the Grow Yourself Up Podcast
a podcast to support all of us in our adult lives
Many of us did not get our needs adequately met in childhood. The devastating legacy of childhood trauma, wounding and traumatic stress lives on in our brains, our bodies, our nervous systems and our behaviour/reactions impacting the way we turn up to our lives in many ways.
We are going to unpack all of this on Grow Yourself Up. This podcast will be a companion as you journey on your own road of healing and recovery.
You will learn you are not alone. Someone has been where you are. There is hope.
We will break down shame together and learn to cultivate self compassion. There is always the possibility for change. And regardless of what has happened in our past, as adults we have to take responsibility for our own lives.
We have to tend to our pain, our sadness and our dysfunction so that we can live a life we love and shift toxic patterns for our children.
Each week we send out journal questions based around the podcast’s topic. If you would like to receive these questions, please sign up here.
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Thank you for listening to and loving the podcast. If you’ve benefitted from these conversations and would like to contribute to podcast creation costs, I’d greatly appreciate it!
Looking for a specific topic or guest? Search below:
Ep 67: Estrangement, Having a Narcissistic Mother and Growing Up in Motherhood with Harriet Shearsmith
In this episode Cath is joined by Harriet Shearsmith. Harriet is a coach, podcaster, Mum of 3 and the content creator behind @tobyandroo. In this episode she shares her experiences around growing up in a household where she always tended to the needs of her Mother, how she came to see the dynamics of her family, what action she has taken to protect herself as an adult and how she is shifting dynamics in her own family.
Ep 66: Emotional Neglect and Narcissistic Families
In this episode Cath starts to look in more detail at what emotional neglect actually is and why it matters. She explains how widespread emotional neglect is and gives some historical context to explain why.
Ep 65: Childhood Trauma, The Nervous System & Mothering
In this episode Cath was interviewed by Nikki McCahon for her Seasons of Matresence Podcast. We had a gentle, compassionate and open hearted conversation about the ways in which experiences of childhood trauma can shape and impact how we experience mothering and raising children.
Ep 64: Shifting Generational Trauma & Thoughts on Food
This episode is an interview with Cath and Crystal Karges which was originally released on Crystal’s podcast ‘Lift the Shame’.
Ep 63: When Our Needs Feel Illegitimate (Re-release)
The way we come into relationships with our needs when we are babies and young children, has a huge influence on the way we learn to tend to our needs as adults.
Ep 62: Self Mothering: Putting it into Practise (Re-release)
In this episode Cath discusses the concept of self mothering, explaining why this is such a crucial part of all our healing journey.
Ep 61: The Importance of Good Enough Parenting and Rupture and Repair for all Ages
The term ‘rupture and repair’ is widely used across social media to explain the process of repairing with your child after a break in connection (for example parent shouted or was unkind, snappy to a child).
Ep 60: The Family Nervous System, Transitions and Stress Responses
In this episode Cath discusses some nervous system science (Polyvagal Theory and Stephen Porges and Deb Dana's work) and invites us into considering how our parent nervous systems interact with our children's nervous systems.
Ep 59: Birth Trauma, Dissociation and Growing Up in Motherhood with Sophie Burch
Cath was joined by coach, trainer and hypno-CBT therapist Sophie Burch this week. We talked about Sophie's journey to motherhood, her passion and mission in the prenatal, perinatal and postpartum stages of parenthood and how her own experiences contributed to this. We touched on how birth trauma and a stay in NICU impacted her and her children. Sophie shared how she deals with the impacts of PTSD, maintaining her sanity while parenting 4 boys and how she cares for herself.
Ep 58: Words of Encouragement for Holidays (Re-release)
In this episode Cath discusses what shift we need to make as parents around the holidays.
Ep 57: Process, Self Care and Growing up in Motherhood with Suzy Reading
In this episode Cath is joined by author and coach Suzy Reading. Suzy shares about how she has grown herself up in motherhood, how grief impacted her early motherhood, how she takes care of herself and how advocating for her kids has helped her with self advocacy.
Ep 56: The Messy Imperfection of Rupture and Repair
In this episode Cath speaks about the process of rupture and repair with our children. We may imagine that this is a neat, easy process (and sometimes it is) and often it is more complex and messy.
Ep 55: Intrusions, Control and Growing Up in Motherhood with Anna Butcher
In this episode Cath is joined by Anna Butcher. We talked about Anna's journey to motherhood, how she experiences mothering and how the act of becoming a mother is an intrusion into our lives (on multiple levels).
Ep 54: Ways to Support and Resource Ourselves
Cath is a psychotherapist and so is obviously a big fan of therapy and the positive benefits arising from therapy.
Ep 53: Neediness, Choice and Growing Up in Motherhood with Mara Glatzel
In episode 53 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.
Ep 52: The Complex Journey of Meeting Needs
In episode 52 Cath focuses on our needs and why starting to meet/meeting them can be so complex (building on earlier episodes on this topic, listen to episodes 1-4 and 26).
Ep 51: Partner Rage, Postpartum Health and Healing in Motherhood with Molly Caro May
In episode 51 Cath was joined by author Molly Caro May. This rich and beautiful conversation covered so much ground. They touched on Molly’s memoir ‘Body Full of Stars’, talked about Molly’s postpartum health experiences, breaking cycles in motherhood, rage and self responsibility.
Ep 50: Shame, Perfectionism and Holidays
In this half century episode Cath talks about how our own shame and perfectionism (and what happens when our shame gets touched) can impact our holiday times.
Ep 49: Burnout and Parenting When Our Kids Struggle with Kendra Wilde
Cath was joined by Kendra Wilde this week. They talked all about how to keep our sanity intact in parenting when our children are struggling in some way. Kendra shared about the 'why' behind (Wild Peace for Parents) and how she was pushed to a place of burnout on her parenting journey. This conversation is loaded with self compassion and wisdom from someone who has kids in their twenties, we hope you enjoy it.
Ep 48: Understanding our Jealousy and Envy
In this episode Cath talks about two feelings - jealousy and envy - that are often seen as ‘bad’ feelings or feelings we should not admit to (because we may come across as not being ‘nice’).
What people are saying…