Jenna Folarin is this weeks HER WISDOM guest and in her interview she shares so many scenarios that we can all relate to. Jenna shares her passions, how her morning routines is designed to nourish her own needs while doing her thing as a mum and how she has found ways to get in touch with her true self again on her journey as a mother and coach. Sit back and enjoy her wisdom...
How do you begin your day? What are the things you do to get started in the morning?
I’m a mum of three, my kids are 9, 6 and 18 months and to be honest, the mornings are pretty overwhelming! I’m usually operating on not much sleep (my youngest is not the best sleeper!) and just trying to get everyone up, ready and out of the door for the school run.
Saying that, my non-negotiables in the morning are: having a shower as soon as I get up, so I feel ready for the day, having a cuppa and breakfast. They might seem like small things but they are my way of not forgetting about my own needs too as a mum.
I usually put on a playlist, podcast or audiobook while I’m getting breakfast ready and ironing the school uniform and I feel like that makes a difference to my mood.
If I’ve got more help in the morning and my husband is working from home, I take a bit of time to do some meditation on the Calm app, do some crochet, read a few pages of a book or I journal with some oracle cards too.
I know that when I do have that extra pocket of time for me in the morning, I’m happier, calmer and more able to enjoy my day. In an ideal world, I’d get up an hour before my kids wake up and just have some quiet time reading and journaling..maybe one day!!
Share your favourite piece of wisdom and why it means something to you.
I love this quote from Anais Nin:
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud, was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
When I read this quote, probably 5 or 6 years ago now, I realised that this was exactly how I felt - I had so many unspoken dreams inside of me and I always told myself that I couldn’t bring them to life because of money, time, fear of judgement and a whole host of other reasons. I always wanted to do something more creative, work with women and mums but I just couldn’t see how I’d be able to do that.
It got to the stage where I knew that I had to at least try and make a go of the things that I dreamed of doing, because I really wasn’t happy anymore just ticking the boxes of the things that I thought I should be doing with my life.
The first step I took towards this was while recovering from post-natal anxiety in 2018, I decided to set up a monthly self-care group in my local community for mums to come along without their kids, and have honest chats about motherhood. I ran that for 6 months - it was then I decided that I wanted to work with mums professionally, because of the feeling I got when I was running those groups. I felt like, OK, this, this is what I’m meant to be doing!! So I retrained as a Coach and now I’m a Coach for Mums.
What is your go-to thing when it all gets too much?
I’ve always been a bookworm since I was little, I’ve always found reading relaxing, it just takes me away from everything for a bit. I still love reading now and some of my favourite books lately have been ‘Love Untold’ by Ruth Jones (aka Nessa from Gavin and Stacey) and ‘Again Rachel’ by Marian Keyes (highly recommend the audiobook version.) I also love to crochet - I’m in the middle of crocheting a huge colourful blanket and I find it really meditative and soothing to crochet.
Oh and a nap, I love a nap and it can make everything better, especially if I’m feeling overwhelmed.
Who are the women that inspire you and why?
Firstly my mum - she inspires me because she’s so strong and independent - she’s had to completely rebuild her life since my Dad passed away unexpectedly 4 years ago and I’m just so proud of her.
Mums who run their own businesses inspire me too - so really successful people like Leonie Dawson and Denise Duffield-Thomas, are hugely inspiring to me. They have been around for years in the online business world and they do things their way and show up as themselves, while having their family as their focus, around their hugely successful businesses.
Suzy Reading is a big inspiration to me - she is a Psychologist and author of multiple books around self-care. Her book ‘The Self-Care Revolution’ changed my whole perspective on what self-care was and what it could be, now that I was a mum. That book really ignited my love for self-care and has led me to where I am today working with mums too. She’s so generous in what she shares on social media too and is a really lovely person too.
And finally, I’ve been on Substack for 6 months or so and there are so many creative mums on there, writing about motherhood, running businesses around their families and doing what they love in an authentic way. I’ve made so many lovely connections over there and I find these mums so inspiring.
How do you see yourself and what makes up your sense of identity?
I see myself as a mum and that is my most important role in my life, 100%. Bringing up my kids to be emotionally literate, to be OK with making mistakes and helping them to build coping mechanisms to deal with life’s challenges is so important to me.
Being a wife, daughter and friend too, these make up my sense of identity too.
My sense of identity has changed a lot since I became a mum. I found that before I became a mum, I almost hid behind the things that I thought I should do - kind of ticking the boxes of what a successful job and life looked like. But motherhood cracked me open, and forced me to become authentic. When I look back now, my post-natal anxiety diagnosis and subsequent recovery was a blessing because it helped me find my new identity. I’d lost touch with who I was, what I liked, what was important to me and what I enjoyed. Once I gave myself the time and space to work all of this out, that’s when my new identity came in, the authentic me.
My parents are part of my identity too -this is especially true since my Dad passed away 4 years ago. I think it’s only when you lose someone that you realise how much they shaped you, how much they taught you and how much of them lives on in you. It’s bittersweet really because you have this amazing appreciation for them, but you can’t tell them.
If you could spend 5 minutes with your younger self what would you tell her?
The younger me was kind of split into 2 people - the younger me that loved all of the things that I love now - being creative, reading, writing - I liked being in my own little dreamworld really!
Then when I became a teenager, I thought that I had to change myself to be accepted - so I left all of those things behind and lost that connection with myself. I had zero self-confidence and was so worried about what people thought about me, all of the time. This carried on until my early 30’s probably.
So, I’d go back to my younger self and say:
You are enough as you are - you don’t need to change yourself
Don’t look for other people’s approval, seek that internal validation, intuition and gut feeling instead
Celebrate your uniqueness, because these things make you you
What does confidence mean to you, what builds yours?
Confidence to me means following my dreams and doing the things that feel like me like coaching, my podcast, writing on Substack and running retreats for mums.
It also means being confident as a mum too, and it’s only now with my 3rd child, that I’d say I’m doing things my way. I feel like I know what I’m doing and I can choose to mother my way, which is more about trusting my instincts and setting realistic expectations of myself, with a huge dose of compassion mixed in there too.
I’ve found that what builds my confidence is taking action - so you don’t need to feel ‘ready’ or have everything in place to take action, you just need to take the action and your confidence will grow from there. Then the more times I’ve taken action and thrown myself in the deep end, the more I have the attitude of, ‘let’s give this a go and see what happens’.
Reminding myself of times when I’ve done hard things before, what my strengths are and celebrating my achievements are also things that boost my confidence.
What's challenging you right now?
The main thing challenging me is sleep deprivation - my youngest is a very poor sleeper (not helped by his eczema and teething), so I do find the nights hard, especially when I can’t settle him. Even the third time around, the no sleep thing, doesn’t get any easier!
Also, I love working on my business, but having that uninterrupted time is limited to my son’s nap times, and occasional bedtimes. So I struggle with not having time to really reflect and be creative. But I know that this is just a season in my motherhood journey, and my time will come - so it’s a balance between wanting that time, but also accepting that it won’t be like this forever, and just doing what I can at the moment is enough.
The mental load of being a mum too is hard, just trying to remember everything I need to do for 3 kids can feel like too much sometimes. But then also, the more kids I’ve had, the kinder I’ve become to myself, because I’ve realised I can’t do it all because it’s literally impossible, so if I drop a few balls then that’s ok, I don’t beat myself up about it. That striving to be a perfect mum has long gone…thank god!
Tell us more about your latest or next project.
My latest project is my Mini Retreats for Mum, that I run in Cardiff every few months. The next one is on Sat 18th Nov and details are here. They are 3 hours long, held i a lovely relaxing venue and I do a blend of mindfulness, group coaching and journaling. I absolutely love running these, because there is something so special about gathering women together, each sharing their experiences and allowing them to be fully seen and heard.
I also have my podcast, The Inspiring Mums Podcast, where I aim to inspire mums to make positive changes in their lives, and I also talk to inspiring mums too and share their stories. I really enjoy recording these, and getting to have honest conversations with like-minded mums.
I also have my Substack, The Motherhood Connection, and I’m building a lovely community over there - I write weekly posts on the ups and downs of life as a mum of three, behind the scenes of my coaching business and ways in which mums can make changes in their lives too. It’s such a supportive place, and I’ve loved connecting with some wonderful creative mums over there.
Substack: https://jennafolarin.substack.
The Inspiring Mums Podcast: https://jennafolarin.substack.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/
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