Webby Clare

Thoughts and other writings by Clare Conroy

Head & Heart #34

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My big baby turned 5 a couple of weeks ago! Ella’s birthday is always a time of much reflection and this year I’ve found myself considering how becoming a mum, and Ella’s mum specifically, has changed the trajectory of my life. Her arrival felt like an asteroid had rammed into me and thrown me from my orbit leaving me lost and spinning out of control. But now, as we traverse further into this new identity and relationship I feel more confident that this path I’m now on is providing me with the lessons and opportunities I’m meant to have. In the lead up to her birthday I also found myself filled with enormous gratitude for all the wonderful people that have come into my life that I probably wouldn’t have connected with otherwise – my mother’s group, working at YWCA Canberra, the She Leads students and facilitators, Lead Mama Lead, my new colleagues at the APSC…

With each birthday it’s interesting to notice how parenting challenges shift from the basic needs around sleeping, eating etc, to deeper ones around raising a decent human being. This post on fitting in vs belonging was one worth reading and will be something I try to remember as Ella gets older and continues to navigate friendships and social structures.

I love love love this idea! If you’re expecting a baby, or know someone who is, why not skip the baby shower and throw a post-partum party instead?

Recent favourite podcast discoveries that I’d recommend include Self-Helpless (3 comedians discuss various self-help topics/books) and Briget Shulte’s Better Life Lab (on the art and science of living a full life). I’m also excited to see that Jamila Rizvi’s new podcast, Future Women, is launching next week. I also really enjoyed this episode of Hidden Brain – The Edge Effect – which includes some fantastic stories about diversity and creativity.

Some people in my network who are doing great things and that I think you should know about….

  • My friend Zoya Patel‘s debut book, No Country Woman, is coming out next month! I’m so excited to read this and share it. Zoya is one of the smartest, most insightful people I know and her writing about race, feminism and identity always makes me stop and think. She’s doing a number of events over the coming months – including a launch in Canberra on 19 August, and the Melbourne Writers Festival!
  • Julie Boulton has an excellent weekly newsletter, The Greening Of, about her journey towards more sustainable living. I always learn heaps and I love her honest, engaging, humourous writing style.
  • Lead Mama Lead founder, Summer Edwards, is running the next intake of the Overcoming Overwhelm course in September. This is an online course for mamas who are struggling with and/or feel like they’d like to get better at dealing with feelings of overwhelm, guilt and exhaustion in their life. It’s a supportive, gentle program (designed to fit in around the lives of busy women). I’m about 2/3 through the pilot program and it’s definitely led to some increased self-awareness around the priorities and values in my life and the habits and practices that help and hinder my wellbeing. (You can also get 25% off if you sign up before 1 August).
  • A couple of months ago, my friend and former colleague Stefan Kraus from RGB Collective took some wonderful portraits of us (and did incredibly well to capture the easily-distracted and not-always-compliant kids). Getting some more family photos on the wall was one of the things I really wanted to do this year, now I just have to get them printed and framed…. (I’m also thinking about getting one turned into a custom illustrated portrait from Able & Game)
My feet (and pregnant belly) – 3 July 2013
Ella’s feet – 15 July 2018

On the topic of photos, Ella uses an old iPhone to listen to podcasts and audiobooks. She’s recently discovered the camera function and has taken (quite enthusiastically) to documenting her life and creating movies! It’s been fun to look through the pictures and videos and get a glimpse of what the world looks like from her perspective. There are lots of selfies and posed pictures of toys and hundreds of walls and windows and floors and ceilings (some quite artistic, some not so much).

I particularly love this one – mainly because exactly 5 years and 12 days earlier I’d taken a very similar shot (in almost the identical spot) as I paced my lounge room in early labour about 10 hours before we met Ella.

The other big news to share since my last H&H update is that I’ve returned to (paid) work following my maternity break. I’m pleased to be facilitating some of the core skills and graduate development training programs at the Australian Public Service Commission, and I’m also doing some freelance facilitation, coaching and training. Helping individuals and groups to learn and change and to see themselves and the world a little differently has been a pretty consistent thread through my work for the past 8 or so years, but facilitation has been a somewhat peripheral part of the various jobs I’ve had. I feel so excited to be diving deeper into this work and to commit to building my own skills, knowledge, experience and practice – it feels like the work I’m meant to be doing. I have some availability for work for the remainder of the year, so if you need some support with running meetings, workshops or training, please get in touch. All the details are over on the Sticky Note Consulting site.

Finally, I’m going to trial sending out Head & Heart updates as a newsletter which may make them easier to follow (for the handful of dear friends that actually read them)! If you’d like to sign up, you can do so here. I’ll keep posting them to the blog too!

Head & Heart – May 2015

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She Leads 2015. Photo credit: YWCA Canberra
She Leads 2015. Photo credit: YWCA Canberra

Head & Heart is designed to be “a monthly capture of my feelings and doings, in the raw.” This month’s instalment is a little late (my primary excuse is related to toddler sleep (or rather lack thereof))…

What I’ve been doing

  • May has been a massive month… I’ve:
  • I also completed my #100happydays photo project (most of the photos are on Instagram and Flickr). It was interesting to notice and be actively seeking out happy moments each day, and it reminded me that even on days that I might not rate as ‘good’ or ‘happy’ overall, there are still small things to smile about and be grateful for.
  • I’ve also been doing a bit of ‘life admin’, which has involved declaring Pocket bankruptcy and deleting over 2200 items in my to-read list. While I feel a little anxious about what awesome articles, posts, videos I may never read again, there was no way I was ever going to get through the 2000+ items.

I’m grateful for

  • The fabulous contribution that so many people made to the She Leads conferences. In particular, the amazing women who stood on the She Leads stage (and who shared their stories and advice with so much generosity, authenticity and vulnerability), and the awesome team that I work with at YWCA Canberra. Working on events (including TEDxCanberra) I really get to experience what real teamwork looks and feels like. As a public servant, most of the collaborative work I did involved pieces of work passing from one person to the next in a linear way. Events provide this fabulous (often fairly stressful) focal point where everyone needs to come together to do their bit, and support each other to to theirs.
  • The flexibility we have with our work / child care arrangements. I still feel like we have a fair amount of stress in our lives trying to do the juggle, but nowhere near as much as we’d have if we didn’t have this flexibility. With Jason and I working from home, good childcare just minutes up the road, and a lovely babysitter, I feel like we manage what we need to do at work, and are still able to easily be together at 5.15pm to eat dinner! As my work ramped up this month, Jason was able to take on more of the childcare without needing to negotiate time off or put in place any complex logistical arrangements.

I’ve been thinking about

  • Self-care, and how I can practice this better. By the time the She Leads Conference rolled around I had caught a cold, wasn’t sleeping much (with a toddler, that’s mostly not my fault!) or eating terribly well, and I could feel how physically stiff and tight my body was (from too many nights at a computer desk and not enough moving my body). On a related note, this month is 6 years since I first started personal training with Rose Males, and I remember her saying at our first meeting, ‘if you don’t look after yourself, you can’t look after anyone else’. I need to get better at finding simple ways (that don’t take up a lot of time) to ensure that I’m taking care of my body and mind.
  • Motherhood. Speaking at the Feminartsy Story Share forced me to analyse, sort and articulate some of my muddled thoughts about being a mum. I spend so much time in my head thinking about mum-related stuff, but rarely do I actually have to share these thoughts! At the Story Share I briefly met Joan Garvan who spoke about motherhood as a relationship rather than a role. I often think of being a mum as a ‘job’ – probably because it essentially replaced my paid employment and because it involves a lot of job-like tasks and obligations, but I know it’s easy to get hung up on job ‘performance’. Thinking about it as a ‘relationship’ seems to be less stressful as it allows for change and growth over time, and obviously involves (at least) two contributing parties. It also seems to provide a useful perspective at times where I’m not sure what to do – instead of asking ‘what is the correct thing to do?’, I can ask ‘how can I strengthen our relationship?’. I feel calmer, more compassionate and connected as a result.

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Feminartsy Story Share: Impostor

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I was invited to share a story about ‘motherhood’ as part of the most recent Feminartsy story share. Having never been to a story share before I had no idea what to expect but enjoyed the process of having to clarify and articulate some of my muddled thoughts about my mothering experience so far. If you’re interested, here’s a transcript of my talk…

Photo credit: Feminartsy
Photo credit: Feminartsy

When I was 13 I got a C- for a high school art assignment. As a pretty much straight-A student from a family that put a high value on academic achievement, this came as a bit of a shock and disappointment. That it was for a self-portrait just added a further dent to my delicate teenage self confidence. In art class I didn’t know what I had to do to get an A, and even if I did, I didn’t feel capable of doing it. From that point on I declared myself unartistic, and decided to focus, at least academically, on maths and the sciences. Subjects where there was a right answer, and that I knew that if I could figure out what answer was I would achieve ‘success’.

Soon after I became a mum I again found myself longing for a right answer. I wanted a text book with formulas that if applied correctly would produce the right result. Clear KPIs and logical processes for achieving them. In those early days of life as a new mum, it was a huge shock to find that this little human didn’t come with a manual. I desperately trawled forums and books looking for the products, processes and techniques that I could use to produce a guaranteed, consistent, correct result.  [Read more…]