In this episode Cath reflects on how rage may be one of the most common experiences in motherhood (particularly if we have had childhood trauma). She speaks about getting to know our own rage, the shame we might feel and how that might derail us and trying to understand what our rage might be protecting us from. She uses one of the books she talked about last week to springboard into this conversation and highlights psychological patterns by telling a couple of anecdotes.

Therapy is necessary for many of us as we heal from childhood trauma and therapy is typically 1 hour a week. That leaves 167 other hours where we may be depressed, anxious, spinning out, criticising ourselves, living in fear or stressed about our own emotions. In this episode Cath shares some of the books that have helped her move from living in fear, books that have helped dealing with grief, despair, relationship patterns and books that have helped with compassion, understanding addiction and more. This episode contains personal stories from Cath to illustrate these points.

In episode 151 Cath was joined by Kimberley Olliff-Cooper. They talked about progressive education, neurodivergence, realising how this impacted our own school experience, the possibility for changing schools and making them more fit for children, healing and growing in motherhood and understanding emotional unavailability, trauma and addiction.

Cath was joined by art psychotherapist Gerardine Boyle in this episode. Cath and Gerardine talked about how generational trauma impacts families, the legacy of emotional neglect, what is unspoken, shame and the complexity of unwinding functional freeze in the system.

In episode 149 Cath was joined by Suzy Reading. Cath and Suzy talked about tending to ourselves in winter, making the most of the seasons while holding onto sanity, people pleasing, what Suzy means when she talks about being selfish and all about self advocacy. Suzy talks about her 7 steps to taking back your power and peace and you can find much more detail about this in Suzy's newest book 'How to be Selfish' which releases on the 20th of November 2025.

In this episode Cath speaks about the process of welcoming in our own humanity and how a healing journey leads to more emotional messiness, at least initially. She talks about some signs that indicate that you are growing up/healing.

In this episode Cath was joined by Dr Kathrin Stauffer. They chatted about how the body remembers in multiple ways and how not getting what we need in childhood impacts multiple systems in our bodies (not just the nervous system). When we are on a healing journey the expression of sadness and grieving are an important part of this journey. However, it may be that we are blocked from crying by our defences. We dived into this and talked about food, body shape, body psychotherapy, the the function of comfort eating, shame and much more.

In this episode Cath is joined by Dr. Kathrin Stauffer for a rich and varied discussion about emotional neglect, what causes this, how we might know we have been emotionally neglected, the interplay with narcissistic family dynamics, what constitutes narcissistic traits and how narcissism and perfectionism can play out in motherhood. 

In this episode Cath was joined by therapist and coach Catherine Topham Sly. Catherine and Cath talked about adult love relationships, conflict, couples therapy, learning to communicate, how the mental load after kids can cause conflict and much more.

In this episode Cath speaks about emotional neglect, some of what that involves and how it presents when we are an adult. She speaks about the complexity of holding space for emotions when that was never done for us. Please be gentle with yourself as you practise this skill.

In this episode Cath shares an anecdote from her own life about how something her kids wanted to do triggered shame and the desire to people please and what happened. She talks about people pleasing and fawning and the actual nature of people pleasing and what it is really about.

In this episode Cath and Dr. Herman talked about trauma and recovery, justice for survivors, complex trauma, stages of recovery/healing, what helps in the postpartum period according to research and Dr Herman's incredible work in the field of trauma, justice, repair, healing and recovery.

In this episode Cath talks about moving away from panic and urgency, the complexity of healing chronic stress and how everything in our body is linked and how she's moving forward in this in her own life.

In this episode Cath uses Polyvagal Theory to shine a light on how discombobulating things in parenting can be (and why), the shift in being the default parent and how this relates to our nervous systems. She talks about how we can learn to send ourselves signs of safety and how we can use PV to support our families.

In this episode Cath speaks about how control is such a key coping strategy for so many of us and how this rears its head at times of stress (like early motherhood) and in new situations. Control is not the solution we think it is and Cath shares a recent incident from her own life showing how control is so seductive and seems to be the answer, but really it is an illusion.

In this episode Cath speaks about how tricky first times can be and how many of these may happen in a holiday (and in our children’s lives) and how we can support ourselves and our families with this.

This week Cath returns to the topic of meeting our needs and how much this can involve when we have not had our needs attended to or met in childhood. She speaks about how many of us experience shame in relation to our needs and how impactful this is. Cath speaks to the nuance around meeting needs, how needs may shift over a healing journey and she shares a couple of anecdotes from her own life.

In episode 136 Cath is joined by author, coach and podcast host Mara Glatzel.

This is a rich conversation centered on needs and how we can make space for them, illustrated with stories from Mara’s life. We also discuss ambition, grappling with achievement, choice and the decisions we need to make about how we actually spend our precious lives. 

In episode 135 Cath was joined by coach and author Tamu Thomas. We had a joyful and generative discussion covering so much: overworking, why we do it, how we have to redefine success for ourselves and live in line with our values, envy and comparison, friendship and much more.

In this episode Cath was joined by Julianne Boutaleb. We discussed fertility journeys, fantasies of ourselves and our babies, how a fertility journey can impact what we believe we are allowed to feel/think and experience in our mothering journeys and so much more. Julianne used poetry to deepen our understanding of the complexities inherent in motherhood and we discussed the importance of right brain to right brain interactions and more!