? Brain haywire. And then the stress of not being asleep adds to the anxiety. I had this the other night- stressing about something I’m actually really excited about. Somewhere between midnight and 3am, I started to wonder if maybe it wasn’t anxiety at all… maybe it was intuition. My brain’s way of warning me, trying to keep me from humiliation. Cool feature when it’s protecting you from real danger. Less helpful when it’s just fear of failure. The fear of the unknown… the last thing our safety-seeking brains want anything to do with. Quitting would instantly ease the anxiety, but it would also teach my brain that avoidance = safety. And that would make it twice as hard to pull up my big-girl knickers next time. So instead, I tried asking myself: • What opportunity might be hiding inside this scary thing? • What’s actually within my control right now? • What could I learn if I sit with this discomfort? The anxiety’s still there, but I understand it better now.

My undergrad was in media- a choice I made by mistaking a love of words and writing with journalism. That was a short lived career before falling in and out of other roles and becoming a parent. I felt really far behind for a long time, worrying about reintegrating into the (paid) work force with no ‘real’ career already established. Really, through that period I was working my arse off, juggling the chaos of parenting, identity shifts, grief, the ache of trying to hold everything and everyone together. There’s many skills from journalism that I still use in counselling. • Establishing rapport and a level of comfort that’s conducive to relaying stories and narratives. • Listening without judgment and remaining objective. Through the period of gritty, bonkers, parenting change I’ve learnt to not rush to fix things, how good it feels to be truly seen and how hard but rewarding it can be to be honest and cut through the surface level chit chat. It’s all come together to create how I work now. Sitting honestly in the deep end with people, helping them find clarity, warmth, and self-compassion through whatever stage they’re in.