 Lovely. Well, it's now just after midday in New Zealand and welcome to session three. My name is Sarah Banderfack and I will be your facilitator for this presentation. And with me I have Lorraine Moxford in Canada who is our master facilitator. Virtual International Day of the Midwife would like to welcome the lovely Felicity Latford from Canberra, Australia. Felicity has very kindly stepped up this morning as we have a very late change in program. So thank you so much to Felicity for that. Felicity is a mother with three children and she has been working with women and families for over 20 years and has specialised in midwifery for the last eight. She works at Centenary Hospital in Canberra working a full time as a caseloading midwife and has a special interest in prenatal education. Self-care has been absolutely central to Felicity as she balances her working full time family life and she is continuing her education through the completion of a master's. Felicity became interested in self-care after seeing other women and was inspired by the difference it made to women's lives not only pregnancy but in life. And there's currently a lot of interest in self-care. Felicity has previously spoken at conferences last year in Hobart and is speaking at the Caper's Passage to Motherhood Conference next week. So thank you Felicity and welcome. Hi everyone, can everyone hear me okay? I'm just checking the sound. Yep, fabulous. Excellent, alright. Thank you for that lovely introduction Sarah. As Sarah has mentioned I have a huge interest in self-care and it has been for me an absolute game changer in terms of how I've been able to negotiate challenges in life how I've been able to pull off working full time in a non-call job with three children, with studying, with travelling interstate frequently for family reasons it has made a massive difference for me and that's why I've come to understand it really is something that is often omitted in prenatal education and something that makes sense when we talk about it. It's something that women agree with whenever we mention it but it's something that women seem to really give themselves permission to do. And this is something that I thought, gosh we could make such a difference we really, really start to hone in on this and start to really look at developing self-care in pregnancy for pregnant women but also within ourselves. It stands to reason that if it's something that we value for ourselves it's going to have a lot more impact when we mention it to pregnant women or to anyone around, it simply does, it works that way. So just putting this all into context we are at the moment and have actually been for some decades now getting more and more warnings from the World Health Organisation and from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Across the board it doesn't matter if you live in Australia or where you live overseas illness and disease rates are increasing. We've achieved living longer but we're actually thicker even though we're living longer so are we actually gaining much? We really must address our lifestyle. This is the call being given to us time and time again by the major health bodies around the planet. In pregnancy we're also seeing the situation where we have women who are older, first time mums, we have much more IVF pregnancies, we have much more frequently higher BMI clients, I work in an all risk continuity program where there are many women that book on with us who have many chronic health issues already. Right at the start of pregnancy and even if they are actually in their 20s or 30s a lot of them are already having major challenges with health issues. All of these women stand to benefit if they can in some way incorporate self-care into their lifestyle because what self-care does is it incorporates every lifestyle message that you could ever want. Anything that the Australian Health and Institute of Health and Welfare have told us all the World Health Organisation in terms of addressing our diet, addressing exercise, looking at, you know, smoking, alcohol intake, all that sort of stuff if you self-care those sorts of things naturally drop away. You don't need constant lifestyle messages because those sorts of things are no longer will become less and less relevant to you. And we are fortunate enough, as midwives, in that we have in Australia about 300,000 babies born every single year. That means we have, you know, approximately at least 80% of that number of women coming through into our prenatal classes. So they are women who are, they're quite maleable at that time of their life. They're considering much, they're looking at their lifestyle, but they're also in contact with health services. They're considering what they want to do. They're considering, you know, their diet. That's something that they're taking, you know, more care around. They're considering their sleep, their body demands that they get more sleep when they're pregnant as a rule. They're, you know, cutting down on work generally. If they did drink alcohol, they've dropped it. There's all sorts of stuff that they're already feeling to go, you know, to go more caring with. They're actually doing it in a lot of cases. It's all based around the pregnancy. They're doing it for the welfare of the unborn child, which is absolutely understandable. But also what I love to point out to them every time I teach classes is the fact that this is benefiting them. It's not just about their unborn baby. This is actually benefiting them to support themselves through pregnancy. And if they can just see how much, you know, how much it helps them in pregnancy, it's not a hard leap to then see how much it can help them postnatally when they're at home with their baby, if they actually still consider that their self-care is important. We all know that obviously the time with a new baby, particularly, is quite challenging on many levels, but self-care is absolutely something that can still support. In 2014, we really have to start asking questions. Really looking around the world, as I've already mentioned, we have rising issues with health and wellbeing around the globe. Our cancer rates are getting higher. Our depression rates are getting higher. It doesn't matter where we look, the statistics are not promising. So it really is time we actually started to reconsider what are we doing because we have more money spent on health, welfare and education than ever before. So we really need to look at what is actually going on that our health and our illness and disease rates are actually going down rather than improving. And my feeling is, after just looking at women who self-care and women who don't, is that a lot of difference can be made if we take it all back to self-care. And I'll explain that in more detail soon. At the moment, we have a situation where we have a world that basically doesn't ask us to self-care. As children, we grow up learning that we get love and care from other people. That's the role that we expect parents to pursue for us. And in most cases they do. And if they haven't, then most people who have had that experience grow up feeling a little ripped off. Okay? They can be very, very upset about it. But what the message that is missing is that we need to actually care for ourselves. And in so doing, we can actually address so much of that. So much of that we can actually support women with to actually look after themselves if they're actually learning that they can give themselves the love and care that they thought they needed from other people. It's groundbreaking. It's absolutely huge. But it's the truth. Instead we have a world where we grow up thinking we need love and care from everyone around us. And of course, it's wonderful if you get that. But it then creates a situation where we're needy. And if you look at our advertising industry, we have a whole world of marketing based on women feeling needy. And it's the sad reflection. But self care can be an amazing step forward for women, whether you're a midwife, whether you're a pregnant woman, or whether you're actually, you know, just a bystander. It doesn't matter. Self care can be massively, massively useful to women in the way in which it supports them, in the way in which it brings them back to themselves. So looking at what is true self care. It's about body awareness. It's about connection to ourselves. And it's about being willing to actually value this. Our bodies are telling us all the time. They're giving us messages about how our body, you know, feels, you know, are we feeling tense? Are we feeling tired? You know, it's constantly communicating with it. The key is to actually start to listen to the messages that our body gives us, value it, and then actually, you know, integrate the wisdom that that actually gives us. It's so simple. This is not difficult, but it makes a massive difference to women who do it. And I'll show you some photographs of women who do it shortly. Self appreciation. This is part of self care. But yet it's something that a lot of women have a lot of trouble doing. If you ask people to say what about themselves, particularly women, often they feel really awkward. Often they feel uncomfortable. But why is that? The more that we appreciate ourselves, basic psychological literature tells us the more we're actually able to appreciate others. So it actually does everyone good. It's not just for us. This benefits everyone. So it's really, really, really important to never, ever underestimate the impact of just appreciating yourself. It's not a difficult thing. Put everyone, no matter where you are in the world, put everyone just... This is just a little exercise. Put everyone just stand up and then just sit down. I'm assuming everyone's doing that. Okay. And then if you could then stand up and this time sit down as though you are the most precious and amazing person you have ever come across in your life. And then as you sit down, just feel how differently this actually feels in your body. Feel what an impact it makes. As midwives, you know, every time we come across a newborn baby, we handle that baby with immense preciousness, immense respect, with immense love, with immense care. My question is, where do we start thinking we don't deserve that same level of love and care? Okay. I gather everyone's enjoyed that. Okay. All right. So self-care, as I've been saying, it encompasses everything. For some women, self-care will start off with really simple stuff, like getting enough sleep at night, making sure that you go to bed when you feel tired instead of pushing through to keep other people happy, actually going to bed when you feel you need to. And for most of us, that's a lot earlier than what we've... than what we've actually been doing. Okay. And it can encompass all aspects of our lives, including how we eat, how we drink, how we sleep, as I've mentioned, how we relax, how we move, how we walk, how we communicate, how we express. It really does become something that starts to get through all layers of how you live. And it makes a massive difference. The body, the more we actually tune into it and listen to it, the more that it actually gives us messages. Can anyone recall having a cigarette? The very first time you had a cigarette, I certainly can. The body told me very loudly that this was absolutely not the way to go, that this was absolutely not useful. You know, the throat burn, it had the foul taste, it cough and splutter, etc. Okay. That's the body telling you straight up, cigarettes are no good. But what do we do? Some other part of us kicks in and says, oh, but I'm going to put, you know, looking cool in front of my friends, I'm going to put fitting in or whatever our need is, we put that ahead of what the body told us. I don't think there's anyone in the world who smokes that first cigarette and doesn't get a strong message from their body. That's just an example. Our bodies communicate with us all the time. Okay. And it's up to us to really tune in and value what it's saying, because our body has an innate wisdom. Our body goes through every single experience that we had. Our body wears life with us and it really is up to us to actually start to listen to what our body has to say and integrate it. And in pregnancy, as I've said before, that's a time where women naturally seem to tune into their bodies more, connect in and actually start to listen to that inner voice more. Okay. Self-care is also wonderful because the more you embrace it, the more it has a beautiful relationship with self-worth. It really, really is. It really is beautifully linked. There was an exercise conference in Australia amongst exercise physiologists last year and one of the experts there, Daniel Pereira, noticed that the longevity of keeping fit resolutions was closely related with self-worth. We've all seen people that actually join in to a program for a while and then pull themselves out, but those that actually have a deeper level of self-worth are the ones that are actually able to keep going and the more that you self-care, the more you build self-worth. Yet again, another lifestyle message being taken care of, simply by women's tendencies to self-care. Women used to nurture themselves. This is an art that we've just simply forgotten, but it is actually quite central to our natural way of being. There's lots of evidence from ancient cultures that self-nurturing used to be a very, very important part of women's lives, particularly in pregnancy. He was once viewed as being a time of great honouring to women, where that was their whole focus. It wasn't on anything other than honouring themselves very, very deeply. Fortunately, this message is coming back loud and clear. We have a wonderful neonatologist called Howard Chilton. He published a book last year called Your Cherished Baby and in there there's actually a whole chapter where he details his observations from decades looking after women and young babies that basically showed the impact of self-care and how self-care seems to help support them in mothering. He's actually spoken in the women's health and well-being day and he actually speaks quite often at conferences and does mention the need for more self-care with mothers because he sees that they basically deal more easily with the demand of their babies. Around the world we are seeing mounting evidence globally. We have absolute chilling statistics that at least one GP in the UK a week commits suicide. This should really bring huge alarm bells. We have people that are trained to absolutely look after the health and well-being of others. What's going on that their own health and well-being get so far pushed to the side and they actually find themselves in such a state that suicides even possible. We've really got to ask those sorts of questions. In response to this in Ireland there's a program that's been commenced over there for medical students to teach them self-care. This is a direct response to what's actually been happening to the medical profession in Ireland. In Australia we've had the same problem. We had four doctors commit suicide in Melbourne in February. Probably some of you would have heard about that. I know Australian was certainly discussed at the hospital I worked at. But it's absolutely chilling. What are we doing if the people charged with looking after the health and well-being of others are absolutely not in a position to look after their own. We have got to look at this. In 2014 the American Medical Association President he declared in response to problems within their profession, if we don't keep ourselves healthy then we really can't keep other people healthy. We've got to actually get us right first. In 2014 the University of Chicago also details the impact of maternal stress hormones in the breast milk. This doesn't mean that you don't breath because you're a bit stressed. But it does mean that the way we live the level of self-care can also impact so much in our physiology and potentially influence the composition of breast milk as well. In 2012 there was a PhD that was done by Jane Keep. She was concerned about how healthcare workers over there a very similar healthcare system to in a lot of ways about how they actually looked after themselves. It's a publicly available PhD easy to look up if you want to and it's been absolutely groundbreaking for actually getting the message through. In 2014 again another study coming up this time from the University of Adelaide that self-care is absolutely essential preconceptions. They've found that the sperm and the egg when they come together there is so much already loaded into the DNA that then determines the quality of the resulting embryo and that then impacts on that child's lifestyle health risks. So it's really, really important. 2013 we have a dedicated conference held in New South Wales on self-care and healthcare. That got a great response and there is going to be a further one held in 2014 also for the beginning of self-care projects for teachers. I don't know about you but I know so many teachers who have come and gone from the teaching profession not because they didn't want to connect with kids and not because they didn't love kids but because they found that the profession absolutely burnt them out. Self-care has made a massive difference for some teachers and it can definitely help nurses and their wives as well. Okay so just to look now at the impact of self-care quite graphically. We have a woman here 2007. This is when she knows very little about self-care she's pregnant with her first child she's not engaging at all really with the whole pregnancy experience she just wants the baby out she's not really looking forward to her birth she's feeling quite stressed you know there's nothing that she feels is actually quite positive at that time in her life 2014 seven years later she's feeling so different this is the same woman she is now a lot thinner because she's eating in a way that supports her body she's feeling good about the upcoming birth she's got a lot more energy enjoying the experience she's feeling a lot more confident within herself and in relation to everything to do with the birth this is the impact that self-care has had on her okay this is the impact that self-care has had on her it's really really obvious really really tangible there's been no other major changes in her life same relationship but this time she's looking forward to the birth you know and it's just quite amazing this is what we can do with self-care this is how it can support women she's living proof of it here we have another woman in this time a labour photograph this is a woman who again learnt a lot about self-care and really committed to it in her pregnancy now the beautiful thing is as midwives we've already got a deep awareness of encouraging women to connect to their bodies in labour we say it to them all the time you know use your body work with your body be active be upright your body will tell you what to do your bodies wise etc etc we say this a lot to women when women self-care they're using that level of dedication commitment and focus to their bodies every single day it's not just for labour this is the way they live so to be absolutely amazing to see how they then approach labour what do they feel about their birth what significance does the birth have what's their overall impression you know because living in connection with your body you're developing more wisdom and I think we really need to start asking the questions about what's actually going on for these women and how it does impact them and really what can we as midwives learn from these women because I've certainly learnt an enormous amount by observing them it's inspired me knowing in my professional practice okay so just getting back to the simplicity of self-care we have you know the fact that it just has enormous benefits for others it's about saying okay you know this baby is precious you know this baby deserves absolutely the best you know you're going to treat this baby with tenderness love gentleness respect okay why are you any less deserving of that level of love and care obviously the babies have more dependent physical needs of course they do but when do we ever stop being worthy of love, care and respect I don't think we ever do sometimes life doesn't give us that and we start to believe we don't deserve it but it's fundamentally untrue we always deserve to be cared for we always deserve our own care we're always capable of giving ourselves love and care and also this positively impacts kids they see it they see it modelled around them there's no absolute solutions in life and it's not about that but we know the basic philosophy of monkey see monkey do you know it's really important that we actually this perspective it's really really important that they get to see this is what they can do with self care it's going to support them in mothering it's going to support them if they're not a mother it's going to support them in any relationships that they have we need to get really really basic with it it's about stopping it's about connecting to what the body is actually telling us when we stop give ourselves actually that time and then feel going on from this and there then you can make a true a true choice self care as I've said may begin to some women simply by going to bed earlier but at least that's a true start for some people when I've spoken to them about self care they think it's just having a glass of wine at night that's their self care but the problem with that is that ultimately that doesn't support the body I know it can become a release but women do that and I certainly used to but at the end of the day it actually doesn't allow you to connect to the body and it doesn't actually change the momentum in which women are living okay this is another slide here of a woman who learnt to self care she's actually a nurse and an educator and I believe she's even on the call today at 38 years of age she had lots of health conditions predominantly a thyroid issue I believe she had six children and she was feeling really overwhelmed you can see in that photograph how overwhelmed she's feeling how exhausted and tired she's looking then you take her 15 years later she's even had another child in that time she's feeling absolutely amazing she's feeling really energised she's got a lot more time to give to other people because she's not living in exhaustion it's made a massive difference to her I did say to her Sharon why is it that you've given me this particular photo when you were 38 did you not have one where you were wearing more makeup or whatever and she said no she simply didn't have that priority on looking after herself in those days it didn't matter really so much it was all about looking after the kids whereas now she's saying I'm worth it I really am worth it and also very much bearing in mind how this impacts on other people observing it's made an amazing difference look at the vitality in the eyes you cannot fake that you cannot photoshop it that's what self care has done and it is not selfish and it is easy for any woman to learn they've just got to start to focus on themselves that's where you begin obviously you get support with it as needed but that's where you begin to actually start to let go of all the ideals and beliefs that lead you away from naturally caring for yourself as I said earlier we become early in life quite engaged with thinking we've got to make life about other people yeah we can do that but not at the expense of ourselves we've got to look after ourselves first and then in that quality bring that to other people to our work, to our families, to our partners to wherever we go to the grocery store it impacts everywhere okay so our responsibility as health professionals I really believe that as Mibwans we can be really aware of the power of inspiration okay we live at first and foremost ourselves women see it, they feel it and it helps inspire them we've got to start by addressing our own exhaustion and tension we've got to start by looking at what's going on for us it's really really important to put ourselves first because then that impacts on how we are when we're caring for women and also if we're just delivering a message but we don't actually have the credibility that they can feel it just doesn't have the same impact it really doesn't, it comes with an emptiness whereas if they can see that this is what we live and breathe ourselves that impacts on them and I say that with a lot of respect for the absolute pressures that Mibwans work under I work under them myself I work in a case loading model I know what stress and pressure and tension is I've worked in teams where no one likes each other all sorts of stuff the one thing that has helped me get through all of that is simply my level of self care it has made a massive difference I'm much more engaged with my profession than I ever used to be 10 years ago I wanted out of nursing altogether I did the absolute bare minimum of shift my attitude was just get whatever I could out of the place and then go self care has made a massive difference to me I now value me and I value everything I bring anywhere I go and that's regardless of what the outside world plays out around me it's made a massive difference I just can't think about how much more it could help others in a study looking at the the status of the nursing population from 2014 it's really not great we have 35% of nurses and midwives pre-diabetic 55% meet the criteria for being regarded as obese mental health issues are common and we have 10% that smoke and 10% that drink at least two standard drinks a day which is over and above the health recommendations so as a health workforce what are we doing if we not eat really in a position to be offering the inspiration that we could be offering we've really got to look at that because when we come into classes when we're in front of women in front of clinics or around them in birthing rooms whatever it is so much of what they take on will be a reflection of what they actually feel from us it's really important that we get across that ability that we have it really really really is important and for anyone ready to go there you'll never look back okay we've got to take on the fact that the classroom for women is a whole world around them they are constantly bombarded with ideals roles, pitches, impressing on them how to eat exercise, how to burp, how to feed constantly told how to be but never really reminded that they had everything they need if they just know how to connect to it I've found so many women in my job when I go out on postnatal visits they're surrounded by books up to their ears absolutely surrounded that no one's told them to connect in with themselves also to see what they feel is actually truly needed for their babies there's no harm in looking at a book if you feel you need to check on something but it's also about valuing what are your instincts and what do we really feel is right for us that level of expertise that comes from within us is not something that we as a health system really do well at renowning them that they had that's something we could do much much better at okay so just in terms of classes just because often this is where we come across women in a math group where they're really open to hearing what we have to say is just get them to at first appreciate what they've already done whether it's just something simple like they've cut down from 20 cigarettes a day to five or whether they now are much more aware of their diet or they're now making sure they get a walk every day or that now making sure they eat lunch out in the fresh air whatever it is get them to actually appreciate there's already a lot that they're doing and then to look for a flex and to say okay alright I'm already doing this why did I find it challenging to look after myself well yesterday why do I find it hard to look after myself when I'm around my in-laws whatever the situation is there's so much that they can actually see if they're actually prepared to just look back on it to actually reflect on it they can journal it women love writing in journals they really like recording things especially in pregnancy it's a special time and there's also an app it's called our cycles app and as the name would suggest it's about it's a menstruation tracking app but you can actually use it when you're pregnant you just select an option that actually makes it not about a bleeding cycle but women can actually record in there how they feel it's a five dollar app but it's really supportive it actually gets the woman to note down when she's nurturing herself when she's actually looking after herself how she's been feeling today what's her body been feeling like the information and the prompts in there are really really simple it takes five minutes a day but it makes that woman focus on herself so for that reason it's worth worth checking out and also reminds women that this is something they can keep building for self care generally it becomes self fulfilling but it can be at first a little bit tricky because we're so ingrained in not doing that but it is something that we really really can and also women absolutely love to share with each other generally about what their challenges have been it can be a great point of self reflection and discussion in the class so women often will enjoy sharing what their challenges have been and inspiring each other we've always got to give to the fact that women will inspire each other in classes as well as whatever the message is that we get that we are delivering okay we have already had a self care dedicated workshop on pregnancy for pregnant women that was held in lismore in December 2014 there'll be more of those to come in Brisbane there's another one coming in Canberra there's going to be much more coming in terms of self care as Sarah mentioned at the start of this presentation I'm speaking on this at Capers Brisbane next week if any of you are up there I'd love to see you there the main point I'd like to say is that there is absolutely no downside to self care there is no extra cost it's you've got to be able to let go of this huge, insidious belief we grow up with that self care is selfish once we can clear that then there's absolutely no downside to self care and just one last final take home message from Howard Shilton he says as in pregnancy a mother who takes care of herself truly cares for her baby I would like to acknowledge Serge Benhayan he's the founder he's a philosopher and an international presenter on self care he's inspired me and many other women to actually learn and to reinvestigate self care within their own life okay esoteric women tells you can look them up on the internet if you want to they also have a lot to offer in terms of self care there's a beautiful blog you can look at if anyone wants to learn more about self care and living this and that blog also details so many women, hundreds of women from around the globe their journey with self care and how it's absolutely revolutionised things for them we have research from Australia and overseas in 2014 and you know there is so much there to support us okay thank you very much to all my beautiful friends I really appreciate it I have loads of references I don't have time to go through all the references but this will be on the internet and I don't have time today to show you this video but if you are interested please google this song actually just go straight to youtube it's called the woman I am it's by glorious music it's free to look at but it just shows women who live in their own self appreciation and how they are offering that as inspiration for other women thank you very much for listening today I really enjoyed being with you thank you so much for that Felicity it was absolutely wonderful and I think it really resonates with a lot of us because the chat box is just going crazy would anybody like to ask Felicity a question Leanne Gill what are the dates for the self care seminars in New South Wales oh can you tell her to email me and I'll let her know when that's actually set up yep you just told yourself okay I am going to give if anyone wants more information on this I will just put my email address in the chat box in terms of further presentations okay that's please click Latchford88 at gmail.com okay so anyone who wants more information about further presentations etc please email me and I'll tell you as soon as the dates are set okay now Carline you put your hand up and I have given you a mic so if you click at the top on the green microphone and allow allow the mic if you might be able to hear you talk thank you can you hear me okay thank you so much for this presentation I was just wondering if you could give us a city location and a possible date for your visit to Canada no I didn't actually say Canada I said Canberra Australia oh what a shame I'd love to come there sometimes but at the moment it's a little bit out of out of my reach I'd have to say you're going to get an invite for the city I can feel that I'm just reading through the chat box lovely well what are some simple things that midwives can do to start implementing self-care into our daily life okay you mean for us as midwives yep okay for us as midwives just to come the simplicity really gets back to actually the first thing you've got to do is actually stop and feel what's going on like give yourself the space to go okay hang on why am I about to do this what is going on to me is this the reaction I have how's my body feeling you know you actually start to look more you go more deeply rather than just running with something like if for example you are you know trying to lose weight for example you might consider okay why do I really feel like I want to eat that doughnut right now am I exhausted and I'm just trying to mask it by having some sugar you know what's actually going on you actually start to look more deeply okay and as you actually start to look more deeply you start to understand yourself more and you actually get a lot more insight into what's actually going on and you actually drop a level of tension from your body you actually start to feel you know more connected to your body more in your body your body starts to respond because it thinks my god someone's listening to me there's so many of us live our life pretty much as a head on legs everything's in the head and we don't connect with the body so this is actually just the beginning is where we actually stop and give ourselves that time to actually feel what we're feeling to actually give it the value to actually give it the the voice that it's been trying to have all along the body never stops trying to speak to us it's just it just has to speak more loudly I guess the less we listen to it but the more we listen to it the more it tells us what we want bodies love being treated with gentleness that stand up sit down exercise if that's the first thing you do at the start of the day and the last thing you do before you go to bed that has a massive impact on the body because you're saying to the body I deserve to be treated with love and respect and care and the body responds to that please please explore this in your own life and and like see how it unfolds because we've got the evidence in our own bodies that all of this does work all of this does support all of this does help okay so please do explore this in your own life and see see what actually makes a difference for you if when you're tired at about eight o'clock at night if you actually give yourself the space to just sort of wind down rather than having a coffee if you actually give yourself time to wind down you decrease distractions let go of the internet then put yourself into bed you'll find you actually get a better quality of sleep you know you'll find that all of this starts to feed itself you'll find you feel so much better than the simplest thing you'll want to do more you'll be looking for the next the next challenge so to speak you'll be looking for the next way you can integrate more self-care it just comes it builds its own beautiful momentum to support you in life and as a direct result of that it impacts on how you are with the world around you and everyone benefits there is no downside lovely and there's a couple of other questions so the questions from the chat Leanne Gill how many times have you attended a home visit and the new mum apologises for the house being untidy and the house is actually so tidy and she looks like crap yeah look you do come across that a lot women are typically so afraid of being judged and also in with that is the fact that women judge themselves enormously we are our own harshest critic and this is something we need to start to be aware of because self-care involves all of our inner talk you know all of those little voices that we constantly got playing on in the background in our head this is the sort of stuff that we can actually start to challenge and say you know what I may not be perfect but I am still absolutely worthy of love I am still worthy of my own love I am still going to love myself we just keep going it doesn't matter we do not have to be perfect I don't think there is such a thing as perfection because we are always learning we are always the next thing to learn the next thing to work on I don't think that ever stops in life I think life is all about continuing on so basically if you are visiting mums and they are really hard on themselves the first thing I tend to do is just make them aware that they are actually being really hard on themselves you know to actually say hey hang on you don't have to have this perfect yeah you can look around and see you might like your house to be a bit more different or whatever it is but actually just go okay how are you feeling within yourself why judge yourself why be harsh on yourself in the first time yeah good comment Christine don't say anything to yourself that you wouldn't say to your best friend I totally agree we've got to be our own best friend because the relationship we have with ourselves is our fundamental relationship for our whole life it's that relationship that influences all other relationships lovely Lorraine Lorraine's just informed me that we have to finish up now Felicity so thank you so much I just want to thank you Felicity for stepping up and stepping in today because we really need you and it was just a brilliant presentation I think so many of us took a lot from it and we can relate to many of the things that you're talking about and I think it's increasingly coming up in practice whether you're case loading or working in a hospital and it's just the on-call the extra hours and I think I know for myself I could really do use some of these self-care concepts so thank you very much it was lovely having you here yes you're very welcome if I could just remind you about the women in living this vlog it's just so simple anyone who wants to look at self-care more deeply for themselves loads of stories there it's all free it's just women all around the world who have written about what self-care has done for them brilliant thank you okay alright have a wonderful day thank you bye bye