Nourishing the Mother

What happens when the parenting advice you were given simply doesn’t work for the child in front of you? As Julie’s daughter turns 13, she and Bridget look back on thirteen years of learning, unlearning, advocating, getting it wrong and slowly coming to understand what this particular autistic child needed. Through lived experience, they unpack the things that changed everything: recognising maski...

Tune in for part 2 where we explore the parts of parenting where we’re still firmly living in the 90s. In this two-part episode, we’re talking about the things we’ve deliberately held onto from the childhood we grew up in: boredom, chores without payment, hearing “no” without a 45-minute negotiation, talking to actual adults, losing without receiving a trophy, and being expected to figure some thi...

We might be conscious parents, but there are some parts of parenting where we’re still firmly living in the 90s. In this two-part episode, we’re talking about the things we’ve deliberately held onto from the childhood we grew up in: boredom, chores without payment, hearing “no” without a 45-minute negotiation, talking to actual adults, losing without receiving a trophy, and being expected to figur...

So many women have built a life that looks successful on the outside, yet quietly feel exhausted, disconnected and like they're carrying everyone else while leaving themselves behind. In this deeply honest conversation, Julie sits down with Fleur Marks, author of The Overachiever's Reset, to explore the hidden cost of overfunctioning after Fleur's journey through sarcoidosis and two...

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 pleasur...

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 childre...

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...

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 w...

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 prob...

What happens when one partner feels like they are carrying the invisible weight of parenting, household management, life admin, remembering, planning, and emotional labour… while the other insists they’re helping? In this episode, Julie and Bridget unpack one of the most common resentment loops they see in relationships: the gap between effort and ownership. They explore why “helping” can still le...

Perimenopause can feel like your body, mind and identity are shifting beneath your feet - but what if this season is not simply hormonal chaos to survive, but a profound invitation into your next evolution? In this powerful conversation, naturopath and counsellor Charmaine Newmark joins us to explore perimenopause as the transition from mother to matriarch - a deeply biological, emotional and spir...

Attraction doesn’t switch off when you’re in a committed relationship — but what it means, and what you do with it, is where everything changes.  This episode reframes attraction from something dangerous or disloyal into something deeply human, and explores how to hold that energy with integrity, self-awareness, and choice, rather than repression or collapse. In this episode we discuss: - why attr...

There’s a quiet, almost surreal moment when you realise… it didn’t pass through you. The reaction that used to be automatic doesn’t land the same. The pattern that shaped your family line stops with you.  This episode explores what it actually feels like to break generational patterns - not as a loud, triumphant moment, but as a series of subtle, powerful choices that change the trajectory of ever...

There’s a particular kind of fall that happens after we’ve tried to be the perfect parent - not just good, but better than what we had growing up; more conscious, more patient, more healed. And when we inevitably hit our edge, it doesn’t just feel like a bad moment… it feels like a collapse of identity. This episode unpacks how that spiral is not a sign you’re failing, but a direct consequence of...

In this episode, we’re joined by family therapist and author Lisa Taylor (The Perfect Parent Trap) for a deeply honest conversation about what’s really happening underneath our parenting. Lisa brings over 25 years of clinical experience into this discussion as we unpack the difference between reacting to our children versus truly responding to them — and how often we’re unknowingly parenting from...

This one goes right to the heart of what so many long-term couples quietly sit in but rarely say out loud; the moments where you question everything, where disinterest creeps in, and where part of you starts scanning for the exit.  Julie and Bridget unpack the truth that these seasons don’t mean your relationship is broken, but they do ask something deeper of you.  They explore the concept of the...

Friendships are one of the first places our children meet the raw edges of relationship: loyalty, exclusion, conflict, repair and belonging. And if you’re a parent watching from the sidelines, it can stir up everything. In this conversation, Julie and Bridget unpack the emotional complexity of children’s friendships, particularly through the tween and teenage years, where identity, social power an...

Adult friendships can look very different once life fills up with partners, children, careers and shifting values. In this conversation we explore what it really means to navigate friendship as grown women: the grief when friendships change, the beauty of seasonal relationships, and the quiet truth that the friendships that last are the ones built on reciprocity, honesty and shared values. We unpa...

In this honest, grounded conversation, we unpack what it really takes to sustain a long-term relationship through parenting, midlife shifts, sexual differences, resentment, novelty, and the quiet drift that can happen when life gets busy. We share personal stories from our own marriages - the escapes, the misunderstandings, the accountability, the grace - and explore how intentional action, commun...

In this episode of Nourishing the Mother, Julie and Bridget dive into the invisible labour of advocating for your child inside school and medical systems; especially when your child is neurodivergent, anxious, or simply doesn’t fit the mould.  They unpack how our own history with authority shapes how we show up, why systems can both help and harm, and how constant advocacy quietly erodes mothers’...

A simple ask for help on the sidelines becomes a powerful mirror into long-term relationship dynamics. In this episode, Julie and Bridget unpack a very real rupture between Julie and Nick, revealing how moments of overwhelm can activate old attachment wounds, masculine defensiveness, and feminine collapse. Together they explore how childhood patterns quietly replay in adult partnerships, why compe...

Back to school isn’t just a diary change…it’s a full nervous system reboot. In this episode, Julie and Bridget get radically practical about what actually creates calm in the return-to-school season. Not mindset hacks. Not “just be more organised.” But the real, lived strategies that reduce friction, soften mornings, and help both parents and kids land back into rhythm; especially when neurodiverg...

In this episode, Bridget shares her experience of her grandfather’s passing, and the reflections that surfaced in the aftermath. Together, Julie and Bridget explore how our understanding of the people we love is always shaped by proximity, role, and family narrative. We unpack the idea that we never truly know a whole person; only the version revealed to us through relationship, family dynamics, a...

You don’t need a quiet house. You don’t need a fresh journal, a candle, or the “right headspace.” In this episode, Bridget and Julie walk you through 10 gentle New Year reflection questions in real time - the kind you can answer as you listen. Sitting in the car. On the couch. With a notes app open and a half-drunk cup of tea beside you. We pause. We give you space. And then…imperfectly and honest...

The post-Christmas crash can leave many women feeling not just tired, but disconnected — from their bodies, their partners, and their erotic selves. In this deeply relieving episode, Julie and Bridget explore how the adrenaline of December masks exhaustion until it drops, and why that comedown so often shows up as sexual shutdown. They gently dismantle the myth that intimacy requires energy women...