TONTS. - Mama Rising with Amy Taylor-Kabbaz

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

Matrescence AlbumMatrescence FestivalAmy Taylor-Kabbaz is a Best-Selling Author, Speaker, Journalist, Matrescence Activist and Mama of three. After more than a decade covering breaking news and current affairs for the ABC around the country, her 'traditional' career took an unexpected turn when she found herself lost, overwhelmed and diagnosed with a thyroid disease after the birth of her first daughter. 14 years - and two more babies - later, she is now the best-selling Hay House author of Mama Rising, the host of the ‘The Happy Mama Movement’ podcast (with more than 400,000 downloads), an internationally awarded Life Coach, runs numerous online programs for mothers all over the world, expert contributor to media outlets around the globe, and the creator of the #1 itunes meditations for children with more than 23 million downloads ‘Bedtime Explorers’. In 2019, she launched her world first Matrescence Facilitator Training - Mama Rising - sharing her unique formula of coaching and support into mother’s transition through matrescence. In 2022, Mama Rising was recognised by the ICF and currently has more than 200 accredited Mama Rising coaches globally. Website - www.amytaylorkabbaz.comInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/amytaylorkabbaz/Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/amytaylorkabbaz/For more from Claire you can head to https://www.clairetonti.com or instagram @clairetontiEditing: RAW CollingsSocial Media: Maisie JG Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I create, speak and write today, the Rwandari people of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respect to their elders past, present and emerging, acknowledging that the sovereignty of this land has never been ceded. I want to acknowledge the people who have given birth on this land, raised children on this land, connected to country and spirit for thousands and thousands of years. Hello, welcome to Tons, a podcast of in-depth interviews about emotions and the way they shape our lives.

I'm your host, Claire Tonti, and I'm so glad you are here. Each week, I speak to writers, activists, experts, thinkers, and deeply feeling humans about their stories. And this week, I want to read a quote first before I introduce my guest. It's from her book, Mama Rising, and I think her work has shaped the lives and changed the lives of so many mothers and women here in Australia and also around the world. If I'd known what matrescence was, I would have suffered into the whole experience in a completely different way. If I'd known this was an awakening, a whole self-transformation, an invitation to evolve

and rise, then I would have been so much kinder on myself. I would have seen my own grace. I would have forgiven myself for all the times I felt lost. I would have trusted it all. The reason the emergence of matrescence is so profound is because it allows us to stop trying to resist what is happening and trust it. A quote from Judith Durek. To discover who she is, a woman must trust the places of darkness where she can meet her own deepest nature and give it voice, weaving the threads of her life into a fabric to be named and given, sharing it with the women around her as she comes to a true and certain sense of herself.

My guest today is my dear friend, Amy Taylor-Kabaz. Now, Amy is a bestselling author, speaker, journalist, matrescence activist, and mama of three. After more than a decade covering breaking news and current affairs for the ABC around the country, her traditional career took an unexpected turn when she found herself lost, overwhelmed, and diagnosed with a thyroid disease after the birth of her first daughter. 14 years and two more babies later, she is now the best-selling Hay House author of Mama Rising, the host of the Happy Mama Movement podcast with more than 400,000 downloads, an internationally awarded life coach.

Amy runs numerous online programs for mothers all over the world. She is an expert contributor to media outlets around the globe and the creator of the number one iTunes meditations for children with more than 23 million downloads called Bedtime Explorers. In 2019, Amy launched her world first matrescence facilitated training, Mama Rising, sharing her unique formula of coaching and support into mothers transition through matrescence. And in 2022, Mama Rising was recognized by the ICF and currently has more than 200 accredited Mama Rising coaches globally. Amy also recently won coach of the decade for her work in Mama Rising. I met Amy after I released my Matrescence album. Oh gosh, was it last year? Yeah, I think it was just last year. And I quickly recognized a kindred spirit.

I sat on a park bench the other day on the way to Port Ferry Music Festival, just in my hometown in Melbourne. And a woman sat next to me. We were both watching our kids playing and we got to chatting. And I told her what I did. And she immediately said, oh my goodness, I read Amy's book, Mama Rising, and it changed everything for me. This podcast is an attempt to try and glean as much information from Amy about her knowledge of matrescence and her life and work as well. I think that it is wild and special and far-reaching and a journey, just as matrescence is, and I hope you will really listen deeply. I do genuinely believe that this word has the power to change everything. Moving from our

patriarchal way of being, which translates to domination of the fathers, to a matriarchal sense of being, translating to, in the beginning, the mothers. A circle rather than a triangle. Instead of dominating over, celebrating with. Reciprocity, love, community building. When we centre mothers and children at the heart of our communities, we are centring the earth. We are centring health and vitality, connection to nature, human beings as human beings, not human doings. And that's why Amy and I are so passionate about this work.

We are also going to be together in the UK in Exeter. I've launched tickets this week for my Matrescence Festival created with Lizzie Hummer. I would love you to go at the link in the show notes or over onto my Instagram to find out more information. We will be there alongside a whole host of incredible speakers and experts in this field, as well as artists and poets. We're going to be making zines and stitching, singing and movement with yoga, eating beautiful vegan food and talking together and transitioning through this huge monumental process of becoming a mother and why it matters just so very much. I do really believe that art is a vehicle for us to transition through this just as much as academic thought and knowledge is, because empathy and understanding of

the impact of our emotions is power. Emotions are not soft. Understanding and harnessing and exploring and deeply knowing the depth of your emotions enables and allows you to grow fully. And as Brene Brown would say, is harder than so much of the so-called harder sciences. Anyway, I digress. I cannot wait for you to listen to this episode. Here she is, Amy Taylor Cabaz. A Melbourne artist called Meredith. She's also an author and she's got beautiful work and I was given it for my 40th birthday by all my girlfriends. And I don't know if you can see, but it's like all the women sitting around the table.

Yeah. But it's usually on the wall and it fell down at 2 o'clock this morning. Oh, no. Oh, my God. But it didn usually on the wall and it fell down at 2 o'clock this morning. Oh, no. Oh, my God. But it didn't break. I'm like, I can't believe it. It just slid and went bang. So I placed it there and I was going to move it and I thought,

you know what, it's kind of nice in the background for. It is for today. It's like a women gathering. Exactly. So I've left it there. Beautiful. Well, now that you've said that I'm going to ask you a different question from the one I thought can you talk to me about female friendship

and what that means to you the sisterhood oh Claire you're gonna make me cry right from the beginning um I ever since I was very very little was more concerned about my friendships than boyfriends. Even as a teenager, you know, it was boys on the side. They came second in my world. I have always craved women around me. Even at university, studied international development, focusing on women. It's just always been a thing for me to have this circle of women. I struggled to find those women for a really long time. Then I did in my 20s and in my early 30s and had a wonderful time sort of partying with them all.

And then when we moved to Sydney and I had my third baby and found that incredibly isolating. I didn't really have any of those women around me again. So I created a business that allowed me to gather all of the women. And that's kind of how this all started. I was like, does anybody want to hang out with me? Because I'm really lonely and I want to talk about this stuff. So it is one of my core things in life is having good women around me. Oh gosh, maybe that's why I started a podcast for the same reason. That's it. Yeah, completely. I know you write so beautifully in your book, Mama Rising, which has changed so many lives for so many women about also the loss of friendship

in that transition to motherhood through matrescence. Can you tell me why you think that is, that women lose friendships? I think there's a number of reasons. I think we don't feel like we can be honest about what we're experiencing and we have created a culture and a society that is incredibly isolating around new mothers. Mothers groups are a wonderful idea, but very often are a place where it can feel even more isolating and lonely because it's built on an assumption that everybody's got the same experience and they're all there to talk about their babies instead of what's happening

with them personally. And I think because we don't live in a village anymore where we're seeing our sisters and our cousins and our next door neighbors going through the realities of raising children when we come home and it slaps us in the face of how confronting it is and we've never seen that around us before which was very much my experience I grew up in remote parts of Australia. I didn't have any of my cousins or anybody around. I didn't have any experience with babies or toddlers until mine came along. I just assumed that everybody else knew what they were doing except for me.

So I think because right from the very beginning, we have this culture of silence, of putting a mask on and pretending we're okay, it is very hard for so many of us to lean on girlfriends in those early years of motherhood, especially if they're not mums or they're at different stages of motherhood. I tell this story in my book. I remember, I think it was about 12 or 15 hours after my first baby was born. And we had a pretty horrible delivery and it was very confronting. And I think I was probably still shaking.

12 hours later, my phone rang in the hospital. This was like, you know, 16 years ago. And so I don't even know if I would have had a mobile phone. I probably did, but I didn't know where it was. And so the good old bedside table hospital phone rang at like 6.30 in the morning the day after. It was one of my core women who was still very much in my life, has been one of the consistent ones. And I sort of said, hello. And she said, how are you? And I went, oh, I think that's all I said. And she said, oh, it's a train wreck, isn't it?

And I, I know, makes me cry. And I just cried because I was like, why didn't anybody tell me that? Like just hearing those words, oh, Amy, I know, it's a train wreck, isn't it, was all I needed to know that I was going to be okay. And I don't think we do that very well for each other because it's incredibly scary to say it's a train wreck, are you okay? Because we all have to pretend that we're loving it. So that was a very long answer to your question,

but I feel that it's built into our system almost to be isolated and quiet about our experiences. And then it compounds that silence, I think. And in the way our culture is structured where we're all in our individual houses, it just kind of compounds and compounds. Can you tell me who the woman was that you were before you gave birth and then talk to us about that experience of that kind of unravelling of that person. When I think about her now, I have so much compassion for her, but she was really trying

to prove things to the world. I don't know why. I don't know if it's star sign related or karmic lifetimes. I'm not sure why, but I seem to have landed in this life with a pretty strong determination to do big things and make a difference. Even when I was a really, really little girl, like even as a toddler, I would get into bed at night and my mum would have to say to me, Amy, just let God take over tonight. You don't have to worry about the world tonight. So I definitely have always been this intense, driven, there's so much wrong we need to fix kind of energy. And now as a mother of three pretty beautiful but intense personalities, I have a lot more compassion for my mum and thinking about what that must have been like

as her first child. So by the time I became a mother, I was doing the job that I believed I was here to do, which was to work for the ABC as a journalist. I'd spent a couple of years studying in university in Japan because I wanted to be a foreign correspondent. I had, like I said, this extra degrees around working with women and developing countries and I really was very, very determined to be a part of the storytelling, I thought, to change the world.

I also was fiercely independent, especially when it came to asking for help. I did not like to do that ever and And if I felt like I needed help, I would just get angry and push harder. I didn't have much softness about myself. There was a lot of armour for numerous different reasons, but there wasn't a lot of softness and there definitely wasn't a lot of self-forgiveness or self-kindness at all. And then I crash landed into motherhood with this baby who obviously was sent to me for a reason. She landed in this world with a lot of physical problems, a lot of physical challenges. And the first few months were incredibly hard, daily physio, and we really struggled, the two of us. And it became so obvious

to me how much I blamed myself. And I hate to say this, but it's the truth, like hated myself. I really, it's awful to think about now how much I thought it was me and that wouldn't let anybody help me because I should know how to do this. And it was just awful the way that I turned it back on myself, which is why I'm so passionate about when I talk to mums about the very first thing I always want to do is try and turn on a little bit of that self-kindness because I know what it feels like to have that self-attack inside of you and that was just so brutal after I became a mum. So I had to really, I got to the point where I had to, you know, change things for myself. I don't know how I realised that because nobody was really talking to me about it. I definitely didn't have in the doctor's eyes postnatal depression or anything like that.

I was just, yeah, I don't know what made me start turning it around. There wasn't a particular point. It was just slowly, in slow, slow, slow moments, trying to start talking to myself differently. And so the way it started for me was I'd always been a huge fan of Louise Hay. My mum was really woo-woo in the 80s and 90s. She's a full hippie and took me to hear Louise Hay when I was like 14. And somehow those affirmations came back into my world after Scarlett was born. And I just started writing out kind things to myself

every day. And I started pushing her pram every afternoon when she wouldn't sleep, just saying, I love and accept myself, I love and accept myself, to the pace of my feet, of my footsteps. And at first the voice came back saying, no, you don't, you're terrible, you shouldn't be a mother, like all of those things. And that's also what I talk a lot about is those affirmations don't work if your core belief isn't there but somehow over the years of just doing all of that inner work I'm now a much much much softer compassionate kind of person to myself first and foremost but then also from there everything changed so interesting Amy I opened your book again today and I've read it a few times and I just thought I'm just gonna to open it and see what page comes out. Cause you know,

I'm as woo-woo-woo probably as your mom as you are. And we're going to talk about the spiral as well. But the page that it opened to immediately, which I thought was so interesting was page 114. And I'm just going to read you a little bit of what it says on this page. And then I want to talk about it because I was raised Catholic too. And I have a song that kind of is all about being good and that actually you don't have to be good. You don't have to be perfect. Trust is the medicine you take in those moments of self-judgment. With almost every mother I have connected with or coached, this has been a big sticking point. They just don't trust themselves anymore. Whether it's trusting enough to start nourishing themselves

and stop the 3pm sugar binge or get through a hectic morning routine without yelling or initiate sex with their husband again, that deep belief in themselves is missing. But here's the toughest part of my journey with this mama. Here's the bit that has without doubt, even more than the superwoman mentality that has dogged me my whole life, been the most painful lesson of all to learn. I am a good person. At my core, I am good. And with every challenge, every contraction of matrescence, every single inner mean mama moment, I am unlearning and rewiring all those old beliefs that I am the complete opposite of a good person and starting again. And this is so hard for me to believe, raised a Catholic in the days when Catholic

education started with the premise that we are all born with original sin and therefore we should spend our lives trying to prove we are worthy of God's love. It's a big one, isn't it? What do you think? Do you think that's where it came from, the Catholic stuff? I definitely think that has a big part of it for me. And it's interesting that you've read that to me today because I'm like, oh God, I'm back in that lesson again. Here we go again, which we'll talk about the spiral. Without passing blame or reflecting too much on my mother, she was very much, she was brought up by the nuns very much in the strong Catholic tradition. She has had her own challenges over her lifetime

of redefining her faith. I believe in my DNA there is a matriarchal line of being good or bad as black and white. I know that to be true. And, you know, we now understand with epigenetics that I was inside my grandmother and when I look at those stories and that core belief of good and bad and right and wrong and being accepted or rejected, all of those things, yeah, it's in my DNA for sure.

But again, I also think that I look at my sister who somehow has got that DNA, but also has come to the world saying, excuse my language, fuck that. That's not how we roll. So I think, again, I don't know why I seem to have taken that on so deeply right from the beginning of my life. As I said in my book, it is the greatest challenge of my lifetime, I think, is to accept that I am enough and worthy as I am today, even if I didn't save the world, even if I didn't finish the washing, even if I was angry at my kids before I fell asleep, even if I, all of those things, I'm still good. I'm still loved. I'm still okay. That is my lesson. It's so interesting because that in a way allows you then the ability to teach and coach and help

so many other women. It's kind of that weird paradox of like the hardest thing that you're given is the gift as well. Oh, absolutely. And I think over the, because I've just, you know, I was just in Melbourne and we had a lovely lunch when I was in Melbourne reflecting on 10 years of coaching mothers. And a big part of what I've been able to now accept about myself has come from hearing so many stories over the

last decade of women judging themselves, of saying, I'm such a terrible mother because I yelled at my son yesterday, or I'm such a terrible person because of this. And my immediate response is, are you kidding me? That doesn't make you a bad person. So I've learnt it through seeing it in others first. I've seen so often these women be terrible to themselves, like truly beat themselves up. And I think don't beat yourself up. That's what we all do. And through allowing them to see their forgiveness for themselves,

I'm like, oh, that means that I should forgive myself too. So it's been a very reciprocal healing over the last decade with all of these women. It's interesting, isn't it, that we're much better at helping and giving compassion and kindness to the other people around us than we are to ourselves. Totally. I feel that so deeply um now I want to ask you about Gabby Bernstein and that phrase the universe always has our back and we keep talking about this spiral so you've got it on your wrist now don't you just there yeah can you tell me about it yeah so again there's a bit of a theme here for me, obviously, which is being okay with this process of falling down, picking myself back up again. Again, a theme through my whole life of I should know this by now, I should be doing

better. Just very hard on myself for learning what I think is a big lesson and then finding that I'm back there again. Just the concept when I first heard about, you know, that the feminine way of looking at growth and time is that it's not linear. You know, the masculine, the hero's journey is a straight line. He starts here with a problem. He goes out and fights the dragon, slays the dragon, you know, discovers who he really is and returns triumphant. That's the hero's journey. The heroine's journey is a circle. It goes around and around and around. And so what we do as the heroine in our story is we usually come to this world and try and do it the masculine way, do it the hero's way, go out, prove ourselves, you know, slay the dragon, win the battle. And then we realize, oh, that doesn't feel as good as I thought it would.

And what the heroine then does is that she retreats into her cave or into her women's circle or into herself to find her answers within. And then once she's found the answers within, she emerges balancing that heroine and masculine energies. That's a similar thing to the spiral in the sense of, and I've heard this from so many women who have read my book or done my training where we talk about the spiral all the time, just this acceptance that you're not going backwards, you haven't failed. It's not that you don't know what you're doing. It's not that there's something wrong with you. It's part of the growth. So this was in a particularly hard time in motherhood with my eldest daughter, who has quite significant mental health challenges,

which she's totally wants me to be open about so we can take that mask off as well. And we were having a particularly hard time and I was searching for answers thinking, I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know how to get through this and stumbled across this book at some random healer's house in the outback of Sydney that I'd never seen again and wouldn't even know how to find her. But obviously, I was there to open that book. And I opened that book just like you did before and opened it to this page with this picture of a spiral.

And I'll give you the reference for the show notes if you like. And it described that this is the process of growth of life, that we're going up the spiral thinking we're going higher and we've figured it out and we know the answers. And then it feels as if we fall down and backwards. But actually, as we go down and backwards, we're cleaning things up and gathering momentum to then go higher again. And we go up and down and up and down. But each time it does get smaller and shorter, but we are always rising up. We are always growing into who we're here to be and learning. And when I saw that, it just made my whole nervous system exhale. It was like, oh, again, just this reminder

that it's not linear, that I haven't done something wrong, that this is just one of those backward spiral moments and I'm about to learn something new and go higher again. And so, yes, I got it tattooed on my wrist. I don't even remember when, maybe 2017 now. And I've had women who have finished my training and my program made me a spiral necklace I've had like so many women around the world say I told my husband I'm going to get a spiral tattoo I feel like um you know it's like the little secret uh secret you know little like I see you sister you got your spiral it just resonates with so many people Claire which always makes me think why why does that resonate with so many out of all, which always makes me think, why? Why does that

resonate? Out of all the things I talk about in my book, out of all the things I've done over the last 10 years, why is this spiral tattoo something that everybody talks to me about? And I think it's because, again, we judge ourselves based on this toxic lie that growth is linear, that we should always be moving forward, we should never go backwards. And then here's that heroine's understanding of we're meant to retreat. We're meant to go back and in to gather ourselves again before we then go back out again. So it just speaks to that worldview of growth is one way only, and it's meant to look a certain way. What do you do or what advice do you give to mommas or for your own self when you're in the downward spiral, like really at the rock bottom? I often rub the tattoo. I swear that's what it's

like. Come on, Amy, you've got it. You've got it. I catch myself. I try and catch myself. I'm much, much better at it now. Like back in the day when Scarlett was born 16 years ago, like I said, I'd try and talk positively to myself and that vicious voice would come straight back saying, liar, I've worked very hard to not have that voice anymore. And she is there, but she is so quiet now and I can catch her very quickly. You mentioned Gabby Bernstein and that quote about the universe. One of the ones that's come into mind that I learned from her, I had the great privilege of interviewing her a number of times over the years. And she shared once with me this idea, which again, is just one of those soothing balms when I'm in the depth, which is, I used to live in the darkness with flashes of light, and I now live in the light with flashes

of darkness. I'm not sure if she quote, you know, that's her quote, or if she got it from somewhere else, or if it's from someone else, I apologize. But that too has been soothing for me and so many women I've shared that with because I do feel like that's where I live now. Most of the time I'm in that light. I'm in a space where I can forgive myself. I can catch myself. I can stop the complete spiral down, but there's going to be flashes of darkness. It's how quickly can I come back? Whereas before there was only flashes of the good stuff. It was mostly hard and dark. So I think it's an acceptance of this is the dark bit. This is the downward spiral. This is why in our programs, you know, women just literally just point to the spot. Like they they just they don't even use the word they're just like spiral that's all it is today it's just an acceptance that this

is part of it has been really soothing for me what's your relationship like to sunlight and place outside nature oh huge i am a total nomad my parents were in the defense force and then in the police force so we moved around all the time so I don't have a home in that sense in Australia I've lived in like I'd have to count again over 20 homes in 47 years all over Australia and all over the world but my when I think about home it's Darwin at the top of Australia, which I only lived in for a few years and then visited a lot later. Because what I love about Darwin is that you feel all the elements there. It's like alive. You get off the plane. I used to do a meditation for my kids when they couldn't sleep because their favorite place is Darwin as well and I'd say okay close your eyes imagine we're

on the plane and we're flying up to Darwin and you get off the plane and they open the the doors to the plane or it gives me goosebumps thinking about it and you can smell the heat it's just this comes over you and you walk out and you're sweaty and everything feels different and smells different. And it's like, you know, you go outside for your morning coffee and there's a frog and a lizard climbing over the table and it's just so real and raw and alive. That's my happy place. Yeah. So I love feeling the elements, which is hilarious because I'm in the top floor of an apartment building in the middle of Sydney.

Oh, but I love when you Instagram me. It always makes me feel better when you post pictures of like the sunrise or the sunset. Yeah, well, that's why I have to be at the top floor because it's the only way I can feel like I'm in the elements. When I was down on the ground in Sydney, it felt really claustrophobic. Like at least I can see the sunrise, the sunset, the elements. When I was down on the ground in Sydney, it felt really claustrophobic. I had like, at least I can see the sunrise, the sunset, the elements. I love watching clouds, you know, just seeing how it all changes. So yeah. It helps, doesn't it? That going, that meditation

that you speak of that you do so beautifully. There's a beautiful meditation in your book and you do meditations for kids it's interesting that that's been such a big part of your career and then also that entering into nature and the element for me anyway that's what saved me I think moving through matricence there's actually a Mary Oliver poem and I might edit this out I just feel like reading it to you and I don't know why but it just came to me let's go there to read it. It's called The Moth, the Mountains and the Rivers. Who can guess the lunar sadness who lives so briefly? Who can guess the impatience of stone longing to be ground down, to be part again of something livelier? Who can imagine in what

heaviness the rivers remember their original clarity. Strange questions, yet I have spent worthwhile time with them. And I suggest them to you also, that your spirit grow in curiosity, that your life be richer than it is, that you bow to the earth as you feel how it actually is, that we, so clever and ambitious and selfish and unrestrained, are only one design of the moving, the vivacious many. Wow. Right? Do you know what comes to mind with that is that I was explaining

to my mum the other day how much I love the ocean and I was saying I think why I love it so much and also maybe this is what I was trying to say with the Darwin thing as well is that I love that the ocean. And I was saying, I think why I love it so much, and also maybe this is what I was trying to say with the Darwin thing as well, is that I love that the ocean can be the most calm, beautiful thing you've ever seen and within moments be absolutely wild. Nobody would go in, stand back, she is angry today, respect her. It feels the same with nature up in Darwin. I feel so much of my life and in particular the women that I hear every day is that we can't express fully what we're feeling inside because it's scary or too much or too raw or too loud or all of it. And then you go into nature, whether it's the river, the ocean, the intense mosquitoes and sweat and Darwin,

and it's like it just is. You have to accept it. There is no putting a mask on it. You can't. You've just got to respect that that is what it is today. And I think that's what I get out of nature is that it's unpredictable and awesome that it's unpredictable. Because we are it.

We are it. We are it, especially internally as women. I mean, the only times I've ever gotten really sick, I have a thyroid disease and had, you know, lots of complications with that is when I'm not allowing my emotions to come out. When I'm trying to be the good girl or trying to not be angry or trying not to upset somebody, I will get really sick because it's that wild energy inside. She needs to come out somehow.

Yeah. Completely. I went to a festival recently and just danced. We did rage dancing in a tent with like 300 women and it was just all these women by the end just like raging and screaming and like oh it was just beautiful yeah that is my happy place oh one of the turning points of my life was discovering kundalini yoga and just for years so at the start of the lockdown in march 2020, I went out to my whole community and said, oh, we're going into lockdown for six weeks because that's all we thought we were doing at the beginning. Why don't we all get together and we'll all do a meditation in the mornings together to

get us through this? And it was a kundalini yoga meditation where we'd turn the music on and we'd punch the air for three minutes. And we ended up doing that for two years. And that saved me and so many of us because there was this little tiny space where we could feel all the feels. And you'd punch and then you'd be crying as you're punching and like, just get this out. And then when we did that, we were like, okay, cool. now we can go back and be mothers. All these crazy women.

It's like I love it so much. We so needed it. Oh, we just need it. We talked a bit about that when we had lunch about how women, we need almost every two weeks that connection, that women's circle, that feeling and that idea that now our partners are supposed to be everything for us, you know, and we're kind of isolated. But actually, we just need to let out the wild woman, you know, the wolf woman, let her out. The wolf woman. That was really scary for me,

and it still is at times. I mean, I'm much better at it now. But if I could share this story, when I was studying with Dr. Aurelie Athen at Columbia University in New York, who really is the lead researcher on matrescence in the world at the moment, and I was incredibly blessed to have been able to work with her one-on-one for a while to write my book and create my training and understand matrescence, there was a point where I was deep in the patriarchal research of how mothers have been treated over the years and was just incredibly angry and angry for myself that I had been blaming myself and telling myself that it was me

and why I couldn't do it right. But by that stage, I also had thousands of women who I'd listened to and interviewed. And there was this real anger in me and it frightened me, Claire. And I remember saying to Aurelie, I don't want to be one of those angry feminists. I can't, I don't want to be in the street. And then she encouraged me to say, well, what do you mean? Like, what are you seeing in your mind? What are you afraid of? And I said, well, there's that stereotype of the crazy, angry, wild feminist in the middle of the street with the placards disrupting everything. And she's mad and she's like, you know, wild and unruly and illogical and all of these words. And I'm like, I don't want to be like that.

And she said something to me, which is now part of Mama Rising, which I just, was life-changing. She said, Amy, anger is a station on the train we need to move through to get to the answers, but we don't get off the train at anger and stay there. The train pauses at the station. We have to be able to feel those feels and find our voice and be angry and everything. But then ultimately we get back on the train and we keep going to where we can find a way to do this differently. Some people get off the train at anger and never get back on again. And some of them are so afraid that anger is going to come up, they don't get on the train. And so she said, I want you to write a paper about why you're afraid of anger in women. And so that was my homework. Okay. But it was such

a confronting thing to realize that I was afraid to voice how angry I was at the system. I was afraid to be that angry, you know, stereotypical feminist, even though I'm deeply am one. And I think, again, that's why get a group of women into a tent and turn the music on and ask them to, and just allow them to feel. And they will feel all these feelings they may not have even recognized before because we're just so afraid of what if what if i actually feel this what's going to happen what will change what will break where will we go but i loved that analogy of the train will stop there it needs to but then you keep going like feel the field dance it dance it off at the station then get back on the train and keep going where does it go to next for the train? That's probably going to, you'll have to ask me that on my last day of life.

I feel that, but I feel like the next stop is sisterhood, which is a word that I don't love, but it's just, you know, like I feel the next stop is then gathering together in compassion and kindness and acceptance, I think the train becomes more populated, if that's a terrible analogy. But you know what I mean. I think we don't keep riding it on our own. But I think you do move anger through anger on your own and that's scary. It is really, really scary.

I resonate with that so deeply. I think it goes into that good girl stuff, you know, the way you're raised to be good and polite and people pleasing and help others and that's what a good woman is. And so the flip side of that is scary and you constantly have to keep speaking to that inner child who's like sitting in the front row in the class, always getting the answers right, always getting a perfectly neat page and wanting everyone to think she's the best and you know all of that perfect exactly me too

and and the yeah it's it kind of goes against everything that we were taught as kids so it's huge it's huge i want to ask you about that kind of pivotal moment. And I know you talk about this all the time, but discovering the word matrescence, what was that like for you? And why is that word so deeply powerful? Hearing that word, it sounds melodramatic. It's not. This is how much of a moment it was in my life. It felt like, oh, it gives me funny feelings just thinking about it. It felt like one of those moments I would imagine, you know, like when people have this download of something. It felt like all of the answers were suddenly there. I had, I'm going to use all of the cliches, like I had been in the dark and someone turned the light on.

I thought, you know, I was in the forest and didn't know where I was going and suddenly found my way. It just felt like, oh my God, that's it. And so to understand that for everybody listening, by that stage, Scarlett, who is that first beautiful baby who sent me on this amazing journey, she was 10. So it had been 10 years of me trying to understand this. I had only been coaching for about four years by that stage. But to let you all know how quickly this experience of becoming a mother triggered these questions in me, I think Scarlett

was about nine months old when my first article was published on birth trauma in a major Australian newspaper magazine. I went straight into journalist activist mode. Even in my sleep deprived hell, I was like, I have to find out about this. Something's not right. Why is nobody talking about it? I have to interview people. I have to start. So I'd been doing that for 10 years. By that stage, I also think I had 3,000 women had gone through my online program. It was my whole world was hearing these stories of mothers and I was coaching them and I was supporting them and I seemed to be making a difference. But there was still a part of me that I don't know how to describe it. It wasn't like I questioned it. It just didn't feel like it was complete. It's still, I like to describe it as if I had the answer, but I didn't know what the question was, if that makes

sense. I don't know how else to describe it. I knew I was doing it for the right reasons and I knew I had the answers, but I still couldn't understand what I was answering. It was this very strange sensation. And then when I was driving around Sydney, thank goodness nobody else was in the car at the time, but I dropped some kid here and picked up another one over there. And it was, you know, the usual in between running around listening to a podcast. I heard a podcast with Dr. Alexandra Sachs, who wrote an article for the New York Times about matrescence is like adolescence. And I was listening to an interview with her

and it's strange how emotional it still makes me feel. When I heard it, I had to pull over on the side of the road in the middle of Sydney traffic and I just was hysterically sobbing. It was as if, I don't know how to describe it, it was like, oh, my God, that's it. That's what I've been trying to understand for 10 years and trying to talk to these women about for 10 years and trying to literally ask everybody. I interviewed everyone I could think of in the world about this, like everyone from Louise Hay to Gabby Bernstein, Wayne Dyer,

Deepak Chopra, like I was just obsessed with trying to figure out what happens to us when we become a mother? Why do we feel like this and no one's talking about it? So the word landed in my world and I was meant to be writing a completely different book for my publisher, Hay House. It was about successful women and ambition and how to soften into the feminine. And I quickly rang my editor and said, oh my God, I think I've changed my mind. I want to write about something else. Can I have a meeting? And I went in for a meeting with her, told her about matrescence. She was like, oh my God, yes, this is it. And I said, there's this woman in New York. She's like the lead researcher. She's the only one that really knows about this. Can I go and see her? And they said, yes. And within three months,

I was in Dr. Aurelia Athan's office, snot crying, like literally, you know, in Columbia University, like the teenager in me who wanted to be at Columbia University studying, you know, women's development and then walking down to my office in the UN, I was mortified that I was not crying in Columbia University. And she couldn't find tissues, Claire, so she had to go into the kitchen and get paper towel. I was sitting there with paper towel. It's just, I thought it was my fault. Like that's how I, that's what I was like in her office. Yeah. But even that is a gift. Like what was she like in that moment when you were still crying?

She knew the power of this word too. She'd seen it in her lab, as she called it. She has a lab of psychology students and they were the ones who had workshopped this and interviewed mothers and done so much research around this word and this concept. And it was in her lab that they came up with the understanding that adolescence, sorry, yes, matrescence is like adolescence. So she knew the impact that this could have on women. So she just held space for me as beautiful elders and space holders do, and just sort of nodded and smiled. And now that you've asked me that question, it actually is a beautiful reflection because I feel like that's now what I do, which is a beautiful acknowledgement, is that you don't really need to do much. You just hold the space for these women to snot cry, if you're like me, and process, oh my God, that's what it is,

and I didn't know. One of the things that she shares, and I think it's so powerful, is that she says words create worlds. And when we don't have a word to describe our world, then that is so isolating and traumatic. And you asked why does this word mean so much to so many now, I think that's what it is. We've all been in this world where we haven't known how to talk about it and we haven't been brave enough to talk about it and then you give someone a word for it and a whole new world begins. They suddenly realise they're connected with others,

that it's not their fault. It's just profound what this word has gifted me and is now you know weaving its magic around the world as you know with your beautiful music too I mean you and I have both seen the impact that this word has even for people who aren't mothers completely for men for young men for people who like even, yeah, guys, we've, we gigged together in the UK and, and in Sydney too. And like the sound tech who's like 21 or something. And I think he's not going to have got this at all comes up in like a flood of like, Oh, I'm going to send this to my sister and God, she's going through it. And it's so full on and

intense and because it's, it's deeply human because it's deeply human what we go through. It's deeply human. That's right. And when we were together in the UK, I remember, I mean, so many of those beautiful young men who came up to us afterwards and talking about how much they had been changed by hearing out the stories that you and I were sharing and your music and how many of them came up and said, thank you, it's helped me understand my mum better.

Like there's so many layers of healing that can come through this. It's helped me understand my experience with my mother in such a different way now. You know, I see that very differently now because of what I understand. She must have felt completely isolated in the middle of Alice Springs with two tiny babies and my dad out bush as a homicide detective day after night and on her own raising these two babies and one of them is so feisty and won't get out of the bath and just wants to go hurry up. And I came home for my first

day of school Claire and I cried to her because I didn't know how to read yet of course you did oh my god I have never resonated with something so much like honestly the amount of times I start a thing I've never done before and I'm like, why can't I? I'm just not going to give it up because why can't I already do it? Yeah. You know? I've been at school for one day, Mum. It's like, why can't I read? I don't understand.

And I look at that young woman now, like she was young and she was on her own in the middle of nowhere and, you know, I have such different compassion and understanding for our relationship because of this work as well so yeah it's healed on so many levels it's just I feel very very you and I have both spoken about this we both feel like it shows us I don't know why or how but I am I'm here for it I'm happy to be chosen yeah me too and it's like a magnet it's so interesting and the magical things that occur like as you were talking before a little bird came and sat on like the tree just outside here and it

just it just is deeply reminding me all the time that it has its own life force which i think you talk about too i wanted to ask you in kind of granular detail there's a poet lily redwood who i've connected with through matricence like you said so many people pop up who talks about liminal discs she has a poem called caterpillar soup which is how she feels like motherhood is caterpillar soup because caterpillars liquefy into liminal discs before they become butterflies can you tell us what's going on from a brain perspective when you give birth and after that like because it's not just a feeling right it's physiological yeah and it's not just physiological but then there's also all of the identity changes as well which I can talk about but

in terms of what's happening with our brain I think the best way it's ever been described to me is that we go from me to we, meaning that they've actually studied, neurosciences now mapped the brains of new parents and the brain actually changes shape in the postpartum period. And the longer you can stay with your baby, even if you're not the birthing partner, the more your brain will change and never go back. It will never reshape, reform, go back to what it was. So here again is the beautiful definition of matrescence. You will never be who you used to be again.

But in our culture, it keeps telling us, oh, wait till you get back to your old self or you feel like you walk back into work 12 months later or six weeks later and you should be who you used to be. You never will. But the exciting thing now we understand is when we talk about this baby brain, is that the first few months postpartum, the brain is actually shut down in a lot of ways. That's why you end up, I remember I always used to put my car keys in the fridge, just accidentally, not on purpose. But that was my thing. Like I'd get home with the shopping and

the babies and whatever, and everything would go in the fridge. And then the next day I'd try and drive the car and I'm like, I can't find where my keys are. Those types of things is a survival mechanism. Our brain has changed so we can only focus on keeping our babies alive. But that at about six months begins to diminish hormonally and also just evolutionary speaking, like that constant hypervigilance, the only thing in the world is to keep my baby alive, begins to diminish at around six months. This is just a rough science, by the way. But then what replaces that is a sense of community

and worry about the world. That sense of hypervigilance about our baby then kind of transfers in a way to thinking about crossing the road, the food that we have in our house. How many women, how many new parents suddenly go on this organic rampage where you can't have any chemicals in the house and nobody's allowed to wear any perfume or any of these things? But then that also transfers into things like questioning politics. The company you've worked for for 15 years, you've never thought about whether they're doing good in this world or not.

And then suddenly you don't feel comfortable working for them. All of these changes that happen are actually neurological and purposeful. I like to think of it as like, it's the way that we are going to change the world, make it a better place. Because if we see these changes as good things, yes, okay, you lose your keys for six months. But beyond that, what your brain is doing is it's gone from this small sense of I, this small sense of ego, to this bigger sense of the world. Is this a safe place for my child? What is my legacy? How am I going to make sure that this is going to be a better place for them? And that, we've never really, you know, brought that

to the mainstream. Again, that's one of the things that's coming through this work around matrescence and mother's brains, because we dismiss that baby brain so badly as something like we're stupid and we can't think and we're just emotional. And then that trickles down into how mothers are seen in the workplace and how mothers are treated in our culture and society. So that's a really important thing to remember about those changes. But also what I really loved when I dived into working on this and studying this myself was that just like in adolescence where we see all the changes hormonally and physiologically and in our brains and in our bodies, there's also part of that change in our brain.

It triggers a questioning and that's where this identity crisis often comes from. It triggers this questioning of I just don't know if I want to hang out with those people anymore. Or it triggers these feelings of wanting to retreat to the country and grow vegetables and I thought I'd be in my Manalo Blahniks for the rest of my life, like all of these things, right, or maybe that was just me.

All of this can be explained as important changes that are part of the process of humanity and making us grow as human beings and as a planet. But if we don't understand that, we think there's, again, I don't know how many times I've said it in this interview, there's something wrong with us. We don't talk about it. We just silence it and get back to what we think we should be. So when we begin to understand the ripple effect of these changes, just like with my teenagers, you know that the reason why they're slamming the doors and they hate us right now, and they're rolling their eyes and they're doing those things, it's part of them breaking away from us and finding their own sense of self. And they're going to have to prioritize friendships

over family for a little while. And they're going to have to prioritize friendships over family for a little while. And they're going to have to like, this is part of what we now know is the evolution from child to adult. We have to start seeing this as the evolution from woman to mother in a completely different way and accept that as part of this beautiful process that on the other side of it, she's going to care more and she's going to be more activated and more passionate if she's supported to do this right. She will be a force because something has irrevocably changed in her brain and in herself that now makes her prioritize bigger things for her kids to make sure that the world is okay.

Oh my God. While you're talking it deeply reminds me of the power of now by Eckhart Tolle yeah oh yes and there's a passage in there that I looked at this morning again I just did that weird thing where I just opened it and this is the sort of line about the transformation that happens through the body when we accept that we are creatures and animals and that that body is the thing that teaches and knows more than the mind because the mind runs in those thought loops and right when we accept that the changes in matrescence are our body changing us and that we're a creature and i think that's part of what I struggled so much within the matrescence phase is like crash landing into this idea that I'm an animal that lactates that has all these instincts and heightened senses of smell and hype that hyper vigilance that was so

like obsessive to the point where I know if I lost friends or friends really had you know oh you've changed or you feel like there's something deeply wrong with you because you are so wild as opposed to that. You're so wild. Right. It's such a great way to describe it. I remember, you know, yes, just this sense of if I went somewhere and because Scarlett had such trouble feeding, you know,

I'd have to retreat into a room. Everything was too loud, too bright, too everything. It was this... It's so crazy to me, Claire, that we don't talk to women about that. And if you experience that and nobody's ever told you that this is what is coming, that is terrifying. That is a really scary place to be if you don't understand why suddenly everything is too loud, too bright, too scary, too dirty, too, you know, that is a very, it breaks my heart that we're not wrapping women up before they land in that place and saying, hey, this is what's going to come and

it's going to be overwhelming at times, but you're going to be okay. And if you're not, this is where you need to go. And this is what, and there'll be no judgment here. I know we've talked for quite a while, but I deeply want to ask you what to do then, in an ideal world and in your learning from other cultures and your reading what what should we do when a woman enters into that wild matrescence space i think if i could wave my magic wand over this it would start with our girls and boys but it would start with our girls i think the transition through matrescence would be very different if all of the transitions of being a woman and in a feminine energy were treated

differently. I think it has to be a whole systematic change. So it means that we would talk about our cycles and our moods and our inner thoughts and the body, like you mentioned, in such a different way right from the beginning. So that when this is coming, when a woman decides she wants to be a mother or discovers that she's pregnant, it's not this suddenly the first time she's ever felt like she's had to think about herself in this way. I think we'd need to go right back to the beginning and change all of it. And then therefore, that would also continue with menopause. The amazing Jane Hardwick Collins says that each of these moments in our life are a rite of passage. And it means that we get to a fork in the road. And that fork in the road means if we can go either way,

we can either choose the rewounding, meaning we continue to do this the same way. So for me, that meant continuing to push down my emotions, think it was my fault, put on the mask of motherhood, be really, really, really perfect and just push myself to do better and better and go back to work and smash it at work and smash it at home and just continue myself to do better and better and go back to work and smash it at work and smash it at home and just continue to go and go and go. Or choose the new way. That's

the fork in the road. It took me until the third baby to choose the new way. But it's so interesting that you've said quite a few times today that you've just picked up a book and opened it to a page. Because I did the same thing earlier this morning for my own podcast and it's sitting here right here next to me throughout this whole thing and I feel like if it's okay with you I'd like to read it to you because it kind of answers what you just said. I think if we could say to each other that there is a place for you to go to learn about this from each other, that if we were able to come together and start having these conversations, whether they're dancing around the moon or creating art or singing, listening to you sing, however it is,

I think if we were just together more in that honest way, we would be able to move through this in such a different way. And that for me, it really started years ago. I found this book, The Circle of Stones by Judith Jurek. And she asked the question over and over again throughout the whole book, this changed my whole career. This is the basis of what I wanted to do. She asks, how would your life be different if there had been a place for you? And that's what she's asking over and over again as women and as girls. What if there was a place that you could keep coming back to, to learn about these different ways of women? And the one in particular around being a mother, I'll just see if I could read it to you.

How might your life have been different if deep within you carried an image of the great mother and when things seemed very, very bad, you could imagine that you were sitting in the lap of the goddess, held tightly, embraced at last, and that you could hear her saying to you, I love you, I love you, and I need you to bring forth yourself. And if in that image, you could see the great mother looking to her daughters, looking to each woman to reveal in her own life life the beauty, strength and wisdom of the mother. How might your life be different? Sorry.

But for me that's it. We need a place where we can have this different image of what it looks like to be surrounded by love and support from each other, whether that's the great mother or the goddess or whatever it is for you. And then to see each of us as her daughters. And in our own way, each of us have to find this strength, this beauty, this real self. For me, that has definitely been through matrescence. For others, it will be through different experiences.

But if we could just have a place where we felt we could go to, where we could hear that, I think that would make all the difference. Oh, Amy, thank you for reading that. That was so beautiful. I'm just going to go lie on the floor and stop for a while. Every time I speak to you, my mind gets blown by things that you say and the depth that you feel about the world. A quote that I've been thinking about from Rumi from your book is, I think the gift that you have given us all is the light. I know you say that idea of living in light with flashes of darkness,

and I think that by shining your light, you are allowing us to find our place inside it. And that Rumi quote, the wound is the place where the light enters. You know, I deeply feel like from everything you've been through, weirdly the universe is allowing you all the time to keep shining your light. So thank you for allowing that and for all that you go through to enable that. I just, I really appreciate your work in the world. So thank you. And thank you for shining your light. You know how I feel about you. And I feel that what I have learned from you is exactly what I was referring to, which

is that we are meant to be doing this together. We're meant to be supporting each other and shining lights on each other. You're the most collaborative, generous soul I have met. And thank you for being a part of my life. I think this is how we're meant to do it is we're meant to shine on each other and lift each other up and then travel through the UK and do our things Claire yeah go to the Matressence Festival Amy's coming too I'm so excited we're announcing the lineup and tickets this week and Amy's coming I just can't I'm so honored that

you were going to be there we've got this guru coming so it's so precious and Amy's coming. I just can't. I'm so honoured that you were going to be there. We've got this guru coming. So it's so precious and it's so interesting that painting fell off the wall and it's behind you. It's the sisterhood. It's the women. It's the sisterhood. Coming together.

That's it. That's how we change things. So thank you so much for this conversation and for coming on to Taunts. I've just valued it so much. I'm sure so many other people will do thank you for having me beautiful thank you you've been listening to a podcast with me claire tonte and this week with my dear friend amy taylor cabaz for more from amy you can read her book mama rising listen to the happy mama movement podcast and find her over on Instagram. You can find me,

Claire Tonti, at Claire Tonti on Instagram, where I like to tell stories, on Spotify, where you can listen to my album, Matrescence, and also head over to my website, clairetonti.com, where I have all the information for Matrescence Festival, my upcoming shows, and just like additional information. There's a little video clip of me for one of my songs. So I would love you to go and head over there. As always, thank you to Royal Collings for editing this week's episode and to Maisie for running our social media. Freedom, we want all of it.

Spent so long being good girls Can't breathe through it We're gonna rip it up We're gonna tear it down This cage you want us in No longer fits our crowns Cause we are fire And we can be free

We can unlearn all the things That they told us we should be Cause we are fire And we can finally breathe We can unlearn all the things that they told us we should be We can be free We can be free And don't forget that bodies can break They want us hungry and humble

Thinking our worth isn't our weight Thought if we starved ourselves To fit their box and fit their mold We'd lose our fight and stay small Way to be told that we are fire We are the fire. finally see we can unlearn all the things that they told us we should be we can be free we can be free we're gonna

rip it up we're gonna eat it all hear my voice now we're gonna take it all we're gonna rip it up we're gonna take it all. We're gonna rip it up. We're gonna eat it all.

Hear my voice now. We're gonna take it all. Cause we are fire and we can be free. We can unwind all the things that they told us we should be. Cause we are fire and we can finally believe. We can unlearn all the things that they told us we should be. We can be free. We can be free We can be free

We can be free We can be free We can be free We can be free yeah do it again again