I'm often asked how on earth I managed to write and publish my first book when I still had a baby and a 2 year old. Today, I'll take you through my messy mother's writer's routine and how I wrote More Than a Healthy Baby: Finding Strength and Growth After Birth Trauma. 

This was a book that just had to come out of me! and no, I didn't get up at 5AM or sacrifice any precious sleep to get it done. 

I'll take you through:

How to take the pressure off and maybe rethink what it actually means to write a book (versus what you think it has to mean)

Why I think a lot of writer routines you hear about are unachievable for mothers (and a bit wanky)

The difference between 'shallow' writing and 'deep writing'

How I take notes and research

How to know if a book topic is going to sustain you for the time it realistically takes to write, publish and promote a book

My birth trauma book: https://amzn.to/3cAuvfu 

If you'd like to follow along my slow living journey on my YouTube channel 

I also send a weekly email and have old school-style pen pals rather than use social media :)

My Website: https://doctorerin.com.au/ 

Mental health courses I teach: https://doctorerin.com.au/shop  

Inquiries: [email protected]

Leonie Dawson's 40 days to a finished book course: https://leoniedawson.mykajabi.com/a/16702/WLQMzAFu 

I used this for my second book, Social Media Detox for Mums.  If you benefit from the accountability of signing up to a course and having daily check ins, this might help. 

If you struggle to practice self-compassion, know you're not alone! 

In this episode I talk about:

Why telling Mums "don't worry about the mess!" can be invalidating 

How buying my kids stuff from Kmart to get a dopamine hit through lockdowns was OK. How it's also OK to move that stuff along now, along with all the gifts family wanted to give them after not seeing them for a while. 

Normalising mum rage

Why clutter can be triggering for childhood wounds. I talk about my own ancestral patterning around poverty vs having too much "stuff" 

How to practise self-compassion by allowing ourselves to sit with the negative emotions that come up when we have regret or shame around purchases or things we've brought into the house that we don't use, want or even like! 

If you'd like to follow along my slow living journey on my YouTube channel 

I also send a weekly email and have old school-style pen pals rather than use social media :) 

10 things to help slow down life. Some of these things are mental health specific tips, others are things I'd write in a letter to 'past Me'. Lessons, things I wish I did differently. As always, these are not rules or things one must live by! It will be different for everyone. These are just things that helped me. 

Today I'll teach you a great tool for remembering 5 easy mental health tools. Things you can count on when you're overwhelmed or stressed. I've used this in therapy for years, and when I used to teach hypnobirthing this was probably the most popular and useful tool I taught birth partners! 

Should we be just 'be positive?' Or is there space to normalise and talk about secret, shameful, hidden behaviours?

Many of us have been indoctrinated into an idea that engaging with shadow is not something 'nice girls' are supposed to do. There are also massive fears for Mums who have negative thoughts about what it means if you're drawn towards reading horrific news or watching violent crime shows. 

What are some of the reasons our brains drift towards finding negative content engaging?

Can engaging with negative content be part of healthy anger release and shadow work? 

What needs do doom scrolling, watching sad animal videos and Facebook 'stalking' serve? Why does your brain do things like this? 

A super quick, easy technique to reset your nervous system. Directed eye movements to calm the vagus nerve.

Note, you can be lying down or seated for this, but not driving! 

Black mothers in the Bronx are still 12 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women

For more information about the film, visit:

https://www.aftershockdocumentary.com

My interview with Bruce McIntyre

Save a Rose foundation

My book: 

More Than a Healthy Baby: Finding strength and growth after birth trauma

So you've tried using your phone less and you're left antsy, fidgety and generally not feeling as calm as you tell yourself you should?

You're not alone! While the idea of using your phone less is a good one, it's still a huge change and there's not enough conversation around what happens to your brain when you make a huge change like this. 

Why you can't stop checking and looking for rewards, reassurance, and validation

Why talking about will power and self-control is too simplistic and unhelpful

Why distraction is a community problem, not an individual problem

www.doctorerin.com.au

Beating yourself up for not drinking 2 liters of water a day, doing yoga every morning, journaling for 30 minutes, making green smoothies with $40 lettuces, intermittent fasting, knowing if you should be doing HITT or lifting weights, never sitting down unless you’re meditating…? It’s all a bit exhausting

Rhythms and routines are good if they help you, but notice if they feel restrictive or something you use to punish yourself?

I'll teach you a trick I use to decide if a morning routine is helpful or unhelpful

So many of us are spending our days switching between distraction and rest. Where is the middle? Without a 'middle state' (positive goals and finding a flow state) we will just drift back to distraction again and again and again. We seek escape from distraction by crashing. We cope with a day of overload by collapsing in front of the tv or scrolling because our brains are fried from over stimulation and the idea of 'doing' anything with effort seems too much. But if you only break away from distraction into rest and don’t replace it with a flow, genuine fun and a positive goal you are striving towards, you’ll always be pulled back to distraction. We need flow state.

Social media companies don't really want you finding flow state. It's not in their best financial interest to have you working on hobbies or spending hours getting lost fun without them. They want your eyeballs on their platform for as long as possible. 

Let's talk about how to get yourself out of the rest-distract cycle gently and without judgment. 

The book I'm reading that I mentioned: Stolen Focus by Johann Hari  https://amzn.to/3RJ1LRp