The Therapy Edit - One Thing with Rosie Stockley on banishing guilt around movement

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

In this guest episode of The Therapy Edit, Anna chats with Rosie Stockley about her One Thing.Rosie talks about how important movement is and asks mums to banish any guilt they associate with taking time out for themselves to focus on their health.Mamawell founder, Rosie is a fitness specialist who has trained women of all walks of life and fitness levels over the last 15 years. She founded Mamawell to provide women with education and insight into their bodies in the pre and postpartum period (and beyond), and the benefits that exercise can bring, both for strength and energy - mentally & physically. She teaches in person & has online fitness programmes for pregnancy and postpartum and a subscription: Club Mamawell for all women.Rosie is well known for her holistic and intelligent approach to training the body, and the individual needs of each woman. She writes extensively, speaks and sits on panels highlighting the importance of fitness for mental health, the benefits of being strong throughout pregnancy and thereafter, and how to find balance and energy in our busy, multi-faceted roles as women. On her platform @mamawelluk, Rosie is respected for providing quality information, from her professional experience, whether this is on fitness, wellness, pregnancy, postpartum or mumlife with her 2 girls. Her motherhood experiences add to her approachable appeal for women wanting to be inspired to be strong, healthy and energised throughout this time.Visit Mamawell here https://www.mamawell.org/And follow Rosie at @mamawelluk

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 moms 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. And I have with me, Rosie Stockley of Mammawell. So Rosie is the founder of Mammawell, which is a fitness company specialising in women's fitness. She is really passionate about helping women exercise with confidence.

I love that with confidence, which means, I guess, knowing and understanding a little bit more about our bodies and how we need to best ways to move them. Confidence through pregnancy, postpartum and beyond. She also has a membership in which she, you know, She gives kind of three different workouts a week. She has different programs. There are live, live classes and classes on demand for all women who want to prioritize movement in their week. And her love is about empowering, empowering moms in a really kind of a holistic way,

which is about responding to the specific needs that you have an understanding what they are and how to meet them. So, hi, Rosie. How are you today? Hi, Anna. Thanks so much for having me. Oh, how are you today? And this, we're currently recording.

I think we're in the second-ish week of summer holidays. So how are you getting on? Yeah, we were just chatting about it. I'm doing okay, thank you. Summer holidays was something I was like sort of half in denial about and half-manically building up to. And then it happened. And yeah, we're sort of leaning into it and enjoying ourselves so far

and just also trying to grab those precious minutes just for me where I can. So, yeah. I love that. It's kind of an easy. into it, isn't it? Because it's a different kind of routine sometimes in having less of routine. And it's just, yeah, kind of getting used to a different pace of life, getting used to a different kind of juggle. And I think we build it up a bit. You know, there's so much chat,

the summer holidays are coming. And there's so much wind down at the end of term. It's only my daughter's first year at school, but I felt it like all the end of term things. And it just seems so much. And actually, it's really nice to put the brakes on that. And we're flowing a bit more, which I'm really appreciating. Yeah, completely, completely agree. So, Rosie, the question that we ask is, if you could share one thing with all the mums, what would that one thing be? My one thing is I just want you to all know and realize that it's absolutely not selfish to take time and care for yourself and your body and your movement, post-birth, post-kids, and beyond. And to create these habits that.

can really support you through your long life and it's not selfish after birth to do that. I think, yeah, touching on that selfishness, I think that that can be such a barrier, can't it, that stands in the way of people actually prioritising, moving their body. And I think the other thing I loved about that was that you said movement instead of exercise. Yeah, totally. So I was going to say to you because I feel like a lot of us, and I know from sort of knowing a bit about you, we were all a bit more about the burn before. I think that goes to as well, this stage of our life pre-kids, if we can remember that,

where it was totally fine to be, like, selfish about anything we wanted. We're going to do any class. We're going to, like, run a marathon because we've got loads of time to train or do yoga, go on a retreat. That wasn't selfish. That was just so, you know, me time. Actually part of our personality, a lot of ours, you know, we, you know, I like to work out. And then I like to go out and drink or whatever.

You know, as soon as we have kids, weirdly, it's suddenly seen as, We are now this caring for these other people, which is a practical fact. We are. We have way less time. But I think that's kind of self, that way, the way of using the selfishness to go for exercise or movement becomes eroded. And we're now just looking after our kids. And all of a sudden, years down the line, we realize we have got nothing for ourselves, whether that's time or. And I say movement, because for me, this movement, whatever it may be, it's not necessarily the burden.

it's actually what do we need to add to our life and to allow us in a way to optimize our busy life as a parent, as somebody who might work, who might be at home, all the things we do. It's multifaceted. So that might be mindful movement. It might be walking in nature. It might be that you want to do hit class on a Monday morning because that fires you up, but you know you're going to yin yoga on a Friday because that's like having a cocooning massage, makes you feel great for the end of the week. But I think what's so empowering is us looking at ourselves and knowing what do I need and saying and actually saying, I need this.

And then we can talk about solutions, how to like get that in our lives because it's really hard. Yeah, but even I think as you were talking, I was thinking, oh my goodness, we have gotten to a place so many of us where we consider movement, movement, moving our bodies in certain ways selfish? Yeah. I think it's the time element. I think it's the thing of taking the time and also maybe the action of saying, no, I want this. Because we kind of stop saying that maybe. You know, we're just kind of, we're busy looking after other people and putting ourselves second, third, fourth. And it doesn't mean you're not caring for other people by, as you know this,

you talk about it, nonstop, by taking half an hour, an hour to ourselves a couple of times a week. I mean, really, in reality, that's not selfish. Yeah. And movement, it's such a basic, you know, the bare bones of it, movement is an investment into our body. It's meeting a basic need. We, our bodies need to move. And sometimes we need to, you know, we need to be raising our heart rate sometimes. We need to be stretching. We need to be moving. So, you know, it's is a basic need, even though sometimes, you know, the ways that we meet that might feel quite therapeutic and they might feel sometimes quite indulgent. But to the core of it all, this is a, you know, we need to move. Yeah, to your point there, I think we do all need to realize, you know, in 2022, we are sitting too much.

we really are and then let's say new mums we're in a new phase of our life so we've given birth however your birth looked there will be things that need to repair physically and quite probably mentally and to just get your resilience and strength back so that is you need to do exercises for that really if you really want to empower yourself to know what's happened to your body and how you can I hate the thing like get it back that's not what I mean by bouncing back or anything like that, but, you know, maybe you've got back pain because you had a big baby bug for all those months and then your birth exacerbated that and now you've got a niggle in your back every day. We don't want to have that. So some strengthening movements can really obviously

help with these things post-birth. Then after, as adults anyway, we're in repetitive movements all day. Lots of sitting, hunched shoulders as moms holding the baby, feeding the baby, pushing the buggy, we're rounded. Then we get in bed and we're so tired, we curl up in a rounded position, we're still in the same position we've been in all day. So we need to move to help our bodies and to, it helps our minds too. And, you know, we all know that we should be raising our heart rate a bit several times a week. Now, that doesn't need to be running. That can be a really nice walk.

Your heart rate can go up. If you're someone who's done power yoga, you'll know your heart is pumping, but your body's So there's different ways to do it, but it's heart health, and that is a real key indicator of overall health. So I think it's not just taking time to, oh, because I want to like take time for myself. Actually, we need it for a long and healthy life. We're living longer and we want to be fit and healthy for ourselves and our families. Yeah. So it's literally, it's investment. And I think, you know, sometimes where that feeling of selfishness might come into it is because we're choosing to do things that require time, we're choosing to make space for it, or we're

recognizing that we need to make space for it, and maybe we really enjoy it and get something out of it. But actually, you know, fundamentally, we are deserving of doing things that make us feel good and give us something for the sake of those things alone. Yeah, and I think one of the things I say to women who are like, I just really can't find time, it's a couple of things. Try to look at, I know it's really hard at some. you're like really under the pump with maybe you've got had no sleep and like you just want to sit on the sofa but like can you do something and then write down just after how you feel just after in your body like oh wow I felt that so amazing but also a lot of people report a massive

breakthrough of like oh my god I did it and I actually felt great and I was so proud of myself for doing it and now I know I can do that next time so if you can just remember how it feels and another thing I'd say to people is look at your time because it doesn't need to now exercise we don't need to go off to a gym and it's a two-hour trip. So have some little things in your pocket that are 20 minutes because even if it's your breathing and you're stretching or you know your route around the park, it's 20 minutes.

Quick look, the baby's gone to sleep. Grab that time if you can and just know that there are other things you could do in that time. But are they more important? like sometimes they are sitting on the sofa is very restorative and I think we should take time to do that or you know there's all sorts of life admin but sometimes actually just doing that 20 minute walk will set you up way better for all these other things that you have to do too yeah and it's so multi-layered isn't it is that immediate is that immediate benefit i think

of feeling accomplished and feeling a little bit clearer i mean i never i never end a workout or a movement you know a walk or whatever i'm doing to move. I never end feeling the same way that I started. No, the clarity you get from it is not even often, it's instantly recognizable. You're just finished and you're like, oh, but sometimes as well, it might be later in the day, you suddenly get this clarity of, you know, or you might be calmer with your kids, you might have a breakthrough at work. I actually genuinely think this time out on yourself, on something else, it can be so helpful. Yeah. And I think, I think, it's really good for the kids to see you know i'll often i'll often do something i might just do

10 minute yoga in the garden and my kids are around you know sometimes i i cannot do it separately and it doesn't need to be that perfect then situation every time just get it done yeah and you know we might use the tv so that they're just happy for a few minutes and i know that i that it's going to give me something normally a little bit more margin for patients or just you know just feeling a little bit better in my body, whatever it is, is that it will give me something that inevitably I'm probably going to spend on them anyway, shortly, but it's giving me something else. Yeah. The other point I was going to say is because a lot of women after birth, they're not feeling quite like themselves. Like it's a massive, it's a change. It's a huge shift. So I know lots of people

might have done workouts or whatever in the past. And that can help you grab onto a bit of like, what was I doing before and anchor you a bit in you rather than giving out all the time to this new little creature that's all the older kids. So the challenges are new each time they come with each child as well at different stages. So it's never just like, oh, I've done parenting. So I feel like having this can really anchor you and help you. I think it's really a bit harder for single parents because my thing I say to a lot of parents, a lot of women, let's say, is my top tip is like schedule it in with your partner and find something that works because it's quite nice to have someone look after the kids. But like you say,

getting the screen on a little bit, some people I know have invested in like a running buggy, or if you can get the time when they might, you know they're having quiet time or a nap. And once you've got that little routine down, that's when having something that you just know works for you is so handy. And it can just be half an hour, 20 minutes. but just knowing what does my body need today think about it before and when you get the nap down get the kid down for the nap then you're like right okay it's good to go for me and that's quite a good way to just get it in I think yeah I thank you for all that you bring to us in those just those prompts and and you know I think on your social media I love that you're you're always sharing about the

chaos that goes on around it and you know whether you're literally there working out with the kids around you or you've got that that precious time to yourself and you're going to use it in a certain way It's just, it's so, it reminds us that we can find it often. Yeah. We can find those windows, yeah. I want to keep it real, but I also want to say to women that, you know, like we've just been saying a lot, you can do stuff by yourself and you can shut the door. It's just we have to find the time, the motivation, a bit of the routine.

And I do know with a young baby, I mean, I couldn't find the time, but when I could, I made sure I got it. So that is fine to, you know, not be in the chaos, step away from. from the chaos. Oh, yes. I think both are good. And if you can't step away from the chaos, then do it within the chaos. But if you can then just, you know, take those opportunities, guilt-free, knowing that you're giving yourself something. You are giving your children something and you're investing into your own future. Yeah. I was actually saying today just on my page, like, you know, lots of us are going away on holiday. And I was just making the point that it's okay.

You can keep moving because people often say, oh, it's in such a good routine. And now I've gone away. I'm not going to do anything for two weeks. And I'm saying to them, why aren't you going to do anything? You totally can if you want to. If you want to go on the lounge at every day and drink Pina coladas, of course, you can do that. But holidays can sometimes be really refreshing. You might be with family who might give you your childcare time. You might, your partner, you might even have a kids club or something.

So you might find extra time for you and you can use that. And don't feel guilty about that. Just take it. Yeah. My husband and I often, what we do is we, might alternate days but one of us will be with the kids for an hour and the other one will do whatever he'll often go for a run i'm i will tend to get lost so i don't normally up for that i go and seek out a nice gym if there is one or do a little workout on a balcony yeah yes that's the

only thing i said just balconies with views you know you can be anywhere doing your thing so that is again not selfish to do it on holiday either you can just even start new habits then yeah i love that I love that, you know, giving the screens and then then do some do work out on the balcony if that's what you can get hold of. So thank you so much, Rosie, for just empowering us and motivating us and encouraging us to kind of, yeah, just take a moment to consider what that movement might mean for us. What might we need and how might we meet that? So I've got some quick five questions for you to finish off. What is a motherhood high for you? I think a motherhood tie is actually happening a bit at the moment without being like, wow, I'm so smart because

my girls are just starting to play together so well. And there's been a lot of make-believe, we were just talking about the holidays and sort of leaning into that, then playing at home, doing all these like make-believe going on holiday games, which have lasted an hour and a half. So I've been around a bit, I have to do the check-in desk, a bits and bobs, but I've managed to also do loads of my sorting and just be there. And I'm like, I love this. We're all in our PJs. We're not like bossing it and going out, but that's been real pleasure.

I love that. Long may that continue. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you get to points where, you know, it's suddenly that the little one is mostly like scratching the eyes out

with the big ones. Then we have to reset. But it's been really lovely. Those moments are seeing them enjoy each other, even if you do have to do the quick passport check here and there. And what's a motherhood low for you? Motherhood low, I was thinking about that.

I think actually sadly both my partner's parents both passed away so a bit of a motherhood low is actually just not having that for the girls and my parents are brilliant they're in New Zealand his whole family so you know we wouldn't have seen them so much but they would have been amazing grandparents and I know we're lucky any of us to have any grandparents but and the kids aren't missing out but I feel that of it yeah yeah just that awareness it makes me sad to think about that Yeah, there is a loss there, lost for them to experience that grandparenting from that side.

It's more for the grandparents who never got it, you know. Yes, oh, yeah. It's a bit sad. Yeah, that is a low. And what's one thing that makes you feel good? Well, of course, it's my movement that we can't be without that we've talked about. But actually also, I think all these things that I think makes like a nice life, which for me is when I can have time to kind of cook

and enjoy this food like not as in I have to cook but you know buy some lovely food cook it have a lovely glass of wine or whatever and a nice chat and a quiet evening that kind of thing makes me as me as not a mum with my kids being happy yeah so being able to do it and enjoy it rather than just that kind of perfunctory yeah or like some amazing like class that I've been like opted into or like you know just anything that's sort of like we've done purposefully as opposed to like oh my god I've just got to, like, get through this. Yeah, that intentionality. And how would you describe motherhood in three words to finish off?

Oh, goodness. Joyful, chaotic and, oh, like kind of unknown, you know, like, the unknowable. The unknown. And then when you feel like you do know, then you don't realize that you... As soon as you're, like, on top of it, and there's a new thing. But it is joyful. And it's a bit tiring. There's way too many words that. Somewhat. No, we'll take them all. Well, thank you so much. Wonderful, Rosie. I encourage everyone to head over to your Instagram, Mamma Well, and then to explore your membership as well, because that just sounds.

Oh, sounds like a wonderful space to be. So thank you for joining us today and bringing your words of wonderful wisdom. Oh, thank you, Anna. It's so good to chat always. And, yeah, you have a great way of just bringing out the topics and making them so helpful to so many women. Thank you so much. 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.

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 month. They are all £12 and you can find them on anamatha.com. I look forward to speaking with you soon.