A photo of a woman in front of a microphone looking into the camera, Zoe Blaskey
Episode 306 – Navigating motherhood in a fast paced world with Zoe Blaskey

Motherhood is incredible, but in today’s fast paced world it can be challenging and high pressured. In this podcast we chat to Zoe Blaskey, founder of Motherkind and the host of the Motherkind podcast to find out how we can navigate these challenges and have a calmer and better day.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
00:00
Motherhood is incredible, but in today's fast paced world, it can be challenging and highly pressured. In today's podcast, we chat to Zoe Blaskey, founder of motherkind, and the host of the motherkind podcast, to find out how we can navigate these challenges and have a calmer and better day

00:29
you're listening to the declutter hook podcast bringing you tried and tested no nonsense tips and advice from the leading experts decluttering and organizing your home. Now here's your host, Ingrid Jansen,

00:51
hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid. If you're new to the digital hub podcast, you're so welcome. What you'll find is that we try and find the fun factor in the serious business of decluttering, and if you've been here for a while, you know exactly what we mean. So thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get involved in conversations related to this podcast, it all takes place in our free Facebook group, so come and join our lovely, warm and supportive community. Go to declutterhub.com forward slash group to find out more. Hello, Zoe. A very warm welcome to the declutter hub podcast. We're so delighted that you're here. Oh,

01:32
thank you for having me

01:33
now. You are a podcast Pro. You've got a podcast yourself called motherkind. And of course, I'm interested to hear, how did it all come about? Why did you set it up? What happened

01:46
so when I became a mum eight years ago, which I can hardly believe, I the bit that I found hardest about it was what was going on with me. I have, I've always had quite a loud inner critic, a part of me that says that I'm not doing things right and I need to try harder. But when I became a mother, I found that got much, much, much louder and I was putting a huge amount of pressure on myself. I was also like, really underprepared for the identity changes, the changes in my relationship, the changes with my body, with my brain, with my work. No one was really talking at that time about what motherhood really meant. And a lot of the podcasts and the content were very celebrity LED. And what I wanted to do was really understand from experts who had studied, you know, decades in the fields of psychology, anthropology, parenting, somatic experts, Mind Body experts, well being experts to really help me understand a, what was happening to me and B, what I could do about it. So I started the podcast. It was never, it was never planned to be a business or become what it has today. I started it for me, and I'm just really grateful that it turns out millions of other mothers felt the way that I did and wanted the type of solutions and ideas that I did as well. So we've now done over 450 episodes. I think we've been going for seven years. We've never missed a week of the podcast, which I'm super proud of, although a little bit tired. So

03:30
I hear you. I hear you. This is Podcast Episode 306 and going, you know, six years as well. Never missed a week, never put on the same podcast twice, and I hear you,

03:45
we have done that. You need to re release. That gives you a little break. We do. We do, sometimes do a re release. Yeah, but I'm super proud of it. I'm super proud of it because, you know, not, not because of any of the external successes, really, although there's been many, it's more about the messages that I get every day from mothers telling me how my work and the guests I've had on have really changed their experience of motherhood and have given them validation and support, but also a toolkit for how they can navigate this season of their life. Yeah,

04:19
yeah. And when we were in contact last week, I did ask you, kind of what kind of things would you like to come up and the list you send me are so linked to, you know, decluttering and organizing people's homes as well all of the things that you mentioned. I'm like, yeah, yeah. We, we have the same things, the same topics. And I think you, of course, you focus on motherhood, but I think it's so relatable to people in general who are just overwhelmed with lots of things they have to do in their lives. And I thought, you know how fabulous to have you on and talk about these things, because I think we put so much pressure on ourselves, and there's so many external pressures as well to to do all the. Things and get it all right. And you know, my son is is 18. Now my daughter's 16, and I'm like, Where, where, where's it gone? Where the years gone? It's gone so quickly, and so much has happened. And there's so many things that, when you become a mom change, but I think it's also the world is changing at such a fast pace as well, that it's, it's hard to keep up.

05:23
Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. And, you know, I think I talk a lot about the pressures that we put on ourselves, and I think that really links to the work that that you both do as well. And, you know, I think so much of that pressure comes from internally, but also so much comes from externally. And I think when you can work out, is that pressure coming from me, and where is that pressure coming from, and why am I putting myself under that pressure? And then I think when you can also understand or is it coming from externally, I think you can really begin to free yourself from some of that pressure, because pressure often comes from fear. Like, what is underneath pressure is fear. Often, with mums, a fear of not doing it right for our children, often a fear of not looking like a good mum, often a fear of not seeming like we're on top of things, or we're perfect, or letting our children down, is a huge one. And I think when we can address the fears underneath the pressure, that's when the real change happens. Because fear is you never want a life driven by fear, because fear is an unhelpful compass. It's also often wildly inaccurate our fears, our biggest fears, often rarely come to pass. So, yeah, I think, I think the idea of pressure is fascinating to me, and when I had that insight about, you know, I also do lots of coaching. And, you know, sit for 1000s of hours with these mothers. And as they were telling me about this pressure, I really saw time and time and time and time again, the most pressure they were putting on themselves is where they felt most afraid failing. Yeah,

06:58
I think you're so right? And I just see the links like completely between our work that Leslie and I have been doing with in people's homes, when we help them decluttering and organize their house, because you kind of, you start to dig into it, the clutter is almost always we say, the symptom isn't it, it's everything that's underneath it that starts to come out when you start to help, mainly women, sometimes men with with the clutter in their homes. So I see a lot of that fear as well. And, yeah, love it. Okay, great. So let's talk a little bit about guilt.

07:34
Yeah, so guilt is a massive one, and I think it's just absolutely fascinating that guilt in everyday life means one thing, and then you put that word mum in front of it, and it suddenly means something totally different. And often actually it's not guilt. So guilt is actually quite a useful emotion when we use it appropriately. So guilt is actually when we've done something wrong that goes against our values that we want to say sorry for, make amends and then maybe change our behavior going forward. So actually, guilt helps us become who we want to be. Often, it helps us to stay true to who we are. It's actually really useful, and it's only psychopaths who feel no guilt at all. So we don't want to feel no guilt at all, because that would mean that we don't have any empathy or compassion or we're not connected. So I think actually guilt is can be a really productive, good emotion, but what happens is, you put that word mum in front of it, and it's so all consuming and all pervasive, that it's actually got its own phrase mum guilt, because there's no dad guilt, there's no work guilt, there's no human guilt, it's just guilt, right? So the fact that when we put that word mum in front of it, what happens is it actually becomes not guilt at all. So often we feel guilty about things that actually we haven't done anything wrong. We're just trying our best. We're just imperfect humans, doing the absolute best we can, but we pile on this pressure. So a lot of what we call guilt in motherhood is actually tension. It's actually just wishing we could be two places at once, or cut ourselves into four and be, you know, at work, at home with one child, with the other child, and with our partner, you know, it's, it's, that's a lot of it is just tension. And I think the moment tension is like pulling a rope, and I use this analogy, it's, we just need to drop the rope and just accept that, that feeling of being pulled and wishing that you could be in more places at once. It's just, it's a part of life, but it's a massive part of motherhood, and the quicker that someone can accept that, the better, because then you stop feeling guilty. It's like, I don't feel guilty for going to work because I'm doing nothing wrong. Actually, for me, working is really in line with my values, like I love my little girl, seeing me building what I'm building. I love them. Seeing. Working being financially independent, that's a really important value to me. So it's not that I'm guilty because I'm not doing anything wrong. What I'm experiencing is tension because I wish that I could do everything that I'm doing and also spend every single moment with them the moment I accept that, it really dissipates a lot of what we call tension in motherhood is actually us measuring ourselves against ridiculous standards, and those standards often don't come from us. They're standards that we've absorbed from, you know, our own families, from the media, from social media, from movies. You know, our subconscious is always working like a sponge, absorbing these ideals and often even without us really realizing it. That is what we're measuring ourselves against. So it's super powerful to kind of for someone to grab a piece of paper and be like, what what a good mother does and and what came out when I did that was kind of mind blowing, like 90s, 50s housewife type stuff. So then you can define your own standards based on your own unique values, your own unique setup, the type of mother that you want to be, what you know, where you are financially, where you are, with your mental health, with your capacity, who else you're caring for, what are the pressures you've got? You can take all that into account and craft your own standards. And that's really freeing and really important. And the other thing that you know often happens is that inner critic I mentioned at the start gets really loud, because the more that we care about something, the louder our inner critic gets, and most of us have never cared more about our children, so that voice inside our hairs that says you're not doing it right, you're failing. You're not good enough for them. Why can't you be more like her? Whatever it says to you, we often call that guilt, but it's not. It's not guilt at all. It's actually that critical part of us. So the first step of that is to become aware of it, because the moment you're aware of it, you take some of its power away, and then to learn that you can have those thoughts, but don't make them your truth. Don't make them your reality. So you can have first thought which might be negative or critical of yourself. You can have a much kinder second thought. And that's a skill, just like going to the gym, you just build that muscle. Yeah? So, yeah, I think, I think guilt is fascinating, but it's really important as mothers to not ignore it, because if you go through your you know, decades of motherhood, and hopefully we're going to be mothers, you know, we will be mothers until the the day we die. You know, whatever happens to our children, that role never leaves us. So it's really worth it's really worth learning about your guilt, because I'm free of it now, because I've applied this model, and I can't tell you the difference it's made to my life, I feel so much more joy and freedom and presence and connection with my kids, because I don't I'm not constantly feeling like I'm doing it wrong or I have something to feel guilty about. Yeah, I

12:44
was actually letting them down as well. I think, yes, I think that's what we feel. Because when we focus on work or something or ourselves, you know, then we're like, oh, but we're not spending time with them. But, you know, we have to. You can't, you can't do it all at the same time. And what we see a lot with guilt is when, when people, for example, their children, can't have friends over playing or at the house because the how they feel the house is messy or the house is out of control. There's too much clutter, and the the women feel lots and lots of guilt over that I'm not being a good mom because I've got clutter. My kids can't have play dates, and the clutter is, is they're not living their best life. There's, there's a lot revolved around that, and we see that a lot as well. Yeah.

13:30
And that's really fascinating, isn't it? Because if someone said that to me, there'd be a few things firing off in my head. You know. One would be, is that productive? Guilt, like, is there a part of you where your one of your values is, you know, friendships and you want your children to be able to have friends over. Okay? So if it's productive guilt, you can use that to prompt action. Yeah, okay, what would it look like? I can't declutter the whole house, but maybe I could declutter like the living room so they could have a few friends over. If a client said that to me, I'd also be super fascinated about, you know, what? What is what? What does success look like? For you like, what is an appropriate amount of mess or clutter? Because what I see is that often we judge ourselves so harshly, and children, children don't connect to what a space looks like. Children connect to how a space feels. So if there is a super messy house with a lot of love and a lot of fun, that is what children connect to, as opposed to walking into a home which might feel, you know, super organized. But actually the the I often call it the tone of the house. If the tone of the house is kind of cold and rigid and controlling like that's children are. Children haven't started that neck up living that we adults do as much they're very tuned into their bodies until about the age of 10. So that's what I would be unpacking if a client came to me with that. It's really, really interesting, I think, to always. Take guilt, and, you know, not just say, Oh, don't feel guilty about that, because actually there's so much richness that we can use to prompt us or to challenge our thoughts, or to, you know, realize actually it is minor critic. My home's perfectly good for a playdate, but what's coming up for me is whether the other mother will judge me, yeah, okay, well, that's fascinating. Let's unpack that. Yeah. So I think there's always like, the branches of the tree, isn't it? Yeah,

15:25
yeah. I think so as well. I think you mentioned social media and that we try to live up against that as well. We see that a lot as well. Sometimes people really get stuck in that perfectionism of, I want my books all rainbow organized. And I'm like, Well, let's start with finding your keys first, you know, let's find put a put. Let's put the basics in place. The rainbow order is lovely, but, I mean, I'm a very organized person, and my books are not a rainbow order. I can still find them because they're all on the bookshelf. They all have a home. And I think sometimes people get really struck down with their perfection. They can't do it perfectly, they're not going to do it at all, and then they feel guilt over that, because I can't do it perfectly, I can't do it, and then after they feel guilty about that. So I think guilt and perfectionism are very, very closely linked as well.

16:13
Yeah, they are. And if you're highly perfectionist, you will naturally feel more guilt. But perfectionism is fascinating, because lots of people say to me, Well, I can't be a perfectionist because I'm so imperfect. And I think, you know, you can be a perfectionist and have an incredibly messy home. You can be a perfectionist and be late all the time that it that isn't what perfectionism about. Perfectionism is about when nothing is good enough for you. So you might declutter one room. And if you're a perfectionist, you will have an inner voice that says, Well, what about the others? You know, you've got so much to go the perfectionist voice doesn't let us see what we have done and we are doing. It only focuses on what we haven't done and we're yet to do. It's it's almost like a kind of cruel hamster wheel perfectionism. It just keeps you going, which is why women who suffer from perfectionism often burn out very quickly, because they're not able to sit down and go, do you know I decluttered one draw today, and that is a win. If you've got that perfectionist mindset, you won't be able to see that. That's a win. You'll be like, what about the rainbow bookshelves? What about the fact that I still can't, you know, have friends over, or whatever it is. So I really, if anyone's listening who has that perfectionist mindset that keeps them just onto the next, onto the next, onto the next, it's really important to start that practice of recognizing what you have done, instead of the perpetual focus on what you haven't. And what's fascinating is about affection, is it's one of those things that gets set up in our childhood. So this you've likely lived with that thinking for a long time. It likely came from teachers or caregivers or other people in your life who you know you might have sat down to just veg out on the sofa, and you might have been told, but your toys aren't tidy. Go and tidy your toys up before you sit down. Or have you done your homework? Or you need to help me do this, the tone of your home might have been that you always need to be earning your rest, earning your worth, as opposed to just chill out because you deserve to have a rest, same as I do, which often mothers really struggle with. So a lot of our generation of women had that modeled that kind of, that hamster wheel. Yeah. So perfectionism is huge. I think,

18:30
yeah. I mean, I think you see that a lot, you know, when people, when, when my kids were literally saying, Well, you sleep, when the baby sleeps. And I was like, Are you kidding me? Do you know how much stuff I've got to do, you know, all of the things. And then at one point you go, Okay, I think I got now, why they say you need to rest a little bit as well, because you just don't get enough sleep at night, and you're absolutely in a state of exhaustion all the time. And how can you be, be be focused and do kind of do good work, whatever it is, if it's in your home with your children, with work if you're absolutely shattered, yeah,

19:03
it's fascinating, because sleep when your baby sleeps, you know, really came from a time, I think, when mothers had much more support around them in the last 100 years. You know, motherhood has changed almost unrecognizably from how would have been many mothers would have lived close to their mums, who were having babies younger, so their mothers wouldn't have been needed to be cared for themselves as well. They would have actually been far more actively involved. We hadn't had the huge shift to urbanization, with lots of people moving into the cities and away from where they grew up, away from their sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles. So I think sleep when your baby sleeps, is incredible advice if you have someone doing all the jobs that don't go away when you have a baby. Because the reality is, if you slept every time the baby slept, there would probably be, you know, no food to eat and no clean clothes. Because sadly, what happens is mothers take on the majority of that domestic load as well, as well. As caring for the baby. So it's one of those. It's one of those ones that makes a lot of sense from a nervous system point of view, from a somatic point of view, from a depletion point of view, but it's one of those ideas that now in this, you know, 2024 just doesn't really translate because of the changes that have happened around the

20:22
mother, yeah, yeah. And I think, I think as well, I think it's the same with, you know, that's still a lot of the chores in the home, whether it's the children, and also all the house chores. Still, the load is still a lot with

20:36
the women, isn't it? Yeah, it's about 70% of the domestic and mental load falls to the woman currently, yeah, it's changing. And every time they do a study, every five years that that study is done, it's it's changing. And I can see it's changing in my community and with my clients, but it's not changing at the at the rate which our work is changing. So we're in this kind of perfect storm at the moment where we've got more mothers doing paid work than at any other point in history, but also still doing 70% of the domestic child care, default parent, domestic load, mental load. So that is why, I think we get the statistics that I talk about a lot in my book around burnout. You know, 93% of mothers would reach the threshold for for burnout. And I think that's why, you know, we're in this really kind of perfect storm, yeah, yeah, of where we're, you know, doing a lot of paid work and a lot of unpaid work, and the number of hours that the average mother works a week is equivalent to two and a half full time jobs. Yeah. So it's a lot. It's about 98 hours paid and unpaid work a week.

21:44
Yeah, so 93% chance of burnout. Did I hear you say that correctly, 93%

21:50
of mothers in the UK would reach at least one of the criteria for burnout? Yeah, wow.

21:56
Yeah. It's not surprising, is it? And I think on top of that, you know, with with work, with the kids, we also, you know, have, indeed, all the household chores, the work at home that needs to be done, put on top of that, the mom guilder perfectionism, and you have a perfect storm. Indeed,

22:13
exactly, yeah, and that's why I wanted the title of of the book, which is out on the 15th of August, to, you know, a new way to thrive in a world of endless expectations, because it is endless, and if we don't get ahead of that, that's when we we burn out, because the expectations from ourselves, from others, from our partners, from society, from our bosses, from everyone around us, the expectations that get placed On us are endless, and so we have to be the ones to say, no. We have to be the ones to put those boundaries in place, to say, Do you know what I can't do anymore today? And I need to rest, and I need to let that go, and I need to leave that area of the room messy, because I am done. Now, I have some mothers saying to me, I've finished, put the kids down, and then I'll do two hours work, and then I'll do an hour putting all the playroom back together. And I'm like, why? Tell me what is going on, knowing that after an hour in the morning, it's going to be back to that messy state, you know, tell me what is going on in that mindset that you have to have that done before you go to bed. It's absolutely fascinating, the ways in which we put so much pressure on ourselves and what are what we make our homes mean about us is very, very interesting to me.

23:28
Let's go for a break, and after break, we'll talk about what we can do ourselves and with help from others to make that better, because we need to give ourselves a break. I think so we so. See you soon. Hi everyone. Welcome back. I'm chatting to Zoe Blaskey from motherkind, the mother kind podcast, the mother kind book, coming out this Friday, the 15th of August. So lots going on. Zoe, we talked before the break, a lot about guilt, burnout, perfectionism. I would love to talk more about what can we do ourselves to help ourselves?

24:05
I mean, there is so much I've written, like a whole book on what we can do, what knowing your audience, what do you think they struggle with the most? And I'll share my toolkit around that. Would it be not having boundaries? Would it be having a strong inner critic? Would it be perfectionism? Would it be putting too much pressure on themselves? Tell me, and then I'll give you my toolkit.

24:29
Yeah, I think it's definitely the people who clutter put a lot of pressure on themselves, okay? And I think perfectionism, we see a lot as well, so, but I think it's probably a culmination of all of these things. That's it.

24:44
That's it. They don't well. The first thing that I always recommend is that often the external is just a reflection of the internal. So, and I know that you talk about that a lot in your work as well. So one of the foundational things that we can do is what I call getting on your own side. What does that mean? It means that, you know, motherhood and modern life is challenging, and there are many pressures coming on to us, but what I see a lot of women doing is, I almost call it squaring it, because we then do it to ourselves as well. And there's a teacher that I love, a mentor of mine, called Dr Gabor Mate, who I talk about and is quoted in the book. And he says that, you know trauma, and if we just take trauma as anything that makes us feel, challenged in a big way, isn't what happens to us, it's how much support we have through what happens to us. And of course, we want that support to come outside of us, but we also need that support to come from inside of us. So one of the foundational tools that I teach, that's part of motherkind, and I think will be super helpful for your listeners, is to learn to become your own coach instead of your own critic. So how do we do that? Well, the first one I already talked to, which is noticing when that voice is becoming critical. And what's fascinating is if you haven't done any work like this before, you will think that voice is you. You will think that voice is telling you the truth. So the key is start to write down some of the things that that voice says to you. And this might be quite overwhelming when you first do it, because you might realize just how much of your internal narrative is negative about yourself, about the world, about your family, about your partner, about your friends. Even write it down and then start to look for evidence, even like chinks of evidence that maybe that's not the whole truth. So if you're saying to yourself, you know, I'm a terrible mother, start for looking of chinks of evidence that not might not be true. So start to look at when your child comes up and says, I love you, mummy. Okay, well, I can't be a terrible mother of my kids saying they love me. Or if, when you see your child out and about and they do something kind, or when the teacher says, you know, he did something super, super kind and compassionate in class today, you know that is all evidence, and you have to start building up that evidence bank. It's like we've given years and decades to one side of evidence, and we have to start balancing those scales. So that is a super simple, practical thing that you can start to do. The other thing is that so much of our lives is run by what we believe about ourselves. So about 98% of our behavior is driven by our unconscious beliefs about ourselves, about the world, about our homes. So it's really powerful, and it's actually a kind of very quick shortcut to a big amount of change and how you feel about yourselves and your life, is to get into the beliefs. Because they're like the operating system. They're like the map. It's like an invisible map that we're living by, but we're not seeing it. So start to think about what do you believe about yourself as a mother, what do you believe about yourself as a partner? What do you believe about yourself as a homeowner? And start to get some of those beliefs out. Because typically, not always, but typically, our beliefs about ourselves are quite negative. They're quite limiting. They're often based in one thing that one person said to us when we were little, that actually is not true anymore. It's fascinating to me how we upgrade our beliefs about, you know, life, like not many adults still believe in Father Christmas, for example, but we might still believe that we're not good enough because of what some primary school teacher said to us, you know, two or three decades ago, so we have to kind of upgrade that operating system. So you want to get those beliefs about yourself out, and then again, start to, like, rewrite with those beliefs, like, what would a really empowering belief be? I can make my home into, you know, the home of my dreams. I I'm perfectly capable of living in a clean, organized space. Anything that's possible. It's possible for me. You know that changing these beliefs into far more empowering, because then we can start to align our action. Often what we do is we go for the action first. And if we don't upgrade the belief, you just keep pinging back. It's like a bungee rope, you will just keep pinging back. That's why lottery winners often are more likely to become bankrupt than the average person within three years, because often they haven't upgraded their belief system that they are worth this abundance. So they often spend it all, squander it all, don't invest it wisely. So if we don't work on that operating system, particularly around something like decluttering, what you'll find is, and I'm sure you found this a lot, you can go in and someone can help you, but very quickly you'll go back to that old behavior. So you have to look at the belief system. So start rewriting. Some of those empowering beliefs, and it really is a bit of a shortcut. It really is. And you might think, but I don't believe this at all. You actually don't have to the brain doesn't know the difference between real and imagined. So if you can just keep affirming to yourself, you know, I am someone who lives in a clean, tidy, beautiful home I am deserving of a space that I feel proud of like that's a beautiful affirmation that you could just keep repeating. And what you'll find is you can then choose to align your behavior to that belief, and it will feel more sustainable. So that's where I start. Like always start any problem, any challenge that you're facing, whether it's motherhood or decluttering or what start on a belief level, because then you are far more likely to get the actual change that sticks. Yeah,

30:50
I love it so much so because we talk a lot about the emotions connected to clutter. So Leslie and I never start with, what's the clutter and what all of that, we start with, what are the what are the emotions that sit behind that clutter? And one of the first things we talk about is kindness to yourself. And you know, don't berate yourself all the time for all the things you haven't done, but start recognizing the wins you're doing, the one little thing you have done, the tiny little drawer, the couple of bits of posts you have opened, you know, really, really small, because I think a lot of people see their homes as I want their their goal is, I want a I want a clean and tidy home. Of course, that, but you you want to have a goal that kind of that you want to work towards. I want to have a clean and tidy home, because I would love to have my family come and stay at my house. I would love to have a dinner party in my living room. I want my best friend to come in for a cup of coffee. I would love my friends to have played it's whatever it is. What's that goal? And then how are you going to break it down to to to work towards that very, very small, manageable junks to to keep moving forward. So indeed, what, exactly what you're saying that kindness towards yourself. We're so hard on ourselves, we can we're kind to everybody else, apart from ourselves. And a lot of people, when we start to talk about this, they're like, What does kindness have to do with the clutter? Unless, you know, like everything, yeah,

32:21
because we think, we think that beating ourselves up is going to motivate us to change. We think that it's going the harder we are on ourselves, the more productive we're going to be. And, you know, spent a long time studying self compassion, and actually, the opposite is true. Some of the most productive people are the kindest to themselves because they know that they can take a risk, they can fail, and they are not going to come down on themselves like a ton of bricks. They are going to have their own backs. So actually, being kinder to ourselves is a far better motivator if you've got any goal. And I think often people think, well, if I'm kind to myself, aren't I just going to sit on the sofa eating crisps and watching TV and not doing anything. And there's a huge difference. And us parents know this, there's a huge difference between self indulgence and self compassion. Sometimes self compassion is like, no, come on. You need to you need to get those dishes washed up like you deserve that you are deserving of having not that dirty food out overnight. You deserve that. You're worthy of that. You know, often I will ask myself that question, what would I do if I really loved myself? Okay, well, I would go to the gym today. I would make myself a healthy breakfast. I would make myself go to bed early. What would I do if I really loved myself, because so many of us act as if we don't like ourselves, we treat ourselves in many ways, like our own worst enemies. So I think that's really important. There's a huge difference between indulging and letting that low self worth determine our actions. And actually, self compassion is quite radical, and it's very challenging to think, what would I do if I really liked myself, if I was my own best friend, what would I do? I'd say, Come on, Zoe, off the sofa. We're going to tidy that corner, knowing that actually, at the end of that, I would feel amazing. Yeah, so it's super important, and I can see why it's so core to your work, self compassion and self kindness. Yeah.

34:20
I think we talk a lot about doing your future. Self, almost like a favor, but you're working to it. Your future self is going to be so happy when you've done the dishes in the evening, because in the morning, you're to kind of come into a clean kitchen. So yeah, everything your whole day will just start better because you're not looking at all the dirty plates from last night. You can grab the dishes. You can get breakfast on the go. You can, you know, it all just runs that little bit smoother.

34:49
That's right. And, and I talk a lot in the book about habit stacking, so how we think that change happens in a kind of big, yeah. You know, one day I'm going to change every that is never, ever, ever. How change happens. Change happens in the 1% Change happens decluttering one drawer at a time, one dish at a time, one corner at a time. And those habits, they stack upon each other. Because if you say to yourself, I'm just going to do one draw today, and you do it, you get a shot of dopamine. You get that idea that I'm someone who can do this, as opposed to, I mean, do you cut to my whole wardrobe? You get halfway through, you get overwhelmed, you get overstimulated. Your nervous system goes into fight, flight, freeze. You can't finish it. And then you go, see I'm a failure. I can't do it. You're far, far, far better to be like, I'm just going to do my socks, five socks like the smaller that you can make the goal, the better, because they just stack on top of each other. I used to do in my early career, I used to teach a lot of meditation, and I used to start with 30 seconds a day. People would say, that's not going to make any difference. I said, well, it actually will. There's studies that prove it, but what we're actually doing is habit stacking. If I set you a 15 minute meditation today, you could probably do it for a week. I guarantee week two you would not do it. So it's it's stacking those habits, one on top of each other.

36:13
It's so interesting that you say that because I've recently started, I've recently started taking cold showers. Yeah? Because I just somebody that I'm following said, try that. It's really good for you. And I thought, I can anybody. Said, start with five seconds. And I thought, I can do five seconds, yeah? And of course, it was like, within the whole idea is that within a week you can do cold and I thought, That's right. I can't do that. It's too fast for me. So over the last well, I've been doing it for two months now, and now I have really, gradually, I haven't gone to full blast cold because I thought I can't. So I'm putting it colder and then tiny little bit colder and tiny little bit cold, and a little bit longer, and now I'm like, wow, and I'm still don't know, I'm not where I want to be, but I'm doing so much more, and I'm enjoying it. So I was telling my friends about it last week, and they were like, Are you kidding me? Why would you do that? And I was like, I don't know, but it feels really good, yeah. And I don't know if I have enough energy, because it's it says it gives you lots of energy, really good for your heart, and it gets your heart pumping. I don't feel that that big change yet, but I just feel better. And this morning, in the shower, and I kind of out of habit, turned and I went, No, no, no, you still have to your cold shower, turn the shower back on. And I was really proud of myself for not just kind of leaving it, but going but I've, I'm doing this as part of my thing now, but I've been doing it two months every day, yeah, five years

37:47
longer. So I think the thing with I do a lot of cold sea swimming, and I think the thing is that you kind of teach yourself that you can overcome a challenge, yeah. And I always think if you start your day by doing something really hard, what you're really doing is you're saying to yourself, I can face any challenge that comes at me today because I've already stood under icy cold water for five seconds. So I think, I think there's absolutely all the physiological benefits, but I think there's a lot of emotional benefits to doing hard things. So often we avoid doing hard things. But actually it's in that discomfort that we grow. It's in in this it's in the discomfort that we actually get out of our comfort zone, and that is where the growth is. There's no growth in the comfort zone. You're not going to not going to grow as a person, you're not going to grow as a mother. You're not going to grow at all if you stick in your comfort zone. So actually, teaching ourselves to get out of that comfort zone. Is where all the growth comes from in every single area of your life, that is where growth comes from. Is being a little bit uncomfortable, but we have to do it sustainably and generally, yeah,

38:53
yeah. So how with with all of the things, right? So how do we put those boundaries in is it really just a matter of saying, No.

39:05
I mean, it can be. It depends. It depends what it is. Boundaries are, essentially what boundaries are are limits that you put in your life. You know, I talked about that title that I use in the book, endless expectations. If we don't have boundaries, we really live as if we have endless energy, endless amounts to give that will limit less, because boundaries are just limits. Yeah, so there are external boundaries, which are the limits that we put with other people, which might be, I'm not available for email after 9pm I can't do meetings before 9am I you know, whatever it might be to your in laws. You know you're not allowed to drop in. I want at least an hour's warning, or I don't do overnights until my children are at this amount of age. You know, whatever it might be. There are millions of examples of external boundaries, and then there are internal boundaries, which is a little bit you have an internal boundary with your cold shower, which is a promise that you keep to yourself. I do at least five seconds of cold shower every single morning. So if. Internal boundaries can be around our social media, use, our diets, our bedtimes, anything you know, our homes. So the way to determine where you need a boundary is often where you feel a little bit resentful or you feel a little bit taken advantage of or a bit pissed off. That's often a sign that you might need an external boundary. So if your boss keeps emailing you at 10pm but you keep replying and you're really annoyed about it, I would say, okay, that's actually not on the boss. That's on you. You need a boundary. Have you communicated that this doesn't work for you? If not, why not? And how would we do that? The same with you know, this comes up a lot with in laws and parents and grandparents and family and friends. And you know, people say, I'm just so frustrated. They keep doing this, they keep doing this. And I will often say, Okay, have you communicated? What's your boundary like? Do they know your operating manual of your family? Because we all have them. It's just that they're offering invisible and then when someone crosses over it like, shoes off in your home, like often people have this invisible rule, I want people to take their shoes off in my home, but they don't say it. But then people are at their met. They're kind of getting annoyed, but it's like, you haven't made that visible. We have to make our limits and our rules visible. And often people will take that really well. The people that don't take that really well you need more boundaries with. Those are the people that you need to be quite limited with in terms of communicating your boundaries, because those also tend to be the people who will take and take and take yeah from you. So yeah, boundaries are really, really, really important. And in the book, I give lots of examples of boundaries. I tell you exactly like, almost like a script of how to work out, you know, what yours need to be and how to set them. I tell you what to do if someone reacts to them. It's a whole thing, because boundaries are so important. Otherwise we just live as if we don't have any. And we all do. We all have them. We have them. You know, our bodies tell us when we have them, when we tense up or when we feel annoyed, it's just often we're not communicating them out.

42:07
Yeah, we see that a lot with gifting and presence, right? Oh, yeah. So people then go on the coaching journey. They're really proud of that. They're making small changes in their homes moving forward. And then parents, grandparents, in laws, whoever it is, come in. And every time they come, they bring something for the children. Yeah, they bring a gift. They bring things they will, or food, or whatever it is, you know, they that indulge. And, of course, you know, it's all it's a bit of a saying like, Oh, when your grandparents, you can spoil the grandkids, you know. But there's a difference between, I think, spoiling them with attention or whatever, instead of shoving stuff through the door all the time. So we see then the moms or the owners of the home get frustrated and go, I'm working so hard here to let the stuff go down. And every time you come and visit, here goes another bag. But when you take them out for the day, they come back with pencils and soft doors. But it's hard to have that discussion, isn't it? Zoe, hard to have that discussion, it can be,

43:09
but I think, you know, boundaries aren't weapons, and they're not used to control another. They're actually, you know, what we will do about someone's behavior. So if, if that was me, me, I would say, you know, I'd really appreciate it. I love that you buy the kids things, and I can see that it's how you're showing them your love. And I think that's absolutely gorgeous. But as you can see, we're working really hard on reducing the things. I wonder, could you buy them experiences like I love it when you know, if you pay for them to go out for the day to the to the farmyard or the Farm Park and maybe buy them lunch. Like that is just such an incredible way for you to show them your love. And if someone says, oh my gosh, you're so ungrateful. I can't believe you're saying to this to me, I'm just trying to be a good, good grandparent. You don't need to get defensive back. You can say, I get that like I can get how what I'm saying probably does feel a little bit like that too. But I promise you, it's not that I'm ungrateful. We're super grateful. It's just that we've got this goal, and you can see how hard we've worked on decluttering, and if you continue to bring, you know, this amount into the home, what I'm going to have to do is just give it to the charity shop, and I really don't want to do that with your hard earned money. So I wonder, you know, I wonder how we could work forward with this. Yeah, it doesn't need to be an argument, and it depends on the person on the other side. You know, yeah, if they're an understanding kind person, they're likely to get it. And if someone is setting a boundary like that with you, it is a sign that they want you in their life, they want they're doing something hard because they want to be honest with you that says so much about your relationship. That says that actually they probably really love you. They really care about you. Because if they didn't, they would either just take the stuff and lob it out in the bin or, you know, to the charity shop that afternoon, not say anything to you. Slag you off to everyone else in the family, or they would just cut you out. Or, you know, the fact that someone is having that courage to tell you how they feel on the inside, when everyone sets a boundary with me, I always celebrate because they think they must think that our relationship is that important to them, that they want to bring more honesty into it, or that they think that I'm the sort of person who can hear this and I will respect and honor them. So I think if you're listening to this, maybe you are a grandparent, you've had that sort of boundary set with you. I would take it as a real as a real positive, because over time, if people don't set those boundaries with you, the relationship just becomes more and more distant, and we all have examples of that, but we've kept quiet to try and make it more comfortable in the short term. Well, short term comfort always brings long term discomfort always. That's the kind of trade off. I'm going to make it easier today, but ultimately, this is going to build up over the years until we have a massive row, and it'll never be about the thing that we have a massive row about. It would have been the decade before of things that we've ignored and not spoken about. So, yeah, it's hard. Like I would never say it's not hard. I still find it hard when I teach this stuff, but I think I just remember that it's a sign that I honor and respect the other person, that I'm willing to make myself uncomfortable enough to be honest with them. Love

46:17
it. Yeah, I love it. Well, that sounds amazing, and I can't wait to read your book. Zoe, I mean, it's coming out soon. You've got a lot of examples about, indeed, boundaries and things like that in your book. You said, can you tell us a little bit more? When is it coming out? Exactly, where can people find it?

46:36
So it's out on the 15th of August, Thursday, 15th of August. It's anywhere you buy your books, Amazon, Waterstones on my website, and anywhere that you would get a book, you can find it. And it's really, it's really a manual and a guide for the modern mother to start to take back a little bit of her own power and to start to have a motherhood that feels more, I guess, of how many of us thought it would feel, which is kind of joyful and energizing and connecting and fun. You know, that is why I wrote it, because I think that's the motherhood that we all deserve. But so many of these things like guilt and pressure and perfectionism and being the good girl and wanting to please, and not wanting to put boundaries in and feeling judged, all of that gets in the way. And those are the things that I talk to and I give, you, know, hundreds of tools, little, quick things that you can do to start to really change how you feel about yourself, how you feel about your life. And it's been called life changing, which is really, really, really incredible for me to hear by red magazine and many early readers. So if anyone is a mother, and it's not about the age of your child, because the book isn't about parenting, it's about you. So I have mothers of 10 day Olds read it, telling me that it's going to change their motherhood, and mothers of you know, teenagers and even grandparents, telling me that it's had a huge impact on them too. So it's not about the age of your child. It's a book about you, the mother. Yeah,

48:04
I love it. I've loved this conversation. Zoe, same it's been absolutely brilliant. So listeners, so many parallels with what Leslie and I talk about all the time. And I think, yeah, it was really validating for for me as well, to hear that so many things that Zoe said something. Yes, that's what we say, too. So listen to what we got to say. I really appreciate it and let us know. Has this conversation helped you? Have you had some light bulb moments? Are you thinking to yourself, I'm going to be kinder to myself, I'm going to put some boundaries in I'm going to have that tricky conversation, because I think it will help me in the long term, share with us, let us know in the comments and again. Zoe, really, really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank

48:49
you. Thank you. You're welcome. I loved it. Thank you.

48:53
Thank you so much and listeners, we will see you next week. Thanks for being here. We appreciate you.

49:03
thanks so much for listening to the declutter hut podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to us in your podcast player so you don't miss an episode and we'll see you next week.
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Episode 306 – Navigating motherhood in a fast paced world with Zoe Blaskey

Episode 392 – The clutter advice I’d give my 30-year-old self

Episode 389 – Overcoming mobility challenges when decluttering with member Rory

Episode 388 – Start as you mean to go on – plan 2026 for decluttering success

Episode 387 – Our 2025 year in review – the big Declutter Hub round-up

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