The Therapy Edit - One Thing with Malin Andersson on not losing YOU in motherhood

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

On this guest epsiode of The Therapy Edit, Anna chats to Malin Andersson about her one thing; on losing yourself in motherhood.An emotionally charged and moving conversation, Malin really opens up and together she and Anna offer listeners relatble experiences of motherhood and tips for finding ways to really live as well as being a great mother,Heads up that this episode contains some fruity language in case you have little ones in earshot! Malin Andersson is a broadcaster, motivational speaker and body confidence activist. She originally rose to fame following her appearance on Love Island in 2016 but after experiencing lifechanging trauma she became a mental health advocate using her platform to promote healing, body positivity and self-love.Malin openly shares her experiences of domestic violence, baby loss, parental loss and eating disorders. She’s an ambassador and spokesperson for Refuge the domestic violence charity, Women’s Aid and Sands which supports people experiencing baby loss. She has also delivered a Tedx Talk about her journey to finding body positivity and self-love.Her first book Positivity is Our Superpower was released in April 2022. Part memoir, part self-help bible, it’s a moving and inspiring read.It led to her presenting her own podcast series Superpower State of Mind.You can follow Malin on Instagram 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. Today I have with me, Marlon Anderson and actually her brand new puppy in the background who had a squeaky toy, but that has been confiscated in a place with the bone. So there won't be quite as much squeaking. I met Marlin at a panel that we did for Albright and we just had

great from chatting just on the little walk down to the stage. Marlin is an author, speaker and mother and she's a spokeswoman, empowering women and speaking out on issues around women's rights, domestic violence and baby loss, all of which she speaks from really personal experience. Marlin came onto our screens on Love Island, but she is now an author and she's just getting the word out there just with her really validating, empowering and wise words. Marlin has a book. It's called Positivity is Our Superpower. Everything I've learned about trauma, grief, confidence and self-love. It is much loved and highly rated. And one reader said, this book provides me with the foundations to help improve myself and has been a source of comfort.

And I think that's what you do, Marlon, with your words and everything you put out there. It's that feeling seen through your words and also empowering and comforting people and equipping them at the same time. So thank you for everything that you do. I absolutely love following you on the ground. And it's great to sit here. Sit here virtually with you. How are you like with your two week old puppy, your two year. old daughter. I don't know. No, I'm good. I'm good. I'm going through like a bit of a transitional phase, I reckon at the minute, with life in general and kind of growing out of things and moving on to different kind of areas in work and stuff like that. So yeah, that's me.

I know. Growing, it's funny, isn't it? Because I don't know about you, but when I, when I was 18, I felt so grown up. I felt like I knew everything that I needed to know, that I was super why is that I'd had life experience. And then you just kind of, there's so many growing ups to be done. Do we ever stop? Oh my gosh, no. Doing growing up. It's weird. It's almost like, this is my theory. Like the more we evolve, the ultimate plan is to get us back to our childlike self before we consumed anything crap into our heads from the media, from other people, from teachers, from our parents. That's the ultimate goal. I'm doing everything that we've been taught. That's how I feel I'm going.

it's like a growing up but also growing down and like a stripping away yes definitely definitely so the people we were when we didn't care so much about what people thought we had more fun and we did more playful stuff yeah definitely and we just didn't worry so much about the small things no and that's what happens when you become an adult and you use that inner child in the fun place and wholesome side of you um which i've only just kind of recently sparked through creativity like I used to be so good at drawing and art and I used to always say, I want to be an illustrator when I grow up, an author and an illustrator. And I love writing and I've done that. And my next like mission, my calling is definitely children's books. I don't know why.

I saw this on your Instagram. She said, and soon to be, you know, kind of writer, speaker, and soon to be illustrator. And then I clicked in. Amazing. Yeah. I want to teach me. It's all about the younger generation. has to be. There's only so much I can do with my voice and domestic abuse and the baby loss. And it is, it's brilliant that I've done it, but it's quite draining on my own soul, revisiting parts of my past every single time. And, you know, it's amazing that I can help other women. But now I want to touch on the younger generation and create resources and materials for them to learn from, like prevention is better than the cure, right? If I had

things growing up, I wouldn't be who that was today. That's it, isn't it? If we had the tools and the things that we're learning now, then... Exactly. Yeah. And I feel like we're this generation of women that have a foot in both, having grown up without those tools necessarily, and having learned them and trying to teach them to our children.

Like we've got a foot in, we've experienced growing up without this insight and now we're trying to pass it on, whereas I hope that our children will grow up, having had it like more embedded in them from a younger age. Yeah, definitely. But we, you know, we need to do that to change it for future generations. And that's what you're doing with all your work is you're providing other people with self-awareness that they will then be passing on. Yeah.

Which is amazing. So with everything you know and everything you've been through and all of the insight that you have gained and generously share along the way, what is the one thing that you would love to share with all the moms listening to this podcast? I had like a breakdown last week. I looked at my daughter. I was doing the most. I was with my ADHD. I can't even blame the ADHD. It's just me. Tasks are doing this, doing that. Next, I'm feeding her lunch. The dog's

yapping at me. She's crying. She's having a trawl down on the floor. And I'm doing all these things and all these tasks and I'm not living. I'm forgetting to actually live. I don't remember when I lasted something fun or enjoyed something or something that set my soul on fire. And I just like got Zaya and I went mummy's not well and I was just my tears were coming down my face. I want to cry over now. Yeah. Because I think

gosh it's really making me cry I'm going to make me cry my current emotional state. This is so powerful. Because I think there's so much we have so much responsibility and as a single mom I think I've done so much for other people in my

career as well that I've forgotten to do things for me. and I literally looked at her and I said to mommy doesn't feel well and I didn't and that is when I literally took a step back and I just didn't want to do anything and I went the opposite way and I just thought fuck social media front of work I've had enough of it like it's so draining and I don't know why I'm crying but obviously it's just like releasing and that's when I realized self-care isn't a fucking face mask or a glass of shit wine that's going to make you feel shit and shit the next day, self-care is actually, actually freaking care for yourself in a way where you have

to be selfish sometimes. And I don't think we do that enough. No. No. And sometimes it is those moments, isn't it, where everything just feels too much? And you're like, wait a minute, what's going on here? Yeah. Where am I? Where am I? This is my life too. Where am I in it? And it felt so liberating, freeing myself from all of the responsibilities and duties. I had that weren't to do with my daughter. It actually felt fun that I could take it to a park and go and jumping puddles without looking at my emails

and wondering when the next job I'm going to book is going to come in or am I not posting enough? And I think, yeah, it's ever so draining and I think there's a lot of pressure around it. Yeah. So from that moment where it all just came to a head and you recognise that you'd, in the pursuit of doing everything, you'd kind of got lost in the process.

and it's like you came back to yourself. 100% definitely. And I just picked up my pen. I went to like Hobbycraft, brought some sketch pens. I just started drawing. I'll put her to sleep while I was drawing and I just sewn down. I felt so therapeutic and it almost sparked some kind of like younger Marlin inside of me

to be like, this is what fun really is. It's not you going out to get pissed of your friends when you don't have Zah and she's at her dad's because that's not fun. you're actually blocking out parts of yourself that you're rejecting. Why don't you do something that brings out your authentic self? And I think that's what we will struggle with. We push away our authentic versions of ourselves because of what society think we should be, right? And they call it our shadow parts, so our shadow self.

And I think when you're online, you might get it. You sometimes feel pressured to be a certain type of way or look a certain type of way or do what others are doing. or and then you find yourself comparing yourself and I've never done that but I've done it without even realising and who I am isn't what what people think I should be

who I am is that young playful Marlin that you know has kind of wants to be free from concern as Jim Carrey always says like you know go on my stories and just talk about what I really want instead of what I think people want to hear all the time And it just felt so liberating to just be like, right, I'm just going to do what I want to do now, not what other people want me to do.

So maybe it was that inner child and you, which I think we all have, and that's what we lose along the way. It's what you were saying at the beginning is, you know, actually growth is really just reconnecting and stripping away and going back to the core of who you are. And we all have that inner child. And I think what you've said here is in the pursuit of parenting everyone else. And I'm not just saying, Zai, I mean, all of those other people that you kind of mother through your work and everything that you put out there and all that stuff you do.

You've got this inner child inside of you, maybe get neglected. Yeah. It's going like, hey, I'm here. I need. I want comfort. I want to play. I want to do fun stuff. Yeah.

And actually what you did in that moment is, you know, you just, you saw her and you thought, what was she want to do? She wants to draw. She's a love drawing. Let's get the, let's get a hobby craft. Let's start. and we're engaging in that and it's so powerful

like we neglect that little girl inside of us but even like I won't go into detail but like I have I was told sometimes to like dress more smarter for videos and certain brand content

and put the full face of makeup on and wear a blazer wear your dress and I don't know about you but I've always been one to love a loungeer and casual wear and I'm always in it and I just thought like I don't want to just put on makeup and dress up or like that's not actually who I am so I'm actually becoming someone that I'm not through the eyes of other

people just in order to create this image of this speaker you know I can speak wearing a hoodie like yeah does that make sense and it makes so much it makes so much sense you know what violin I I've just had a one of those really emotional days today and I've just been crying on morning. And I quickly shoved some lipstick on. Oh, there we go. I shoved some lipstick on to come on here and thought it might detract from any, uh, any, you know, lodges on my face.

But I just think that's often we fear that being authentic will push people away when actually, I think what we are finding is that it, it actually draws people towards people. It's, you know, it creates connection. And I think, you know, when you, you go online and you're just like, no, this is where I'm at, this is who I am, this is my body at this day, this is, and actually, you know, that's what, that's what connects people. That's what inspires authenticity and people. And it's a, it takes bravery to be like, you know what,

I'm going to wear the flipping hoodie today, even though people are telling me to do this. I'm going to step back from, from the emails and just go to the part and jump the puddles, even though, you know, there's, the culture is telling me that I need to be on it and on it and girl bossing. And yeah, definitely. It's that it's that kind of 9-12-5 mentality that is ingrained in us by, like, certain people, you know, and that we should work, work, work and not live. And actually, because of the way my mind is inclined and I'm, I like, I hate the word spiritual, like spirituality because it's so like, but I am so connected with like source and like the universe.

Like my body will just burn out if I become well. of those people like I can't I know too well as well myself and I just found myself just living and living and just functioning and the universe is like girl we're going to just give you a rock bottom now so you wait wake the fuck up and yeah and then there we go and I think those little rock bottoms that have us wanting to just really really engage in life and see and see it for the see it for what it is and see the privilege for what they are and see the good things in front of because I think what can happen is that we can find ways to cultivate that in life as well, can't we? And I see you do that as well. I bet the rock bottoms that you have now aren't

quite the rock bottoms that you used to need to kind of shake that. Yeah, definitely. Each rock bottom has brought out a better version of myself. And if I look through the really hardcore stuff, like the grief and the domestic abuse and the baby loss, they were like massive shifts and awakenings within my body. And then the fine-tuning, there's what the universe is doing now. It's like, come on, we need to keep going, and it's like, we're going to give you another bit of shit, but it's not compared too, but it feels that way sometimes, because you're losing these layers of an identity, which was never you in the first place.

It was someone else's construct of you. And it feels so freeing the closer you get to your authentic self. but it's hard because you push it away. Like your old self, your old version clings on to that because we're scared of change, aren't we? Yeah, yeah, we can push it away. And also the world will try and take it away as well because it will say, no, authenticity,

no, you need to be this, you need to be doing that. So I think you have to have strength for it. It's a bit of a tug of war sometimes to kind of protect that. And so what are some of the things you do then in your daily life? and what are some of those things that you do to try and protect that authenticity and that feeling of that, yeah, honouring that little girl inside of you. I used to pause sounds so real. So I can talk about meditation and journaling and let's be honest, we don't always do it, do we?

Like I've got the journal next to my bed, as I haven't picked out for like a month. You know, like we all know what's good for us. And I do go to the gym. I love going to the gym because that is an energy release for me. A bit of exercise, whether it's a walk or not. but when I look in the mirror I used to, when I was a kid I used to go like and pull funny faces and do like teeth faces

and like go like that and you know everyone goes I would say some affirmations but I will look in the mirror now and just pull goofy faces because something of that is how do I describe it? It brings up my little nerdy thing of your Marlin

Yes it's playful isn't it and it reminds you not to take yourself too seriously Thank you. So if I was listening, go and look at the mirror and pull a goofy face. I am going to do that. I am going to do that. And also, wearing my socks really high sometimes on my jogging bottoms

and just wearing comfy clothes, like how my mummy's dressed me in the 90s, just being like me. And I'll have my Nintendo DS sometimes. And I'll play a bit of Pokemon if I want it. Brilliant. So not doing too much of the serious stuff and going out of the gyms and dressing nice and having the wine. and then watching Netflix.

Oh, try and deter from doing that now because that doesn't bring joy, true essential joy into my life. Like, I have to really think, and that's the best thing about having kids, like Zaya brings out that playful side of me. Yeah. So trying to just re-engage in some of those things

that just actually make you happy. And I think, as you said, someone said you shouldn't do this or you shouldn't do that. Well, sometimes we just need to challenge that. think, why not? Says who? And what might it be like just to re-engage in that or even ask myself, what is fun to me? Because I think sometimes it's been so overlooked for so long and so distorted that we actually don't even know what the answer is. No, exactly. Definitely. Say, for instance, do you remember, I used to do a lot of body positivity stuff, like a few

years ago before Zay was born, I was like a size 16. And it became a mask I wore because everyone else was loving it and they were relating to it. And I was helping a lot of women with it, which is great. But it became such a mask that I wasn't actually doing it for myself anymore. It was for other people. And so when I finally broke free from that part of me and I went to the gym for mental health and to get fit and healthy, people didn't like to see it anymore. So like, it's like you, whatever mask you're wearing, if it's not your own, like you're not

the best kind of the best thing you can do is just not wear the mask either way yeah yeah so kind of letting that go even if other people like no but we need this content from you this was serving me this was serving me and you're like that's great and I'm glad it was serving you but I mean I've transitioned to a slightly different place and it's not serving me to stay in that place anymore and actually we can only really truly benefit people when we are working from a place that is authentic to where we are. Yeah. Otherwise it becomes a mask. You're right. What was once authentic then becomes a mask when you keep trying to hold it there, but actually you're in a different place now. And I just think you're right. Some people struggle to see us change. Yeah, very much so.

In a good way, maybe. Absolutely. I've spoke about it and here before this time when I was on the beach with the kids and it started raining and, you know, we're gathering everything to run inside, I'd go to the car and the kids shouted they didn't want to leave the sea. So I took all my clothes off, left my underwear on, and ran into the sea. And I remember my husband saying, you just don't do stuff like that. I'm like, well, why not? Maybe I do now. Maybe I did then.

I don't know. You know, sometimes it is confusing for the people when we change. But actually, that shouldn't stop us from changing. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So true. And it's so liberating as well. Yeah. I mean, now he doesn't know what to expect from me from a minute to the next.

It might be with my clothes off and running into the sea. Who knows? I think people do get, people get used to the fact that we do change. Yeah. Just got to be authentic to where we're at. So thank you. It's so empowering. Just, yeah, listen to that little you inside. What is it? What makes you happy? What is silly? What brings you joy? What is authentic to who you are now rather than holding yourself, maybe to who you've been or what people expect to be and what might it feel like to break out of that box and just be where you are and shrug off some of that external pressure. Thank you.

Oh, inspiring, inspiring stuff. So, Marlin, can I ask you a quick-fire question? I didn't even tell you I was going to do this because we were chatting away beforehand. So I know you're going to say illustration is probably going to be your first one, but actually tell me something else that makes you feel good. the feel of rain on my skin sometimes when it's raining outside

I'll just go open the door and I'll just stand in the rain just to feel it yeah that's beautiful because I think a lot of people feel the rain and then they go inside yeah I'm the opposite and they get the umbrella out and they brace themselves and you're there

opening the door and stepping out into it I love that oh no I think it's a reminder, isn't it, to not not brace ourselves against what's happening. Yes, so true. It's good. That's a good one. I came from you.

I came from you. That was all you. But Marlin, thank you so much for all that you bring us from even those places. You know, those places of vulnerability where we might think, I'm a bit of a mess. What have I got to offer? You have come here and just given us some really empowering, just, yeah, words that we really connect with. and we'll just help people, help people question, question those miles.

So thank you for coming. Thank you for having me, Anna. 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, Anna Martha.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.