Don’t tell Instagram…

Last week I felt brave enough to press publish on this website and open a new social media account; in that moment of boldness I knew it would hold me accountable to actually bring this to life. I’ll always remember a motto from a social media guru back in the day which was “done beats perfect”, and that was the push I needed to share some snippets while I prepare the community and my offerings in the background.

You can imagine my delight when I amassed over 100 Instagram followers to my page in just a couple of days; if you are following me on there, thank you - I am thrilled with the early support from my friends and former clients, especially as I’ve shared so little with you so far. The problem with this though, is that I’m expected to show up and share riveting content with you, and part of the reason why it was such a relief to close my last business was because I didn’t have the pressure of showing up on social media any more. I’m happy to create content for my training and coaching work, and I don’t mind sharing the odd story on my personal account, but the freedom that came from not having to “sell” on social media was sweet…

In my training work, I had a profile done which examines my unconscious motivators and triggers and I now know that one of the reasons why I struggle with social media is that inauthenticity is a personal trigger; it pushes my buttons and can nudge me in to “shadow self” (hint: not me at my best). So how do I find The Space Between feeling pressure to post in a space I feel is divisive and superficial, and also to have a presence so that the women who need this space can find me?

I guess I’m still finding that sweet spot, and The Space Between will let me figure it out. Last night I was ready to delete my Instagram account and try launching this without any social media support, and today, the musing while I walked the dog, and the pause while I have been typing it out is allowing me the grace to trust the process and know that both things can be true; I can struggle with the lack of real connection on social media AND know that the right people will find me, even if my posts don’t go viral, and I don’t need to pour hours in to trying to create the most mind-blowing posts ever created! What a relief!

I’m looking forward to sharing the odd snippet over there, while conscious that I’m trying to find my space in such a crowded space, and even in that space, so many of the accounts are run by AI (they are so convincing). Meanwhile if you want REAL content, written by a REAL person, sign up for updates, watch this space and I hope you enjoy what you are reading!

Where did it all begin?

Even for my husband and my closest friends, The Space Between has been a bit of a surprise; where was I hiding it, and why did I say nothing until now, what even IS The Space Between and where did it come from? Before I go into what it is (all in good time), perhaps it’s important to know that this has been brewing for quite some time. 10 years after launching my birth and baby business, it was clear to me that the element that I was most attached to was community and it felt like a natural step to launch an online community so that those women whose “babies” were no longer young enough for class still had a place to belong to and receive support in.

In March 2023, all the background work was done, and I was preparing to launch my online community as soon as I recovered from surgery. But the Universe had other plans and the following year saw me absorbed in a cancer diagnosis and treatment plan. During treatment and recovery from such a devastating diagnosis, I chose freedom over familiarity and decided to close my business. I had already dipped my toe back into training and coaching; a career I had been building before Motherhood, and when the opportunity came to go all in, I seized it with both hands and I have loved returning to those roots. As far as I was concerned, the days of supporting women in anything other than a training or coaching capacity were behind me.

As I had such a large community of women who attended my classes since 2013, it’s a regular occurrence bumping into former clients, and I am repeatedly asked the same question, and it’s whether I miss the old classes. Over and over again I heard myself saying that I didn’t miss the classes or the weight of running a business, but that I did miss the community. In my corporate training and coaching, many of the women I support joke that there should be classes for parenting teens or caring for elderly parents, or some kind of space for us to have a rant and solve our problems. The theme keeps recurring and this idea that we need more community just hasn’t gone away. My favourite part of class was always the opening chat about how everyone was, and the hill I’m prepared to die on is that’s really what people paid for; not the baby massage, the nursery rhymes or the yoga, but the safe space and the deep chats.

This idea about community hasn’t stopped nudging me, and the more I scroll social media, the more I see the plan to keep us divided; online everything feels very binary; choose a side, it’s this or it’s that, it’s black or it’s white, we’re right-they’re wrong. During my healing journey (eurgh, that word) I found many communities and spaces to be the same; ‘natural approaches will kill you’ then ‘you’re a sheep if you do chemotherapy’ in the next sentence, natural menopause is amazing and then you’re a fool if you don’t take HRT; so many things feel as if you need to pick a side. I struggled to find many spaces or people to follow where there was balance or space.

The Space Between aims to sit in the gap between this or that. It’s a space where you can bring you and all your contradictions to sit together in a space where others feel the same; it’s not that we can’t have strong opinions or concrete beliefs, it’s more holding a space for people to be able to make up their own minds or to learn to hold 2 apparently contradictory truths at once. I’ll give you one - I absolutely love spending time with other people AND I get really excited when I have the opportunity to be alone. Also, I really enjoy the work that I do AND I love my days off too. I am really excited to finally talk about The Space Between AND I feel very nervous about being “seen”. I have big dreams for what this could become AND I am scared of what that might actually mean. In the last 3 years I have used every coaching, training and NLP (neurolinguistic programming) tool I have known, I have paid for maturation therapy, dance therapy, bodytalk therapy, somatic therapy, reiki, soundbaths, crystal healing, kinesiology, consulted a naturopath, a medium, had my cards read, had reflexology, personal training, read hundreds of books on healing and also had talking therapy / counselling but ultimately the peace & healing has come from stopping the endless quest to “fix” myself or find “the thing”.

My goal is to provide for you the space I feel like I needed several years ago; a space of deeper connection to other women and to yourself, a place where you’re not chasing a fix or striving to become a thing, simply a safe space to pause, reflect on the common challenges we face and to cheerlead each other through them.

I look forward to sharing more as it unfolds, but for now thanks for joining me where it all began…