Saturn Returns with Caggie - 5.5 What gives you joy? with Laura Brand

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

Laura Brand, illustrator and author of the Joy Journal joins Caggie this week. Laura’s first book - a homemade crafts guide for children - came out over lockdown, and her second book around crafts for adults has just been released, ‘The Joy Journal for Grown Ups’. Caggie and Laura talk about the importance of play and crafts as a tool for mindfulness. They also discuss Laura's initiation into motherhood, shapeshifting through their twenties, and how our Saturn Return creates an opportunity for us to reclaim our true authentic self.   --- Follow or subscribe to "Saturn Returns" for future episodes, where we explore the transformative impact of Saturn's return with inspiring guests and thought-provoking discussions. Follow Caggie Dunlop on Instagram to stay updated on her personal journey and you can find Saturn Returns on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.  Order the Saturn Returns Book. Join our community newsletter here.  Find all things Saturn Returns, offerings and more here.

Hello everyone and welcome to Saturn Returns with me, Kagi Dunlop. This is a podcast that aims to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. I just wasn't embracing and doing enough stuff that served that essence, who I am, but now I really do feel like I'm doing that. Today I'm joined by the author and illustrator Laura Brand. Laura's first book, A Homemade Crafts Guide for Children, came out over lockdown. And as you can imagine, it was an instant hit. Laura therefore decided to focus her second book around crafts for adults, and has just released the Joy Journal for Grownups. I was really keen to chat to Laura

because a prevailing theme of this Saturn Returns series is maintaining our creativity. Sometimes as we approach our Saturn Return, we can feel like we've lost who we are. Creative exploits are a great way to reconnect with the old you, that child within. And as you'll hear in this chat, Laura definitely experienced this herself. She said crafting and creativity really helped her come back to her authentic self after losing her essence in her 20s. I was really keen to speak to Laura because lots of people that know us both have said that we have a lot of similarities and so I was really happy to have her on. And also just to talk about this idea of maintaining our

creativity and our childlike wonder, you know, embracing the little joys day to day, because as we get into adulthood, we can just sidetrack all those things. And I think they're really important to reclaim. Just to add a bit of context to the conversation, because Laura references her husband a couple of times, and that is fellow podcaster and comedian Russell Brand. Before we get into any of this, though, let's hear from our wonderful astrological guide, Nora. Nature versus nurture. Venus versus Saturn.

In astrology as well as in psychology, the way we were brought up and the permission to claim our natural selves are both intrinsically connected. Venus is our natural joy, desire, creativity, all that we find beautiful and most importantly it symbolizes our values. And then Saturn is many things but to sum it up it's the outer authority growing up that over time hopefully transmutes into our inner authority that we then claim. So going back to Venus, creativity. How do we access it? Interestingly enough, it's through Saturn.

Safety. Do we feel safe? Do we feel accepted? Naturally, we might feel a fear in expressing our vulnerability when it comes to all that we value, but do we truly feel like it has a place to land when we are ready to accept our creativity and our joy? A place to be contained? For example, were we allowed to express joy or unrestricted creativity growing up?

The restriction would be symbolized by Saturn, outer authority, Growing up, the restriction would be symbolized by Saturn, after authority, and then the desire to express that joy or creativity would be symbolized by Venus. So again, let's be honest with ourselves. Were we? Could we? And if yes, in what measure? And if no, in what measure? Let us think in, whatever the answer might be.

And then, contemplate. Are we still feeling restricted today? Do we still feel debilitating fear surrounding any type of expressed joy or creativity? Saturn Return and Saturn Transits reminds us that yes, we are to be disciplined and we are to be mature and we are to reparent ourselves. This also means that we have full permission to shape our lives in the way we desire it. That we are to honor our Venus and our Saturn. We are to honor our nature and take the best of what we were nurtured with and leave all that doesn't serve us behind. So sit with it, give yourself emotional space and then ask your inner child

in the right psychological way. Hey, what gives you joy? Welcome to the Saturn Returns podcast. I'm so excited to have you. Well, thank you so much. Thank you, Kagi. I love this podcast. I really, really enjoy listening to it. And so when there was the opportunity came up to be on it, I was thrilled. Oh, that's such an honor. I actually have this weird thing with you where I feel, I have it with quite a lot of people that come on the show, but I feel like I know you already. I feel it too.

So tell me what you have going on at the moment because you've just had a book come out. I have and actually it's just in front of me here so the Joy Journal for Grown-Ups is my second book which is always like it takes me quite a long time to write a book it seems like so you sort of write and you have this process of especially with a crafting book I really I really go through it, like go through all the activities and I'm doing it. And my first book, The Joy Journal for Magical Everyday Play was totally inspired by my motherhood. So becoming a mom and having two children sort of under two and doing stuff with them, doing, being, looking for ways to bond with them, looking for ways to be creative, but also wanting to sort of tap into the nostalgic play of my own childhood. So looking at more, you know, back to basics stuff

and you're presented with so many options, so many toys, so many games now. And I really wanted a book that felt timeless and that was just like, what can we get from the kitchen cupboard? What can we get from the bathroom and make and do? And that book, and that really leads me onto this book totally, sets that up. That book came out literally almost the date of lockdown starting here, which is weird because I'd been writing it for two years, like one and a half years before. So I'd been doing all this stuff, how to make stuff at home using toilet rolls and things like that. And then suddenly it was coming out at a time where we had no choice but to be at home. So the book for that reason, or for whatever reason did well, and I'm still kind of blown away.

It lent itself to that moment in time. It did lend itself to that moment in time because I had so many messages from people being like, we just wouldn't have known what to do with our kids without having access to the shops or the playground or whatever. And it was that conversation through Instagram more than anything with parents that inspired me to write the next book. So that is this one here, which is 50 homemade, creative and sort of crafty ideas for almost it started off with the idea of it being about for well-being. So how can we connect with our creativity for our self-care or whatever we call that? And that includes lovely creative activities like self-care products and mindful activities. So there'll be more like making mindful making

activities. Then I call them activities, by the way, which sounds very childlike, but in a way, that is the whole point of it. It's going back to that. To be playful. Playful, exactly. And that's how the book is. It's an invitation to grownups to play and make and do. And hopefully the idea is that I can sort of also show people a little bit of the ways I'm sort of resourceful with crafting. So how do I look around the home as an adult and go, right, I want to make paper, but I don't have paper making stuff. What am I going to use from the kitchen? So I really talk about that a lot. It's quite anecdotal. So it's got a lot of stories in and it's got a lot of tips and ideas and things like that so this is this book because you mentioned a second ago about

how it's been influenced by your life growing up so I would love to you know go down memory lane and kind of tap into the nostalgia of that because I'm trying to think as we're having this conversation what play was like for me because how old are you I'm sometimes I get as we're having this conversation, what play was like for me, because how old are you? I'm sometimes I get this wrong, by the way, Kagi. In fact, I have no idea in this lifetime. I mean, honestly, I did an interview with the wonderful Elizabeth Day two years ago for a magazine and she had to follow it up after and she went Laura you told me that you were 34 but I must say you're not 34 you're 33 and I was like oh my gosh yes okay sorry about that I'm actually 34 now as we speak but yeah I know I just get it wrong I've

I'm well it's perfect theme for Saturn Returns. I'm basically stuck at 29. So I don't know what's happened. Very interesting. I can't get over that at 29. We'll get into that. Because I guess we kind of grew up at a similar time. So, you know, I remember doing things like paper mache. I don't know what kids do today but it seems it's all very digital it is and even actually recently my husband and I bought our daughters loads of science kits because they're into science so they had a sort of stem science week at school and then when they came back and they wanted to make erupting volcanoes and do experiments whatever now there's like lots of brands that do great science kits but they are all very very plastic heavy they're very sort of like right what do we need well we need to wear gloves and it's all sort of throw away at the end and I suppose when we were I mean I don't know about

you but this is one of the things that really in fact it's in one of the books whether it's the first or the second there used to be and still is a crafting company that used to do perfume making kits and soap making it was real old school like old old old it still looks the same they've not changed their packaging I found one in a garden center the other day and I used to just love doing stuff like mixing and making and I used to think those perfumes smelt like the best thing on earth I used to sort of make bracelets were you you into that? Yeah. Beaded bracelet making? And we used to sell them and we used to go to the seaside and get like shells and make sort of crappy things out of them and stuff like that. Because everything you do feels very, you feel

very earthy. I just spent a lot of time outdoors. So I was always sort of trying to be sort of, I had a pretty vivid imagination. I used to think, you know, like that the outdoor world for me was, you know, I could live there. Mystical place. Exactly. I really, truly believed in fairies. I really, really like loved sort of the magic of nature. And I thank God haven't lost that. I was a really weird child and I definitely am still weird. In what way? And it's okay.

I was weird. Like I really was very fascinated with like bird poo and worms and like really, really into the muckiness of nature. So like I eat weird things in my pockets and then emerge and it was like all sorts of... Creepy crawlies. Yeah, yeah. Like creepy crawlies were very much

friends of mine and you know I think that a lot of it was this sort of vivid imagination I did have which I hope to always have I definitely had do still have a very vivid imagination in growing up like my childhood was all about play we would go into like the woods in the forest and just like like you say I have this kind of like mystical woods in the forest and just like like you say have this kind of like mystical experience and like it seems to be like a prevailing theme in this season of Saturn Returns and with the guests of like and something that's stirring for me is the importance of maintaining our creativity because I think as we become adults you know the pressures of life financial worries relationship friends job friends, job, keeping all

these things going and all these plates spinning, it seems that our ability or our interest in play kind of gets diminished. And it's like, well, that's not something that's like the priority right now. We do readily disengage from our imagination in many ways as we get older. And you can see how the way children are, the way they are with play, the way they just like make things up and have can just exist in their imagination. And they are absolutely present. And one of the things I hope that I've sort of really tried to tap into with this book is that idea of how to be present in the thing that you're doing. Because the mindfulness thing is really, really interesting to me, like the idea of how to be totally in the moment and present in what

you're doing. And my access point, well, one of them is nature. So going into nature, without a phone, preferably, but obviously not always possible, or going into a creative thing that you know, whether that's I do a bit of painting draw and things like that but other things cooking dancing all these things are creative and they're exercises and things to get you into the now and the present yeah because I think it's important to acknowledge that what works for you and I is going to look different to every individual but I do believe that we all have that thing and it's it's a kind ofemy. It's a, it's a thing of self-expression. It's a way of, like you say, being present, being mindful. And so I would kind of like implore people that are listening to kind

of tap into what that might be for them. And one thing that is coming up for me is something that, you know, I was pursuing as a career and for like various reasons, I found it too hard. But singing is something for me that makes me very present and very in the moment. And it's almost like I'm just I'm getting something out of it. Like as I'm kind of I don't know, I'm like connecting to something and it's like a soul kind of connection. It's your it's who you are it's your essence yeah but what comes with that like when I tried to make that kind of as a career it was like almost too vulnerable and then the idea of it being kind of criticized and I think that that's when we're

children we don't have the same self-awareness we're not like oh they don't need to be validated by anyone apart from perhaps like they learn to be want to be validated by their parents and then that creates all kind of problems but they're just more like oh I'm just gonna do this I'm gonna sing I'm gonna dance I'm just gonna be who I am but as we get older we're like yeah as we get older we're like I want to be who I am but if you see who I am what if you don't like me and then you judge me and so therefore I'm going to keep it hidden I'm going to keep it small and so we kind of detach these like parts of ourselves that are really important to our sort of fullness because we're afraid of like how the outside world is going to perceive them, I think. A hundred percent. My husband and

I talk about this a lot. Like when I say I was a weird child, like I was a weird child in the way that I was probably no different to many other children, but really into stuff that I hope is still there within me. But yeah, like you say, all the other layers on top of us prevent us from sort of exploring. But actually, I hope I'm going through a phase now in this sort of part of my life where I'm sort of going back a little bit to being that more. Reclaiming that. Reclaiming it. And there's a space that I feel I was putting on a performance of who Laura was. And actually I learned a lot. I did a lot of different jobs. I was really exploring who I might be. And, um, obviously I mentioned to you earlier,

I'm sort of stuck at 29, but weirdly I'm not really stuck at 29. I've gone way beyond that. And I'm much more back to who I was before. It's a weird thing. I can't really, I'm not really stuck at 29. I've gone way beyond that. And I'm much more back to who I was before. It's a weird thing. I can't really. It's like it's like this weird like the 20s for me became a sort of a bit of a blur. Great on so many levels. And thank God I've got so many beautiful friends out of that time as well. But also like, gosh, I think who actually who was that person? also like gosh I think who actually who was that person I'm not sure but that that was a slight performance but also probably what we needed like the the ego maybe playing a bigger part you know because of us discovering ourselves but it's I mean that's such a sort of a classic Saturn Returns experience because and I completely resonated like my whole 20s I look back and

they were magnificent in many ways and terrible and others and I was just constantly shape-shifting you know I was just like yes putting on all these different faces because like you say I think particularly as women we are conditioned to fit in to kind of mold ourselves into certain scenarios so you say like oh you're a weird child but you probably weren't that's just like how the world has told you to think about yourself because yeah yeah it's not the sort of norm of what people might be doing today and I kind of felt the same I felt like a very I liked solitude I like poetry I was always like a much like deeper thinker than I kind of thought was normal for my age so I kind of kept those aspects of myself hidden. And then I

was like, okay, this isn't like acceptable to be this way. So, but I think by judging these people, this is how I should show up in the world. And therefore I'm going to kind of adopt those characteristics, those mannerisms, perhaps try and pursue that career and just be this version. And I think eventually that entity sort of thing became like something separate from me and then I don't know about you but at 29 I suddenly was like okay that's not me but who the fuck am I yeah a hundred percent like I was really trying to think before coming to speak to you I was like thinking because of this weird confusion I have over my own years that I've been alive I was like right what was I doing at 29? Well, I was actually pregnant with

my first daughter at 29. And it's weird because it was actually after her birth that I was like, right. And obviously that's quite an obvious thing. Like a birth of a child, you have to go through your own stripping away of who you are when you become a mum. And a massive identity shift. A hundred percent. I mean, right from pregnancy for me, I struggled with a pregnancy where I was sick for nine months. And so like, I really had to look for ways of, and actually that's how I discovered hypnobirthing. And I actually went on a whole journey with that.

What's hypnobirthing? So hypnobirthing is a sort of fear release and breathing techniques, supporting women and partners to those women, birth partners in pregnancy and childbirth. So it would be, for example, I met this wonderful, Holly DeCruz was my teacher and she's an amazing woman. And she first of all, started working with me in mindful exercises for my sickness. So then I was like, hold on, what is it? I didn't know either. I thought it was like a hypnosis. It's not at all. There are relaxing exercises, but it's much more to do with the idea of dropping into a state of relaxation, which

enables you to trust your body more so than your mind. So you're kind of getting rid of adrenaline in the birth process and you're inviting in oxytocin and all the things you need in order for birth to feel flowing. And most people, even if they have a birth where it doesn't go the way they want it to go or hoped it would go, usually say at some point hypnobirthing helped them with their state of mind at a point during the process. And I actually, so practiced that with my husband, we had an amazing experience with it for the birth of our daughter, went on to do it again for our second daughter, and then I trained as a teacher. So I then now I also teach couples hypnobirthing as a part of like, just something I enjoy doing,

I really do it for passion not for anything else so it's more for um trying to help people with fear of birth and things like that so with that it was like I I had to shed all the pre-existing ideas I had about what birth and childbirth was going to be like and what motherhood was going to be like did you have fear around it oh yeah initially yeah I thought it was going to be like. Did you have fear around it? Oh yeah. Initially, yeah. I thought it was going to be, I, when I became pregnant, I, I didn't almost have a fear. It was oblivion. It was like, I've got no concept of what this is going to be like. Probably. I don't even know all the parts of the female body by name, you know, like it was completely back to basic stuff where it was like, when I learned about the anatomy of a female body

and what happens during pregnancy and labor I was learning it for the first time in pregnancy we just have no like the fact that we can be in our 30s and be like I actually don't know how to name my vagina I know exactly 100% and that is you you know, that is a sort of symptom of the patriarchy is that just at one point it was like, oh, this isn't really important. Let's just kind of draw a basic diagram, be done with it. And so with that, I really had to go back to like basic education. And through that learning process, I was like, like wow my eyes have been opened I want to go on this bit further this journey and it sort of just changed my whole perception of who I was I guess because I relearned about myself in a different way and was supported so whoever my

partner was it's not always the husband the wife the girlfriend or boyfriend it sometimes is another person who they choose that that's the entrusted person. For me, it was my, at the time, boyfriend, but now husband, and he was learning too. And we did it together and it felt very empowering. And I feel that that was 29. So for me, it was a real back to basics learning experience there upon going into this sort of new phase of my life after what we would call Saturn Return. Because when I think about motherhood and stuff, because I look at a lot of people that have gone through that process and stuff and to kind of bring it back to what we were just saying about how like the 20s felt very shape-shifting and being whoever you need

to be. Often when I look at motherhood, I have this fear around it that it's going to shift my identity in a way that's like feels I don't know to something that's like really conventional and then that's kind of right because you know how you see people just it's suddenly changed and that gives me the fear a little bit because I'm like oh god I don't want to just suddenly become only a mother and no disrespect to people that yeah is like an important part of their identity like I appreciate that but then I'm like okay how do I sort of negotiate my independence whilst also being a maternal mother when there's when there's so many conditions that it comes with that come from the outside of like how we change or how we're viewed differently.

Yeah. I mean, it is what you said there. It is about like your own independence. It's really, it is hard. And it's taken me a couple of years. My youngest is three and a half, she'll be four in June. And it did take me a couple of years of feeling a little bit lost, a bit like, who am I? I mean, like, I don't know what, know what you know like but I now feel actually the opposite of of what you fear so I feel more myself than ever now and whether that was the experience of birth and what you have to go into or whether it's simply that I'm supported in a different way or maybe it's just because I'm allowing myself to be like my interests are more aligned with the sort of life I'm living you know like I was living for me probably I just wasn't embracing and doing enough stuff in my sort of world of interest and and like going back to that word essence

that served that essence the who I am but now I really do feel like I'm doing that like I really do feel even if it's play, you know, like I really enjoy making Play-Doh with my kids. There's something there that's like, great. I love this. Yeah. Because it sounds like motherhood for you was like the gateway to kind of reclaiming your essence, essentially.

It has been, I suppose. It has been. And I know that's not for everyone. And I really do appreciate that that's not for everyone. But I feel probably that I was like lost before. And it's not that necessarily it was even motherhood. I feel like it was a different type of, maybe something happened with my confidence and, and then it dips down, you know, because then it's like, there are moments where you go, I'm like just a mom. And what am I ever going to do anything? Why do I have the same ability to be spontaneous when

my friends were all meeting up and I was the first one in our friendship circle to have a baby. So I felt like I was sort of like missing out on stuff for a couple of years, but I really, really truly feel that I was offered different types of experiences that probably served me well and better now. So I, um, yeah, it's an interesting thing and there is a lot of fear around it. You're not, that is, it's a natural feeling to have. It's not uncommon. I think there's just a resistance in saying so, because, you know, as women we're like, oh, you just see these pictures of people glowing and pregnant. I'm so excited having a baby. And then I think there's this pressure as well to just be like so joyful about it the whole way through. there's this pressure as well to just be like so joyful about it the whole way through and not realize actually what you go through afterwards of kind of establishing yourself again to be honest though I will tell you one thing I I did not glow in pregnancy I honestly spent I spent nine months

in bed I was throwing up everywhere supermarkets taxis side of the road there are places I almost have like I'm triggered by because of sickness. Yeah, I had full on, full on sickness. So the pregnancy experience was not fun? No, not at all for me personally. And there are moments where I see a picture of myself and I think, gosh, I must have been feeling well that day because I'm sort of with people or whatever. But no, I didn't. I had to stop following. I actually unfollowed loads of Instagram accounts during that time because I couldn't look at people blossoming in pregnancy. It was too much for me to feel. Just like doing weights in the gym and running their companies and you're like barfing in the bathroom. I literally was like, I spent it literally on all fours, like with a towel for the whole time, basically.

And that's the thing. You just don't know how people, how like one individual is going to respond to it. It's kind of luck of the draw, isn't it? Or do you think, is that what brought you to the hypnobirth stuff? It was, yeah, because that was when I was like, right, I've got to do something like I'll try anything. What kind of meditation can I do? What kind of mindfulness stuff can I do? It actually gave me a focus, the hypnobirthing. So it was like, you know, I started it during a real peak of sickness. And then towards the end, it was like the focus, the focus was preparing for this event, this birth, whenever it was going to be. I also learned to let go of all ideas of, you know, I was not looking at dates or when it's going to happen, or I just had

to fully, fully surrender, fully surrender. Because how much would you say your sort of mental state, whether it was consciously or subconsciously was impacting your physicality, if at all? I'll give you a better example, because it was more recent. A year ago, when I had this, it was more relating to my back, but it's totally mind and body related. recent a year ago when I had this it was more relating to my back but it's totally mind and body related a year ago when I had this terrible like back issue because I get these I get like prolapsed discs which is a really random thing but I not through injury I just get these sort of back issues slip discs or whatever you want to call them and only I know now that I get sort of like a neck spasm when I'm not listening to my body, when I'm stressed, when I'm not resting enough. I think

I've now, and I've been managing my back pain well for a year until recently I had a blip where I had a really bad situation, ended up in hospital, but I had let it go. I'd let my self-care around my back go and when I stopped and I took my eye off the ball I injured myself in a way that needed a lot of medical attention. You mentioned this word a second ago which I think is such a crucial element to it is like surrendering as well and because the mind is like we're controlling everything we're calling the shots how hard was it for you to surrender and like what does that word mean to you a year ago when I had this terrible like back um it linked to like sciatica so I couldn't really walk I had like a pain that was nerve pain which is very very

difficult to manage so it makes you get quite depressed and I ended up spending like 10 days in bed in my bedroom, like with the door shut, like not allowed to get up. And I literally went cold turkey on my life. Like I had everything, everything came up for me. My husband said it was like watching someone come off drugs, like the control that obviously I had everything to a certain degree under control. So I have like a routine with the children. I'd had a routine with work things. So the minute that I actually was like told you're headed towards spinal surgery, you better lie down and like rest and decide what you're going to do. I had to, I was like sweating, Kagi. I was literally in my room, like, like, oh my God, I can't bear this. I could hear the kids doing stuff. I could hear my husband

trying to make packed lunches. And I was like, you know, I wouldn't do it that way. I would let them do that. You know what, actually the micromanagement was what I was having withdrawal from. Micromanagement. That is exactly it. And I had like full on like palpitations. I had to call people, like call friends. Like it was like I was in serious cold time. Seriously. Yeah. Because the micromanaging thing is like, obviously, it kind of runs in a similar pattern to perfectionism that they're very like almost celebrated thing

a hundred percent as I think also like we were like oh I've got everything under control I can know what's going on but actually it's an example for you where it's tips the other way I think that you're absolutely right it is slightly glorified in a way that's like although I think people are becoming much more aware of not doing that because it seems that that we've recognized now that that is not healthy for us I mean I was obviously living and I still do do it I'm not like a I'm not like a cured micromanager um I'm still it's still it's still one of my defaults you know I can't help it it's um but it's something that I'm much more aware of and it was in that period of time where I literally had to go through a sort of withdrawal. And it was really interesting.

And I think actually that's how I connected with Kirstie Gallagher, because I was even messaging her on Instagram. Maybe that was around the time we became friends. And I was like, I'm just going to tell you about the situation. I am feeling like really bad, really bad in myself. I don't know how to deal with this. Have you got any advice? I need the moon, crystals anything anything at me

exactly we actually me and Kirsty actually had like a conversation about it this morning in a similar sort of way of because the underlying thing of micromanagement is usually fear you know and that is sort of the antithesis of surrendering. Because if we surrender to something, we're in a space of trust, trusting the universe, trusting ourselves. Whereas when we're micromanaging, essentially, we're like, don't trust what's happening. If I let go, everything will fall apart. I feel that we're always going to be challenged in these ways of like actually being forced into surrender and that can be a horror like it sounds like for you

that that was like horrendous to actually have to let go but like such a lesson and so medicinal in a way because you suddenly realize that actually everything is okay yeah I mean everything is okay and not only that I actually had to put proper, proper self-care into practice. Like I go and see a therapist or I go and have my back, you know, I'm an amazing chiropractor sort of, he's more than that. He like does kinesiology and all sorts. It's like, I have to see him regularly. That's like one of my main parts of my discipline wellbeing, you know, it is is a luxury but it also prevents me from letting my body go like a domino effect of injury and um you know yeah more time outside more time like sitting down I don't ever sit down it's it's it's insane like I don't think my kids ever see me

like sitting down and then when I do they're like are you are you, is mummy okay? I'm like, yeah, I'm just sitting down. Everyone looks at me like, you just never sit down because I'm also a massive potterer. I like pottering. I like to keep busy and like do stuff. Yeah, yeah, it's great. But also I realised that it's important for my kids to see me taking time off. And resting. Time, downtime. As you kind of go into motherhoodhood I think it can be quite easy to make yourself the bottom of the list of priorities yes definitely I think I've listened to quite a few things on like boundaries recently where people are talking about how to help keep boundaries and it's the same thing applies like if you're a person who might say yes to everything and be a people pleaser and then what you're realizing is it's like you're you're suffering for it oh my god like boundaries has been and continues to be one of the biggest

lessons because it's it's everywhere it's in the self it's in our friendships it's in our relationships it's in our work and I think that you know you mentioned it when you have those your body indicates that like it's a bit off and we all have them yeah but then you don't listen and then things go really you know get get really out of control so it's really about like making sure that we have those boundaries in place which again is like so Saturnian and that's something that I learned in in my own kind of personal way throughout my 20s of like pushing things and being like okay that that's where the boundary is let's make sure we don't kind of overstep that because we know what happens when we do oh yeah exactly I think that's really I think it's really I think it yeah it's it's something that I've definitely but I'd say like my definitely

20s was boundaryless boundaryless with everything hopefully people jobs whatever you know like it was just like a sort of blur of yeses to everything yeah absolutely you know I used to call things like character building I'd be doing something so like people be like why are you doing this you've just worked all week why are you now on a Sunday getting up at four and selling things in a market I'm like I just I'm just meeting character building I was like no you just don't have any boundaries. Because I had jobs that were always very sort of taxing because I was in hospitality and I used to work very long hours. So I used to sort of do that. And then on top of that, it would be like,

I'd get a job on top of a job and people be so like, but then through that, actually, one thing I talk about in not, I don't know if it was in this book or if it was in my first one, one of the things I always went back to was doing creative stuff. So I used to do shop windows, which these were my little joys, if you will. So I would have like a job where I'd work. I worked in a nightclub for a little bit. I worked, you know, for a big hospitality company. And that was quite taxing on the body and on the mind and on general health and well-being and then I would find these little joys in doing stuff like painting a shop window

for children's shop you know or painting things for people or literally like gifts and artwork or you know like I just love doing stuff like that and I think that that that was always my little tap on the shoulder going like remember remember you're a person who enjoys doing creative stuff. It's really important that we all do for ourselves, for as a practice to our self-care, kind of tap into those things that make us feel joyful, content, fulfilled. And like you say that they're subtle and they don't have to like i don't know buy you a house or whatever but they're really crucial to our like fundamental well-being 100 they're they're grounding and they make you feel like you're being your authentic self tapping into essence tapping into essence i love that well laura thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you. Thank you, Jackie. I really enjoyed it.

And people can get your book. It's out now. So my book's available, you know, on all the usual sites. I have a few favorites, but you can go to my Instagram and the links in my bio there. My Instagram page is at the Joy Journal. That's where I do everything. So I have some things coming up and events and you can find it all there on my Instagram page I love that well thank you so much thank you thank you Kagi I loved what Laura said about crafts being a great tool for mindfulness because they keep you present and I think more than ever today we need to find the practices that allow us to do that

so I hope you took us something from this conversation and if you want to find out more about Laura you can follow her on Instagram at thejoyjournal. Thank you.