Speaker 1Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like. And that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash ACAST. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
Speaker 2At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone, and including dental, vision, and medical insurance. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.
Speaker 3At Harmony Bank, we believe that better happens together. We're a locally owned bank, built on relationships, and personally committed to your success. Our community bankers are ready to make quick decisions. No big bank bureaucracy, just a custom approach to help you thrive. From business loans to mortgages and everyday banking needs, Harmony Bank provides a secure, modern experience with a touch of Texas hospitality. We're Harmony Bank, where better happens together.
Speaker 4And welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat, and enjoy the conversation. This is episode 74, and today's episode, Finding Balance, is an interview I was very privileged to have with Helen Hopkins. She's a wellness coach who knows how it feels to juggle family, friends, work, social life, and all that's in between, whilst also trying to stay true to who she is. And I really feel that this couldn't have been a more aptly timed sort of interview, because Helen's really practical around how can we find the unique balance that's the balance for us. Quite often we talk about this idea about balance and work-life balance and fitting all of the various bits and pieces in. But Helen takes it to a super practical and actually very unique bespoke in that what balance is to me is going to become the balance for me. And it's going to be completely different to what balance looks like for you. And it's how can we use the knowledge and the power that we have around habits to inform and change and put things in place for balance for us amongst all the juggle of what that juggle looks like for our particular family. Now, the give this week is actually from Helen herself and is a phenomenal resource looking at specific habits. And she'll talk about it when you hear the interview. As usual, head over to HelenHopkins.com or head over to DrMaryHan.com forward slash library where you'll find the link to download Helen's resource, but obviously all of the resources across all my podcast episodes. All you have to do is pop in your email address and you'll get instant access not only to this week's, to Helen's resource, but all the other free resources across all my podcast episodes. As ever, if you have enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you could follow and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So until next time, here's Helen. Are you all in for a treat in this podcast episode? Because I'm interviewing Helen Hopkins and she's going to talk about, well, various aspects of balance and being parents. And oh my God, you're in for a massive, massive treat. So Helen, welcome.
Speaker 5Oh, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4Oh, it's such a pleasure. This is such an important area. And I think something that we probably, I think we talk about quite often in general terms. I often talk about this idea about self-care and how we've got to sort of take care of ourselves. But I think actually talking about how do we balance being a parent with the other roles that we have, I think is just so important. So Helen, just as a bit of an intro, give us a little bit of info about what you do. And I think quite importantly, your role as mum.
Speaker 5Yeah, of course. So I'm a habit change practitioner and a woman's wellness coach. Sometimes people call us life coaches. I don't mind what you call me. I just help particularly parents and women who are finding it hard to balance their life. I help them find their unique balance. And I think that's really key here, the word unique balance, because everyone's balance looks different. And there's been a long dialogue about what balance looks like. And when we model that from, from our parents, that isn't real life for us. So I help my women really, really find their unique balance and also find themselves within all the hats that they juggle. So it might be that they work or have their own business. It might be that they're a mum, but also, you know, they're trying to be themselves at the same time. So I look at kind of their entire life and it's just the most wonderful job. And I'm absolutely in love with it. And as you said, I also am a mum. I have two children, Ophelia, who's just gone to secondary, who is 11 and Eve, who is currently at primary school and is nine.
Speaker 4Oh, that's lovely. I'm sure we're going to be touching on all of that and particularly the transition with your eldest as well. But I love the fact that you talk, you know, I'm making notes while you're talking, but this idea about unique balance, because so often we read things that are very prescriptive about this is what you should be doing. And then when we try and apply that to our lives, it doesn't feel as if it necessarily fits. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5And I think, you know, you know, I'm in my forties and I'm sure many of your listeners at home will be in their forties and beyond, maybe even a bit younger, but there isn't actually that many women who are, we are able to model our lives on within society. You know, your mum probably worked part time or didn't work at all when you were a kid. You're, you know, we're all modelling our lives off nothing really in particular. There are some women of our age in the media, but not a huge amount. And it's like, who are we modelling this from? And actually when we start to ask ourselves the questions, what do I want my life to look like? What does authenticity mean to me? What does balance mean to me? That's when we can create a life with hope and grace and peace. And I think that's what we're all looking for. Something that is really totally unique and bespoke to us.
Speaker 4Yeah. And I think that's key in what you talked about. You know, often we can look at celebrities and they're no doubt juggling quite often huge careers. But I think so often we feel very detached from that because certainly our perception, maybe I'm projecting here and my perception is that they've got help. They've got lots of things in place that allows that to happen.
Speaker 5Yeah, absolutely. I mean, obviously we've seen a lot more dialogue around menopause and perimenopause, which is amazing, but there isn't much in the media and that we can totally look at and I guess aspire to be like in terms of what balance is. What balance looks like. We look at some of these celebrities and you're exactly right. You know, there are incredible celebrities like Davina McCall who has children and balancing an incredible career, but you would assume that she has help. So how does like a modern everyday woman who is trying to make ends meet, trying to kind of keep their boss happy at work, keep their kids happy at home and find themselves some time in the middle as well. Like how does balance look like for that real modern day parent who is probably navigating an awful lot?
Speaker 4Yeah, and I think we talk about this idea of balance quite a lot. And I know a friend of mine talked about this notion that actually balance doesn't, you know, we often hear these words about home life balance. What do we mean? What is balance?
Speaker 5So for me, balance is a feeling of being at peace in all elements of your life. It's a feeling of being enthusiastic and motivated in your world and a feeling of you being able to be present for yourself and the people that you love. So I think what we need, what we need to really understand and one of my golden rules of balance is that it is fluid and it's an experiment. You touched upon my daughter going to secondary school recently. Our balances look different recently because she's not going to primary school. She's not walking. She's now on the bus and she's getting up earlier and being picked up later. And so balance is fluid. And I think when we understand that as a concept, then actually balance is easier to find because sometimes we feel like we've nailed balance. Like this is it. I'm totally balanced. And then something happens like a pandemic or the war in Ukraine or one of your kids has. some challenges that you need to help them with so balance is going to change but for me some of the and we're going to talk about this I'm sure I think our balance comes from our daily habits and the way we navigate our our lives and the way we show up in the world that's exactly how you are going to get balanced when you are living your true authentic self
Speaker 4yeah and I think that's such an important thing that you touched on is that actually balance is going to look very different and I think that's sometimes the challenge isn't it is that we think oh my god I've absolutely nailed it I've got balance and I'm doing this and I'm doing that and then it something just blows it completely out of the water and I think that kind of destabilizes
Speaker 5us it really does and then suddenly we feel like we're doing it wrong and it's not that we're doing it wrong it's just that we need to like up level our skills or ask ourselves different questions to find the balance that we're looking for I mean obviously as we record this we're kind of navigating towards Christmas Christmas looks very different in terms of a month than perhaps a month in the summer holidays or like we just need to realize that life is going to change but we need to evolve with it to create the balance that we crave
Speaker 4yeah and I'm guessing is part of that foundation layer just how we manage our expectations and our definition of it oh yes
Speaker 5definitely and I am always fascinated with definitions because my definition of balance and your definition of balance are probably two quite different things and when we understand that we are totally unique and that our balance looks different then we can make the right decisions to be able to create that as our reality and I think part of that conversation is about being open and honest about what your definition looks like but also about recognizing that other people's definition is different and that's okay because we all need to live a life with purpose and hope and we need to live our most authentic happy life and that is going to be different for everyone so recognizing exactly like we do in our children that everyone is different and that those different those differences make us really unique and really wonderful and those things can be really celebrated
Speaker 4and I'm guessing that that can be oh god I hope you can hate me for saying this but I'm going to say it anyway is I think as women we are often so hard on ourselves and we compare ourselves to others and we assume that everyone else has got their stuff sorted so how do we because I'm guessing that's such a foundation bit isn't it it's how we perceive it and how we then stop that comparison that anyone else yeah I think
Speaker 5part of that conversation is about being really brave and about being open and honest with the way you feel but also articulating what you want in your life I think you're exactly right you've hit the nail on the head we're not only hard on ourselves but we have a perception that we need to be perfect that we need to be incredible mothers we need to be amazing at work create like incredible meals have a tidy house and the reality is modern living for women is not like that anymore not many people can have all of those things unless as we've touched upon you have a lot of help and I don't have much help but I would love more help in my home to create that as my reality but it isn't my reality my house as I walked out to my office is not very tidy at the moment the breakfast stuff is still on the side but actually I need to recognize that part of my balance is not running around and doing things that actually don't really really matter to me and I think it's about being open and honest with your friendship groups and with your family as to what that looks and feels like for you but remembering that when we all start to crack this armor of being more verbal in what we want and what we desire for our world and how we want to show up that the ripple effect is massive that helps our children know that their voices are important but that also helps our next-door neighbors our best friends our mums break free from the shackles of the world and we're able to that perhaps they have experienced in their lives where they are trying to fit their square peg into a round hole and it's not it's not working and they're not
Speaker 4happy yeah oh my god I can just remember some very you know very key moments when my two were younger and I was balancing work and being mum and and had the occasional opportunities to have people over for a cup of tea and coffee and when I let go of the need to have the house looking immaculate because I felt oh my goodness they're going to come to my house it needs to be spotless and I actually at one time just sort of went do you know what I haven't got time for this and then apologized when they came to say I'm so sorry this is the reality I can't you know haven't managed to make it look spotless the refreshingness for them was like oh my god I'm so glad because I never managed to and now you've taken the pressure off me
Speaker 5yeah exactly and that's where true friendship is born isn't it ultimately if we're all trying to kind of meet everyone's expectations and not living a very happy life actually we do create friendships but we don't keep meaningful friendships where we where you know when everything hits the fan and everything's gone wrong like we need to call upon other women who can understand and who know who know what it is like to be a modern mother and still trying to do all the stuff that we're trying to do so I salute you because not many women actually do that to say do you know what my house isn't very tidy but I've got some delicious cakes and a lovely hot cup of tea for you let's just go and find the corner and not worry about
Speaker 4it so Helen tell us how do we you know when you you've talked about this idea that you tend to approach it from this sort of habit perspective what are the things that we can be doing practically then to find this balance
Speaker 5yeah so I think as a habit habit change practitioner I think it's important for us all to understand and recognize that you can change every habit in your day and we we make about 32 000 decisions every day and 45 percent of those are habits which means that they're automatic behavior so anything from the way you get dressed to the way you clean your teeth to um the perfume you put on like all of those and how you make a cup of tea and many of those things will be habits and so many of our day-to-day decisions in the way we show up is totally subconscious we were making decisions you know automatically long before we have consciously thought about it you know I'm sure you've done it you've grabbed a snack from the kitchen and you've eaten it before you've even thought about it because it's just so habitual so what we need to start doing is being a bit more aware of how we're spending our time and how we're showing up and the issue is that we don't know how to do that so we need to start thinking about how we're spending our time and how we're spending our time and how we're spending our energy so a great example is when we love a Netflix show and we just keep binging watching it and we get you know each night we watch an extra episode and we get later and later and later and so part of that is a subconscious decision part of that is a conscious decision but if we think about that as a habit you going to bed later and later does not mean that you get up in the morning in your best energy it does not mean that you are enthusiastic and motivated and patient and kind in the morning and let's face it when we have children we need patience and kindness in the mornings to get them up and ready for school so when we think about how we're utilizing us and spending our time and the decisions we're making we need to start really looking at our habits and one of the things that I really like to talk about when it comes to balance is those dead moments in your day like how are you spending those like when you go to the toilet do you sit and just scroll on your phone the whole time when you make a cup of tea are you you know what are you doing in those moments when you're waiting for someone to dial in for a meeting like how could we utilize that time better to create more balance is it a little bit of um you know five minutes in the sunshine drinking a cup of tea is it some breathing exercises some stretching anything that you can do that makes you feel better and that gives you a bit more energy will help you make better decisions over the day which will give you better balance long term my
Speaker 4god I hadn't even thought isn't that okay I wrote down a couple of things so we make 32,000 decisions a day that I cannot believe I know and then 40 percent of that are habits who I don't know can't do quite the maths quite in my head but sort of 26,000 26,000 what am I talking about 12 or 13,000 of those decisions are not decisions that we make at a conscious level they're just habitual yeah
Speaker 5so and and those um those sort of subconscious automatic behaviors they will be driven by maybe your emotions and your motivation maybe the um the place you're in at the time your environment you know and actually we all know it don't we you get stressed and before you know it that emotional stress you know we're all in the Kit Kat or the Magnum ice cream drawer and we're just looking for comfort and actually those moments are going to steal your balance and the more we're aware of them the more we can catch ourselves before we fall and that is just
Speaker 4so brilliant because obviously you know using your analogy about the Netflix and so we watch yet another one and so we wake up slightly tired so we then perpetuate the habits that we just do when we're tired in terms of you know just keeping ourselves going but actually when you talk about those dead moments you know quite often when I talk I'll talk about you know morning routines and other bits and pieces I'm talking about it from a place of finding some finding time to do certain things but when we're talking about dead moments those are there it's not extra time it's time that you literally as you say you're logging into a meeting or you're you're doing a lot of work and you're doing a lot of you're waiting for something
Speaker 5to happen yeah and actually it's amazing how much time you can find in your day so I often challenge my clients to find 15 or 20 minutes for themselves in the day and they'll think oh I haven't got any time but you know it takes three minutes to boil the kettle so actually that's three minutes and if you make three cups of tea then we've won nine minutes already and it's even things like when you stand in the shower you could just do some beautiful breathing exercises to just recenter yourselves catch your breath because you know that when by the time you come out the bathroom that the kids are going to be shouting they can't find their pee kits but you know there's no fresh milk the dogs barking at the back door you know and actually that those are the minutes those kind of small dead moments and that's when we need to catch our breath because that gives us the resilience to get through what can be a very challenging day as a parent
Speaker 4and what yeah and as you say 15 minutes would be nothing if you think about all of those little bits we could so easily find more than 15 minutes yeah and
Speaker 5it's just even simply things like drinking an extra glass of water before you have a cup of tea or a cup of coffee like making sure you're really hydrated while the kettle boils standing outside you know even if it's not a very nice day standing at the back door and having some fresh air on your face you know spending 10 minutes walking around the block or walking the longer way back from the school run but there are lots of ways that we can win these small amounts of times and if we're starting from scratch those are the bits in your day where you can get create really quick wins of course lots of my clients are like i want to get really fit helen or i want to change my eating habits and you can do that with habits but why don't we start in those like quick wins so you start to feel a bit better start to feel a bit more energized and more balanced and then the bigger things are easier to tackle because you have the kind of bandwidth and the energy bank to be able to tackle
Speaker 4them yeah definitely so how do we start because if we've got 40 of what we do is habitual without us thinking about it yeah so
Speaker 5those habitual habits if i'm going to be really honest they are harder to change so let's start to think about how we can find you time in your day so you touched upon morning routines morning routines are amazing they're going to set you up really beautifully for your day so one of the ways that i think your listeners could really help themselves is just grab a piece of paper and write down some of the things that you do where you know that you are waiting around or not utilizing that time effectively so you know like squatting you know you're not going to be able to do that in your day you're not going to be able to do that in your day you're going to be able to do that in your first thing in the morning isn't the best use of your time but we all do it don't we for about 15 minutes while we're trying to pretend we don't have to get out of bed but like make a list like what are you where in your day do you have a little bit of time and what can we insert in those moments so what we're trying to do is we're trying to kind of attach habits together so let's take the boiling a kettle for an example because i think most people will make a cup of tea or cup of coffee in the day so you're going to fill up the kettle and you're going to put it on to boil what can you do in the three minutes to make sure that you're getting the right amount of while you're waiting for that kettle to boil perhaps you want to start a journaling exercise or you want to do a bit more reading like you could leave your journal your book next to the kettle which means that you read a couple of pages you know all like what we're trying to do is we're looking at the habits you currently have and saying okay so when you when you do this thing turning on the kettle press zoom and you're waiting for it to scroll and all start like what are you going to do in those moments and in fact i was working with a young a mum recently who's got a very young baby and she was like i'm going to do a little bit of a kettle and i'm going to do a little bit of a kettle and i'm going to do a little bit of a kettle and i'm going to do a little bit of a kettle and i'm going to do a little bit of a kettle and i'm going to do a little bit of and she's like i'm just really not finding very much time for myself and i was like well how often does your baby sleep well the baby sleeps three three times a day okay so when you put your baby down for her nap what are we going to be doing so the baby goes down she's nice and settled she's lovely and sleepy and what are you going to do then and we started to talk about all of these options and when you start to think oh actually i do these things i do these habits i do these actions every day and i'm going to utilize that time in a different way that's when you can start balance and beautiful quick wins for energy well
Speaker 4that's so good and as you say we're starting off with things that we already do so we're not trying to change something that's become entrenched it's things that we naturally do which will probably include things like waiting in the car to collect a child and you know all of those bits there's probably quite a few things we can catch yeah and
Speaker 5it's um you know we don't do it quite so much in my daughter's primary school now but before we used to have to all queue up to go into the school because obviously we were all keeping socially i used to use those moments to just do some lovely nice breathing just in the fresh air and i'd be there for three or four minutes just while i queued up to wait for eve and actually those are the moments that really really help you and i think you're exactly right most people think i need the big grand gesture i need to do something like massive to change my life but the reality is those massive things are very very hard to ingrain to do with repetition because that's how we create habits and actually those are the things which you'll probably do for a couple of weeks and by the wayside because life will get busy but when we're trying to find those small moments in the day that's when you can get the really quick wins and if you miss one well guess what you're going to make another cup of tea in two hours so it's fine so we'll just try again in two hours those small moments are going to make a really big difference and that's
Speaker 4lovely as well because you're then not into that whole punitive beat yourself up because you haven't managed to do it because as you say if you're certainly tagging it to a cup of tea you're going to make one later on or you know when you have a meal exactly when you have your lunch or your
Speaker 5breakfast yeah yeah exactly and so it's about i think when you're thinking about habits and when you've written down your list of where your dead time is start to think about how you can really make it easy so um in coaching terms we talk about setting ourselves up for success but i can tell you that i prep a lot of food in my fridge because i know that when i feel stressed the one thing i want to eat is a pack of crisps but actually if i've got carrots and hummus in my fridge or some fresh fruit salad i go to i go to the fridge i consciously make the decision to go to the fridge and grab a snack which is better for me and going to give me better energy and also give me comfort you know i still like hummus and carrots i just on an average day cannot be bothered to cut a carrot up but it's there and it's able for me to grab so we want to think about those dead times but then we want to think okay so how am i making this easy if it's journaling next to the kettle well my journal needs to live next to the kettle if it's like me a healthy snack i need to have healthy snacks ready because i'm not going to bother to make something if i'm that hungry or that stressed and i you know want a quick fix yeah
Speaker 4and that's so true though isn't it because we if we if we all had a chef in our home we'd all eat much better wouldn't we would all eat healthier so why can we not recreate that healthy chef like scenario by prepping some healthy snacks yeah exactly
Speaker 5if there is a chef listening i would like a chef so you can come and live at my house i'm a very nice person we've got lovely family but you know most of us don't have the the financial ability to have a chef or the time to create all of that food and i spend about half an hour twice a week and i make up some really great snacks they're all in the fridge they're all ready to go for me and the kids and it's better for everyone therapy's
Speaker 1biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough it shows up in the smallest moments you bite your tongue instead of escalating you put your phone down instead of firing off that test you say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most nobody applauds those moments but they quietly change your life that's what growing feels like and that's exactly what grow therapy is here for grow is therapy that works covered by insurance sessions average 21 with insurance and some pay as little as zero dollars depending on their plan there are no subscriptions no long-term commitments you just pay per session grow connects you with thousands of high quality products and services that you can use to improve your life you can search by what matters like insurance specialty identity or availability and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days not the national 48 day average see if you could pay as little as zero dollars for therapy in seconds at grow therapy dot com slash a cast that's grow therapy dot com slash a cast grow therapy dot com slash a cast grow therapy dot com slash a cast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan
Speaker 6mr monopoly here miss me monopoly is back at mcdonald's with millions of prizes a 2027 cheap charity a carnival cruise vacation gift cards from doordash and best buy he'll then play in the mcdonald's app get your bag no purchase
Speaker 7necessary 50 us and dch 18 plus see play at mcd.com for rules and play at mcd.com slash amoe for info and playing without purchase by mail by november 2nd chance card game ends november 8th game ends november 22nd 2026 see rules for prize details monopoly is a registered trademark of hasbro yeah
Speaker 4definitely and there's nothing to stop me from getting the kids involved as well in terms of creating them so that they can create theirs while you're creating yours exactly yeah and there's
Speaker 5so many things that we can keep in the fridge for a couple of days and it just means that you know we have better options and we are able to adjust our habits and we're able to think consciously about how we're spending our time where we're spending our time and how we're fueling ourselves
Speaker 4okay so we start helen by looking at our dead time we start looking at the dead time and then looking at what we can do with that dead time we then make it easier for ourselves by trying to put things in place for those moments so a journal by the kettle if that's what we're going to do maybe a little post-it notes to remind ourselves to breathe do our breathing by the kettle what other things can we do and particularly i'm thinking around those moments when we get the big challenges with our children and they're feeling emotional we're feeling emotional or tired what other things can we be doing for those sorts of things
Speaker 5well you know i'm sure you talk about this all the time but i think firstly being really patient with yourself and actually showing yourself care and attention because i know i've had many parenting moments where i've not shown up in my best best energy because i haven't given myself the opportunity to catch my breath like recalibrate myself and then have the conversation that i need to have with my daughters so i think that you know the bigger picture is we need to make sure that we're creating balance through our day every day but when everything hits the fan and the world is a more difficult place when we are parenting this these are the moments where we need to show ourself a little bit of love a little bit of kindness and a little bit of um we need to give ourselves permission because we can't run on empty you know if you are not balanced and then your children have a difficult moment and you're trying to help them navigate that it's going to be very difficult for you to be able to catch your breath and i think in those moments we need to think about those foundations like am i getting enough sleep am i being kind to myself do i need to get some fresh air like how can i make my life easier and i'm sure that you know i'm sure we've all done this you know i sometimes if i know i've got a really busy period coming up with work and the kids i'll fill the freezer with you know nice food that can be cooked from frozen that i don't need to think about like how can we be kinder to ourselves because if we could show ourselves a bit more compassion then i think parenting would be great because as you know we don't need to be perfect in every moment we're showing up with what we have with the tools that we have in the moments that we have and as we approach those things wouldn't it be wonderful for you to go do you know what i'm just doing my best i'm just going to do my best in this moment and i'm hopefully i'm hopefully going to say the right things and show up in the right energy but i'm also going to give myself a little bit of grace here and i'm going to allow myself to have this conversation and i'm going to go for a walk i'm going to have a bath or i'm going to phone up a friend and ask for some advice or i'm going to sit and read my book quietly and have a cup of tea like allowing yourself a bit of grace in these moments is really important yeah
Speaker 4that's so important i love that i'm just going to do my best it's almost i you know it's this mantra that we say to ourselves rather than i have to do this perfectly is right now i can just do my best exactly
Speaker 5i remember having this massive row with my daughter about the wallpaper she wanted in her bedroom what she picked is not my style but she loves it and at the time i was just like livid i was like why do you want this wallpaper this is absolutely awful it doesn't go with the rest of the house i'm so mad and i stepped away and i was like helen this is ridiculous it's not even your bedroom and if she wants this wallpaper she should be able to express herself in this way and i went back and i was like do you know what hands up mummy was wrong if you want this wallpaper the decorator's coming i will order it and it's such a silly example isn't it but sometimes we just don't show up in our best energy but the other thing is as we all know we can reframe an experience we can learn from an experience and we can walk away going do you know that wasn't right and i'm going to go back and i'm going to apologize and i'm going to recognize that i was was not showing up as i want to and i'm going to model the behavior that i would expect my daughter to model to me or to one of her friends long term she may have a row with someone she may then decide she was not in the right and that actually that person's opinion was valid and come back and and apologize and it's about giving yourself a permission to be a real person isn't it
Speaker 4yeah definitely and and that example can come into so many things whether it's we're having an argument about them about their food choices whether it's a television program that they're watching that we don't approve of whether it's a friendship anything where we then take that time to step away how do we do that after those moments because obviously in those moments we're just as emotional probably as our children are so i'm guessing where we get the true power is what we do in that reflective process afterwards how can we be have you got any magical tips helen on how we can be more compassionate with ourselves
Speaker 5yeah and i think this come from some of the the bigger habits that you will cultivate over time so i can tell you that about six o'clock every night i have a bath and the reason i have it then is because it's normally just after dinner or just before doing that it allows me to recalibrate myself and my girls know mummy's in the bath for half an hour she's catching her breath and she will come back a different person and i also i go to bed at 9 30 every night which i know lots of people are like oh my gosh why because i love sleep and i go for a walk every morning and so i have moments i have different moments throughout the day where i can recalibrate myself and i can catch my breath and i think it's about having and giving yourself permission for a list of things like when i feel uncomfortable when i'm going through something difficult i'm gonna i'm gonna give myself permission to recalibrate and i'm going to recalibrate and i'm going to recalibrate not to try and have a difficult conversation now i'm going to step away i'm going to do the things that i know rebalances me and come back to the table when i'm ready and we say that a lot to kids don't we we give kids time out because we need them to like catch their breath and i think as an adult i don't know about you but i often need a time out and i'm very happy to put myself in a time out so i can catch my breath but it
Speaker 4is important isn't it and what you've said quite interestingly helen is this idea that your children know that mummy has her breath and she's at six o'clock and she has half an hour to herself and it's a recalibrating so part of that is about you setting the boundaries and expectations with your with them but i also think the other part is that they then learn because that's what they see modeled to them that it's really important as individuals that we have time out for ourselves and so potentially whilst they may or may not do that themselves they know that they have permission to do that because they see that model to them all
Speaker 5the time exactly and we're seeing that more and more with the children actually because obviously the girls are 11 and 12 sorry once she's had a birthday 12 and 10 now they are and actually they will often go up to their bedrooms and play on musical instruments or play with barbies or whatever they're doing the younger one like actually and it's really good for us to say do you know what we don't need to be with people all of the time and actually we already live in a very noisy world and sometimes we just need to be with our own thoughts to be able to catch our breath to be able to know how we want to show up in the world and how we want to show up in a conversation and i think that's a really good idea and i think that's a really good idea and i think but yeah the girls do know that you know mummy goes to the spa quite a lot you know and they know that that is mummy's time mummy goes off for a walk and they never ask to come probably because they don't want to but also because they know that i've got some earphones on i you know go for a nice one walk and i come back a different person and what a beautiful gift to be able to show children that actually you don't need to be with people all the time you can go off catch your breath and then come back and feel much more like yourself
Speaker 4yeah i think that that's so crucial because you know i just think that's important and it's about giving ourselves that permission and knowing that we're not being bad parents as a result of that we're actually able to be better as a parent as a result of it and this is
Speaker 5exactly what i talk about all the time like those moments of self-love mean that you show up in your best energy for everything that life throws at you and actually when we fully understand that and we fully understand our definition of balance we can start to weave all of that into our every day so it becomes effortless and automatic so some of those big decisions that we've been talking about my daily bath i will often be running my bath before i've even consciously thought oh it's about bath time now i'm going to go and have my bath or by nine quarter past nine twenty past nine i'm like oh consciously i know it's going to be bedtime i don't have to think about those things because i've worked on them for a period of time and that's how i feel more me and you know i come from a long line of incredible women but quite anxious women and i'm very aware that i also have a tendency so for me to keep myself balanced because i am a bit of a warrior that daily bath the daily walk going to bed on time eating good snacks and wholesome food they are the things that keep me really well and when i don't do those things i feel it really deeply and that's the beautiful thing about balance when you kind of crack the code and then you stop to do some of the things that that maybe have been working you feel it really deeply so you can you can pull yourself back very quickly which is really beautiful
Speaker 4yeah and it is remembering as you said right at the beginning is this idea about what's the unique balance for you so it may not be you know what i'm listening what people are listening now they may it may not be a bath it may you know i think sleep is a really important one but it might doesn't need to necessarily be 9 30 it's it's knowing what you need to do for you to get that balance right for you and recognizing that yours doesn't have to look like yours helen or mine or anyone else's yeah exactly
Speaker 5and i also think when you are out of balance don't be afraid to communicate that to the people around you because they will be feeling that too like if you are snappy and irritable and not being present and you know not listening to the kids stories and cancelling social you know activities with your friends like everyone will know that something is wrong or something is not feeling in alignment at this moment so why not just be a bit more open and honest and say do you know what actually this thing at work or this thing at work is not going to work for you and you're not going to be able to work for me and you're not going to be able to work for me and you're not going to be able to difficult moment with my kids or something's going on which is not making me feel the best version of me let's just be open and honest and talk about those things because everyone wants to help we are all trying to create a better brighter world for everyone and everyone wants you to be the best version of you and why wouldn't they want to support you in doing that you know you you staying silent we talked a lot about like i guess the expectations of women like we think staying silent is a real strength but it's not it's not a real strength it's not a real strength it's not like share it open up like crack the armor and allow others to understand what's going on inside of you because that helps you but it also helps them oh
Speaker 4gosh absolutely and i think in in lots of ways i love the language that we're using around this idea about balance i'm just out of balance i'm not being a rubbish parent or i'm being grumpy i'm just out of balance and i need
Speaker 5to reset yeah exactly and when you reset you get more energy more patience more motivation more happiness more hope like and actually when we understand ourselves really really well we can start to rebalance realign recalibrate in these beautiful ways and as we talked about earlier you know balance is fluid there is going to be different things coming up like my daughter starting secondary school and christmas is on the horizon and all those things balance is going to change but when you know yourself really well and when you cultivate the right habits in your day you can just kind of rebalance yourself in those moments so you still feel as great as you did but you're just in a different chapter of your world or a different season of
Speaker 4your life yeah no that's lovely and i'm guessing helen there'll be some people that'll be listening to this as well who've also had children who've transitioned what's happened to your balance and how did you redress it when your daughter went to secondary school because i'm i'm
Speaker 5so it's it's been a really interesting time so she was sort of part excited part very nervous so we had quite a long summer of us talking we're a talking family as you may i may imagine we talk a lot in this family much to uh my husband sometimes he's like please can we just stop talking we do not need to talk anymore but we talk a lot so we've been talking a lot over the summer about what this could look and feel like but within the first week she was settled happy vivacious she flourished she suddenly was really really grown up you know she's going on a bus for the first time she's got a mobile phone which is all very new she's whatsapping her friends and so it has been a very interesting time for her and i think it's been a very interesting time for her and i'm going to be really honest at the beginning of september i was like okay i'm going to clear my diary a bit because emotionally this is new for me and i want to be able to support her as well and support the rest of the family because a lot of the focus is on her and my youngest daughter's like uh i'm still here does anyone care that i went to dance club today you know so we're trying to balance everyone's um expectations and what's everyone's going on but what has been beautiful is because she understands her balance i understand my balance i've been able to give her space i've been able to support her in the difficult moments when we have had um difficult conversations like eating quite a lot of cake throughout the week and many cakes for lunch we've had and you know it's all quite new for all of us you know actually we are able to have that really beautiful dialogue but because i knew it was coming i really thought very specifically about how i wanted to show up at work during the month of september so i could make sure that i was here for her if she wanted me um she's been really supportive of me and i've been able to support her she didn't actually need me at all she was very happy to be very grown up and going out with her friends and on her phone and talking whatsapp but i was able to really think about how i wanted to show up for this month which was beautiful
Speaker 4yeah and that and i think what i'm sort of getting out of this as a recurring thing it's about being honest with ourselves in the first place but also then it's that having that time to think periodically and just check in what might be coming up and then also saying because there may be people listening to this who children have transitioned or are going to transition that can't necessarily change the way that they're working but they can look at how what other ways can i make what can i create space and balance whatever that might look like
Speaker 5yeah exactly and it could be as you know like on a sunday night we get all of the um all of the uniform out and we lay it all out so actually it means that in the week we're not looking for the odd pair of socks or the gym kit or whatever they're looking for like there are lots of ways we can set ourselves up for success and we can create habits around them so we're not looking for the odd pair of socks or the gym kit or whatever on sunday night the kids know that they need to go into their cupboards they need to find all their school uniform they need to make sure they've got enough pairs of pants enough pairs of socks to get through the week and actually you can create really nice habits to set yourself up for success even if you are unable to change your working pattern which obviously i'm very fortunate and lucky to be able to do but there are other things that you can do around that you can make sure that you've got your bus pass out and that you know they have to pay for the canteen with their fingerprint now and it's like is that is there enough money on there for them to have enough lunches through the week you know there are lots of ways that we can make life easier and that's what we need to do as a foundation really to create really beautiful balance
Speaker 4yeah and i love that because actually how many times do we have stressful mornings finding that pair of school socks or that school top or shirt or whatever it is that on a at some point on a wednesday and it's always the wrong day because it's always the day we've got to be out to do something as well but actually if we set ourselves up that's a new that's a conscious habit i'm guessing helen is it to create for ourselves and for our children
Speaker 5exactly but over time it becomes subconscious it becomes you know automatic so my kids know on a sunday that they have to get that ready and if there isn't enough cardigans or pants then they need to tell me so i can actually do some washing or find wherever these things might be hidden in the bottom of like a school bag or underneath some coats or shoes or whatever like you know we're all running real lives here but we can make our lives a lot easier for ourselves if we're just a little bit pragmatic and we put a little bit of effort in in advance because we've all didn't haven't is that exactly what you said you know it's a wednesday morning you're trying to rush to get your dog to the vets and the kids can't find the lunch box and you know whatever and we all all had mornings like that but what if we were just a bit more pragmatic and that is where we can cultivate those nice habits around those things yeah
Speaker 4and i think and it's a great way you know parents will often sort of say about getting their children involved more and the fact that they're having you know want their children to contribute and that they're having a lot of fun and they're having a lot of fun and they're doing all of the racing around well this is a really easy way to begin to introduce that because they take responsibility they take ownership obviously we have to help them begin that habit but once they've got it they've got a certain amount of independence and that's
Speaker 5confidence building exactly and also yes we are their mothers yes we're their parents and we need to help them do things but everything that they do in their day is not the responsibility of us and of course i'm very supportive i'm a loving mother but i equally know that my children need to take responsibility for certain things you know i can't be there when they're 25 and 30 i'm not going to be picking out their clothes for them like in the morning i'm not going to be making their beds they need to start cultivating some of these habits so they can be a grown-up at some point
Speaker 4yeah definitely and it starts with these with these what seems to be very small things but are massive in terms of creating space and time for us so that we can then cultivate the habits for our own
Speaker 5balance exactly and these are often the things that are real like in those moments when you can't find the pe kit or when you know your kids haven't told you that they haven't got the clean kit that they need for that day those are the really frustrating moments aren't they so it's like how can we cultivate habits and routine around those things so we don't get to those moments because as a parent what we want or i believe what we want is we want enough energy to deal with the difficult stuff like the really difficult moments when your kids have had a falling out with their best friend or they're refusing to do their homework those are the moments where we want to utilize our energy and our patience so we can talk them through those moments and be the best parent we can we don't want to use our energy up shouting at them trying to find their school shoes or their pe kit or shout you know we want to use our energy in a really productive beautiful way and creating routine and habit is one of the ways that we can do that
Speaker 4yeah definitely oh my god helen you have been amazing and so many things that we can kind of talk about pick up and we can start doing so um we will be sharing a free resource which lovely helen has given us all about habits and obviously sharing a link so that you can find her and if you want to know a little bit more about what helen does and and um all of her amazing work that she does helen if as we're just kind of finishing up if there is one thing that people you would urge people to go and do having listened what's the one thing that you would say if you can only do one of the things that you can do to make sure you do
Speaker 5this one thing i think the first thing you need to do is write down that list of all of those moments in your day where you are scrolling on your phone looking at right move thinking about where you could move like just all those moments in your day where you could be utilizing them differently i mean how many times have i looked for a house or right move at like a holiday location many times i can tell you and i'm not moving anywhere um but you know like where is your dead time and how can you realign that time could you condense all of that time and go off for a yoga class could you condense all of that time and go off for a yoga class could you condense all of that time and go off for a yoga class could you condense all of that time and go off for a yoga class could you condense the time and actually take a lunch break instead of feel like you're chasing your tail because what i would love for you all to take away from today is that there are so many quick wins and you in charge you're in charge of your destiny and all you need to do is work out where those could be and how you can reutilize your energy and your time so you can be the best version of you and i think that's what
Speaker 4everyone wants really yeah oh helen thank you so much for coming you at harmony bank we believe that better
Speaker 3happens together we're a locally owned bank built on relationships and personally committed to your success our community bankers are ready to make quick decisions no big bank bureaucracy just a custom approach to help you thrive from business loans to mortgages and everyday banking needs harmony bank provides a secure modern experience with a touch of texas hospitality we're harmony bank where better happens together
PodcastTranscript AI