The Netmums Podcast - S13 Ep9: Anna Mathur: Overcoming Anxiety and Perfectionism in Parenting

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

Passionate about taking therapy out of the therapy room, psychotherapist Anna Mathur is widely celebrated for her accessible mental health advice and light-bulb moments she offers mothers on Instagram and in her popular parenting books such as "Mind Over Mother" and "Know Your Worth."  Anna shares her personal experience with burnout and emphasises that taking time to recharge is an act of love not only for oneself but also for one's children. From anxiety and guilt to the importance of self-care, Anna shares invaluable insights and practical advice to help manage these pervasive issues experienced in parenthood. By addressing the source of guilt, showing compassion for oneself, and making small adjustments, Anna shows how parents can better cope with these overwhelming emotions. Anna’s book "The Uncomfortable Truth Change Your Life By Taming 10 of Your Mind's Greatest Fears"  is out on August 8th. Stay connected with Netmums for more parenting tips, community support, engaging content: Website: netmums.com / Instagram: @netmums 

You're listening to the Netmoms podcast with me, Wendy Gollich, and me, Alison Perry. Coming up on this week's show... I get to live in a country that has this offering. I can move this bin with my muscles. There will be people who will literally just wish that they could just take their own bins out one more time because they can't. And it's things like that that I think sometimes if you make me cry about bins we're falling out okay Wendy I'm not sure if it's a sign of getting old but are you as obsessed with watching documentaries as I am recently I've been watching loads of them from true crime through to music programs. Me too. I love the ones that leave me knowing more

about a topic, especially parenting ones, because let's face it, we all need a helping hand there, don't we? Oh, 100%. I'll tell you one that you should definitely watch, Johnson's Babies, A Parent is Born. It's a four-part docu-series directed by BAFTA award-winning filmmaker Leanna Stewart. It celebrates the diverse experiences of parents today, 130 years after Johnson's Baby first began supporting new families. I've already watched it. It's amazing, isn't it? I love how it follows the eight families as they start their parenting journey. It really took me back to those early days, getting my head around the huge change and trying to get to grips with being a mum. Because when a child is born, a parent's born too.

Oh, absolutely. To be honest, I had a little cry watching it. And I especially loved the final episode that was recently released, where the parents all reflect back on their first year of parenthood. It is so beautiful. For anyone who hasn't watched the johnson's babies a parent is born docuseries yet head to johnsonsbaby.co.uk forward slash a parent is born wendy how's your week been i have to admit i'm a bit excited because tonight i'm gonna go to see take that so i'm getting ready to scream my lungs out and transport myself back to being 16 and I think we're showing our age that I'm going to see them in June are you are you oh my goodness

you've got a little while to wait how's your week been though has it been has it been okay have you had a good week ah well I'm really glad our guest is the guest we've got today because i might need some psychotherapy we're having a bit of a week my youngest daughter had her tonsils and adenoids out yesterday and i can honestly say i've never felt so helpless as a mum like she's been through a lot in her little life, but you're sent home four hours after they've whipped them out with the instruction to eat dry toast, which just is mean. And cow pole just isn't really cutting it, frankly. And I don't know what to do. It's not often you feel this helpless as a mum.

So I'm feeling a bit wobbly. I thought they got ice cream and jelly after getting their tonsils out. Is that not a thing anymore? No, sorry, that one's all a myth. Oh my goodness. I don't think so. That does not sound so. If I just quietly start having a week, lovely listeners, don't mind me.

Just everybody carry on and ignore me. It'll be fine. Tell us about our guest, Alison. Wow. She can soothe me. Yeah, fingers crossed. No pressure. Our guest today is psychotherapist and author Anna Martha.

Anna shares brilliant Instagram content and makes all mums sigh with relief. And her books, Mind Over Mother, Know Your Worth, and Raising a Happier Mother, are firm favourites of mine. Anna, a huge welcome to the Netmums podcast. Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's an absolute pleasure, pleasure to be here. So, thank you. How are you doing today? Thank you for joining us. Yeah, I am good. I have actually had some headshots taken today, so I feel very fancy. I've had my hair and makeup done in my own home and then i mean yeah i've got the

beavers drop off and uh school run and that's how i thought where you were going that's where i'm taking it and to you so anna is bought to you by hair and makeup i bought you by two hours sleep so just no judging please folks it's so rough isn't it it's so rough so tired i think we have to remember quite how much it impacts us when we're tired and cut ourselves some slack where we can because sleep really does bring clarity and when you especially when you've had young children and then you're out of those sleepless nights phases and then suddenly you get a bout of it for whatever reason normally an illness and you're just reminded how it feels and yeah you can't go go easy on yourself cut the corners wendy okay noted so anna you are absolutely

passionate about supporting mums what's the biggest issue you in your view that mums have that you see in your work other than sleep deprivation which might be it no i mean, I mean, that definitely doesn't help anything, does it? It makes things feel a little bit harder. But I think anxiety is one of them. Guilt is another. I know you just asked me for one, but I'm just going to, I'm going to say three. And then the other one is the standards that we set, the standards that we set for ourselves and that kind of that perfectionism that fantasy version of the motherhood that we often just desperately try and attain to and just beat ourselves up when we fall at the first hurdle so yeah high standards and guilt especially guilt where we haven't actually done anything wrong and we carry guilt and feeling bad about things that actually maybe we don't need to feel

guilty about so I challenge people a lot a lot on that and yeah a lot of anxiety and worry can really inhibit our you know our ability to enjoy those good those good things about motherhood and feel a bit more present the high standards thing's interesting isn't it because obviously social media gets a lot of criticism perhaps rightly so um but i've got to say that if i open the instagram and one of your posts pops up i know that reading it's going to make me feel good but how important is it then that we curate our social feed so that we get more of the stuff that we need less of the stuff that we don't need and that we're not just seeing a warped glossy version of parenting that just makes us feel rubbish oh that's so important isn't it and it's hard to do because actually it's so clever

the internet is so clever and the algorithm is so clever that even if we hover over something I think it seems to register that we're interested in that even if we I think you know I'm not going to engage with that but we kind of hover over it because we tend to have this negativity bias in our brains. And we're kind of seeking things out that quite often like fuels comparison and anxiety. So I think, yeah, trying to curate your feed actually takes quite a lot of discipline. Because in that moment, you've got to really proactively think, you know, I'm not, I'm literally not even gonna look at that. I'm not going to hover there. And we can do it, but it takes discipline and discipline requires energy. And I think that's often what we don't have when we go to social media. Normally we go

there because we're just feeling frazzled. But what we're doing is we're going to the busiest place in the whole world for chill. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know it's so hard because it's so easy but there are other things that we can do it's just it's having that discipline to think i know what i want to do but what do i need and we're often thinking about that with our kids right like our kids my kids would have happily in all their easter eggs in one day um but actually we know that that's my that might have been what they want to do but their actual their need their you know they they they need more nourishment than that and it's sometimes trying to apply that to ourselves like i know that i just want to sit on

the sofa and and like climb into a scroll hole and just disappear for a little bit whereas i know that what i need may be to have a conversation with a friend or do something a bit more nurturing. Yeah. It's hard. I've never heard it called a scroll. I love that. A scroll hole. That's so good.

Also, on the algorithm thing, Anna, do you ever personally use TikTok or are you more of an Instagram kind of gal? I downloaded TikTok and then it was just another social media platform that I, yeah. Good for you. Good boundaries. I like it. Well done. But I think for anyone listening who's on TikTok, I feel like it's got an even sort of fiercer algorithm where if I literally watch something for three seconds, I think, oh my goodness, no, all I'm going to get now is videos about that thing.

So I'm so brutal in terms of like, no, no, I'm not interested. And that in itself is... But then how stressful is that? Exactly. I don't think you can win though. I'm getting all sorts of crap about electric lawnmowers at the moment because we happen to have a conversation.

Show me your age, Wendy. We happen to be talking about electric lawnmowers and now I'm getting adverts for electric lawnmowers. How can you, I can't say the word, how can you curate a feed when you can't even talk with your Wow, that's it, isn't it? I think saving posts is a really good one. So I feel so lucky because my feed generally, I mean, it's just full of quotes and psychology and neuroscience and I think that's probably just me saving things but yeah and also I think sometimes just being aware that even when we're skimming past stuff our nervous systems are on edge because we do not know whether we're going to get a really funny video of a, I don't know, a cat doing

something ridiculous or a traumatic birth story that triggers our own. So we literally, our nervous systems have learned that when we go to social media, I actually did this really interesting experiment myself, just, you know, a sample size of one. But I remember lying on the sofa and just scrolling on social media and I've got this garment watch and it tells me when I'm stressed. It tells me what my heart rate is. And I looked at it and I thought I've been chilling out. It showed that I was in low stress. I thought this is really interesting because I've literally just been lying on the sofa.

So I got my Kindle. I dove into a novel for like 15 minutes. I looked and it showed rest. So my heart rate had dropped and my stress levels had dropped. And I think that just shows us sometimes when we're exhausted, we're proactively doing things that are fueling that kind of nervous system stress internally. So sometimes even just thinking, how am I resting? What am I doing when I do get those minutes? Because we might unknowingly be increasing our stress and anxiety. So it's really worth thinking about.

Yeah. Especially if we turn to social media to relax, which so many of you get 10 minutes, you get a comment and you think, oh, just look at Instagram. And then actually you've just shown that actually maybe that's not the best way to know it isn't and we know that because we often feel a bit like when we come out of it don't we sometimes yeah but yeah and there's this thing called cognitive dissonance and it basically says it's that feeling yeah when you feel rattled you come out and you're just like oh you kind of want to throw your phone out the window but we wouldn't we wouldn't yeah let's not do that and it's it's no let's not too expensive because we kind of do need them at the out the window, but we wouldn't do that. Yeah, let's not do that. And it's too expensive. No, let's not. It's too expensive because we kind of do need them at the same time.

But it's this acknowledgement that we've just done something that actually goes against our values. So we know that our values are to be present with the kids. We know that our values are to maybe validate our emotion instead of trying to numb it or to be, I don't know, to be a little bit more proactive with certain things. So when we just fall into that scroll hole, we come out feeling, ugh, it tends to be because we've just done something that isn't really aligned with what we actually wanted or needed to do at that time. So we've talked about kind of spending time connecting with people online, but I'd be really interested to know what your advice is on helping us connect with our children, especially, she says personally, almost 13 year old girls. Yeah, I think it's two things. Number one is just to be available and just knowing that that like making yourself available is such an important thing to offer.

And I think and then the second thing is trying not to take things personally. So if they don't take you up on that availability, if they don't want to talk, if they don't turn towards you, then trying not to take that as a personal attack or as a statement on your mothering. Because I think that's often what we want to get it right. We want to get it right. And also we see our kids struggling sometimes, especially teens and preteens with all these emotions. And they're navigating trying to just, yeah, find their feet in the world.

And that time of like stepping away. And this is another thing. It's okay to grieve. Motherhood is just lots of little sadnesses sometimes isn't it because with each new stage and phase and discovery and you know great stuff that comes with that there is also that moving away from that you know that disconnecting and it's healthy but it's also hard so I think making yourself available not taking it personally when they don't take you up on that and yeah just

allowing yourself to feel sad about the changes that that are happening as you were playing that other song repeatedly over and over again isn't it little little periods yeah um no Anna you've mentioned mum guilt already and I feel like guilt can sometimes be useful. Like if it's genuinely making you check in with like your values, and you realise actually you've been behaving in a way that's not aligned with your values, then that's quite helpful, isn't it? But so often, it's just that endless narrative in your head on a loop, like you're not a good enough mum. And that's kind of exhausting. Do you have ways to pull yourself back from that when those thoughts creep in yeah so i think the first one is thinking you know when i'm thinking i'm not a good enough mom am i actually saying i'm not a perfect mom yeah you know where are we actually setting the

standard there and i think sometimes we can identify that we're not reaching an unsustainable, unrealistic goal. Really, that's what we're saying is I'm not good enough, is I'm not perfect. And a good enough mother is what the kids need. Am I good enough? There's margin for error, there's margin for humanness, there's margin for getting it wrong and repairing. There's margin for all of that in good enough. And I often say that children do not need a perfect mother. It will not help. Perfect parents do not help children navigate a messy, imperfect world. They learn about how to deal with conflict in how we apologize and how we humble ourselves when we get it wrong and how we seek to repair when we've lost our, you know, we've lost our call. They learn about apology. They

learn about connection. They learn about how to repair those ruptures that happen. They learn about how to be kind to themselves by how we respond to ourselves. So yeah, when you find yourself thinking I'm not a good enough mother, just ask yourself where, against what standard am I saying this? And then with the guilt, I totally agree. Guilt is there to prompt you. Guilt is a feeling that comes up that I don't think should ever be ignored. And what we often do is we just kind of stuff it down and it just goes into it to kind of, to add to that narrative of failing somehow and not being good enough. And actually, if we, and I often say,

imagine holding that guilt in your hand. What is it that you're feeling guilty about? And I've got this three-step technique that I developed in lockdown because I just found another million reasons to feel guilty at that point. I think we all did. And it's the ACT technique. So, it's the A, address. Ask yourself, what do I feel guilty about? Imagine holding that guilt in your hand and thinking, okay, I feel guilty because screen time has been off the chart this weekend. Okay, so you've named it. C, compassion. Have some compassion for yourself because the most important thing, when we don't address

guilt, it just can slide into that shame. So it goes from, oh, that wasn't ideal into I'm a failure, I'm not good enough, making massive statements about ourselves that feed negative self-esteem and chip away our confidence. So add some compassion. How can you be compassionate towards yourself if your kids have got a bit OTT on the screen time at the weekend? You might say, had a full-on week at work and I am done in. And if I'm with them all the time, I might lose my call. And actually, there's a healthy separation that's happening here. They've had a busy week at school. It's not ideal, but this is better than the alternative, perhaps at that moment. So have some compassion. T is tweak.

If that guilt is there to prompt you, what is it prompting you to do? And if the guilt isn't justified, it might just literally be prompting you to let go of it. That is not your guilt. So for an example might be, I didn't breastfeed for as long as I really wanted to, and I feel really guilty about that. Okay, that's not, you haven't done anything wrong. Yeah. Like you have not done anything wrong. That is not your guilt to carry, let that go. But in terms of screen time, we might think, okay, it's not ideal. So how might I tweak this? Right. You know what? At three o'clock today, we're going to go out on the bike. So we're

going to go out for a walk. We're going to get outside. I'm going to put my laptop, my phone down for a couple of hours. So what might you do off the back of that? If guilt is there to prompt you and you've let it prompt you and you've acted off the back of it, that guilt served its purpose then. It served its purpose. And again, you can let it go. So, yeah, there's some little tips on the mum guilt. I love it. So following on from that, I wanted to talk to you about self-care because there's again a guilty narrative that we should always prioritize our

children over ourselves but we need to look after ourselves as well and so many mums struggle with self i can't speak today i'm sorry so many mums struggle with self-care because it seems like something selfish how do you kind of suggest we get around that? Oh, I'm so passionate about this one because I have been through burnout. There will be people listening to this and maybe you guys have experienced burnout when you are literally you've pushed beyond, beyond, beyond the limits of your resources so chronically. And people do this because of people pleasing. They do it because perhaps there are children with extra needs in the home that require, you know, a lot more from you.

Perhaps there's lack of support. It might be that you're a perfectionist and your standards are right up there. So you're just pushing, pushing, pushing. And I must say that the more I give out beyond the limits of what I have to give, the more reactive I am, the more shouty I am, the more tearful I am, the less I am likely to even have half a conversation with my husband in the evening, just grunt, don't talk to me. We cannot give when we haven't got anything to give. And I think that's where burnout and overwhelm happens. And also rage., rage is often overwhelm. Those moments where it just all spills

out with us. And we can be so shaming towards ourselves. And I'm so passionate about reframing rage as overwhelm. You know, instead of being mad at yourself, ask yourself, what do I need? What can I do to refill and refuel myself? So I have learned personally as a perfectionist, people pleasing mother of an autistic child who, you know, there's a lot to give basically in my head and in my home. And I've learned that actually I have to look after myself. It is an act of love to my children when I prioritize going out for a walk, when I prioritize having a bath, when I prioritize having a bath, when I can say to them, you know what, guys, I'm actually just resting at the minute.

I'll do that in 10 minutes. I need them to see me rest. I need them to respect and understand that mummy has to do this morning. They're five, seven and nine now, right? This morning was a sweet spot. They sat on the sofa for 20 minutes and I did a workout 20 minutes and you know i had to go in a few times that's the dream but i was just in the room next door it is the dream but they also i recognize that this is important because if i'm going to go on a walk later before before their home and i'm going to need to do a lot of emotional containing and this is it as mums we are holding a lot together we are giving a lot we are grounding our children when they have their little emotional storms. And all of these things take energy.

All of these things take patience and calm. So I literally imagine that I have a phone charge. This is a terrible metaphor. Coming out of my bottom. And when I'm sitting down, it's a terrible metaphor. But this is what I had to do myself. And this is what I do with my clients, those that really struggle with understanding the importance of rest and self-care, those who have historically felt guilty or selfish or bad when they slow down. They don't believe that they

are ultimately deserving of slowness and rest and refueling is to imagine that we are literally like a phone battery recharging when we do these things. And we need energy to, we need energy to parent well, we need energy to rationalize anxious thoughts, we need energy to laugh. You know, Wendy, I don't know about you, but you're really tired. I wonder how your sense of humor is going to be later today. You know, probably not laughing at the you know the things that you might normally chuckle at probably going to be quite annoying but you're doing on the edge yes exactly but we need energy to have a sense of humor you know we need energy to relax and feel at ease believe it or not and that's really interesting she don't think of it you

don't we don't think of it like that but We don't think of it like that. But you also said, I recall you saying that things like washing your hair, making a cup of tea, having a shower, they're not self-care. Nah. They are just basic human existence. Yes, basic acts of self-respect. Get the balance right. Get those things done. Do those things.

And I remember putting out a little Instagram thing, asking people to pledge to do one small thing each day that week for themselves and loads of them saying i'm gonna drink water i'm gonna eat lunch i'm gonna have i'm gonna brush my teeth and i'm like guys like that's amazing but also if this is where the self-care is at that you are pledging to do to hydrate your body to nourish your body you know we think if we were to treat our children in that way and deny them those things going for a wee when we need a wee how how often do we really like push it because the email is more important you know how often do we get other things off the shopping

list before we go and pick up a prescription or book an appointment for ourselves you know what are we actually saying to ourselves we are saying the bananas are more important than my medical prescription we are saying that my kids football shorts are more important than my gp appointment when actually you know what are we what are we doing to our self-esteem and our sense of worth when we are putting these little things above our basic needs? And if we were to treat our children in this way, it would be termed as neglect. Yeah.

Just a quick reminder that you can watch all four episodes of the brilliant Johnson's Babies A Parent Is Born docuseries now. Directed by BAFTA award-winning filmmaker Leanna Stewart, it follows eight families across their first year of parenthood. Just head to johnsonsbaby.co.uk forward slash your parent is born to watch the whole docuseries now. The final episode just went live and it's a great one. Now I loved your recent Instagram post about no emotion being a bad emotion. And if we view it like that, then we judge ourselves and we feel shame. But it's actually really hard, I think, when you've been brought up to be tall, as many of us have been, you know, being tall, stop crying, cheer up, crack on. You know, we haven't been given the space to feel those emotions. So we automatically see them as being bad yeah but how is that how yeah how has that served us you know how has that served us as adults and we are doing this amazing thing of unlearning these narratives and also trying to parent in a different way than we were

parented so we have a foot in having been parented in one way and then a foot in the camp of trying to parent in a way that we weren't parented ourselves and trying to respond differently to these things, knowing what we know. So it is, you know, we're kind of bridging a gap here is Anna. We've got a lot on our plates and we should be, we are, we are, we're changing, we're changing generational stuff. And we really, really are. We're working on self-esteem and self-compassion. And these things are new for so many of us. You know, so many of us had amazing moms that never sat down. And we are trying so hard to challenge this narrative so that we can embrace rest, so that our children one day will recognize their deservedness to relax and rest and slow and be a part of the, I would say, like be part of, it's your Christmas too. It's your summer too. It's your holiday too. It's your weekend too.

Put yourself back into the story rather than just being on the periphery, being the facilitator. And it's, yeah, we want to step back into being a part of it rather than just running around the edge of it now so that our children will feel able yeah absolutely one of my favorite ever and i'm author nuggets of wisdom is you talking about reframing motherhood tasks i feel like every time i speak to you i bring this up so i do apologize for being like a broken record it's my favorite can you share it with Wendy and our audience in case they haven't come across it I'm in need oh you'll love this one you'll love this one so it's it's turning the I've got to to the I get to actually I remember kind of yeah thinking about this and then one day I was doing

all yes the relentless washing just sat on the sat on the floor by the washing machine just yeah pulling it all out think just really grumpy felt like one of those mundane never any things I'd be doing till the day that I died and I thought you know what I'm gonna just reframe this because I was yeah it's just and I thought I get to I get to do the washing right it doesn't work at first you're like wendy's not but then when you start thinking and when it's not convinced wendy i will convince you i will convince you i get to do the washing i get to have a washing machine my nana did washing and some using some really interesting tools um i get to do this washing in a home that i am so privileged to afford the electricity for i I get to have running

water and I've been to countries where they do not. And it doesn't, you know, it doesn't, they have a lot of sewage around. We are so privileged to have the sanitary system that we have. I get to wash these little clothes. What an absolute privilege that is, these clothes that we have afforded our children. And yeah, it's just recognizing the absolute privileges of the mundane and turning the mundane into something. Well, at the end of the, you know, it took me a couple of minutes maybe, but I was tearful at the washing machine and I left, I got out from the floor feeling very different. And I shared this on social media and someone said, you know what, you can't do this for the bins, taking the bins out. I was like, yes, yes, you can. Now I get to take the bins out. I get to

live in a country that has this offering. I can move this bin with my muscles. There will be people who will literally just wish that they could just take their own bins out one more time because they can't. And it's things like that that i think sometimes you make me cry about this sorry these things are boring and they are arduous but you know what they are a privilege and it is absolutely vital that we don't use this to bash our very valid emotion of overwhelm, of boredom, of loneliness, of needing help. You know, grassroot is amazing. But when we use it to kind of shame ourselves, I shouldn't be feeling overwhelmed because actually, I'm really privileged and loads of people want this. And I

think we do this really quickly, don't we? And it was a very much a coping mechanism in the pandemic. You know, I shouldn't feel overwhelmed. I shouldn't feel bogged down by the home learning because I'm so grateful that my family are healthy I'm so grateful when actually this is where my favorite little word and I'm surprised I haven't had it tattooed on my body somewhere yet um is is the word and there's still time um is the word and you know i can feel overwhelmed and grateful i can feel bored and recognized by my privilege you know and it's the fact that all of those emotions can actually just coincide together and they're just a response to the circumstances so don't shame yourself but also allow yourself to bring in a bit of gratitude to bring some balance um yeah powerful stuff for me for sure one of the other ands out there is anxiety and overwhelm we you talk a lot about

those early years i certainly think it's when a lot of mums especially feel that combination of anxiety and overwhelm what What was your experience of anxiety when you were a new mum? Oh, well, I had a lot of routine anxiety after my first. So this is something I actually wrote about in my book on post-natal anxiety called Mind Over Mother. Because I don't think it was that spoken about. But routine anxiety, for me, I really needed order to make me feel safe, really needed predictability, routine in my own life. So then having a baby that hadn't read the book, the books, there was a book back then. And yeah, the anxiety around routine and not being able to have routine and just a total fixation or when he would want to sleep before nap time or i'd have

to wake him up at a certain time and being in the car at a time when he should be in that time and it was this massive fixation exactly the same manner i remember having like having to plan an entire day around where we were driving because that she needed to nap at that time because if she didn't nap at that time now what what actually would have happened but i was you're like this you're tightly coiled about the whole thing yeah and then number two comes along and you're like well you just have to sleep when you're going yeah yeah you have to let go of that don't you kind of gets that one gets prized out of your hands and i remember having a friend and she was so chilled. She just didn't have a routine.

She just fed when the baby wanted to feed. Whereas I was just like, oh, baby's due a feed and is asleep. But I should wake him up and feed him. Because for me, routine was a coping mechanism. So it was like a lifeboat, but it had holes in because it wasn't, I couldn't really hold onto it that tightly. So it was quite, yeah, I think some of us just are wired in that way and just love a bit of routine and predictability so that really and it's a when it is a coping mechanism for you that can that can be a bit

destabilizing when you have a baby but I relaxed in time and then I had a second one that had silent reflux and he just yeah there was no routine or no sleep or no nothing so that was when I had a lot of intrusive thoughts because I was so tired so I'd be getting all of these horrible thoughts and just kind of intruding on my mind I'd be despite the fact that I was you know an experienced psychotherapist at this point I'd never had thoughts that were so horrible and so relentless. And that really had me questioning my right to be a therapist and how sane I was and what would happen if I spoke these out loud. So that's another thing that I talk a lot about is intrusive thoughts and how, you know, the more tired we are, our brain is always kind of toying with risk and responsibility and power and possibility. And sometimes things just play out in our mind. And when they're unpleasant, we're more likely to latch onto them. So new,

tired mums might have lots of intrusive thoughts around dropping the baby down the stairs or those like the buggy kind of going into the road and those horrible thoughts that have you shuddering. And then you might then act on them to be self-protective. So you might think, well, I can't take the baby downstairs or I don't want to take the buggy near to the edge of the road. And you might panic if someone's walking where you want to go. And the more tired we are, the less able we are to kind of rationalize and coach ourselves through these thoughts. And again, we can really judge ourselves for them and question what that means about us and for us. And so that's why it's really important to understand a bit more about intrusive thoughts they're just thoughts that are that our brain has and if they're

relentless and if they're trauma-based then absolutely seek support and and you know in terms of general anxiety in in motherhood i mean i i suffered from it too like when my twins were really little i remember feeling like just the thought of going out with them on my own was just too much to handle me I didn't take them to the park until they were about four um what are the things that we can do to tackle anxiety is it do we always need to seek help or are there things that we can do ourselves I think when when we know that there are certain anxious thoughts that are really impacting our day-to-day life or they have a certain theme that just yeah feels really reminiscent of something we've been through then that may well be trauma linked so I would absolutely recommend getting

support but when it comes to yeah those the kind of rumination and some of these intrusive thoughts that have us kind of maybe changing our day and feeling quite fearful, then there is so much that we can do. I think just recognizing that we are not our thoughts is really, really helpful, that they're just your brain responding to what's going on around you. And we can change them in time. We can bring in a second thought. And I think this is often what we don't do is we just take our thoughts at face value. And what we can do, and this is a really, really powerful tool, is to bring, we can't control the first thought that we have. So you might think, I can't go to the park,

something bad's going to happen. And then that might be your first thought. And maybe you don't challenge it. You just think, well, so I just can't go to the park then. But actually to challenge that might be to bring in, and the most important thing is, is that it's a kind, grounding, compassionate voice. So think about a friend, someone that's historically been really kind and supportive. What might they say? They might say, you know what, Alison? Yeah, it's completely new. It feels really unknown. It feels risky because you haven't done it a lot yet to feel safe doing that. What might it be like to ask a friend to come with you and to tell them that you're feeling a bit overwhelmed by this? You know, you're not mad.

You're just having a really normal response to suddenly a huge life shift and having twins. That's a double, double whammy. They go off in different directions so just yeah think about some kind compassionate supportive words that you can add into that narrative as that second thought that can bring a bit more balance and bring a bit more possibility so that can be a really helpful one that's good so in the second book you talk about self-worth and you talk about knowing, and the book's called Know Your Worth, and you talk about knowing your worth. And am I right that you say it's not that our worth has changed, it's that our awareness of our worth has changed?

Can you explain what you mean by that? Because that's got me. That got you. So we have fundamental worth. We have value in and of ourselves being human beings. We have value. We have worth. And if we think about our kids, you know, when they're really young, they don't question their worth.

They don't question their needs. They verbalize their feelings. They verbalize their needs. They know that they're important. If they've been loved like most children, they know that they're important, they know that they matter. And then it's as they move through life, and we do our best, don't we, to instill a really good sense of self-worth and confidence in our children for themselves. But we know when we've been through life, and we've had maybe a teacher that was mean to us, and then we think, oh,

there's something wrong with me. And then maybe we get a bit bullied and maybe, you know, we apply for a job and we get kind of knocked back a lot. And our sense and our understanding of our worth starts changing and starts wavering. And the stronger sense of self that we have, the stronger sense, that stronger awareness of our worth that we have, the less we're going to be impacted by those things along the way. So if someone's a bit mean to you, you might think, you know what, I know that I'm okay. I know that I tried to be kind in that moment. I know that they're probably just responding because someone else is, you know, being mean to them or we can kind of actually think that not everything

is to do with us and we're not deserving of every bit of negative treatment and criticism that comes our way. And actually, I often think about it like a windscreen. You know, your worth is the windscreen. That windscreen is there, that is unchanging. Your self-esteem and your awareness of your worth is often is the bits on the windscreen, the dead flies, the kind of dried up rain. And actually, those things cloud your sense of worth. So what we can do is get the windscreen right. What's really funny is I thought you were saying a windscreen. And I was like, what?

A windscreen? I need a windscreen. A windscreen. We all need a windscreen. A windscreen. I love that. I was suddenly thinking if I got it right, because they're not called windscreen. A windscreen. We all need a windscreen. We all need a windscreen, don't we? I love it.

A windscreen, we all want one. That would be good for our words, is to have a little windscreen, get a bit of glass and write on all those things, all those winds, all those kind things about yourself. That would definitely help with such-worth. I heard someone giving advice once. It was in a work setting. They were saying basically, anytime anyone emails you a compliment or,

oh, wow, we did that really well, save all of those emails into a little folder. If you're ever having a bad day, just have a little read through all those emails. I was like, yep, I like that. Absolutely. That is a really, really good idea. It's just to note down the lovely feedback that you get because of that negative bias. We are

far more likely to zone in on the critical and the negative, but also know that just like the criticism and just like the rough things that happen that do not change your fundamental worth. If our kids get something wrong, are they worth less somehow? If a kid is mean to them, are they worth less somehow? No, they are not. And neither are we. But also, if someone says something lovely about you, it doesn't really make you worth more. It does though. It makes you feel better and it makes you maybe sometimes people are able to see us better than we see ourselves. So if they're kind to us can it can make us reflect that actually maybe that is

that is a part of me and maybe I can dare to recognize that and accept that but also yeah just like I think we can sometimes then just want the praise and want the positives and want you know want people to say good stuff about us because that makes us feel better when actually we're all right we have worth regardless of the criticism and regardless of of the good stuff that people say too just doesn't change so can i ask you to give us a sneak preview of your new book which i am told is called the uncomfortable truth change your life by taming 10 of your mind's greatest fears yeah i just announced it um which is really exciting because i don't like keeping those big secrets and the big thing that's going on in the background is like consuming all of your thoughts at time and then you're not allowed to talk about it so i'm really glad that it's out there now

um so this book is it actually just came to me one day i i thought of i was just literally it just came to me in a moment i wrote it all down and it was these 10 uncomfortable truths these truths of life that we cannot change and they are that some people don't like us bad things happen we will fail can't always be present we won't always be good enough for everything and everyone. We will lose people we love. It ends up with actually the fact that we're going to die. So it sounds really scary and really negative. But the whole thing is that we literally often contort ourselves, control things, exhaust ourselves trying to change these truths, right? The truth is that some people in our lives won't like us. And that's most likely absolutely nothing to do with us whatsoever. And the more energy we input

trying to please people, trying to change their minds, trying to tick every box for everyone, you know, we can lose ourselves in the process of actually coming to a place of acceptance that some people just won't like us. And that's just part of being human. That's part of being lots of people living alongside each other with different characteristics and different personalities. It's just a fact. And also, we will fail. And we can fear failure so much that we actually don't do things that we could be pretty great at. We don't do things that we could really enjoy I've always said I'm terrible at sport right and so therefore I've never played sport until November I walked past

the squash court I don't know what came over me and I thought I want to have a go at that I'm actually not bad and I just wish that years ago I hadn't been so scared of being bad at stuff that I didn't try because I could have had way more years of playing something fun and doing something fun like that. I did something similar with cricket. I really was bad. Oh, you were bad. Yeah.

Maybe keep going. You know when someone's like, come on, we're playing female cricket. Female cricket. And you know what? Yeah, yeah. It's like this women's cricket team. And she was like, you'll be really good at it. Come along.

And I was like, oh, and I did. I was really good. But you tried it. It doesn't always work. But you tried it, you know, and that's great. So it's a little life experience. That's a little experiment. And you found out how that went.

But, you know, so often we can be so fearful of not being good at things that we don't go for jobs, that we don't ask the promotion. We don't we don't ask for stuff because we just think we'll either fail or our request will fail. So if we can just accept that we will fail and just come to a place of acceptance of that, then we're far more likely just to try things because we know that we might fail, but actually we might not. So it's really simple. Yeah, well, it is. But, you know, in practice, it's often a tussle, isn't it? So it's really this, this, yeah, gentle challenge to look at some of these uncomfortable truths at life that often restrict us and exhaust us so that we can feel more empowered to live a bit more wholeheartedly

and authentically and fully. I think it sounds amazing. I'm definitely going to have it lined up with all my other Anna books on my bookshelf. Thank you, Alison. I am a bit of an Anna super fan. Anna knows this already. Well, it's mutual. It's mutual, isn't it? It's very mutual. But finally, Anna, motherhood isn't all bad.

We've talked about a lot of the tough stuff in our chat today, but it's important that we seek out the beauty and the joy in it where we can and I love your advice on noticing like your child's eyelashes or their small fingers when either of you are in the middle of having a bit of a moment why is that such an effective tool do you think so that was really just about so my son's autistic we have a lot of meltdowns in my family and then my daughter just often decides that she's going to get stuck in and jump on the meltdown the meltdown train so sometimes it can just be pretty loud and pretty full-on in my home and as a result I can feel quite stressed then one of my little tactics that I started was just to in those moments when

it all feels overwhelming look at something about them so look zone in like look at my son's eyelashes look at my daughter's little fingers and it reminds me how small they are and how grown up I am despite the fact that I don't feel like it but it also gets me to access the fact that I love them and they're so precious so it brings a little bit of balance into some of those feelings of just like ah this is so hard and I just find that so that I find that so helpful just looking at those little beautiful gorgeous delicious bits of them so nice I'll take that that sounds like a win thank you Anna it has been so lovely to talk to you thank you for joining us thank you for having me it's been an absolute pleasure I've loved it don't forget you can get in touch with us on all social channels instagram facebook tiktok

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