Christmas Boundaries Every Mum Needs || A Conversation with Serena Dodd, The Aliveness Coach

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Welcome to the Real Life Real Kitchen podcast.

Real talk for curious mums, reclaiming food, family and community.

I'm Zoe F. Willis, English, mother of many, mentor to mums.

And if you're reheating your tea again, this is your place.

So pop the kettle on, as each week I chat with folks who feed, heal and hold our communities together.

You don't need perfection to pull up a chair, just curiosity and the courage to ask, what if there's another way?

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Real Life Real Kitchen podcast.

I am.

Well, I'm always thrilled because I have such interesting people coming on my podcast.

I have this week, Serena Dot, who is a very, very dear friend, but also a coach.

She's known as the aliveness coach and works with people who have the look of success on the outside, but actually inside are feeling st disconnected or like they've lost their spark.

Her big focus is moving them out of autopilot and back into a life and business that feels alive, purposeful and energizing.

Now Serena is also one of the.

One of life's gatherers, bringing people together.

So she's founded fly, a coaches network, a membership community for established coaches who are really tired of doing it all on their own.

FLY gives them the connection, confidence and clarity to grow their business while staying true to the work they're here to lead.

Serena's background is very interesting.

20 years in global events and television before she shifted into coaching.

She's now combining performance coaching, positive psychology and breath work with the direct, practical approach to create real change.

So, Serena, welcome.

Wow.

Thank you, Zoe.

I mean, it's so interesting, like, listening to you.

So you say it to me, to.

Hear all of that.

I'm so honored to be here and I'm, you know, I'm just.

I love you and I'm a big fan of yours anyway, so it is an honor to be here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now, so my audience are predominantly mums with, you know, babies in arms, up to kind of 10, 11, 12 years olds, end of primary school sort of age.

And I think a few of them are probably wondering, what exactly is a coach?

You're clearly not doing netball, hockey.

It's not that kind of coaching.

Can you pull apart what exactly is a coach?

There's obviously a business element to it, but there's more.

Could you give a quick definition of what it is?

Well, do you know, because the coaching world is completely unregulated and so you can have anyone call themselves a coach these days.

Yes, look at me.

But.

And A coach is defined really by that particular person.

And as much as someone might say they're a business coach, there's so many variations of business coach.

And really I see coaching as someone who has developed a skill in something that can offer it's, it's offer a variation of advice, mentorship and guidance.

And when it comes to the work that I do, I really like to think of it as helping people recover quicker.

And I look at that statement metaphorically as if you have trained your body and you are a fit, able human and you're running against you, who hasn't trained your body but still an able human, and you're running a 100 meter race, both capable to do so.

It's not necessarily who wins that race, but who can recover quicker to start the next race.

And so clearly it's going to be the person that has really conditioned their body to work well with them.

And I like to think that I do that with the brain so that we're not stuck in grief for decades, so that we're not stuck in imposter syndrome.

We are able to when these things hit us because life happens when, when they hit us.

We're able to go through the motions as, as our bodies and our minds and our whole being should.

But we're able to understand how to recover quicker so that we can then move on with life.

So it's, excuse me, so it's if somebody is stuck, so they're pootling along life, be it in business, be it in whatever kind of domain they happen to, to be working in, and they just keep coming up against a blockage.

So, so you've said imposter syndrome or.

I can even think of kind of lack of self confidence, lack of self worth.

I think a lot of mums sometimes feel that I'm just a mom, I'm just at home just looking after the children.

Even though you're building civilization, but so your role is essentially to come in bigger picture.

You're seeing the person, you're seeing them within their context and helping them get out of that rut in order to move on.

Is that an element of it?

That is the absolute core of what I do.

And it's so interesting that you say that, you know, I'm just a mum.

Yeah, yeah.

You're just the glue that is holding this whole scenario together.

Yeah.

And I, I love that mentality because as much as some people are attached to that form of identity that don't necessarily want to be attached to it, I, I work with them to help break that.

And I understand that really well, because as much as I can tell you what I've done in my past, which sounds impressive, it definitely didn't feel impressive to me.

Just as much as a mum that's holding everything together, that is taking the kids to school and, you know, dealing with the nappies and getting the food shop and organizing the holidays and dealing with the household chores and everything else that comes with it and making sure everyone's happy and harmonious and dealing with headteachers and all of that, you know, that I bring to the forefront and.

And start to break down, you know, why it's just being a mum.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Look, actually showing.

Showing somebody the glory of what it is they do and.

Absolutely.

And.

And helping build that understanding of their worth.

Because I think that's the key part is knowing that you're worthy enough to be able to do what you want to do whilst also being the, you know, leading that role as the caring mother.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, there is option to do both.

Now, a question.

So in our conversations in the past, what I have gleaned about the role of a coach is sometimes you have to give the tough love.

There will be a kind of.

You keep on saying the same thing or you will say, have you noticed this pattern?

You keep on doing the same sabotaging thing.

There seems to be sort of that kind of an element of strong truth.

Now, how is that different from a therapist?

So somebody's coming to you and say, I'm struggling in this and that, and I feel I'm not worthy to do whatever.

What is the difference between you as a coach and a therapist?

Okay, so.

And I'm going to generalize here.

Yes.

So, yes, we like generalization brushes.

Yes, yes, we are.

We are in generalization zone.

All right.

Imagine you.

You're here, you're in your presence.

You will go to, let's say, the left for a therapist who will take you again, generalizing, who will take you to the pinnacle points in your life, in your past that have created an impact to who you are today.

They will.

There's be analysis there.

There will be certain, maybe various mediums that will come into play to help you really unpack the past.

And that can be kind of trauma as well as highlights.

Absolutely.

It can be depending on the therapist, depending on the person, depending on the needs and the specialists.

Fundamentally, generally, it is looking back with a coach and what they do and why it really resonated with me is because I knew when I was in my State of apathy and wondering, God, is this it?

I had been to the therapist and gone down those paths and it just wasn't jibing with me.

I didn't feel like I was moving forward in the, you know, I kept reliving certain things.

That is fine for certain people because there are certain aspects that need to be relived.

But for me, coaching was about looking forward.

So as a coach, you bring to the table an element of active listening.

And as I say to my clients, we are here together, sitting on this couch, and we are looking at your brain together in observation mode.

And there will be no judgments, but I will be pointing out the areas in which you repeat yourself or the areas in which you're getting stuck.

And we will look at that and talk about why it is that you can move 10 steps forward and then three steps back.

And there's a lot of self reflection in coaching, so it requires you to use your brain and not be reliant on me.

So we're very successful case for a coach is someone who doesn't need a coach all the time.

It's being able to go right, here's the way that your brain operates and works.

Here is what you're doing, and here are the tools and the practices that you can use moving forward so that you can manage this better on your own.

Okay.

And so you as a client, you essentially need to go in with quite a positive.

I want to make a change.

I am moving forward.

I know I'm struggling and I'm blocked.

And you will be my guide for a bit.

But ultimately, a bit like taking a baby bird off you go, go fly.

I mean, you said it really well.

It's.

You come to a coach, I think, I think there's a general feeling, and I've been guilty of this in the past for sure, but there's a general feeling when you pay money to someone, you want them to fix things.

Ha.

Yes.

And with a.

With a coach, probably like many different professions.

With a coach, and it is like many different professions, even something as basic as.

When I say basic, I don't mean basic.

I mean sort of as straightforward as like branding your company as branding specialists can't come into your business and go, okay, you just give me kind of the colors that you want and the fonts.

You, I'll go and deal with it.

And for you to expect to like it, you have to meet them halfway.

They have to get to know you.

They have to understand the values of your business, all of those things.

And it's the same when you come to a coach.

You don't exchange money and poof.

Or you feel better and, you know, life's more rosy than when you started.

You have to do the work, too.

So the whole point is that you come to a coaching session to really help yourself.

Yeah, yeah.

So there is.

And be allowed to be guided and stop that whole notion of.

Yeah, I know that.

Yeah, I know that.

It's.

It's coming with that beginner's mindset and saying, right, well, I've known everything in the past.

I might as well try something new and just be open to whatever comes my way.

So there's a.

There needs to be a curiosity on the, on the part of the client and an active.

Yes, I'm looking for change and I'm looking for the guide that a big part of that is obviously relationship.

And I presume that as a coach you can also go, oh, this isn't quite gelling.

I'm not sure this is quite working.

And you're able to sort of disentangle.

That's also an option for you as a coach.

You're not necessarily committed to keep on supporting someone who is draining and not necessarily doing the work.

Yeah, there's a time that I think, as I've.

I've.

As I've got more experienced in this.

I know quite early on.

Yes.

I have in the past kept going and that has drained me.

So, you know, I know it's a partnership at the end of the day and, you know, if, if you.

I love metaphors, but if you think of a bowling alley, you know, you.

If you're rubbish like me, you need the two sort of like child barriers either side in order to kind of hit any kind of pin at the end.

And that's really where we start.

And if you're able to take the risk and start lifting these barriers up so that eventually you're able to go ahead and throw the ball down and hit something, that's where it's at.

If you're not willing to let those barriers up, then it becomes problematic and no one benefits from that.

Yeah, you then start to become the crutch and the person is actually not moving forward, they're still stuck.

I remember there's a friend of mine and she mused on the fact that a dear friend of hers had been going to see the same psychoanalyst for 25 years.

And my friend went, that doesn't seem to be working.

If it's been 25 years of saying the same person, not that she had said this to her friend, but just was like, this doesn't seem to be working.

There's also an element of Stockholm that comes with, with that and a level of friendship that can develop and you know that it depends on your ethics.

You know, there's a.

There's a lot, there's a lot of stuff that can be sort of entangled in, you know, seeing some of you.

I actually have someone very close to me who has seen the same homeopath for about 35 years for the same things.

So.

But there's a closeness and a comfort in going to that person.

Yeah, yeah.

It's not necessarily just about the healing and the fixing.

There is.

There is a slightly different sort of relationship going on.

Yeah.

Now, speaking of relationships, obviously there's a relationship between the coach and the client and as we've just kind of touched on different needs and different relationships.

Now, coming back to you as the coach, you're observing your client's brain and you're saying, right, these are the patterns that are appearing.

I'm going to presume that these patterns aren't just habits like, oh, you're having five bars of chocolate at 11 o' clock every day and coffee just before bed.

Maybe that can change, but obviously those are sort of easy to fix.

I'm going to presume you're also going to be saying, have you noticed this person keeps on appearing when you're talking?

Have you noticed that this group of people, how are they supporting you from the outside?

Not necessarily looking very positive.

Although I'm sure you're probably saying this person sounds amazing.

Keep them in your life as well.

Now, as mums, as in anything in life, we sometimes get thrown into situations where there are people in our lives we feel we need to maintain good relationships with and sometimes we give more than we ought.

I'm thinking of, I was having a conversation the other day with a lady who she's quite good at.

She's quite boundaried about the Parent Teacher association at school.

But there is a tendency that people get sucked in and go, oh my gosh, I've got to do all the things.

I've got to be involved in, the kind of the chats in the school playground.

We've also got Christmas coming soon.

A lot of mums will feel, well, I'm obliged that we have to go to this particular event with the children and it's really stressful and these people I know are not great for me, but I feel I ought to give.

So these are just a couple of examples that I'm sure a lot of mums would relate to.

Or maybe there's like an old friendship where you've gone, well, I've known this person for 20 odd years, but here we go again.

The difference is, I suppose that kind of as a mum, particularly as you've got little children, that external effect on you, that taking that energy away, that means you've got less energy and capacity for the ones who need you the most, that is the children, that is the family.

Because as you said, as the mums, we're the glue.

And if we're not on form, everything sort of starts to unravel.

Now, what kind of tips do you give your clients when you point out this person might not be great for you?

What sort of tips do you, let's talk about first.

How to encourage somebody to reflect on the kind of relationship they have on that person or that group.

Then when they've gone, oh no, this isn't great, but I still need to interact with them.

What tips do you give to sort of protect so the client can kind of protect themselves, create these boundaries.

So that's the two parts.

The first is identifying who are the drains and then the second bit is protecting yourself from the drains.

What thoughts do you have on that?

I think there are a couple of things here.

One is think back to being that observer of the brain and also observer of habit.

And what we tend to do without noticing until we bring awareness to it, is how many times in the day we feel like we should.

The shoulds, and this is the key to a lot of freedom, is when you start to drop the shoulds, because the shoulds are for everyone else and not for you and I.

When you start there and bring in, the key is this.

You have built up habits over decades.

They have stemmed from somewhere and something and someone.

You are not going to create a habit overnight.

You are not going to just switch on a consistent basis overnight.

If you do, it will be one habit or one thing in a blue moon.

But to create small changes and start to build on those is really important.

So, for example, just bringing awareness to the amount of times you think to yourself, I should do that or I should do this, and then asking yourself, well, what is that giving me?

I feel like something that has been discussed and I, I, I think about a lot is we're now in a world where we have access to everything, which allows us to become mentally lazy.

And how that affects us is that we don't feel capable of certain general functions without being Told by somebody else what to do and what I want, you know, if you're, if your listeners are listening to any aspect of, of what I have to give, it's regaining that power.

Yeah, you are a capable human being.

You're here, you're alive, you've created wonderfulness and you, you've done that without being told how you are just doing it.

And so being able to open the doors to other areas of your life.

So, Mum, it's, you know, people at the school gate that drain you.

You have a choice.

You should be looking after you so that you can fill your cup up in order to gift it to the people that really matter to you.

So I would say first and foremost, observe.

Spend time observing.

Then you can start to make minor tweaks, observe who's draining your energy, how much time are you spending them, why are you spending that time with them?

That's a big one, actually.

That, that's, that's a huge one.

Because when you've got the children as well, they have activities, they are, have different temperaments and need different things.

So you also need to be discerning about the activities that they are doing, the people, the children they are hanging out with, because what does that do to you?

So I think there's also an element of, you know, the child is going to hockey, for example, but then comes back as an.

And is an absolute rat bag and overwhelmed and it's horrible.

They might be enjoying the hockey, but actually what does, what is, what is this showing you?

So there's that kind of observation as well.

You've got that extra element of the children.

Their needs need to be filled.

Dead, they're cups need to be filled.

But you also need to say, what are the compromises we can make here so that Mum again is coping and her bottle is full.

So.

Yes, sorry I interrupted you there, but yes, continue.

No, I think what's important in that.

Is.

There'S a need to be seen and how much that need to be seen is of detriment to you and is draining you.

Do you need to be seen as the most popular mother?

Do you need to be seen as the one attached to the most popular mother?

Do you need to be seen as the one helping the most?

And what I would advise is what's in line with your values, what fills you up, what makes you.

If it naturally feels right to help out, if it naturally feels right to talk to certain individuals, then that is what you should be doing.

You will know once you start to observe what feels tight and what feels easy.

And that's a really good practice to get into.

And it's funny how when you start that practice, how much you more you observe of your energy.

You know, do you need 20 minutes downtime at a certain time of the day to just be in silence?

Where can you pick that up?

I mean, if you're scrolling for 20 minutes, what else can you be doing though?

It's those things that are really important to just start to do micro actions in order to build back, you know, your cup that go back to center.

Being able just to be mindful of who you are and why you're doing what you're doing.

When you've got situations, again, I'm thinking of Christmas, but you've got family members.

There's like an.

Obviously there's a pecking order of loyalty, should we put it that way, when we've got family members who are tricky or big events that are, are a lot.

So I was actually reflecting on this before we started.

I do enjoy Christmases, I do enjoy the Easters, I do enjoy all the big get togethers.

What tires me out personally is not so much the people, it's just the busyness.

It's just like three, four days of lots of things.

And so that's where I get tired.

But I know for some people it's this real.

Oh, here we go.

There's a lot of managing of personalities and then you've also got to manage the small people who are out of routine and overexcited by all the tinsel and wrapping paper.

In those kind of situations, when you've got bigger people, more important people in your life, how do you sort of manage, manage those so that you're keeping your peace but without necessarily severing those relationships.

Obviously if they're abusive or it's just terrible, then you know, cut it.

But how can you kind of manage those?

Well, the one thing that I will say is that the next thing I'm going to say is it disregards children and it focuses more on you and adults, which you're with your children a lot.

You, you, you understand more how to handle them.

Yes.

And you also with, I was going to say adults in some ways you can, I'm going to use inverted commas.

You can control more because you can say no.

Whereas a, you know, three year old, it's a bit harder.

So.

Yes.

Yeah.

When you have an adult that you haven't seen for a while and you know that there's some tricky dynamics that come into play as it Comes to, you know, Christmas and to spending time together.

One aspect that you can look at again is the shoulds.

That person should be doing this.

That person should have got my child a present.

That person should be making more of an effort to help out.

The only things that you can control are the way that you think, the way that you feel and how you act.

That is it.

It's going back to Mel Robbins.

Let them you.

The times that you feel powerless, the times that will drain you are the times that you spend expecting of others.

And as soon as you start coming back to who you are and knowing that you have the power to think what you want and you can, you can look at a scenario and you can go, do you know what I choose?

I know that my brain has normally gone down this path that this person should, this person should, this person should.

But I'm actually going to choose just to be a bit of an observer at this time.

And I'm going to choose to clean up or I'm going to choose to sit on the sofa.

I'm going to choose the way that I think and notice how that makes you feel.

And from any feeling, that's where we take action.

So regaining back that power so that you don't feel powerless.

There's a really interesting dynamic of, you know, grown adults that have left the family home and come back seasonally to, let's say, a parent's house.

That parent and that child, even though the child might be in their 40s, often come back to a childlike relationship.

The parent wants to have power.

The child acts in a way that they did when they lived at home.

And so therefore you have that sort of parent child dynamic when actually you're a full grown adult with a mortgage and you know, children and everything else.

And it's being able to observe compassion for that, possibly wanting to, you know, that, that, that, that mother or father or whoever's looked after you in the past, wanting to have some form of ownership over the current dynamic.

Yeah.

And being able to in your full right as a grown adult who is adulting everywhere, moving forward and noting the childlike behavior that comes into play when.

And I put in inverted comments.

Adults come in the room.

So much of what we do, we've got to think 90,000 thoughts a day run through our head.

And most of those go unconscious.

And because they go unconscious, we're left and we're not in an environment that either we're used to or we're dreading a little bit or we don't feel that comfortable in.

Because we're not in control, because we're not focused on, you know, being mindful and, and focusing on all the thoughts that are kind of running through our brains at a thousand miles an hour.

And our brain is constantly there trying to protect us, saying, don't come to, don't come near this human being because they're going to tell us that we have not done it right.

And, you know, it should be like this and everything like that.

It doesn't make us feel good and we feel powerless.

Using that observational, know how from the front part of your brain where you say, actually, I can bring compassion into this.

That person's telling me this because they, they don't want to lose control in this scenario.

And, you know, I, it.

It's not about exerting a, a higher power or a higher ego.

It's about actually just letting it be.

That person's doing what they need to do.

And actually you have the ability to do something else or comply or be inquisitive.

Use that curious element of your brain rather than feeling like something is being done to you.

So I'm thinking of a situation where you've got.

Because the criticism is often a tricky one.

I don't know, let's say you are decorating the mince pies or something and somebody comes over and says, well, that's not the way to do it, blah, blah, blah.

So immediately the hackles can come up.

Or is it a case of another way to soften it?

Coming back to the curiosity would be asking or, you know, not in a kind of, well, why do you do it this way?

But show me the way you do it and why is it that you do it this way?

You know, and it could be something like, well, my great grandmother's done it and it's been this generational thing.

You go, oh, okay, it might be, I don't want icing sugar everywhere.

And this keeps it contained.

Okay.

Then you can, you know, all of a sudden there's usually a reason to it, and that immediately softens things.

So I think the curiosity is an important.

Yeah, an important element to it.

Yeah.

Oh, and in the case of, and in the case of wanting to have, you know, our minds can go to what it, what it's been used to, or this person just wants to tell me what to do and, you know, they just want power over me or whatever it happens to be.

Let them talk.

Let them talk.

Because they often, you'll often find that they will revert back to no Yours is just as good.

Yes, your most pies are just as good.

They just need to be seen.

They need to be seen.

If you have that ability to just focus on actually this.

This part of it.

Let's look at it in.

In terms of importance here.

All the children have come in.

I can hear the carousing in the background.

Just one moment, children.

No problem.

No problem, children.

Can we keep it down?

I'm just going to close the door.

Okay.

Okay.

Oh, you're coming in.

All right.

We're going to have a little guest joining us.

Okay.

We're having a gathering.

Keep it quiet.

Thank you.

Well, we'll see.

We'll see.

Okay.

We'll see.

We'll see what happens.

Okay.

No, that's a really.

Yeah, that's a really useful thing because there's always story, there's always a why, isn't there?

And then as soon as there's compassion, it just softens it.

It does just soften it.

So.

And what I will say is, everything is a practice.

We're not going to.

You're not going to want to let go of your old thinking quickly.

No.

Because we also hold onto that and our identities and, oh, they've done this to me and blah, blah, blah.

It's a nice thing, you know, I'm constantly checking myself, you know, as much as I can give out the advice, I have to check in with myself.

And that's the amazing ability of being mindful, being aware of your thinking.

It's, it's.

No, I'm right.

Because we all think we're right.

That's why we do the things that we do.

And actually, maybe you're not quite as right as you think you are.

And, God, isn't that a shock?

And so maybe it's not a bad thing just to go into a bit of an observer's mode where it doesn't mean that you're reverting back to being a child.

It just means that you're allowing someone to have that space in that moment to either circle back to allowing you to do what you.

You were doing in the first place, or you may learn something.

And all of.

You know, I find myself sometimes, you know, getting back into an old routine at this time of the year, and something will happen, you know, I'll.

I'll, I'll have a relative just say certain things and, you know, the heckles go up.

And then I'm like, no, come on, let's.

Let's see what, what this is all about and start to, you know, Start to just unpack the immediate tenseness.

And, you know, the practice is.

Will always have to come out of it.

It's just.

And sometimes you just get really good at it.

And other times when you're in the throw of things, you're less good at it.

But being mindful always is an option.

Yeah, yeah, you have that.

That's the thing.

It's choice.

It's.

It's choice.

And I think for a lot of moms, we feel that we're on also because there's the working, there's the food, there's the house, there's just everything.

And they're is often very little time for that reflection.

Coming back to the shoulds, we feel we should be doing all the things, but actually we have decidedly more choice than we think we do.

We've got more choice.

We can choose how we respond to things, how we think about people, how much time we give people and what we commit to.

You know, there is no.

They don't need to be doing everything.

No, no, no.

We absolutely don't need to be in charge of everything.

We can allow it to be imperfect and let others take over.

Yeah.

And we can sit on the sofa.

Yeah.

And that's okay.

Yeah.

I remember having a really quite powerful talk with a vicar years ago, because I could see that the way he was running his parish, there were lots of groups and each group seemed to have a leader doing different things, be it the flowers, be it the.

The food for the elderly, whatever it was.

But each group.

Oh, was.

Seemed to be running fine.

Whereas in our church, we had like one lady who was doing everything.

And people would occasionally put their hands.

I was like, no, no, no, I'll do it.

And the thing was, I could see that I could become one of those women.

I could become that lady.

And I didn't want to become that lady, although I could do it.

And I went to this vicar, he's a lovely chap, and I said, how do you do it?

How does it work?

And he said, what he does is there's an idea for an event or an activity that needs to happen within the parish.

And he will say, this has to happen.

Who's with me?

And people go, yeah, I'm with you.

And you leave it for a bit.

Obviously you get things going and if it's trundling along, then great.

It's like the bird.

Off you go, fly.

You're doing well, off you go.

You don't need me anymore.

But if things are not happening.

So, for example, if there is an event and a deadline and people have not done what they are meant to do.

What often happens is a lot of mums will be like, I've got to.

I've got to save the event.

This has to happen.

This has to happen.

This chap, he said, if people aren't doing it, we stand up just before the event and we say, it's not happening because we do not have enough people volunteering for it.

Not meant to be.

And I was like, wow, wow, that was such a freeing conversation for me.

It's not all on my shoulders.

It's not all on the vicar's shoulders.

I mean, obviously there's a God element.

It's like, well, clearly it's not God's time for this.

Let's move on.

And a detachment, which is hugely powerful.

And it comes back to choice.

You have the choice.

You do not have to carry it all.

You may have gifts.

You may have gifts, but essentially, if it's a group setting or something like that, you don't have to do it all.

And again, if it is draining you, the energy is being drained and you cannot support your family in the way that the children need and everything's unraveling at home.

What's the priority?

Yeah.

And there is a lot to be said about delegation.

Yes, yes, there's a lot to be said about delegation and that, you know, there's a learning for children in that.

There is.

There is an ability to free up some time for you for something else.

There's just.

There's a little art in the world of delegation and not to compare to a corporate life, but when you are in the corporate world, you.

There is an air of importance that happens that you there for a certain period of time and you feel like it can't function without you.

And the truth is, everyone's replaceable.

And I'm not moving that truth to being a mother.

But what I am saying is there is space for everyone and everything.

And if you're mindful.

Again, I keep going back to that word, mindful.

If you're mindful of not needing to be the doer of everything.

Yeah.

That actually you can do the bits and, you know, almost like train others to do the bits that they will eventually take on in life.

It's such a.

It's a wonderful learning for children.

Yeah.

And it is a gift as well to others.

I know it sounds a bit mad, but if all of a sudden you are not able to do all the things that you've been doing, let's say You've been a high functioning person and involuntary stuff or even within the business.

By you stepping away, new people are forced to rise and use their gifts.

It's almost like you're pruning, you're pruning a rose and you hack it back and it seems as painful, but then beautiful things grow up from that.

Absolutely.

And I think people hold onto their roles.

You know, I am a mother, I should be doing this, this and this.

Well, you know, as a mother, you can get to choose what you do.

And if you are nurturing and you know, encouraging younger children to learn a certain aspect, wow, that gives you time suddenly not to be that traditional sense of a mother that needs to be doing everything, but actually you can do the thing that you've wanted to do because you've nurtured and I hate to use the word trained, but built up strength and confidence in your children so that they can take over certain aspects while you go ahead and do the thing that you wanted to do at the same time and be the strong mother for them as well.

So it's, it's, it, it's really observing what you perceive to be your role.

And if your role is to do everything, it's probably going to drain you.

Yes, yes.

And if your role is to nurture and to delegate so that you can do the things that fill your cup up so that you become stronger in communication or you become stronger in connection, that also creates a lovely role for you too.

So it's, it's, it's being mindful of, you know, do.

And there are other people that will be grateful for a role in the family.

Yeah.

You know, there's not many people that want to sit down, do nothing.

Yeah.

I mean, for example, in our family, I now have children old enough who say, can we do baking?

I say, yes, yes, you can go forth.

So that's been handed over.

So yes, it happens in all families.

If you let it, if you let it, let it.

Now, Serena, I think we're going to be reaching a point of wrapping up, but I feel we should do another podcast chat because right at the beginning I Talked about your 20 years in corporate and events, and then now here you are as a life coach and your own business and all of this sort of thing.

One of the things I am fascinated by is how women in particular, we are kind of grown up lives, is not that ladder of career.

We go wibbly, windy, and I think lots of women of our generation, the millennials and who's below us, is it gen Z. I don't even know.

Baby boomers.

They're above us.

No, Gen X. Oh, I see what you mean.

Okay, yeah.

So Gen Z. Yeah.

But we're sort of realizing that, oh, gosh, it is a bit more wibbly windy than we thought.

We'll pick up on another podcast.

We'll chat about that change in your career direction thinking.

Because again, for so many mums who will take a step into the home and they're there, or they're having to find part time work and then later might be emerging or thinking about, okay, this is this season.

What will the next season hold?

I was trained to be X, Y, Z.

What else could I be?

And sometimes we get really boxed into thinking we have to be the thing we were trained to be.

So we shall pick it up on another podcast.

Yes, there's a lot there.

Right, Serena, that was fab.

Thank you.

Where can people find you?

Where's the best place for people to come and hang out?

You can find me on my website, which is serenadodd.com.

you can also find me at Iamsarena Dodd on Instagram.

Lovely.

Okay, we've got all the links will be in the show notes.

I'm also gonna put a link to Mel Robbins, Let Them Theory, because that's actually a very powerful, readable, very feminine book about these kind of dynamics, relationships and the power we actually have to say yes or no in situations where we feel we should do certain things.

I'll put that all in the show notes.

Her key element to that is.

Let me.

Yeah, let me, let me.

Exactly, exactly.

Bless you, Serena, that was wonderful and we will speak again very soon.

Thank you.

Thanks, Zoe.

Thank you.

Bye.

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