The Therapy Edit - One Thing with Emma Campbell on the life changing power of accepting help

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

In this guest episode of The Therapy Edit Anna chats to Emma, mum of 4 (inlcuding triplets!) about the one thing she'd love to tell all the mums and it's all about the power of saying yes to every offer of help that you receive.Emma Campbell is a columnist, speaker, writer, marathon-runner and in her own words, long-term cancer thriver. She is passionate about showing others that it's possible to live a big, bold and expansive life, even in the face of chronic illness.Emma's incredible book 'All That Followed: A story of cancer, kids and the fear of leaving too soon' is an un-put-downable memoir of what happens when cancer becomes an unwelcome guest at an already crowded party.Buy Emma's book hereFollow Emma on Instagram hereListen to Emma's podcast 'Open' here

Hello and welcome to The Therapy Edit with me, psychotherapist, 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 joined by Emma Campbell. Emma is a speaker and author, a long-term cancer survivor.

She is passionate. Now, I saw these words on her Instagram page and I thought, my goodness, this is exactly what I kind of absorb from everything that she does, everything that she shares. She's got the words resilience, gratitude and connection. Now, it inspires me with gratitude. and finding a way to find kind of grassitude and awe through the rough curveballs of life,

of which she has journeyed through so many. So that, and that is what you give me, that kind of that sense of there is awe, there are always diamonds in the rough to be found, even if you have to go digging deep, getting your hands messy in the process, but you, you find them. So thank you for, thank you for that.

What a lovely, what a lovely intro. Thank you. And it's so lovely to be here. It's funny, isn't it? Because the gratitude aspect of things I've talked about, it was a real beginning of a huge mindset shift for me several years ago. And I kind of felt like up until, you know, the last year or so, it was so incredibly easy to access and it felt, and I know it to be true. I know that gratitude and think the nuggets and the diamonds are everywhere. But I almost got to a point where I felt like, yeah, I've got this. You've just got to say, thank you. You've just got a, you know, there's always the moments of joy and actually, you know, as a result of events in the last year, I've kind of, I've almost had that

tested, you know, there's been a lot of moments over the last year where I can honestly say I, I haven't been able to access that gratitude. So it's interesting now. So then I've gone into that thing of, gosh, what does it mean? And am I, you know, am I not being honest, but actually, Lisa, now my sort of, my intention is to recognise that there are those nuggets, there are those diamonds, even if I haven't been able to see them in recent months, that they are there. But it's been an interesting little kind of almost a test of faith almost, a crisis of faith almost, because that's, that's been like the core of my way of approaching life, you know. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's been tested, but it's. It's just sometimes that you're even, you know, you show up and you're like, this is a mess. Everything feels like a mess on here. Yeah. Yeah. And we feel that gratitude towards you that you're there. It is the moments. It does always come back to the tiniest of moments and then somehow finding a way of, it's like a string of beads, isn't it?

Just a little moment after moment and that come together and create something a little bit more solid. And it's the foundation, I think. if we can have a foundation of a practice like gratitude or just, I think that's got me through a lot. That's got me through a lot. But I'm not saying it's always, you know, it's not always easy. So if you could share one thing with all of the mums, what would that one thing be? That one thing would be saying yes, to offers up help, allowing yourself to accept help in whatever form. And I learned that lesson, not that lesson, that, I learned that in a very, very sort of profound way, which is kind of a huge part of what the book's about.

When my trip, I've got four children. I've got Jake, who's 19, and I've got my trip, the triplets, Ella Louie and Theo, who are just 10, 13. And there was a whole situation when Jake was born 19 years ago that required. me to lean on on people enormously, but certainly the extreme circumstances in which my three babies emerged. You know, my cancer diagnosis followed within months. My relationship with their father had broken down and ended very, very dramatically. And I am so lucky that the help was there and it came in so many different forms and I had I mean I had to I said yes of course to everything because I was at a point of total surrender I had to just kind of you know fall back

and and just survive really so the incredible acts of kindness and the gestures and that cliche thing for you know for a new mum even going through the most textbook of experiences the ready mate, the meal dropped off, the lasagna, the, I'll take that bag of washing for you, or I'll take the older, the toddler out for a walk while you, you know, get a nap. And sadly, but rather sort of beautifully as well, you know, what I was going through was such an extreme version. And I remember when I was pregnant with the triplets and I went to have a coffee with a friend of mine who was already a mum of four.

I'd had my one son for, you know, six years and was still in this kind of perpetual state of shock that I was about to give birth to three babies, not knowing what the hell, you know, we were going to do. And I remember sitting at her kitchen table and she was sorting out some baby clothes for me. And I was probably looking like a rabbit in the headlights, you know, and she said, if I can say one thing to you, just say yes to every offer of help. And I, you know, it wasn't a mind-blowing thing to say, but I just never forgot that moment. And it certainly was something that I did and I learned to do. And as life has continued and the wonderful times have been there,

but the challenges have continued. It's something that has served me. So I would say, and there's a new mom, we have this idea, don't we? You know, we have this idea of, you know, how it should be. And lovely Steph Douglas, you know, don't buy her flowers. who talked a lot about pulling up the drawbridge. You know, when you have your baby and that idea of being able to just hunker down, maybe in bed while your in-laws are cooking a stew downstairs

and everything's all, and there are flowers and there are, you know, cups of tea being brought to you and you're just nurturing your newborn. That's the fantasy, but for many of us, that just isn't the reality and that's something that I never experienced. I never experienced the luxury of being able to draw up, pull up the drawbridge and just focus on my baby. And just to go back slightly to when Jake was born in 2003, I, all very dramatic,

I got a flesh-eating bug after he was born, necrotizing fasciitis. So it was suddenly I was kind of hovering between life and death in a very different way to cancer. And he was my first born. I was absolutely, you know, in love with this little bundle. But we were apart for the first 12 days, because I was in intensive care and then I wasn't able to look after him.

And in the months that followed as I was recovering and obviously quite traumatised by what I'd been through, exhausted, doing all of the mum stuff, but dealing with the physical repercussions of what I'd been through, I'll never forget the health visitors coming round one day and me crying, saying, but I'm worried that I'm not bonding with him, I'm worried that, I mean, I couldn't have felt more love.

The love was there, but I didn't know, what hit me. And I just remember her saying, Emma, and I hope this helps anyone who might be listening, who is struggling with that feeling of what if I'm not bonding? She said, even if you spend 20 minutes a day, half an hour with Jake, and that's your, you know, looking into his eyes and holding him, and that's your bubble. It doesn't have to be, you know, it doesn't have to be hour after hour, because that life unfortunately isn't like that. And that really gave me a permission to kind of, okay, as long as I have those moments. And in a way, that's carried me through as well

to how, you know, 19 years on with him, 13 years on with the little ones of, I can't do it all, I can't. And I'm a single mom for a huge part of that time. And I am again now. And the continual feeling of I can't give them what they need. I can't give them what, how am. And then just coming back to that feeling of,

okay, 10 minutes here, Louis, 20 minutes there with Ella. And even that can feel overwhelming. You know, can't it? You know, even the idea at the end of a long day of just slotting in 10 minutes with each of your children can feel absolutely daunting, but it is those little pockets. So that's a long-winded answer, but that's what I've learned from when parenthood doesn't unfold in the way that you imagined and hoped and the idea that you had of yourself as a mum isn't what comes to be yeah yeah and i think people will relate yeah that's something i'm still you know grappling with hugely yeah yeah i mean what a gift what massive gifts in those words of accepting support

and for you that came from a time where you had little choice but to do to do that and to fall into the offers of support from those around you and that powerful that powerful bit of information about you know just those moments with your child just those moments and yes even that can feel like a lot sometimes but it's the antidote I think to the pressure that we can place on ourselves to do everything to be everything all the time and you needed that recovery and it was a permission to say you know you can it is about you too you know it's it's about you taking what what you need and knowing that that what you're giving is is good what you're giving is enough we all say the same thing

but we're just so spectacularly hard on ourselves quite brutal i mean i you know i i i keep using the word brutal a lot at the moment because life's felt quite brutal and I feel you know I'm carrying a lot of the weight of not quite getting it right at home and not feeling feeling very much like I don't have much

to give them so therefore it is the okay well they've had dinner okay well they're at school there's not much left over for the kind of even the idea of a you know a friend said to me recently well just why don't you get a game out and have a game's night and that kind of was like

you know it's like I don't have the capacity for a cozy games night as easy as that might sound because the kind of, you know, which might sound terrible, but I do have the capacity if one of them barges into my room at 10 o'clock at night when they should be winding down and then jumps on the bed with me. We can have a lovely chat and we can have a lovely giggle and a hug and I can do that. But it's funny on my on my camera roll, you know, scrolling back recently. and the kids have all had their braces on, you know, in the last year or so. And one of them was particularly anxious in the dentist chair. And I wanted to capture the moment without him, but there's a photo on my camera roll, you know, with his, you know, 13, you know, scruffy cuffs from his school uniform, dirty fingernails. But it's just a picture of him and I holding hands, you know, because he was struggling with his anxiety as he was lying there, getting the brace fitted. and I look at that picture and I think that kind of says it all really

you know it's just a moment and I was able to just give that 13 year old sweaty hand a squeeze and say I'm here and it doesn't mean

I wouldn't be irritable and grumpy later on or ratty at bedtime but that was a moment and that then goes back to the moments that we were saying at the start you know the moments of well this is okay

this is this is this is a thank you moment powerful thank you i mean there's so in a way there's there's stuff we could unpack with all of that but i think what you said is enough in itself you know i think your words will reach into different places and people as they listen and they're full of kind of compassion and just acknowledging that we we have different capacity all the time you'll have you know maybe down the line um those games nights will come easily. Actually, for now, you're giving, you're giving what you have.

And that is, you know, that is enough. You have to trust it's enough, don't it? Yes, and that's the hard bit. It is, you know, it's the hard bit, I think, sometimes saying, I'm giving what I've got. I'm giving, you know, the cream. I'm giving the cream off the top of that, of the top of that milk. You know, you're giving, you're giving that best bit. And if everything else is just having to go into survival,

You're giving that 10 p.m. snuggle. You're giving that sweaty hand. You're giving the best of what you've got. And that capacity will change and increase. And I think it would be wonderful to hear a tip maybe for those listening who perhaps aren't walking through the fire, aren't in that place where they're having to fall back into support because they literally have no choice. not to you know for those who who need support maybe in smaller ways or just even opening up on the sofa with a cup of coffee as the kids play but they have this nagging feeling in the back that

I can't I don't want to be a burden I don't I don't want to show my it's scary or hard to show my vulnerability or my weakness and I know that I need to but I don't at this point have have to and are not circumstances and isn't putting me in that place but we need that so what would your what would your words be to that person it's interesting actually isn't it because yeah that's I think what immediately comes to mind and maybe I'm maybe my answer would be different if I wasn't feeling in such a rural place at the moment but I think my answer would be or my words would be it's okay if you're sitting with an opair in the other room doing the ironing

or you've got your you know you've got everything's going to plan or whatever it might be it's still okay to I would just I've just the one thing that is just driving me and holding me up at the moment is the enormous realisation

that if we can allow ourselves to speak our truth and reach out and say, I just need a little something here, whether it's, I just need something. And without doing that thing of, oh, but I know I'm so lucky because I know that everything's fine. It's okay, whatever your circumstances are, to just look for, seek, accept a moment of exhale. As you spoke, my mind went back to. years ago, I think when I started sharing my truth, literally with my voice shaking and my whole body sweating out of fear of what that would do to my relationships, because I think I always feared that if I was open and honest, people would, in a sense, run away. Maybe that would be

too much or too sad or too messy. And actually, it did the absolute opposite when I shared with the right people, it brought them towards me. And I was able to experience relationship and friendship in a way that I never had really before. Yeah. You've just given so many generous nuggets amongst all of that. So thank you. That's a pleasure. And I've got to finish off some quickfire questions for you. Yeah. What has a motherhood high been or what is a motherhood high for you at the moment. At the moment, it's seeing my kids' lightness and smiles and sparkle in their eyes. And it's seeing them blossoming.

I'm seeing not all the time. And, you know, maybe more with my boys than my daughter who's hormonally going through that, you know, that adolescent thing. phase, but, and it's, you know, might be one of them one day and one the other, but I'm seeing fragments of happy souls and that, that, and happy light, open souls and that gives me great joy. Parenting low, was that, was that the, that's the next one. The next one, yeah. Parenting low is, um, I think for me feeling, I mean, that's, it's a huge answer, so I'll keep it brief, but I think the feeling of not getting it right. the feeling of not knowing what to do

many, many moments where it's like I don't know how to manage this and that might be particularly amplified as a mum of multiples you know, it's there's an intensity there but I think it's the feeling of it's my self-harm

you know, I'm getting it wrong I'm not getting it right and I'm trying desperately hard to change that narrative but it's quite embedded. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. You're not alone in that. No. And share with us one thing that makes you feel good. What are you doing? And you feel, you just feel good doing it. As a mum or as a life as me?

Do you know what? Conversations like this. I feel this is a balm for me. You know, I feel. connected and I feel seen and I feel held and I feel I feel I just kind of want to hold hands with every woman, every mum and say it's okay, we're doing this, we're brilliant, we're strong, we are strong we are so much, you know.

That is what you share. And we see it in each other, don't we? Yeah, and even in the vulnerability, that is what is what is there, that is what we see. That is what we see. And finally, how would you describe motherhood in three words? A gift, a challenge and growth. A gift, a challenge and growth. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much. And for your honesty, for your encouragement, for your vulnerability. We're grateful for you. back at you and it's so lovely to chat. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe or review because it makes a massive difference to how many people it can reach. You can find more from me on Instagram at Anna Martha. You might like to check out

my three books, Mind Oath and Mother, Know Your Worth, and my new book, The Little Book of Calm for New Mums, grounding words for the highs, the lows and the moments in between. tweet. It's a little book. You don't need to read it from front to back. You just pick whatever emotion resonates to find a mantra, a tip and some supportive words to bring comfort and clarity. You can also find all my resources, guides and videos all with the sole focus of supporting your emotional and mental well-being as a mum. They are all 12 pounds and you can find them on anamatha.com. I look forward to speaking with you soon. Thank you.