Nourishing the Mother

Feeling trapped by your life isn't always about changing your circumstances. Sometimes it's about changing the way you meet them. In this final episode of our three-part series, Bridget and Julie explore what happens after you've identified the stories keeping you stuck. They unpack how to reclaim the parts of yourself that feel lost beneath the weight of responsibility, why pleasure and self-care often trigger resistance instead of ease, and how to create more romance, aliveness and fulfilment without waiting for someone else to bring it to you.

If you've been longing to feel more like yourself again, this conversation offers practical, compassionate ways to reconnect with what you thought motherhood, partnership or adulthood had taken away.

In this episode, we discuss:

- Why feeling trapped is often less about your circumstances and more about your relationship with them.
- How to reclaim parts of yourself that feel buried beneath responsibility.
- Finding magic, pleasure and meaning within ordinary, everyday life.
- Why self-care can feel surprisingly difficult, even when you know you need it.
- The hidden beliefs, programming and rules that stop you receiving rest, joy and pleasure.
- Why the things that are good for your long-term wellbeing don't always feel like an immediate "yes."
- How to soften rigid thinking and create more flexibility in your life.
- Practical ways to pair difficult responsibilities with comfort and enjoyment.
- Creating romance by embodying the energy you want to experience, rather than waiting for someone else to create it.
- How pressure and disappointment quietly erode intimacy in relationships.
- Using imagination, books and story to reconnect with desire and possibility.
- The difference between outsourcing your happiness and becoming the creator of it.
- What genuine romance looks like beyond grand gestures.
- The importance of reciprocity, thoughtfulness and showing up for your partner in meaningful ways.
- Questions to help you notice where your life already contains more love, pleasure and possibility than you've been giving it credit for.
- How to become the source of more of what you're longing for, instead of waiting for life to deliver it.

Want support on this journey? Come join us inside Honey Club - where we melt these blocks together, one breath, one practice, one deep remembering at a time. Find out more at julietenner.love or visit: https://julie-tenner.newzenler.com/courses/honeyclub

Reach out to Bridget for 1:1 coaching - bridgetwood.life

Last episode, we started unpacking what’s actually underneath the feeling of being trapped by your life. This time, we take the next step: working out whether the thing making you miserable is an unavoidable fact of your life...or a “should” you’ve become so attached to that you can no longer see another way. Because while you might not be able to change the school run, your workload, your children, your partner or the responsibilities sitting on your shoulders, but you may have far more choice in how you experience them than you realise.

We explore radical acceptance, the exhausting and often painful pursuit of trying to change other people, and what becomes possible when you stop fighting with the reality of what is. This episode will help you question the expectations keeping you stuck, find where you still have choice and flexibility, and begin experimenting with different ways of living the life you actually have, rather than continually suffering because it isn’t the life you think it should be.

In this episode we discuss:

* How to work out whether the thing making you miserable is a fact or a “should”
* Why your expectations of how life, motherhood or your relationship should be may be making you suffer
* What happens when you keep waiting for your partner, children or circumstances to change before you can be happy
* Why trying to control and change the people you love is exhausting for everyone involved
* The difference between accepting your reality and resigning yourself to a life you hate
* How to find more choice when you feel like you have absolutely none
* Why you might be stuck choosing the same “flavour” of life without realising there are other options
* What to do when you can’t change the responsibility, but desperately need to change how it feels
* How to pair the unavoidable parts of your life with pleasure, play and things that make you feel more alive
* Why radical acceptance might be the thing that finally frees you from fighting with your life
* How to stop waiting for your life to change and start experimenting with how you experience it
* The second step in our three-part pathway towards feeling less trapped and finding more freedom, choice and fulfilment

Want support on this journey? Come join us inside Honey Club - where we melt these blocks together, one breath, one practice, one deep remembering at a time. Find out more at julietenner.love or visit: https://julie-tenner.newzenler.com/courses/honeyclub

Reach out to Bridget for 1:1 coaching - bridgetwood.life

What happens when you love your children, your partner and the life you’ve created...and still sometimes feel completely trapped by it?

In Part 1 of this three-part answer pathway, we respond to a listener who is buckling under the weight of motherhood, work, relationships and the relentless responsibility of being needed. Rather than giving you another list of things to do to “find yourself again”, we start somewhere deeper: understanding what is actually creating your suffering. We explore how comparing the life you have to the life you used to have, or the life you wish you could have, can leave you feeling increasingly resentful, burdened and stuck. We show you how to get specific about what you believe you’ve lost, what you’ve gained that you never wanted, and the evidence you may be unconsciously collecting to prove that your life is the problem.

This is the first step in moving from “I feel trapped by my life” towards understanding what you’re actually longing for, what needs to change, and where more freedom, fulfilment and choice might already be waiting for you.

In this episode we discuss:

* Why you can love your family and still feel trapped by your life
* What you’re actually longing for when you fantasise about escaping it all
* Why motherhood can leave you grieving the woman and freedom you used to have
* How to work out exactly what is making you feel so resentful, burdened and stuck
* Why comparing your life now to the life you used to have is making you suffer
* The stories you keep telling yourself that might be making your life feel even harder
* Why you keep finding more evidence that you’re trapped, unhappy or have lost yourself
* How to stop making your current life the problem without pretending you love everything about it
* What to do when you know something needs to change, but you have no idea what
* The first step towards feeling more freedom, choice and fulfilment in the life you already have

Want support on this journey? Come join us inside Honey Club - where we melt these blocks together, one breath, one practice, one deep remembering at a time. Find out more at julietenner.love or visit: https://julie-tenner.newzenler.com/courses/honeyclub

Reach out to Bridget for 1:1 coaching - bridgetwood.life

In this deeply personal solo episode, Julie responds to listener questions about her hysterectomy experience four years after surgery. 

From the realities of recovery and unexpected complications to the impact on sex, orgasm, identity, and womanhood, she shares the parts few people talk about openly. This is a candid conversation about what she gained, what she lost, what surprised her most, and why she would still make the same decision again. 

Fair warning: there is plenty of TMI in this episode - including discussions about vaginas, orgasms, catheters, numbness, butt pain, and all the messy, human realities of healing.

In this episode, Julie discusses:
- Why she ultimately chose hysterectomy after 17 years of prolapse and adenomyosis
- The years-long decision-making process leading up to surgery
- The unexpected emotional impact of community criticism and losing friendships
- What happened when her urethra stopped functioning after surgery
- Why self-catheterisation became a surprisingly empowering experience
- The reality of recovery versus the commonly promoted six-week timeline
- Significant fatigue and healing challenges during the first six months
- The surgical complexity of removing a severely enlarged uterus
- What nobody told her about post-surgical butt pain
- Developing vaginismus for the first time after surgery
- Nerve healing, numbness, and changing sensation inside the vagina
- The loss of cervical orgasm and how that affected her sexuality
- Whether orgasmic capacity can be rebuilt after hysterectomy
- The surprising sexual benefits she experienced post-surgery
- Using tantra, somatic practice, toys, vibrators and blindfolds to support recovery
- Rewiring pleasure pathways and treating sexual healing as neurorehabilitation
- Navigating identity without a uterus while still feeling deeply connected to womanhood
- Continuing womb-space practices despite no longer having a womb
- The overlap between hysterectomy recovery and perimenopause
- What she wishes she'd known before surgery
- The advice she would give any woman considering a hysterectomy today
- Why, despite the trade-offs, she has never regretted her decision

Other episodes on Julie's hysterectomy journey:

351
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/ntm-351-lets-lift-the-veil-on-the-shame-of-post-partum-healing/id1013746031?i=1000554021072

356
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/ntm-356-post-birth-pelvic-pain-shame-and-dysfunction/id1013746031?i=1000557953386

357
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/ntm-357-post-birth-pelvic-pain-shame-and-dysfunction/id1013746031?i=1000558686443

378
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/ntm-378-when-you-dance-with-becoming-what-youve-always/id1013746031?i=1000579970437

385
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/nourishing-the-mother/id1013746031?i=1000585379354

NTM 443: Healing from pelvic surgery - what’s it like, one year on?
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/ntm-443-healing-from-pelvic-surgery-whats-it-like-one-year-on/id1013746031?i=1000638978979

Want support on this journey? Come join us inside Honey Club - where we melt these blocks together, one breath, one practice, one deep remembering at a time. Find out more at julietenner.love or visit: https://julie-tenner.newzenler.com/courses/honeyclub

Reach out to Bridget for 1:1 coaching - bridgetwood.life

If you've ever found yourself snapping at your partner, yelling at your children, or wondering why your anger feels bigger, faster and harder to contain than it used to, this conversation is for you. In this episode, we unpack the silence-explode cycle so many women find themselves trapped in, particularly during the motherhood and perimenopause years. We explore why anger isn't the problem, what it's trying to tell you, how depletion, over-functioning, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes shorten your fuse, and why the real work isn't suppressing your anger or unleashing it on everyone around you - it's learning to listen to the deeper truth underneath it.

In this episode we discuss:
- Why anger isn't the problem - and why we need to stop making it the villain
- The silence-explode cycle and how pressure builds long before the outburst
- Why motherhood, perimenopause, ADHD, burnout and depletion can shorten your fuse
- Anger as a messenger rather than something to suppress or fear
- The shame spiral that often follows explosive reactions
- The difference between expressing a feeling and reacting from it
- Emotional truth versus conscious, integrity-led behaviour
- How threat responses hijack our ability to choose how we show up
- The softer truths often hiding beneath anger - hurt, loneliness, disappointment and unmet needs
- Why anger acts as armour protecting something more vulnerable
- Learning to stay in your body instead of abandoning yourself when anger arises
- The importance of safety, pauses and nervous system regulation before communication
- Creating more space between trigger and reaction
- Self-compassion, accountability and personal responsibility
- The identity shifts many women experience through motherhood and perimenopause
- Letting go of the "good girl" who keeps everything together until she can't
- Why sleep, nourishment, hydration and rest matter more than we think
- Building a healthier relationship with anger that supports connection rather than destruction
- Asking: What is anger trying to tell me?
- How self-awareness becomes the pathway from rage to revealing.

Want support on this journey? Come join us inside Honey Club - where we melt these blocks together, one breath, one practice, one deep remembering at a time. Find out more at julietenner.love or visit: https://julie-tenner.newzenler.com/courses/honeyclub

Reach out to Bridget for 1:1 coaching - bridgetwood.life