Redefining Motherhood with Clarity and Confidence with Zoe Blaskey

0:01 Hey everyone, welcome to a very special episode of parenting and you with me Dr. Chafali. Today I'm so thrilled to be joined by a dear friend and inspiring guest Zoe Blasy. Zoe is a qualified transformational coach, acclaimed podcaster, mother, and the best-selling author of Motherind, a new way to thrive in a world of endless expectations. Zoe is on a powerful mission to support mothers in shifting from guilt, exhaustion, and comparison to a place of confidence, clarity, and empowerment.

0:37 This is going to be a rich and meaningful conversation. It's really going to be about two mothers talking about their greatest vulnerabilities. So stay tuned. It's one you don't want to miss. Joining me now is a dear friend and a truly inspiring guest. She is a transformational coach, a best-selling author, a mother of two girls, and the host of the critically acclaimed Mother Kind podcast, which has become one of the UK's top top top family podcasts.

1:10 Her work is changing the way we think about motherhood, self-care, and personal growth. I'm so thrilled to welcome my dear friend to the show, Zoe Blasy. It is such a pleasure to have you here, Zoe. Oh, it's an honor to be here. I always love our chats, so I'm really excited. >> Yes. When I was in uh London the last time, I was on your podcast, so now I get the pleasure of having you on mine.

1:32 So, you just wrote this book. I think I wrote an endorsement or something. >> Yes, you did. You were very kind about the book >> for Mother Kind. And I love the book titled Mother Kind because it is a kind of special animal, the mother, and we need to be kind to the mother. So, it has so many nuances to it. So just to introduce your passion and your work, tell us about motherind. >> Yeah. So I called it motherind because I realized quite quickly into my matressence into my becoming of a mother that the thing that I needed most was my own kindness because I was so hard on myself. I also needed a lot more kindness and understanding from people around me. And I also needed a lot more kindness and understanding from the world and society at general. So for me it sort of works on three levels that idea because I think that for a long time there just wasn't enough focus on that early motherhood experience and I discovered this word called retresence which changed so much for me because I realized that actually wasn't failing or doing it wrong and you helped me so much of this Dr. Shafali that I wasn't failing. I was I was going through my matressence and that actually those early years are such a time of trying to figure out a caring for someone else. I mean what is that about? But also everything that had bought up in me and that is you know where your work has had such a huge impact on me because I wasn't really expecting it. I was not really expecting this little ball of emotion in front of me to be such a mirror. But not only that, you know, we've also got the huge dynamic changes within ourselves, our identity, our body, our work. My whole career and work trajectory changed the relationship that we have with our partners or co-parent or family changes. And I really felt like this was just such a time when in a way the sort of earth fell from beneath our feet and >> not many people were talking about it.

3:36 At the time that I started Another Kind, which is nearly a decade ago, Instagram was just starting to be big. There were lots of mummy bloggers and the lots of the conversation was about how to kind of look cool and what to buy, what to wear. And lots of conversation about alcohol and how hard it was and the kind of way through was to drink. And I I hadn't drunk alcohol for a long time. So I I needed some new ideas and that's where it all started. So for the listener, explain what is metricance and break it down for us because many listeners may not have heard that term.

4:09 >> Yeah. So metrics is we've all heard of adolescence which is the developmental phase that we go through when we go from being a teenager to an adult. And we all know that that is the time when our brain chemistry changes, our body physically changes, doesn't it? Our friendships change, we change as people. we go quite introverted sometimes and we you know start grunting instead of speaking right >> we feel like we don't we don't know who we are it's a real time I think of change and transition and then if we're supported through that we emerge more ourselves right into young adulthood we're like okay I know who I am and I know what I want to do well matressence is exactly the same process the same anthropological >> social term but for when we become mothers Yeah.

5:00 >> And when you compare it to adolescence, it just makes so much sense because it's the time that our body changes, our brain chemistry changes, our values change, our relationships change, everything kind of changes around us. >> And yet that word and I think that developmental leap, which is what I think of it as, has been completely ignored. It's kind of been worse than ignored in a way. We've been gaslit because what mothers have been told for a long time is to bounce back. Yeah.

5:27 >> To get back to your old self. Yeah. >> But if a mother typically would come to someone and say, "I feel, you know, really lost. I don't know who I am anymore." The kind of received wisdom has been, "Don't worry, you'll get back to your old self." And that is gaslighting because you can't go back. You can't go through the heart opening experience. The utterly transformational experience of becoming a mother. And for most of us, that journey is not linear.

5:52 It's not straightforward. >> Yeah. you know, even if you got pregnant easily, you know, the birth is just often a whole thing. >> Yeah. >> Rarely does it go the way that you planned or straightforwardly. And so many people struggle to conceive. So just the idea that you would be able to go back to the person you were before those transformational experiences is kind of insane to me. And yet that's what we tell women. Don't worry, bounce back. You'll get your old self back.

6:18 Find the old you. >> Right? So we're always feeling like a loss and failure. Do you know my first book, Zoe, which I wrote when my daughter was not even 2 years old? Like I began writing it because it hit me right away that I'm going through a spiritual death. And it is called it's a mom. You know how people say it's a boy or it's a girl and I'm like what the hell? Why? >> Right? Because it only came out in India.

6:46 >> I don't even think I have a copy left. Like it was so limited and it was like a journal of mine. But basically a rant or a rebellion against everyone just focusing on it's a boy or it's a girl or who is it? Is it a boy or is it a girl? But what about the birth of the mother? It's a mom and that journey and that mom is a whole new baby here. It's a whole new being. There is no old self left.

7:12 and the death of that old self and the loss and the grief that that brings and the confusion and the frustration and the fear because you don't know who you are. You're becoming it as your child is developing. So, you're always in developing, you know, you're always in process and that is such a disconcerting experience and no one talked about it. It's so funny. I didn't know about matressence. >> You were writing about matressence before that word.

7:38 >> Yeah. The book is called It's a Mom because no one was talking about the development of this new being called the mother. We just were given this illusion and this mandate that you should just be that. You should just plop into that, you know, like one day you're not and then the other day you're a mom. But no one talked about how to become one. And that becoming was an enduring process. It wasn't like a flash in the pan yesterday to today. So I love that. And I think we are still developing now. My daughter is 22 and now I'm figuring out how to mother an adult and it's a big transition because we are still in some ways in an old pattern of mother daughter child versus mother adult. And she doesn't like it when I tell her now you're an adult. And I don't like it if she tells me guess what I'm an adult.

8:33 Right? So we're both confused. Sometimes I want her to be an adult. Sometimes I want her to be a daughter and vice versa. And there's this new adjustment and how to kick her out of the nest but also not let her feel like she's kicked out, right? It's such a how to do this now. That's a new adjustment. So, we're always adjusting. And then the marriage, the relationship with the partner, right? Whether in a marriage or not, that goes through so many rebirths and deaths. So, I'm so glad you've been talking about it. Let's bring it home to Zoe. You know, you're this amazingly wise, talented coach. You're so insightful, but when it comes to our own, you know, personal harrowing moments, we can kind of regress to an old archaic self. So, talk about your regressions and your, you know, most humbling moments and then talk about the transformation. But let's just stay in the dirt or in the muck for a bit. Talk to us about your very average, really scary, psychotic, lunatic moments.

9:40 >> I've had loads. I've had loads. One of the first ones were my eldest, so she's nine now. So, I have a 9-year-old and a six-year-old. And my nine-year-old is essentially just a ball of emotion walking around in a human body. >> Yeah. >> And she still is. She always has been, and she still is. >> She feels everything so deeply. And to start with, I could not handle it. She was sort of mirroring back to me like my disconnection from my own feelings, my discomfort. I was always trying to >> fix it, >> fix what was wrong with her. Oh my gosh.

10:15 I just couldn't >> Yeah. >> She also has quite a piercing cry when she was little. >> Oh my god. >> I hadn't understood yet the sort of biology around that how that was activating my >> activating you. Yes. >> Oh my gosh. Where I went to and my stress response was freeze. So I would almost dissociate. >> Yeah. >> So I've got quite a lot of memories of her having just mad meltdowns and tantrums and me stood there looking over her almost like I wasn't there anymore.

10:43 And in a way I wasn't a deer in the headlights because you're in panic. You're like what does one do with this out of control shrieking histrionic rage. I mean no comparison but I think many men sometimes when they see women crying that's the look that's the look they have you know like >> true >> for them it's histrionic they can't handle it because we've all been taught that big feelings are danger danger danger and in many ways if we were out there in the jungle and we began screaming that is danger so it's not entirely irrational to think that excessive emotions are dangerous but for a child that's all they know. No, like that's all they know. But we didn't know this when we were becoming mothers. So go ahead. Yes. So I'm so glad you experienced complete panic as well.

11:31 >> Yeah. Yeah. I was I mean dear in a headlight is like a really apt description. >> Yeah. Yeah. And then the sort of breakthrough came when you know I bought lots of the traditional parenting books and I don't class yours as that at all actually but I bought lots of those and it was sort of giving me these tips and these strategies and >> I realized really quickly that when I was disregulated in this deer in the headlights it was like trying to put a sticking plaster over like a gaping wound. It just was not working.

11:59 >> So I realized I went back into therapy which was such a gift and I realized actually this was all about me. surprise, surprise. And I needed to learn some new skills. Surprise, surprise. >> Right? >> And so when I did when I learned about, okay, >> it's fine. You know, you can let her have her feelings, that is safe. And I learned how to regulate myself through that. What was just kind of mindblowing to me was that the more that I just focused on myself and regulating and breathing and reminding myself I'm safe and I can handle this and all of that, >> her meltdowns got kind of quicker and easier without me saying any of these tips and scripts that I might have been reading about in these books. I sort of stopped all that. And so that was just like massive breakthrough for me. I was like, "Whoa, >> what is this? This is crazy."

12:48 >> So, let's pause a second and because what you're just dropping is some wisdom about how to handle somebody else's, whether your partner, your mother's, your child's out of control emotions. So, what we're taught is to kind of do something like talk to them about it, ask them why, you know, tell them let's breathe together. And all of that in many ways kind of circumvents our goal because it makes it longer. Just like if you were crying right now and I tell you within 2 seconds. Yeah. We don't even wait. I see Zoe crying and I say, "Okay, Zoe, come on. Let's breathe now. Let's breathe." Right? It sounds so enlightened, but it is so the wrong thing to do. Right? You will want to spit at me and run away because you will sense. So tell me, what would you sense if I did that to you? Even though I sound like a Zen monk, what would you feel like in your body?

13:44 >> I would feel like she is not okay with me crying. She needs me to stop crying right now. >> Right. But then I will say to my therapist, I don't understand why Zoe keeps getting upset with me. I see she's suffering. I'm going to teach her to suffer less. So, what would you say to that, Zoe? Aren't I helping you to suffer less by breathing? >> No. I feel like if that was happening, it would feel like there's no space for your feelings here.

14:12 >> Yes. >> And your feelings aren't valid. >> Yes. >> We need to move through them as quick as we can. That they're so scary and wrong and crying's bad >> and so let's breathe and stop the crying. >> Right. Because I'm thinking like a parent, I need to help you. So, but see, that is where we're going wrong. Because we see suffering in a child or friend or partner and we think that the suffering needs to be ended by us and we try to fix it and manage it. And what we don't realize about quote unquote suffering is that it needs to work itself through on its own. And the person suffering through the support and the space actually activates their own capacity to find their own answer. Maybe the answer is I'm just going to table it for right now or I'll get back to this in a few years or I'm going to find a way to solve it. But when it comes from the outside, it feels like management, doesn't it?

15:11 >> Mhm. That's it. And I know what would happen in real life if I did start crying now, you would go very quiet, but you energetically would send me love and support. I think I have cried in front of you and I felt that from you >> and that would help me move through it quicker or not. It would just help me feel supported. >> Yeah. >> In it. >> Yeah. Isn't that so powerful? Because you and I are both coaches and you know, I have a coaching institute. I coach people to do this. And it sounds like the most lazy thing to do. You know, one mother said to me, "Oh, okay. I'll just be an idiot mommy." You know, and I was like, "Okay, that's what you call that woman who just stays quiet, an idiot mommy." That's how it felt for her because it felt like, "What am I doing here then? What use am I if I'm just here nodding my head? So, people don't realize how powerful it is. And I teach this to my coaches and they're like, "Oh my god, it's so simple, but it's so hard to do to be that just receiver and that quote unquote container of whatever is showing up, right?"

16:17 >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And I make fun of the phrase holding space because it's become so bastardized, but it's really >> Yeah. such a damn powerful technique of holding space and you know just being there for someone and what that does to the other's body and nervous system. >> Yeah, exactly. I always joke when I did my coach training I think it was 12 months and I always say sort of eight months of it was basically in silence learning >> how to do exactly what you're describing and there's just this unreal piece of research you'll know it the quality of one person's presence and thinking directly impacts the other so that as you sit there as the coach or the parent or whoever and you you just kind of quietly regulating yourself sending that person like it direct directly impacts their ability to think of their own solution. And you know when you're in a coaching session and clients will say to me, "This is like magic. Like, how are you doing? This is like witchcraft.

17:18 Like, how are you doing this? Cuz I've been struggling with this problem for a decade and you sat with me for 15 minutes and I've got the solution." And it's because of that. We're going to take a quick break now, but don't go anywhere. When we come back, we'll have more with Zoe. When you and I write, I know this for both of us that we need to just allow the space to work its magic inside us, right? Writers know what that's called, right? We just have to sit and receive.

17:47 And it sounds woowoo, but what we're really doing is stepping out of the thinking, fixing, controlling mind and allowing our own innate wisdom to arise. It's there but it's so suffocated by opinion and dogma and lectures and sermons. So when we write we have to step out of the thinking mind that says it needs to be perfect. It needs to be this way. It needs because that blocks creativity. In the same way this is what it means to parent with presence is you just have to allow for the non-thinking creative self to emerge in your child.

18:23 But in order to do that, you have to turn your, you know, thinking thinking thinking mind off. And that feels scary for us as parents because we think parenting is a doing. But really what we're teaching is parenting is a being. >> Yeah. >> But that means we have to learn to be with ourselves. >> Yeah. And you know, I think it's really hard to sit with someone else's pain. It's almost impossible to sit with your own child's pain.

18:49 >> Yes. Impossible. Especially when they're telling you it's something you did. >> Yes. >> Right. >> Yeah. Well, especially as well as if it's got a flavor of something that you know you've been through. So, my 9-year-old is struggling with friendships a bit at the moment and that I struggle with friendships at that same age and it's like so difficult for me >> not to be kind of a panicking like oh my god >> yes >> I've made it effective. she's inherited this from me and therefore want to jump in and fix it or I've been through this.

19:20 Let me help. It's like I'm just zipping it. >> What? >> And I'm just saying that sounds really hard. >> Wow. >> Friendships are really hard. Everyone struggles with friendship. >> Wow. Zoe, that's such restraint. And what's going on inside you? >> I think a mix of fear >> Mhm. >> and kind of Yeah. sadness. >> Mhm. >> But that's not hers. I mean, that's my stuff. I should think. Well, it is my stuff. >> And even if she's feeling fear and sadness, too, it just never can be the same as yours. So, no matter what we're projecting.

19:56 >> Yeah. Exactly. She's in a hard situation. She doesn't need my stuff piled on top of it. It's probably not going to help. >> Exactly. So, we have to really see the other for who they are in their struggle as if we've never gone through it, but yet have the empathy of someone who knows what it must feel like. See, that's the tricky thing. When you have empathy, you try to step into that person's shoes and really feel it. And that's where many parents are lacking.

20:22 They have zero empathy. And then the over codependent people like you and me can be is we over project on the empathy and then we overshoot and then we go, "Oh my god, that must be so hard." And then the kid is like, "Uh, it's hard, but now you're making me sound like, oh, I should be suffering more." Right? So, it's that delicate balance of really being empathic, like touching the struggle, but really being aware of when you're overimposing your own experience with that struggle, you know?

20:53 >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I tried to remember it's like I sort of, you know, that empathy, but also then that belief. >> Yes. >> So, friendships are really hard and I know that you're going to figure this out. >> Yeah. >> I say that to her quite a lot as well. >> Yeah. Amazing. And you could have because of your past trauma really messed this up. You know, given too much advice, you know, why don't you try harder because you didn't try harder or why don't you become more extroverted because you think that's what you should have done. And you could advise her to do things based on what you coped with and did, right? Like you overdid or you became someone else or you abandoned your authentic self. You could have done that. And that's what many parents do do. They give the strategies that they used in their life for their children to deal with. You know, the other day my daughter told me, you know, I have this interview with my daughter. I don't know whether you've seen it, but she came on my >> Oh, I haven't I haven't listened yet, but I'm desperate to. You did it for Mother's Day, right?

21:52 >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, she told me how without my realizing, I was projecting my 21-year-old self on her 21-year-old self. And my 21-year-old self had left India without a phone, without money and come to America and survived, right? But it was traumatic. I didn't realize that I was talking to her, her 21-year-old self, who was just the self she was last year with all that energy of me leaving a country. And she's like, "Mom, I'm just graduating. You know, I'm just coming home." For me, I was talking to her like it was the next step of your next life. And I didn't realize I was talking like that. And she said, "Mom, you're putting all this trauma on me."

22:40 And I'm just like coming from Miami to New York. And I was like, "We are starting a new life." You know, I was sending her on the ship. I was sending her to a new country, getting her a new passport. And she's like, "What are you talking about?" And I'm like, "Oh, for you it's none of that. For me, it's like a whole new life. It's very hard to not project, right? The same feelings and consciousness can help us, but it's really hard. Like even now, I think like she's just coming home and I'm thinking, "No, you need to go and like start a new life somewhere, like go to China or something." And I do then look at it as like so disappointed, you know, like what? You're just coming home? you need to be like going and climbing a mountain right now because I did all that But she doesn't need to do that. But it's not registering for me. It's really hard.

23:32 >> Yeah, >> I'm having a hard time and I'm definitely looking very disappointed. I know because she's in my head not doing the pinnacle of Everest which I did. So anything is going to pale in comparison. And you know a lot of children of immigrants feel that because the immigrant does so much and then the kids we raise who are just like chilling because the immigrant has done all the hard work. We look at them as kind of losers. But to your point like it's so hard to stay in the body. So tell me more about like how you train yourself to not enter into that projection just in that example or in other examples because I'm struggling with this. I mean, coach training helps, doesn't it?

24:15 Let's be honest. That's kind of >> that really helps. But I think, >> yeah, >> it's just staying aware of what's going on. I think that's it really. And then, you know, noticing if something feels really big to me, >> Yeah. >> I have just learned it's probably about me and about my history >> as opposed to about her. Like I remember the first time this happened. She came home and told me that no one had played with them in the playground and that she had spent the whole of playtime sat on her own on a bench and I burst into tears like a grown woman. I was stood there and I burst into tears and she was like >> I'm so glad you did that. So now I feel normal. You didn't even realize you would do that, right? It just came from your past self.

25:03 >> 100%. And I realized I was like whoa I was so upset and then I realized of course I had so many moments on my own in the playground and she wasn't bothered by it. That's what was interesting. We've spoken about it a lot since and she was like I don't mind being on my own in the playground. I kind of like just like a moment of calm and I'm like ah she's good with this. And so yeah that was so funny to me just that massive reaction. And I was like, whoa, this is >> But as you say, it's good that stuff like that happens because then there's a little bit of me that obviously hadn't processed any of that. And so then I got a chance to. And I know that sounds a bit like, oh, really? But I did. I got a chance to then, you know, look back at that self. And that doesn't happen anymore. She can tell me that no one played with her and I'm like, oh, okay, cool.

25:53 >> Yes. >> It's not the same sting, >> right? So I love that and I want people to know that no matter that Zoe has written books, she has coached people, she has become a coach, she has gone through the process, she still in that moment was overtaken by her old self. It just came out of her conscious mind through her awareness and overtook her present moment and just entered the present room. And that's okay if that happens. It happens with our lovers. It happens with our parents, with our children. And now what she's doing with it is she processed it. And through the processing, now it's sitting with her and it's not going to lead her. It's now with her. And so she has a capacity to to hold it, to take care of that old self and to keep it in the back seat or on the side with her, but it will not lead her. When the unconscious leaves us, that's the problem. But we get to see a peak of it and then we do the work and then we can take care of it. It doesn't mean it'll go away. But now you're tending it. Now you've got it.

26:56 Now I'm keeping my immigrant self because of what my daughter told me. I did a whole big thing with my best friend. And she kind of was a coach and coached me through it. And she said to me, "I had no idea you went through this immigrant experience." And I said, "Me either. I just did it. And now Maya's telling me I'm like so traumatized. And now I'm realizing, wow. And then my friend began balling and we both balled because she said, I never knew this about you. And I said, I didn't either.

27:25 We were just coping till now. I'm putting it on my child. So this is what we say, right? Our children are our greatest teachers. They are mirrors to show us our old experience and through them we revisit these parts of our lives. So I got to revisit my 21-year-old self. You got to revisit your 9-year-old self. We didn't even know we were holding on to this trauma, right? And our children because we have to go through all those phases with them. We get to revisit our childhood.

27:53 And that's why raising children is so unique than being with a partner because partners can be so triggering, but they don't take us back to all these places so clearly as a child. They do take us back to our old self, but not in this very methodical way. You know, now when your daughter turns 15, 16, you're going to get to touch your first crush, your first heartbreak, your first sexual experience. It's all coming. It's all going to come back. And this is the opportunity that children provide. You know, if you allow it, if you go back to a therapist even for two sessions and process it, you know, people think, oh, I need to go and do a years of therapy.

28:32 No, you just need two or three sessions to go, hey, this is coming up. What's happening within me? you know, and then it can help you process. Tell us about where you are now as a mother and a career woman. How do you juggle that? And then how do you juggle the impostor syndrome of like, damn, I just had a meltdown myself, but now I'm going to give a lecture on my book. How do you juggle that? Because I feel that sometimes, you know? I mean, I think that's kind of the job to me is that I experience something and then I research it, integrate it, and then teach about what I've learned. I think everything that I teach about comes cuz I struggled from it. So, I hope in a way that I sort of always have those struggles because that's kind of where so much of my work comes from.

29:25 >> And I think, you know, this is why you're so loved as well, Dr. because I think you bring just that humility. Like I think gone of the days where we want teachers or experts or guides to be perfect and to be on a pedestal cuz it's just not real. And I always say to people like don't put me on a pedestal because it's going to be too far for me to fall because >> in a way >> you know all I'm doing is is just it's become my job to integrate and learn about this stuff. So I'm just giving you a shortcut like that's it because you've all got other jobs. It's like I've just made this my job because I struggle with it so much.

30:00 >> Exactly. >> And so it's kind of just this huge privilege that the thing that I love the most which is, you know, motherhood and, you know, content and coaching, I love it all so much. It's just a massive privilege that I get to spend my days kind of unraveling something that I struggle with so much. And I think, you know, like you, I always talk about what I'm struggling with. >> Yeah. >> Because it's it's real, isn't it? you right and and the point is not not to struggle the point is what am I going to do with this struggle and that is where the coaching skills come about that's where the skills come so the more it's not about zero struggle but it's about really becoming adept at deconstructing it you know understanding it and integrating it and I think you and I and many you know now coaches come to it with a very kind of honest transparency and I think that's what's relatable, that's what's needed, that's what's therapeutic both for our children, but also for our quote unquote followers to see that this is not about, you know, some stoic, Freudian, analytic, you know, male masculine compartmentalization.

31:14 It's a very feminine, approachable, wide, open, receiving kind of energy. And I think you embibe that. So tell people where they can find you, Zoe. >> So the book which is called Mother Kind. If I move my head you can see it there. It's the pink one. Yeah. >> The podcast and we've done I think three episodes together. So if you love our dynamic go and get some more of Zoe and do there's also I do a series of courses and workshops. I work with corporates a lot. So I go into organizations talking to them about parenthood and retresence and how to support their working parents better. So, it's all on the website if someone wants to to check that out.

31:54 >> I love it. And Zoe is based in the UK and one day she and I are going to be doing a big talk together. So, Zoe, thank you so much for gracing us with your wisdom, your realness, your humility, and your insights. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. It's been a joy. I hope so many of you listening could relate to what Zoe and I were expressing, our very low moments in parenting and how our unconscious old self just takes over.

32:22 I'm sure many of you could relate. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode and I will see you next time on Parenting and You with me, Dr. Shafali. Parenting and you with Dr. Shafali is for educational andformational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional medical, psychological, psychotherrapeutic, coaching, health care, or other qualified professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.