The Therapy Edit - One Thing with Carly Rowena on how nothing is permanent except death

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

In this guest episode of The Therapy Edit, Anna chats to author, retreat host, coach and mentor, Carly Rowena about her One Thing; on how nothing is permanent except death.From conquering Mt Kilimanjaro to Machu Picchi, from Portugal to Bali, England to Greece creating a safe space for individuals to come and explore who they really are with likeminded people is one Carly's favourite things to do and she has in fact just moved to Bali! Fine out more about all that Carly has to offer here:Read Carly's book ‘Beautiful Body’ Download Carly's App MoodmentLearn about Carly's 4 week mentorship programme

Hello and welcome to The Therapy Edit with me, psychotherapist's mum of three and author Anna Martha. Every Friday, I invite one guest to tell me the one thing they would most like to share with mums everywhere. So join with me as we hear this dose of wisdom. I hope you enjoy it. Hi, everyone. Welcome to today's guest episode of The Therapy Edit. I am really excited just to sit down in my upstairs living room in a cozy corner of the chaotic house and chat with Carly Rowena. Carly is, and I've been following her for a long time on

Instagram and I love that she is not afraid to openly tackle any topic head on, talking about the nuances of confidence, our relationship with our bodies, sex, everything. She's got the most beautiful and articulate way of delving into these topics. And it's just so, honest, which really frees us up from shame, but also enables us to, we'll just start those conversations with those around us as well. So I'm forever grateful for Carly being on my feed. She is a children's author. She has an app called Moodman, which I'd love to hear a little bit more about. She's a personal trainer, a mentor and a retreat host. And all of these different kind of roles just, yeah, just shape what she shares so beautifully. She was 24 when she turned to Google

and asked, what is the best job in the world? And Google didn't have the answer. So that's when she started filming videos on YouTube. So honestly, she has a book coming out in, is it Jan or Feb? I've got... Yes, I've got actually three of them. So the first one should be out in January. That's what we're hoping for.

And then another couple. So it's like a selection of kids' books, all on tricky topics. Yeah. And the one that I've got written about here in my notes is the one called My Beautiful Body. and you've written that out of a real passion that your daughter will just have confidence in her own body and you've written here that you'd read the day that your daughter comes home and tells me

that someone has made her look at herself negatively and this is why you've written your book, A Beautiful Body. Yeah, because do you remember? Do you remember the first time someone commented on your body? Because I do. I was like, I think it was horse teeth and hairy monkey arms. Oh, I used to get bunny teeth. Yeah, I don't know what it is about the teeth

and it's so unfair, isn't it what she could do? And also, I was the first kid to get the whole orthodontist braces as well back then. I had one went around my head of one of those bad boys. So there was no hide in a metal frame around my head. No, we had it so unfair. No, I can just remember it really well. And it stuck with me. And I've moved on from all of that, but I'm waiting.

She's just 10.5. I'm waiting for that day that she comes home and she says something. Like, you know, I dread the day when she kind of notices that her belly is so lovely and round as kids' belly should be. And I just think, oh, so I'm. just wanted to write something that we could read together. So she would listen and take in the words, but also as a reminder to myself, it's a really simple book, but it just reminds me that your body is, you know, it's more than a home. It's a friend. And if we take care of it, it takes

care of you. And just very simple. It's genderless. And to be fair, the children have got all different colored skin, like pink and purple and orange hair and all sorts. So it's really just, it's just kids. It's just for everyone to, yeah, just remind ourselves that our bodies are not something to be so unkind about. Yeah, and I think you say it's just kids, but also. Yeah, you're right. We need to be reminding ourselves of this all the time, don't we? And as we teach our children, we're also challenging all of that different messaging that we've heard throughout the years. Yeah, that's what I love about books, because you don't realize while you're talking to them that you're taking it in. I think books are so multidimensional, the person reading, the person listening. It's just, yeah, it's a lovely bonding time, but it's also a great reminder. What an amazing gift to give parents as well to know that there are these books that we, that can help us. have those conversations with our children. So that's the one.

Tell us about the other two. I've got a monster called work because, I mean, we work from home, don't we? And my daughter is always like, I don't like work because she understands that obviously it takes me away sometimes or I'll be doing this. So I've kind of got this book where the monster is work. And it's explaining mainly to the parents that either go away or have to work at home. It's so confusing to try and explain that to them. So it kind of goes through that.

We've also got one about death because my daughter had a friend. at school and her mom passed away and rightly so the dad had said oh she passed away in her sleep but then my daughter didn't sleep for a month because she was so scared that she was going to pass away in her sleep children are so literal so I wanted to write a book that would explain that we don't know what happens but if we want to decide ourselves what we would like to think has happened that works better so it's kind of opening it up so you can think they might be dancing in the sky if that's what you want or they're simply no longer here or they're in the ground and it kind of is a book that through animals we have the

conversation around death and that it's a it's a journey that none of us fully understand but we can make it less scary if we come up with an idea of what we'd like it to be wow such incredible incredible resources and that i've heard it said before that authors often write the books that they need or need it and it sounds so true in your case that there are these conversations that have come up and you know undoubtedly that they will be coming up in other people's homes with other people's children so you've written books in response to that yeah because you can so easily, not mess it up. We all know we're going to mess up our children in some way, shape or form, but it's so easy to say something and just be like, oh, definitely said the wrong thing.

And so I think in book, because you end up reading it several times, or it sits there and obviously as they age, they look at it differently, you've got a chance to kind of just give them other options. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. And I'm excited because, you know, there's three, but hopefully there will be many more conversations that you have with your kids along the way. And your youngest one is only six weeks as we record. So, yeah, just to see how that collection grows and what a gift that is to parents. So thank you. Thanks.

Anyway, I always kick off. We're just asking how you are and you can be as top level or as deep as you want to be. But how are you today, Carly? I'm definitely the bird that's on nice and relaxed on the top of the river and completely swimming underneath. Yeah, you do look pretty relaxed. Thank you. It's because you're so calming. No, I mean, this is a lovely way to start my day.

I would probably say overwhelmed but incredibly excited. It's probably where I'm at right now. Okay. Well, of the back of that, I will ask you what your one thing is. Because if I ask you why you're feeling overwhelmed and excited, we might give the game away. But, Carly, if there is one thing, you would love to share with all the months listening,

what would that one thing be? So I've kind of changed it. I was going to go with one route. Now I'm going down another. But I was going to say that there's a thing. thing that I live by, and I think it's really important coming up to a new year 2024, which is that nothing in life is permanent except for death, which is quite morbid. But I feel like it frees, especially as mum's up as well, to look for every moment that we have each day as a chance to make

it incredible, even the smallest, smallest moment. So if we just take each day as it is. So I'd love to chat about that. Amazing. So nothing in life is permanent except for death. And you're right. I think as soon as we talk about death, it can suddenly feel very morbid, can't it? And I think because there's a lot of anxiety, people have a lot of anxiety around death. So why is there something then that is actually really a really freeing and empowering thought for you? Because I think for a lot of us, we just think, we don't think about it. So we think we're just going to be here for a really long time. So we put stuff off. And we don't make the most of the moments that we have because we're waiting for the weekend or we're waiting for the holiday or waiting for something else to come up. And

actually when you think about the fact that nothing is permanent except that one thing, it frees you work for plot changing at any point. So you can be like, okay, where I'm at right now, so for example, I'm in the newborn stage and I love the newborn stage, but obviously it comes with its own tricky sections. And I remind myself, nothing about this time is permanent at all. It's going to move on to the next phase and we'll find the next thing difficult. Jack's my daughter. She's not sleeping at the moment. That's not permanent. That's going to change. Everything about my life is going to change except that one thing that we all dread. So why don't I roll with those things changing? And when I remind myself of that, those things that feel so

difficult or overwhelming suddenly feel less difficult because I know it's not permanent. Oh, so yeah, that is powerful, isn't it? And I think the number of times I felt really trapped in situations. I remember a job that I really, really struggled with every day. And then I remember writing. Someone challenged me to write my, you know, letter of notice just as an exercise. And it was so, I just thought, oh my gosh, I don't, I don't have to do this forever. It was as if I felt like I had to be there forever. So, yeah, just that, that reminder that nothing, nothing has to be permanent and nothing is permanent. You can change it at any point. We forget that we can plot change. I think, especially, I don't know, I feel like my generation is very much, you know, we

didn't want to have too many jobs on our CV, everything had to look, we couldn't have any gaps in it, everything had to look like it was progression. I don't know why. Now I'm like, if you're unhappy, change. Why would we stay if we're unhappy? What, what, because it looks good on a CV that no one really looks at anymore? Like I just, yeah, and so I think, yeah, just thinking I can change because you can't, like we're all working on changing our mindset all the time. We're all manifesting. We're all doing self-care, all these different things. And we change that really fast. Like as soon as a new skincare product comes out, everyone's like, let's try. that because that's going to be better. But we could do that in life. You know, we can not necessarily

like jump big changes. I'm going to make some big changes. We can do that. But I think just realizing that you can change if you're unhappy in small ways and sometimes in big ways. And having that lens of the impermanence of life. I actually remember it threw me back when you, when you said that to a time when I was sat here actually at my desk. And I remember deciding that I spent so long just fearing how limited life was that I started telling myself I'm going to die and it sounds so morbid but actually I found it acutely freeing because it was coming to this acceptance of the fact that at some point I will die but it just challenges all those shoulds and it challenges the decisions that you make and you think you know what life isn't forever what am I doing that

I feel trapped in what where are those shoulds so yeah I totally get where you're coming from but as you said at the beginning you are feeling a mixture of overwhelmed and excited so how does that tie in to this message so I have I always try to live by my eight year old self and my 80 year old self because I feel like my eight year old self is always thinking play and fun and my eight year old self will be looking back on things we should have done and I have always wanted to try living somewhere else. I've traveled a lot. My career has enabled me to visit lots of different countries. But I have this, I just can't settle and I'm not ready to be as, I have a wonderful life, but I'm not ready to be as comfortable as I am right now. Even as a mom with a newborn and a

daughter who's five and a dog and a great career, I am changing it all to move to Costa Rica on the 6th of January. With a six week old will be, I guess, eight weeks by then. And a five-year-old and off you go. Yeah. And how did it, like, where did that, how did it feel when you made that decision? So I actually found that not knowing, I knew I wanted to live somewhere else in the world, but it was a little bit like when I was 24 and I didn't know what job I wanted to do. Knowing I want to be somewhere else, but not knowing where was far more stressful than figuring out where in the end. Like, once I knew where I wanted to be, it felt like, like a weight off my shoulders. And then it's just the trickiness of organizing it. But again, that fear of the

unknown, knowing there was something for me but not knowing what it was, that was so stressful. Yeah, it took me back to my young self and I just didn't know what job I was meant to be and I would be searching and how do you find that dream job when you don't know and you can't train for it if you don't know and you're wasting time technically, that kind of thing. So the same thing felt like it was happening here and we were meant to actually go to Costa Rica just before COVID just as a holiday. So that wasn't meant to be. And then we spent last year in Switzerland and Portugal, Canada, just exploring different places, hoping that it would feel right.

And every part of me wanted it to be Portugal because it's so close by and a lot's easier. And I loved Portugal, but I didn't feel creatively inspired, which I know for obviously our jobs, that that's something that we really need. And then we went to Costa Rica on holiday. And I love it there and would love to be there. But I was thinking, no, my husband's just not going to want to be here. It's so far. And then we're in a supermarket and he picked up something.

and he just was like, I'm going to need to get more clients. And I was like, why? He said, because I want to live here. And it was so lovely because it was really driven by me. It's me who's wanted to live somewhere forever and he's so supportive. So when he actually turned around and said, I want to live here, it was like, this is how it's meant to happen. And so, yeah, so we've been just sort of sorting everything out for the past couple of months. And I knew I wanted to have another baby, but I didn't feel like I wanted to have it.

I love England, by the way. I just feel like I need a break. I didn't want to have another child here I found it quite lonely having a child in England and I feel like I want to build more of a community and so I could see it. You know, when you visualised stuff, I can see this child over in Costa Rica

and we found versions of ourselves that we just don't want to risk not feeling for longer. Yeah, do you know what I think? I definitely do not want to move to Costa Rica. I don't feel like that. However, I think what this does, it stirs up in us that question of what if. And I think what is interesting about what you're saying,

it wasn't like an overnight decision. Like you knew you wanted to go somewhere and that was it. You got a map out and you stuck a pin in it and there we go. You know, this was, it sounds like quite a long process. And I did a podcast recently with Rosie Nixon and she was the editor of Hello magazine. And then, you know, she left and that was a massive step. and she was saying this was a two-year process. People look and they see me leaving

and having this massive life shift when actually there was things bubbling under the surface and dreams and questions and, you know, and it sounds like it's just you were allowing yourself to wonder. Yeah, and for a long time I hadn't allowed myself. So I think I saw my sister yesterday and I was like, I've wanted to be somewhere else since I was like 18.

But I've never had the opportunity because I've either people please, everybody else, so boyfriends, jobs, family, etc. And now at the stage of my life, when you have your own family, I think suddenly you're like, again, nothing's permanent. I want to do this now because we're all growing up and changing and time is short. If I don't do it now, I truthfully don't think we would actually ever do it. And I get a lot of messages from people that are like, aren't you going to miss your family and your friends? Yes, oh my gosh, of course. And my parents are in their 80s. So it's not great timing when you think about life journeys. But I just know if we don't

don't do this now. When I am 80 or whatever age I get to live to, I'm going to regret that we didn't just do it. And I think if I didn't have children and it was just me, it's so much easier. But of course, when you're taking other people's lives with you, it's just so much more of a process. Yeah. And I love that thought of living with your eight-year-old self that is the playful, they're less mindful of all the shoulds and the 80-year old self that will be looking back thinking, I wish I had engaged more. I wish I hadn't worried so much. I wish I hadn't lived to so many sheds. And I think that's a message as well, isn't it? For those listening, thinking, Carly, but I can't just up and leave, even if I wanted to because I've got this mortgage

and I've got these childcare costs and I've got this job and I need all of these things in place. So what might your encouragement be for those who are actually kind of fairly happy doing what they're doing, but also have this sense of, there might be more for me. What could that look like in day-to-day life if people were to challenge themselves a little bit? Yeah, I think it's the allowing. I think a lot of us don't allow ourselves to want. We allow ourselves to want in different ways, such as perhaps clothes and, you know, there's little things that give you like that little boost. But thinking in the biggest scale of what is it, that like longing that you would love to explore further. And it might be you haven't given any love to yourself. For example, you want to go

and do something like a pottery course just to give back to yourself or you want to just go and listen to a song and dance in the garage while the kids are upstairs for a second and just want to get back to yourself. I think it's looking at what we're not fulfilling for ourselves, not thinking about everybody else, just for a second sitting with yourself. So journaling's really good. In the morning, I generally do that or in the evening. And I just will ask myself, like, what do I, what do I want? Especially as parents, it's really hard. We're giving our kids everything and we're usually the bottom of the pile. But if we make ourselves the top of the pile generally that gives us more love to give to them and we're setting such a good example for

them to do the same so although it feels really uncomfortable me sitting there and being like what do I want I want some time to go and do something for myself like this morning I wanted to go to the gym my daughter was screaming she doesn't want me to go my son wakes up because he wants milk but I know if I go I come back a much better mum and it sets the example to her that she should be doing the same when she's older she doesn't need to please everybody else she should please herself first so I think it's looking in at what do you want and finding small pockets of ways to add that into your day. I love that. And I'm thinking, you know, looking back through that lens of, yeah, life is finite. And the only thing that is permanent is that very fact. I'm thinking I wish maybe I'd ask for more in that job.

Maybe I'd asked for a promotion or maybe actually in that friendship at university, I wish that I had placed a boundary. with how a certain friends treated and spoke to me. So, yeah, you're right. Actually, sometimes it is just about thinking, what do I need for today? What do I need for this season of my life and my work, in my home? And how might I look through that lens of nothing is permanent apart from my own mortality?

And how can I, yeah, just live a little bit more within that? I love it. Oh my gosh. So empowering, especially as we look ahead to a year and sometimes there is just a huge amount of pressure, isn't there, to change everything when actually this started with you allowing yourself the dream and give yourself permission. Yeah, I'm thinking like what your eight-year-old self is always dreaming. And I think, and it doesn't need to be big things. I'm doing the extreme. But again, this has taken years down the line. But, you know, like as a new year comes in, I would just be looking at those small, like I often think of, you know, when your computer goes wrong and it gives you like

rainbow wheel of death. Oh, yes. To a lot of my, like, mental clients, I talk to them and I'm like, I feel like that. They feel like that. Like they're just this rainbow will of death, just going around around. I'm like, you've just got to like slice it in somewhere. What is that somewhere that needs disrupting? And it can be something really, really small, like not scrolling the first thing you wake up

or not being on the internet all night long. And then that little wheel of death is gone and you can make starts with the little things. Yeah, we don't need to make such big changes. It can just be a small slice. That's amazing. And I guess it's probably those small changes. that built confidence to ask and allow those bigger, the bigger wanderings and the bigger questions. Well, thank you so much.

And I encourage everyone to go and benefit from all your beautiful, thought-provoking, empowering musings on social media. And also to check out to your upcoming books, which are going to just, yeah, be a really powerful resource and something to have on the shelf to facilitate those really important conversations. But to finish off, I would love to ask you, what is one thing that makes you feel good? One thing that makes me feel good. Apart from travel and journaling, you can't use those. I can't find. I mean, I don't want to be a typical person trying to say movement, but getting outside is just the best thing ever. And I notice it for kids as well.

If you can just get outside, no such thing as bad weather, just bad weather, just bad clothing, as my dad used to say. Love it. Yeah. Being outside is definitely the best thing. Even when I don't want to do it, it's great and miserable. Like now, if I get outside, I'm a whole different person. So, yeah. I'm with you.

I am so with you on that. Well, thank you so much. And what a lovely way to accompany people as they do head outside. It is with your lovely words. So thank you for joining me. Thanks, Carly. Thank you, lovely. I'll see you soon.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Therapy. And if you have enjoyed it, don't forget to subscribe and review for me. Also, if you need any resources at all, I have lots of videos and courses and everything from health anxiety to driving anxiety and people pleasing. They are all on my website, anamatha.com. And also, don't forget my brand new book, Raising a Happier Mother is out now for you to enjoy and benefit from. It's all about how to find balance, feel good and see your children flourish as a result. Speak to you soon. Thank you.