Jacqueline Kelly on Losing and Meeting yourself in Motherhood

Life After Birth with Yara Heary

Hi mamas. Today on the podcast, I’m joined by Jacqueline Kelly, a matrescence coach who supports mothers who feel like they’ve lost themselves in motherhood. Founding Our Brave Hearts, Jacqueline works to challenge the unrealistic standards of motherhood that we are encouraged to aspire to and to support mums in rediscovering and reclaiming their confidence.

In this beautiful conversation, Jacqueline reflects on her own journey of matrescence and her transition from the freedom, adventure and spontaneity of living overseas to having her sense of self imploded when she became a mother. We discuss the romanticism of her notions of motherhood prior to having children, the identity crisis she experienced within the reality of it, where she has experienced the most growth along the journey, and the duality of the joys and the losses of motherhood.

We also discuss:

• The experience of meeting yourself in motherhood by seeing parts of yourself in your children, the complexities of this and how the parts of our children that we struggle to hold are often the very things we never had held for us in our own childhoods.

• Privilege and how the abundance of the times we live in allow us the space to have awareness and insight to be intentional on how we raise our families and create a different future for them.

• The complexity and the emotional load of motherhood and the importance of having safe spaces to talk and work through these feelings, voicing our lived experiences in order to survive in, and surrender to, the process.

• How deeply entranced idealised values and norms around mothering still are, and how the patriarchal structures of the societies we live in are so inextricably linked with our experience as mothers in this world.

And much more. I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation today as much as I loved having it.

Here is where you can find out more about me (Yara), how to work with me and some resources:

Why Am I So Angry Workshop

*** Waitlist for The Rebirth, Group Coaching for Mamas ***This is my signature 3 months online group coaching container for mothers which covers family of origin, inner child work, nervous system basics, anger, boundaries and much more.

@lifeafterbirthpsychology

www.lifeafterbirth.com.au

Free Inner Critic Workbook

Free Values Aligned Living Workbook

Find out more about Jacqueline:

@our_bravehearts

Our Brave Hearts website

Looking for support for anger while you mother? To access my Why Am I So Angry Workshop click HERE