Stretched Mums Yoga

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Stretched Mums Yoga

Give yourself the space you deserve with yoga-based movement, breathing practices and relaxation. Dynamic, inclusive yoga for mothers in Crystal Palace.

Prenatal, postnatal strengthening and restorative yoga and postnatal doula support in Crystal Palace and south-east London. Drop in for some supportive, energising yoga with other local mums. Mondays 8.15-9.15pm, Dreamcatcher Cafe, 24 Westow Hill, SE19 1RX

Price: £10 per class or buy a 5-class pass for £45 (can be used as flexibly as you like). Please bring a mat or reserve one by contacting me.

13/03/2023

EMERGE 🌿⛅️ last places
Full day women's retreat
, West Sussex
Sunday 2 April, 10.30am–4.30pm
£105

Emergence is not a linear process ~

The time after having a baby can feel like one of emergence, but it happens at a different point for everyone and it comes in stages and fits and starts, perhaps feeling like we're finally getting there then a developmental leap occurs, or childcare falls through, or another bloody winter virus hits. Maybe it's 3 or 6 months, the first or second year, when children start primary and then secondary school; maybe it's when we go back to work, or sleep deprivation isn't so brutal, when a child becomes more independent, stops getting into our bed every night or when we realise we have more headspace.

Many cultures view the postpartum period as 2, 4 or 5 years long; some wisely point out that, after having children, some changes in our hearts, bodies and souls are permanent. How do we live it with all? How do we integrate it, process it, let it change us in the way it's meant to?

I've felt a deep need to celebrate moments of emergence recently, those moments when things feel like they're settling and coming to fruition after moments when everything is in flux, when we're really in the trenches. Emerging can be discombobulating and unnerving too, and sometimes we can feel stuck, willing ourselves to cross a threshold but other things are holding us back.

Motherhood is a maturation process. It can fast-track us becoming more us, even though there are times when it feels like it may break us. I think it's better when we try and make it through it together, to try and make sense of it all. We also need nourishing time away from the intensity of life with small children without the "village" that should be supporting us.

I am very happy to invite to you take one of the last few spaces for my one day retreat, Emerge, in the Sussex countryside! All details at link in profile ❤️

12/03/2023

I bought this magnetic board and filled it with pictures that make me feel happy and grounded and uplifted at the same time. Seeing the fact of some of my roots which feels connected to questions going up/forward, beyond and informed by my foundations.

It’s in the room where I’ve put a desk which no one else is allowed to put stuff on. It’s not quite a room of one’s own - the washing rack is next to me, kids move in and out, their bookshelf is in here and toys and wellies and other bits and bobs. But when no one is at home I sit here and I write and I think.

There is only one family photo (pre second baby, sorry Lenny) and all the others are childhood ones. Me and my sister and mum playing; my sister, solemn-faced with fishing rod, stalking through the water; me running on the beach in Ireland; us feeding our favourite donkeys; sitting on horses at my aunt’s farm. Granny and her friend Jenny in a doorway in Ireland, a place they laughed a lot, loved a lot. More Ireland, the sea and the land. Art from Helen Frankanthaler, a picture of a room at Charleston and a quote from Tricia Hersey, giving permission for enough-ness.

I made this space, creating an image of where I am and who and what matters to me. Some of it will change and some of it will never change. Pictures will come down and other ones go up.

I see my mother friends tracing their own outlines in similar or different ways. Engaging in small acts of creation, reaching out to remember, finding linked threads, locating yourself amongst all the trembling shifting pasts and presents and futures.

08/03/2023

Reading back on these testimonials made me feel proud, and remember what a glorious time we had last October! Fascinating chats over dinner, bracing swims, glorious movement, feeling the sun on your face, another delicious brunch, a stroll, a lovely nap …

Our 5-7 June retreat is filling up nicely and it’s so exciting to see the group come together. For the month of March and I are offering a deal for 2 friends coming together - book a twin room and you both get £50 off. There’s still time for a 3 month payment plan if that works for you.

All details at the link in my profile. If you’re considering it on this rotten rainy day, I hope you can say yes to YOU.

Thanks to the October gang for these lovely words xx

07/03/2023

[Rage day 21]

When I’m honest about my own parenting challenges, people are sometimes surprised and say things like “but you always seem so calm!” or make some other comment about confidence or clarity or having it together. Sometimes I feel glad to be able to be seen as real in that moment and I know I am giving others permission to embrace their realness too. At other times I almost feel defensive, protecting the parts of myself that ARE calm, collected, clear, together. I am that too, I sometimes say. We are all so many things.

When I’m out in my local area, I often bump into people I’ve taught, or I vaguely recognise a toddler in the playground and realise it’s the baby whose mum brought her to postnatal yoga. There’s been more than one occasion, on a day when my child is having a meltdown or when I am especially tired or hormonal or going through something, when I wonder if me being shouty mum in a park is risking my professional reputation as well as my self-image as a good mother. I really hope no one has seen or heard me acting in a way I didn’t want to be known for, forgetting that it could be helpful for someone to hear another not-perfect mother failing to hold it together, in that moment.

I partly chose to write about rage because, having gone through a difficult time recently, I could feel my own anger and rage surfacing again. When I first started writing it was so hard to avoid caveat-ing, everything, as us mothers often feel we must - it’s not that I don’t love my kids …. I’ve never hit them … It’s not that bad … It doesn’t happen all the time … I’ve been through all this stress and I’m tired and I don’t have much time to myself and and and

The ultimate discomfort was feeling the gap between the person I wanted to be, had thought I was, am much of the time - calm, patient, caring - and the person I turned into sometimes. I was afraid of people thinking I was a bad mother, as all mothers are fear on some level. I was afraid that it was true, and there will inevitably be moments where I feel that is true again.

[cont’d in comments]

06/03/2023

Delicious news: and I have locked in our retreat chefs for our 2 night Norfolk retreat 5-7 June! are Alex and Gemma, two passionate foodies who run a cafe and catering company from an old converted dairy barn in the heart of the Norfolk Broads National Park.

They both have a wealth of knowledge about healthy and nutritious food, and as well as managing their beautiful eatery the Garden Cafe, they spend their time catering for high profile events and clients (including the BBC Winter Watch team in West Norfolk).

Our Garden Cafe chef will be cooking us beautiful, seasonal food for our stay, working alongside 's head grower Lucy to make the best of the biodynamic, home grown produce from the kitchen garden at this very special location. Pretty excited to eat delicious food that's only travelled a few metres to get onto our plates!

Check out the link in my profile to find out more about the 2 summery, dreamy days we’re planning - 3 month payment plans still available xx

06/03/2023

[Rage day 20]

If I take the slightly long way home after dropping my daughter off at school, I pass by a house that’s fallen into such a bad state of disrepair that I used to assume it wasn’t inhabited. Then a few times I saw signs of life there and realised that, despite the overgrown garden and the cracked window and the rubbish in the driveway, someone really does live there.

We like to think we can own things but most things are just temporarily in our care. Every time I pass that 1930s semi-detached house, I imagine that one day we’ll be able to buy it, care for it for a while: do it up, love it, tidy the garden and make a home there.

I live a life of such utter privilege compared to the vast majority of the human race that I worry it’s in bad taste to share about not feeling like I’m home. But the will to locate this sensation is strong, a lot of longing exists in me to find it.

Me and my husband own a lovely ground floor flat in a great area. Overall we have been happy here. The ceilings are ridiculously high and we added a beautiful light-filled room at the back, where we have a small garden and an access to a bigger communal garden.

we can’t move out the flat for at least a few years, until a structural issue has been monitored and fixed. Last summer we were set to move to a house up the hill next to the woods, but it all fell through at the last moment, in a great moment of stress and drama and disappointment. We are bursting at the seams in our space here, the layout is not ideal for a family to attempt to live and work and play and sleep. It is damp and badly-ventilated because the windows don’t open.

We are kind of stuck, not in a hellhole, and not at home. We are waiting, and waiting in my body feels as if I’m holding in, bracing against something. It’s the opposite of being able to root down, to relax into the ground.

[cont’d in comments]

05/03/2023

Hello, I am Chloe. If you used to follow me as , this is me now 👋🏼

I write, I teach yoga and movement, I am a postnatal doula and I have two children (2 and 7.5 years).

I write a lot about motherhood because it’s shaped and defined me in profound ways. For certain reasons it’s one of the hardest things to perceive and understand when you’re “in it” - it’s so tiring and intense, so loaded with cultural and inidividual expectations. I am always trying to hold a magnifying glass to it and when I do the glass is usually dirty and I am continuously trying to peer through, to shift perspective, to gain a clearer view of the thing in front of me.

I’ve been writing about rage for ’s writing challenge and have only 2 days to go. It has been good and hard for me to write (nearly) every day. It has been heavy writing on this topic but cathartic too, and gratifying to see that others share similar feelings and experiences that can feel so lonely and shameful when you’re “in it”. Thank you for reaching out and telling me your stories and calming my fears that everyone would think I was a terrible mother (or if anyone thinks that they haven’t DM’d me and said it 🤣)

I want to create an online programme about rage which brings together writing on the topic, space to share your experience and both a narrative and somatic/body exploration of rage and anger - where it comes from, where it lives, how we can process it in healthy ways and forgive ourselves when that isn’t possible. If you sign up to my mailing list I’ll share more about this when it’s ready (link in profile to join my list)

If you can’t wait and are local to SE London, I am also offering some 1-1 work on this theme. Please DM to find out more.

Otherwise you might want to check out my one day and and 2 night retreats coming up - all links in profile.

Thanks for following and for your support xx

04/03/2023

[Rage day 19]

My daughter didn’t sleep all night through until she was way over two, and my son, over two, is nowhere near doing that. There have been ok nights where one of them only wakes me up once, or when I have a child in bed with me that doesn’t wriggle too much and I get 4 straight hours between kicks or someone asking for a glass of water. There have been horrendous nights when I was waking up to feed a baby every hour then looking after her all day, or trying to get her to go back to sleep from 3am-5.30am then waking at 6.30am to go to work before doing it all again the next night, and the next.

There are many nights somewhere in between then months go by without a full night’s sleep, and I suddenly realise the sense of grogginess and fogginess has become my new normal. Nothing new here. Absolute bog-standard, parenthood basics. Many of my friends haven’t slept all night for three years, or four, or five.

Sometimes I’d hear someone in a cafe saying their 3 month old slept through the night, or complaining that they had to wait 6 months before their child started sleeping all night, and my blood would boil. Sometimes it still does. Without proper connection to each other it’s easy to forget that everyone has their own cross to bear and no one gets a simple ride. The weirdness around what we consider a “good mother” and a “good child” means we often feel a sense of failure or disappointment if they don’t do something that some old white guy 50 years ago said a baby or child “should” do by now. We compare and compete with each other rather than empathise.

[cont’d in comments]

03/03/2023

[Rage day 18]

When I had my first small baby, I tried to keep busy and get out of the house a lot. We went to classes and met other mums for coffee, acquaintances that sometimes turned into friendships, though not usually. But even if we had a relatively busy day, there was still a long afternoon into evening section of the day, when energy was at its lowest, when I was alone at home with the baby.

Sometimes I’d imagine the other new mums with their new babies within the same square mile, also feeling lonely and trying to pass the time, and think how crazy it was that we weren’t joining forces.

It’s not exactly controversial to suggest that there are fundamental problems with the way many of us live right now. Disconnected from nature, from each other, destroying the natural world, eating foods grown in soil depleted of nutrients, not moving our bodies as much - or in the ways - that we were always intended to.

I took a quick look at the research on loneliness and came across this:

*According to the National Institute on Aging the health risks of prolonged isolation are equivalent to smoking 15 ci******es a day. Social isolation and loneliness have even been estimated to shorten a person’s life span by as many as 15 years. People who are socially isolated or lonely (SI/L) are more likely to be admitted to nursing homes and the emergency room. According to the Health Resources and Services Administration, people who are SI/L may get too little exercise and often don’t sleep well, which can increase the risk of stroke (by 32%), heart disease (by 29%), mental health disorders (by 26%) and premature mortality (by 26%), as well as other serious conditions.*

Maternal rage grows in an environment where we’ve been ejected from communal, collective support and child-rearing. It happens because we’re overwhelmed, not supported enough, frustrated and unseen and unheard.

[cont’d in comments]

02/03/2023

[Rage day 17]

My husband says I’m terrible at apologising. He says I break all the basic rules of saying sorry - taking too long, qualifying my apology (“I’m sorry YOU got upset about that”) or making excuses (“I’m sorry but you did come in in a mood already and then …”)

I am trying to be better. But at least it isn’t the same with my children. If I ever shout or bang things (doors, pans etc) in sheer frustration, if I act unfairly or upset them, I always try to say sorry as soon as possible. A proper sorry, from the heart. I don’t find it hard to do this because I really do mean it. I always try and communicate why I think it happened and why it wasn’t right or fair. I often try to give some context like, I’m very tired and I’m stressed out and I think that’s why it happened.

I’ve written before about how saying sorry doesn’t always make it ok - it doesn’t feel good to keep falling into a pattern of anger and having to say sorry. Then the sorrys become not enough. We all need a certain level of stability to feel safe and happy.

But in the context of trying, growing and learning, of enough connection and stability, these repair moments are often generative of more closeness. They give us a chance to see each other and to understand where the other person might be coming from. They often to lead to more conversation around what we need or want.

As humans we are messy contradictions, good and bad, simple and complex. Abandoning parts of ourselves out of shame doesn’t tend to lead to much good. I want to feel whole and integrated more than I want to feel perfect, because that’s what I want for my children too. I know the weight of trying to be perfect, a familiar drag inside of me. I hope my kids can be lighter about it.

[cont’d in comments]

01/03/2023

NAP CLUB, 11 March 2-4pm in Streatham Hill (2 places left)

Come and lie down in a room with others who are also lying down! Some people are baffled by this concept but if you know, you know.

Restorative yoga is a non-active practice where your body is completely supported in a range of restful positions. But it’s not passive either - we are willing agents in the act of rest, of choosing to pause and be still and be a human, being. This practice soothes the nervous system (with a subsequent range of positive physical, emotional, hormonal and immune system responses) and allows you to practice rest, supporting you to bring this into your daily life, even in tiny ways.

Book your place via link in my profile x

01/03/2023

Years ago, when my husband and one of our friends were involved in some light-hearted back-and-forth, he made some teasing comment towards her and she retorted, *I hope your kid hates the cinema*.

The cinema is my husband’s favourite place in the world. Films are his favourite thing. And as it turns out, our kid does hate the cinema. She is scared of the noise, how big the screen is and the idea of the door being closed and her being somewhat trapped inside this dark room.

I also really love going to the cinema. I have one happy memory of taking my daughter to watch Mary Poppins Returns in 2018, eating popcorn and standing on the chairs (her not me). Then one bit in the film frightened her, and by the time we tried to go back for Frozen 2, she was jumpy and didn’t make it past the haunted woods part.

She also doesn’t like going on the underground train and she hates it when her little brother screams. It’s only fairly recently that she’s become ok in loud cafes and restaurants, and we often carry her noise cancelling headphones just in case. After the pandemic we tried another cinema trip but she bolted, and no amount of cajoling or gentle encouragement made a difference.

I think all this is totally on the spectrum of “normal” (I mean what even is that) and also I wonder sometimes whether she always would have been nervous in these situations. Was it something we did that created it? Did she inherit a version of anxiety from me? Did I send her some message about the world being unsafe? Did the pandemic elongate or exacerbate it?

Aside from the guilt and shame of maternal anger and rage, there’s the fear that we’ll damage our children - make them sad or afraid, give them horrible memories, blight our close relationship and land them with expensive therapy bills.

But actually, there will probably always be some mystery around the impact we have on them. We’ll never truly know what is nature and what is nurture, questions will remain about what led to what. Histories and exact events may be disagreed upon. Something we might think of as totally benign may be felt by our child to be problematic or limiting.

[cont’d in comments]

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http://www.stretchedmums.com/

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