Nicky Lowe [00:00:06]:
Hi. It’s Nicky Lowe, and welcome to the Wisdom For Working Mums podcast show. I’m your host. And for nearly 2 decades now, I’ve been an executive coach and leadership development consultant. And on this show, I share evidence based insights from my coaching, leadership, and psychological expertise and inspiring interviews that help women like you to combine your work, life, and motherhood in a more successful and sustainable way. Join me and my special guest as we delve into leadership and lifestyle topics for women, empowering you to thrive one conversation at a time. I’m so happy that you’re here, and let’s go on with today’s episode. Welcome to this episode of Wisdom For Working Mums.

Nicky Lowe [00:00:49]:
I’m your host, Nikki Lowe. And I wanted to share something with you that might sound a bit strange. For a long time, I’ve said that if there was ever a fire in my house, the one item, besides my family and my dogs and, obviously, loved ones, that I’d want to rescue is my kitchen table. And I know that sounds a bit odd, right? And I appreciate the logistics of dragging a table out of a burning house are probably impossible, but the thought is important because of what it represents. You see, my kitchen table has been a witness to so many, I suppose, precious memories. It’s where I’ve hosted family and friends. It’s where every year for the past 20 years, I’ve welcomed loved ones for Christmas day since my mum passed away. It’s where my husband proposed.

Nicky Lowe [00:01:46]:
Yeah. True story. He proposed at our kitchen table when I was in my pyjamas with gravy down the front of me. And it’s a funny story really because he had tried to propose a few times on holidays we’d gone over the previous month. He’d got the ring and we’d gone kind of abroad, but somehow he’d bottled it. And I suppose it was a reminder for me that it’s a really courageous and vulnerable act for someone to propose. So even though we’d been together for 15 years when he did propose, it still kind of felt a really vulnerable thing for him. So the week before Christmas back in, I think it would have been 2,009, he came home from work to find me knee deep in flour and icing sugar, and this was actually a rare occurrence.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:37]:
Literally, the kitchen looked like a bakery had exploded. I decided that I wanted to bake my neighbors some Christmas cupcakes and brownies. I think I was in my domestic goddess place where I’d read some Christmas Your Home or Home and Garden Magazine, and I’d seen these, like, oh, you can do these beautiful Christmas gifts for friends. And it had fooled me into believing I was that domestic goddess or at least I was aspiring to be one. And the idea of it was actually better than the reality. I’d got myself stressed because because my overfunctioner was kicking in. I wanted the cupcakes to be perfect, and they weren’t. And I’d created so much mess in the process, and it was really stressing me out.

Nicky Lowe [00:03:23]:
So when my husband came home to the carnage, he kind of said to me, look. Just I’m gonna run you a bath. Go and chill, and I’ll tidy this all up. When I came down a little while later, kind of a bit more chilled, but in my pajamas, hair scraped back, no makeup on, he’d not only tidied the kitchen, but he’d kinda cooked this amazing meal. And at the end of it, he got down on one knee at our kitchen table with our dogs by his side to propose. It was actually really beautifully romantic and the total opposite of what I’d imagined a beautiful proposal to be like. You know, me in my pajamas with gravy down the front of it wasn’t part of my, kind of, imagined proposal. So I share that just to tell you that my kitchen table holds so many important memories for me.

Nicky Lowe [00:04:15]:
It’s where I process the weight of grief after losing both my parents. It’s where I’ve weaned my children from, like, in a highchair, like, wanting them to eat healthy meals, and it’s still where I connect with my family every single day. So my kitchen table has seen me through the highs and lows of life, And for me, it represents a place of connection, resilience, love, and it isn’t just a piece of furniture. It’s a metaphor to the place I feel most safe and to the people who’ve filled my life with meaning. So last year, when I first read Michelle Obama’s book, The Light We Carry, I was really surprised when she has a chapter called my kitchen table’, and I realized I wasn’t alone in this concept of my kitchen table being so vital and meaningful. So inspired by Michelle Obama’s idea of the kitchen table, today we’re going to explore who’s sitting around your kitchen table. And I don’t mean literally, I mean metaphorically. Who are those people who give you strength and who listen, who are truly there for you? And how do we cultivate those connections to support us, and women, and as working mothers? So in her book, Michelle Obama shares how she’s consciously cultivated her kitchen table.

Nicky Lowe [00:05:40]:
She talks about actually growing up and the importance of the kitchen table in her home. It was the place she was always allowed to be herself, where her feelings, no matter how silly they may have seemed, were kind of not squelched. She shares that although her kitchen table was small, so her kitchen was small, the kind of room, The comfort and the security that the kitchen table gave her were vast. It gave her this sense of safety, belonging, and kind of like a caring ear that, like, her parents and her grandparents would give her. So what is the kitchen table? You know, Michelle Obama’s metaphor speaks to really the deep and, I suppose, intimate relationships that fuel and ground us. They’re the people we turn to for encouragement or perhaps perspective or even just to share a laugh with. So as I’m saying this, I wonder if you can think who sits at your table. You know, these are the people who make space for you to be fully yourself, who listen, maybe uplift you and keep you aligned with your true values.

Nicky Lowe [00:06:50]:
And I remember listening to Oprah Winfrey interview Michelle in a Netflix kind of 1 hour documentary promoting her book, The Light We Carry. And Oprah shared, like, this really funny but insightful moment that really, kind of, I suppose, illustrates the challenge of building your kitchen table. So Oprah tells the audience that Barack Obama personally called her up from the White House when he was president, asking if she could help him to arrange Michelle’s 50th birthday party for her closest friends at Oprah’s house in Hawaii. And Oprah kind of says, you know, when the president of the USA calls you up, you, of course, say yes. And she also said yes because she said, I I when I think about people having closest friends, those people that are closest to you, you don’t have very many. So she says, like, I’ve only got Gail. And if you follow Oprah, you know, for years, her best friend is called Gail. And she says, I only have Gail as my closest friend.

Nicky Lowe [00:07:50]:
So I assume this would be a really, really small party. But when Barack Obama turns around to her and says, actually, there’s 12 of her closest friends that I’d like to invite, Oprah says she kind of fell off her chair because she joked with Michelle. She says, I don’t know anybody who has 12 close friends apart from Jesus, and one of those betrayed him. And it was a lighthearted way to really highlight a deep truth that while our social circles might look large, and particularly in social media times, they can look even larger, on the surface, truly close and reliable friends are really quite rare and precious. And Michelle goes on to explain how she really is so intentional about cultivating and sustaining her friendships. She shared that, really, out of those 12 people, she has a few friends from her childhood, a few friends from college that she shared a room with, friends from her time as a lawyer in Chicago, a few friends from when her daughters were little and they perhaps went to kind of baby groups or toddler groups. And she also shares she’s got a couple of friends from Washington when she moved to the White House that were really important for her kind of integrating into that big kind of life as, kind of first lady. And Oprah’s comments also reminds us that we don’t need a huge circle to feel supported.

Nicky Lowe [00:09:15]:
Often the people who matter most in our lives are few in number, but they’re really kind of so it might be low quantity, but they’re high quality. You know, they’re rich in meaning. They’re the ones who sit around our metaphorical kitchen table. They offer us that genuine support, that trust and love. And so, as I say, rather than striving for the quantity, it’s about nurturing the quality of those essential connections. And I think that’s, as I say, even more important in a world that values that popularity of social media followers or friends. Our strength comes from those who genuinely stand by us, who genuinely know the realest astro goals, as well as kind of our brilliant moments, and who remind us that we’re not alone. So as I’m sharing this around the kitchen table, I want you to think, who are those few people that really give you those meaningful relationships, those people that truly have our back.

Nicky Lowe [00:10:14]:
And I want you to think about this in a really serious way. And I what I mean by that is in her book, Michelle shares how she can be really serious about making friends, but even more serious about keeping them. She tells stories about how she’s, like, the she’s relentlessly the one that kind of organizes getting her friends together, and she does it in quite like a military sergeant drill way because she says, when you have children and demanding careers, we can fall into the habit of squeezing things like sleep, fun, and intimacy around the edges of our lives, and the results become inconsistent at best. But we can find ourselves with the very relationships that nourish us slipping away. And that’s a quote from her book and I can really relate to that. You know, in my twenties thirties, I found it really easy to prioritize my friends. I used to have a really vibrant and well connected social life and social connections. And then I had my children.

Nicky Lowe [00:11:13]:
And the time and energy I had available for anything, or anything else really, became non existent at times and rare at best. And in my forties, particularly my late forties, I found that even more challenging. So not only is my life full in terms of a demanding career and, you know, my children’s lives, but also my energy levels in perimenopause, like I haven’t got enough energy just to get through the fundamentals. And so I’m really becoming more conscious of this and really reflecting on it and reflecting on this concept of what is also known as the social convoy. So the social convoy is the group of essential relationships we travel with throughout lives. You know, as I’ve said, those people that provide the support and the companionship and the guidance. And in the convoy, there are people who stay with us over time and others who join for, like, shorter periods, but who bring something valuable along the way. And the convoy can include family members and close friends.

Nicky Lowe [00:12:18]:
They might also be mentors and even colleagues who play essential roles in our life. They’re the ones who celebrate our successes and also support us through our struggles. And it’s interesting that because somebody that I know quite well, my my personal trainer, Tom, he interestingly shares that the people that he thinks are the best friends in his life are not the ones who show up in his struggles. Because he said, actually people tend to know to show up in our struggles. And he said, it’s the people who celebrate our successes that are more valuable. And I thought that was really interesting because I’ve always thought, actually, it’s those that show up in the dark times that are the valuable friends. But he’s really challenged my assumption about that because he said, often people find it comfortable to be with us when we’re not doing so well, but who are the ones that can be comfortable with us when we are doing well? So I share that just as we want friends that who can help us celebrate our successes as well as support us through our struggles, the people that reflect back to us our values and our strength. And like Michelle’s kitchen table, the convoy surrounds us with this deep reliable connection, makes the journey of life easier and less daunting.

Nicky Lowe [00:13:34]:
So again, as I’m saying this, just think who’s sitting around your kitchen table. Because we need to build and maintain it consciously. And I think in today’s world, forming those meaningful connections can sometimes feel harder than ever. Not only is it that our pace of life is so fast, but we live in ways that fuel our disconnection, partly because we’re pulled in so many different directions, partly because as women finding the time and space, as I said, with our demanding careers and the relentlessness of our personal responsibilities. There feels like there’s so little time for connection. But also psychologist Jonathan Haidt provides this powerful insight for another reason, which is due to social media. Hate points out that social media often turns us into performers rather than genuine participants in each other’s lives. So instead of deeply connecting, we’re often curating our lives to appear in a certain way, you know, perhaps only showing the highlight reels, rather than that full or messy picture of who we are.

Nicky Lowe [00:14:39]:
And that people just give us a like or, almost shallow comments on our social media posts. And I really feel that. I’m almost turned away from social media in my personal life. I I use it for my professional life, but in my personal life, I find it really tricky because I do feel that it’s become this really shallow place. And it can mean that we create a space when we’re focused on how we’re perceived rather than who we are or how we’re truly connecting. And Hate talks about this performance driven interaction can sometimes make it difficult to feel truly seen and supported as we’re often filtering our lives to kind of fit an audience expectations rather than sharing that full, unfiltered kind of part of our lives with the people who matter most. And so in contrast, our kitchen table, that real or that metaphorical space where we gather our closest people, is where we don’t have to perform. It’s a place where we can show up as we are without worrying about the likes or the approval.

Nicky Lowe [00:15:41]:
And the people around our table see beyond, you know, what we’re trying to present to the outside world in that kind of curated way. They know the real us with all of our strengths and, kind of, vulnerabilities and imperfections. And that is the kind of connection that fuels our resilience and our true belonging. And I think it’s really important to say, don’t underestimate the impact of our friendships and well-being. I think it’s really interesting that, like, our current culture talks about how important nutrition and exercise is for our well-being, but we don’t always hear the importance of our relationships. And the research shows that they are just as important, if not more important than nutrition and exercise. There’s a famous study from Harvard known as the Harvard Study of Adult Development. And they followed individuals for over 80 years and found that strong relationships were the most consistent predictor of a long and healthy and happy life.

Nicky Lowe [00:16:44]:
So that people with close relationships were not only happier, but live longer with fewer physical health issues as they aged. And that really highlights that it’s not about wealth or success, but rather those close meaningful connections that have the most significant impact on our well-being. And also when we think about mental health, the- there’s a really interesting piece of, research in the Journal of Psychiatry that highlights that individuals with high levels of social connection are less likely to experience mental health issues. And I think we kind of know this, but it should just be useful to have that highlighted back that social support really is that buffer against stress that helps us to process our difficult emotions and build resilience. So the people at our kitchen table are such an important part in this because they truly know and understand us. And also that that social well-being has massive implications in terms of reduced risk of chronic, chronic illness. So social isolation has been found to be a really high link to higher risk of serious health conditions, such as heart disease, blood pressure, and even strokes. And there was an interesting kind of piece of research that was published that found that people with strong social relationships have a 50% higher likelihood of survival over time than those with weaker relationships.

Nicky Lowe [00:18:15]:
And so it really highlights that preventing chronic illness and improving our overall health, how important this is. So it isn’t just about, kind of, a nice to have, it’s essential for living a healthy and fulfilling life. So we need to invest time in nurturing these connections, you know, building our kitchen table, even if it feels like we don’t have the time. And I also wanna share about reevaluating who’s at your kitchen table. So Michelle Obama, in that book, The Light We Carry, talks about how her friendships change as we move through life. She reflects on the idea that while we often think of friendships as being kind of forever, the reality is not all friendships will make the journey with us. I heard her talk about it’s almost like climbing to higher altitudes, where some people may not make the distance or take the altitude as we grow and evolve. And she talked particularly about when she kind of got into the White House, she really had to think about some of the connections she had because as the first, kind of, black family in the White House, she knew that they were gonna be under so much scrutiny.

Nicky Lowe [00:19:24]:
And she said there were some friendships that, unfortunately, some of the life choices they they made or were making just wouldn’t kind of align with her being in the white house and that she had to take that decision. And I quite like the power that she sat in because she said some people just can’t take the altitude. And she didn’t say it in a judgmental way, but just a a kind of a very realistic way. And I think that’s a tough realisation, but it’s essential to be really mindful about who we keep at the kitchen table. And it’s one that I’ve really grappled with over the last few years, and it’s a hard one. I think culturally, we talk a lot about friends being for life and that if we’re a good friend, we maintain all of our friendships. And when I’ve had friendships that I’ve stepped back from, I found myself making myself wrong in that process, questioning, you know, am I really a good friend? Questioning why I’ve not held onto the friendship? And it’s something that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about over the last couple of years. And something that I’ve now come to realise is actually an important part of the midlife evolution.

Nicky Lowe [00:20:33]:
My therapist introduced me to the work of a lady called doctor Sharon Blackie, who is an expert on the midlife journey for women. And she talks about midlife being this disintegration. So disintegration of what was, so the second half of life can emerge and we kind of reintegrate. And Sharon said, as she talks about, it’s as if everything is breaking when actually it’s just changing. Transformation is part of life. And when we stop transforming, we stop fully living, knowing that doesn’t make the time, hard times easier, but it gives them meaning. And I felt like that where friendships are broken down actually is just part of evolution. And I think that’s also reflected in Elizabeth Day’s book, Friendaholic.

Nicky Lowe [00:21:20]:
And in her book, she takes this kind of honest and possibly deeply honest look at friendships, and she explores both, like, the happiness in friendships, but also the complexities. She reflects on her own journey and she calls herself a friendship addict, someone who once believed she needed to maintain as many friendships as possible to feel valued. And through her reflections, really, she opens up about how this led her to hold onto relationships that weren’t always healthy or fulfilling, and how that desire to please and be liked ultimately caused her pain. And one of the central themes in Friendaholic is the grief that can accompany the end of a friendship. And she acknowledges, Elizabeth acknowledges that while, kind of, society prepares you for the grief of loss of a romantic relationship or even perhaps with family, she, I think, brilliantly says there’s relatively little guidance or support for dealing with the loss of a friend. And I think I found that. I’ve gone through grief. And she argues that friendship loss can be just, like, as painful and disorientating.

Nicky Lowe [00:22:26]:
And she talks about especially when a friend who has felt like a soulmate is no longer part of our lives. And she talks about the importance of recognising when a friendship has reached its natural end and that she kind of reframes it, as Elizabeth reframes it, as it’s not about growing apart from friends as a failure, but a reflection of life’s natural revolution and evolution. And as we change, sometimes our friendships don’t evolve with us, and letting go can feel like a loss that really needs acknowledging and grieving. So Elizabeth Day emphasises the importance, just like Michelle does, about these conscious friendships, choosing friendships that truly nourish us. And she also gets us thinking about what’s the quality of the connections and letting go of the pressure to be everyone’s friend and really urges us to embrace relationships that genuinely enhance our lives, because that’s really where the meaningful connection and clarity comes from. So as you think about your kitchen table, I’d also like you to think about that. You know, who’s sitting round that table and are they there just because they’ve been in your life for such a long time? And that’s really, really powerful, but doesn’t always mean that they should be around your kitchen table. And Michelle Obama emphasises that as we grow, it’s natural for certain friendships to shift or fall away, and that’s okay.

Nicky Lowe [00:23:57]:
Part of honouring our own journey is really being intentional about the relationships we nurture and keep close. Because the people around our kitchen table are so important and not every friendship will align with who we’ve become over time. And some, unfortunately, may even hold us back. And recognizing when it’s time to let go is actually a way of making room for new relationships that resonate with who we are today. And so as we think about our kitchen table, it’s worth asking yourself, are the people around it lifting you up or weighing you down? And that doesn’t mean that we turn away from friendships lightly, but it’s about knowing who helps us breathe easier at higher altitudes, those who inspire us to keep climbing. And when we choose these days at our kitchen table, we’re not only respecting our journey, but also creating space for deep mutual connection. So as we bring this episode to a close, I invite you to take some time to reflect on your own kitchen table, Both the physical space that might hold the memories of laughter and tears and life’s big moments, but also that metaphorical one, where your closest people gather. So who do you have around your table? Who lifts you up? Who listens to you? And who truly sees you? And just as importantly, who helps you grow into the person you want to be? Our kitchen table is a sacred space and it deserves to be surrounded by the people who make us feel connected and valued and supported.

Nicky Lowe [00:25:36]:
The people who create those powerful and meaningful kitchen table conversations. And cultivating and curating our relationships isn’t always easy, especially when we are lacking time and energy. And we need to treat it seriously. Like Michelle says, it needs to become a priority, not just for our sanity, but, as we said, for a long and fulfilling life. As Michelle says, your table needs to be deliberately built, deliberately populated, and deliberately tended to. And it might also mean letting go of friendships that no longer serve us. But in being intentional about our kitchen table, you know, those people who we journey through life with, we create a powerful support system that not only enhances our well-being, but adds meaning and resilience to our life. Because nurturing these connections isn’t just about companionship.

Nicky Lowe [00:26:33]:
It’s about building a life that feels deeply aligned with our true selves, where we can show up authentically. So I hope this episode has inspired you to prioritise building and sustaining your kitchen table. Because as the brilliant Michelle Obama says, your kitchen table is where you go for oxygen so you can breathe again. Thanks for tuning in. And until next time, take care. If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Wisdom For Working Mums, please share it on social media and with your friends and family. I’d love to connect with you too. So if you head over to wisdom for working moms.co.uk, you’ll find a link on how to do this.

Nicky Lowe [00:27:19]:
And if you love the show and really want to support it, please go to Itunes, write a review, and subscribe. You’ll be helping another working mum find this resource too. Thanks so much for listening.