I love writing, but I’ve missed chatting. Don’t get me wrong, I loved interviewing guests on the birth trauma training for birth workers podcast, but for this season of life, it was simply becoming too time consuming. So, this second offering is broader in focus, very raw, very brief, minimal fuss and editing – me and my musings about motherhood and mental health. I’m thinking a 15-20 minute episode a week. In my car, while cleaning the chook house, and occasionally using my fancy recording equipment if I feel like it.
Mum as you Are podcast
Mum As You Are is a place for self-compassionate reflection to use what you have within you, right now as you are, perfectly imperfect to find your way through motherhood.
A roadmap to moving away from numbing, escapism and shadow comforts and leaning into genuine fun – daggy, belly laughing fun. There’s a huge gap in the conversation about perinatal mental health and play and fun – for parents. When I talk to mothers about low mood, isolation, parental burnout and depletion it often comes down to not having any real fun. We have one precious life – is scrolling in the bathroom really the best we can hope for?
The core message of this podcast is to practice the question of “I wonder…”. Instead of judging ourselves and engaging in comparisonitis, we simply ask ourselves – “I wonder….I wonder”
NB: it’s not just for Mums! But ‘Parent As You Are’ didn’t have the same ring to it. Lol
Its so brand new and shiny it’s not available across all platforms yet, but you can check it out on Spotify
If you’d rather read, an overview of Episode 1 is below:
About episode 1:
I chose the name Mum as you are as a play on words for one of my favourite Nirvana songs – Come As You Are.
This is a phrase I’ve used in therapy all through my 15 years of work – just rock up, be in the moment and we’ll work with how you are in the now.
Nirvana’s producer, Butch Vig once told NPR that the song Come As You Are is about acceptance, and about misfits. You’re cool no matter how screwed up you are. ‘Come As You Are’ is an ode to accepting someone for who they are.”
My plan is to create something very unfancy and unpolished here. I will rock up and just talk really – no script, no major editing. You might hear me in my car sometimes the goal is for me to be perfectly imperfect and set the tone for that being ok for you as well.
I want to explore ways to work with parental burnout and depletion and isolation and guilt that are really practical, focussed on radical self-compassion and really having fun. This less of a here’s the A-Z on parenting topics and more about Motherhood as an identity and an institution and where mental health fits within that.
Earlier this year I stopped using social media for my business and personally as well. It’s been one of the most rebellious things I could do and it’s been life changing. It has really brought me to question the ways in which I have used numbing and what you might call shadow comforts as replacement for real proper fun and real proper support.
This is not about saying don’t use social media – if you are a mum un business and genuinely see results from it more power to you sister, however, I do come from the standpoint that this is our generation’s addiction. I think mothers are settling for substandard, faux-fun and while we are familiar with the old “do self care” I think a huge part of what’s missing in the motherhood mental health conversation is the idea of fun – like real, belly laugh I feel like myself not just someone’s mother or a worker – fun. That’s the crux of what I’m interested in exploring here.
So at this point, I might tell you more about me.
If you don’t know me, Hello, I’m Dr Erin Bowe. I’m a mum to a 5 year old and 3 year old girls. The laundry list of professional stuff is that:
I’m a Clinical & Perinatal Psychologist, Course Creator, Business Mentor and Author of More Than a Healthy Baby: Finding Strength & Growth After Birth Trauma.
Some of you may know me from my birth trauma work. My online courses have over 2400 students from 36 countries. I’ve spoken to an audience of thousands on a birth trauma panel last year.
I used to teach Hypnobirthing, I’ve been a finalist in 2 categories for the AusMumpreneur Awards.
I’ve also been featured in the Sydney Morning Herald, Kidspot, Essential Baby & Essential Kids. I’m a published author, and I’m writing two more books: Parents of the Pandemic and a book on managing motherhood, mental health and social media.
I also ran the birth trauma training for birthworkers podcast, so if you are coming over to this second podcast from there – thankyou and hello again.
I grew up in one of the most bogan places on earth – Devonport Tasmania. I’m the first person in my family to go to uni. I’m the daughter of Glaswegian parents – a catholic and a protestant who left Scotland for Australia in the late 1960s so they could get married. I’m a bonus baby after they tried to have kids for over 10 years, had my older brother and then miraculously managed to have me.
I’ve been with the same bloke since I was 16 or so. We moved to Melbourne and lived in St Kilda ten years ago, then moved out to the country to have our kids. I’ve had 3 pregnancies – one miscarriage followed by the pregnancy of my eldest daughter 6 weeks later – a little rainbow baby. I then had my second daughter two days before her older sister’s birthday. We also have our wedding anniversary that week in November.
I’ve had pretty severe hyperemesis gravidarum – so severe morning sickness in all my pregnancies. I’ve had two traumatic births, including birthing a 5 kilo (11 pound 3) baby with stuck shoulders.
Outside of the Mum thing and the work thing I love my animals – 2 dogs and currently 11 chickens. I like growing roses, veggies and herbs, I’m quite interested in herbal and natural remedies. If I didn’t train to be a psychologist I would have quite fancied being a music journalist or a florist, although my childhood dream was always to be an author, so that’s mostly what I’m working towards now.
