Nicky Lowe [00:00:00]:
Hi, it’s Nicky Lowe and welcome to the Wisdom for Working Mums Podcast show. I’m your host and for nearly two 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 guests 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 get on with today’s episode. Today we’re talking about a subject that affects far more families than many of us realise, yet one that is still often surrounded by silence, misunderstanding and stigma. And that’s pregnancy and baby loss. Before we begin, I want to acknowledge that this conversation may be difficult for some listeners. Whether you’ve experienced miscarriage, baby loss, infertility, pregnancy complications, or supported somebody you love through loss, please take care of yourself as you listen.

Nicky Lowe [00:01:18]:
This is a topic that’s deeply personal to me. Along my own journey to motherhood, I experienced three recurrent miscarriages, and whilst every loss and every experience is difficult and different, I remember the profound emotional impact of those losses and the grief that came with them. At the time, I was self employed, which meant I wasn’t navigating conversations with a manager or returning to a workplace where I had to explain what had happened. And in many ways that gave me a level of flexibility and privacy that I know many employees don’t have. At the same time, over the years, I’ve watched so many friends, colleagues and clients navigate their own experiences of pregnancy loss and baby loss. I’ve seen the heartbreak, the uncertainty and the challenge of trying to continue with everyday life whilst carrying something so significant and often invisible. And I’d like to dedicate this episode to Olive, the daughter of one of my closest friends who was loved beyond measure and sadly died before she could be welcomed into the world. Olive and I share the same birthday and her memory reminds me why conversations like this matter so much.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:32]:
So this episode is for Olive, her family, and for all the babies who are loved, remembered and never forgotten. What became clear to me through my own experience and the experience of others is that many workplaces simply don’t know how to respond. Managers often want to help but worry about saying the wrong thing. Colleagues may not know what support looks like, and whilst policies are important, they can never fully capture the human experience of loss and that’s why I’m so pleased to be joined today by sans, the UK leading pregnancy and baby loss charity. Together, we’re going to explore the realities of pregnancy and baby loss, the impact it can have on individuals and families, and importantly, what managers, colleagues and organisations can do to create more compassionate and supportive workplaces. My hope is that this conversation offers support and validation for anyone who has experienced loss themselves, or whilst also providing practical guidance for all of us who want to better support the people around us through some of life’s most difficult moments. So let’s begin.

Nicky Lowe [00:03:45]:
So welcome, Jo, thank you for joining me for this really important episode today.

Jo Symanowski [00:03:50]:
Thank you for having me.

Nicky Lowe [00:03:53]:
So, obviously we’re talking about the work that you do with the charity sans. So for people who are listening, who may not be familiar with sans, and the work that you do supporting families through baby loss, can you tell me a bit more about the charity and why this work is so important?

Jo Symanowski [00:04:10]:
Absolutely. We’ve been around since the mid-70s. We were started by two bereaved mothers whose experience of pregnancy loss and baby loss then was hopefully very different to that which people experience today. Historically, it was very much a case of you don’t think about it, you brush it under the carpet. Mothers, parents may not have seen their babies, they may not have known anything about what had happened. And the work that SANS has done since the mid-70s has changed that experience for so many parents. We have our vision, which is a world where fewer babies die and when a baby does die, anyone affected receives the best possible care and support for as long as they need it. And over the decades we’ve changed that semantically, but the core of what we do remains the same.

Jo Symanowski [00:05:04]:
And we have two aims that sit underneath our vision. The first is that we save babies lives. We work towards that aim in a lot of different ways. We take part in, we fund, we support parents through, we disseminate and share a lot of research. Possibly one of the most familiar ones people would be aware of would be around the dangers of smoking during pregnancy. And we hear less about that out in the world, but actually we’re still working upon that and helping to support mums and birthing people to, you know, give up the siggies during pregnancy. So that’s one big piece of work that we do. We tirelessly hound whoever the sitting governments are of the four nations, again, looking at how we can change the outcomes for pregnancies and for babies and for families, and we tirelessly hound them.

Jo Symanowski [00:05:58]:
We also work really closely with the NHS and medical practitioners Looking at how we can change policy and practice to improve outcomes for families and for babies. We then have our second aim, which is that we support bereaved parents and families for as long as they need it and making sure that they have really good quality bereavement care. Again, we have a lot of different ways we do this. We have our helpline, which is there for anyone affected by the. The loss of a pregnancy or the death of a baby. So it doesn’t mean that you need to have experienced a loss personally to pick up the phone. It could be that it’s a friend, a family member or a colleague or somebody you’re managing. You can pick up the phone or drop us an email and one of our wonderful bereavement support officers will support you there.

Jo Symanowski [00:06:47]:
We have an army of befrienders out there who are all people who’ve experienced pregnancy and baby loss, who’ve been trained by SANS and offer peer support. It’s really important. And when you’re in the depths and the rawness of grief, it can be so helpful to have somebody who has walked some of your path, you know, support you through. They run support group meetings, they do them online, they do them in person, and lots of different ways of accessing support. So we have a choir, we do walk and talk sessions because often it’s easier to talk when you’re side by side with someone. We do lots of crafting events and things like that. We also have SANS United, which is a really unique peer support. It’s a football league.

Jo Symanowski [00:07:34]:
Now, it started as one charity match that one dad organized in memory of his baby, and now we have teams all across the four nations. And as one player told me, it’s. It’s great, it’s. It’s support, it’s blokes supporting blokes, and sometimes we play a bit of football, so a really unique channel there. And then we have lots of other things that we do throughout the year. So we, we head up Baby Loss Awareness Week in October and we have memorial events throughout the year and lots and lots of different ways parents and families and concerns, you know, continue the bonds with their babies and access support and continue, you know, to carry their grief forward, really, I guess. But if anybody wants any more information on that, just go to our SANS website. They’ll find a multitude of information there.

Nicky Lowe [00:08:28]:
Wow, I didn’t realize, actually, the support you offered was so comprehensive. So thank you for kind of giving that overview. And there’s a couple of things that you said there that I just Wanted to clarify, we’ve talked about both pregnancy and baby loss and I know that before we hit record you said actually the preferred term. Would you mind talking about that and why that that might be.

Jo Symanowski [00:08:56]:
Yes. So we, we use the term baby loss. Baby loss is a global term which people recognize to include all forms of pregnancy and baby loss. However, some people who’ve maybe experienced miscarriages and earlier losses can sometimes feel that that term doesn’t necessarily apply to them or they don’t identify with it, with their situation. And I just really want people to understand that if we do just say baby loss instead of pregnancy and baby loss, we are including all experiences. Sans is here for anyone affected by the loss of a pregnancy or the death of a baby, whether they experience stillbirth, neonatal death or early miscarriage or even a later miscarriage, maybe termination for medical reasons, sudden and unexpected death of an infant, you know, accidental death. There’s lots of different experiences and baby loss is an umbrella term that covers them all. So I just really like anyone listening to know that we recognize and we are here for all experiences.

Nicky Lowe [00:09:56]:
Thank you. That’s really important to kind of frame before we go into this conversation. And sadly I know that this is an experience that far too many people have had to navigate. Are there statistics around kind of how many people we think may kind of have had to walk this path?

Jo Symanowski [00:10:19]:
Yeah. So we know that at least 15% of all pregnancies disease end in miscarriage. That’s a low end estimate. It’s a really hard number to pin down for a few different reasons. One, not all miscarriages are known, you know, and then not all miscarriages are medicalized. And then the ones that are medicalized, each hospital trust in each area, each nation records differently and in different ways if they record at all. So that’s again hard to pin down that number. So, so we work closely with Tommy’s, we have a joint policy unit with Tommy’s pregnancy and pregnancy and baby loss charity and the very clever stat Y people.

Jo Symanowski [00:11:03]:
It’s not me, that’s not my brain. They at Sans and Tommy’s, they looked at stats across the uk, Europe and North America, so where care is comparable and that’s where this at least 15% has come from. You’ll hear other numbers like 1 in 4, 1 in 3 maybe, but we’re very evidence based at Sans. So we go with what the numbers tell us. We know that four and a half thousand babies, again lower end, are either stillborn or die neonatally each year. Within the UK, 180 babies each year die of sudi, which is sudden and unexpected death of an infant, previously known as cot death or sids. If you’re my sort of age, you might recognize those deaths terms. And then one stat that we do we refer to a lot, and I think it’s really important when we’re thinking about loss in the workplace, is that at least 50% of UK adults have said that they have somehow been touched by pregnancy loss or baby loss.

Jo Symanowski [00:12:05]:
So that again, that doesn’t mean that it was they that experienced it directly. It could be a family member, a friend, a colleague, but that’s half of our adult population, so that’s half of our workforce. I’ve been focusing on bereavement in the workplace for the last few years, and anecdotally, I know that when one person shares a loss, more people tend to come forward and share their own losses as well. So conversations like this are so important to let people know that it’s okay to talk about this and it’s a taboo that we need to bust. Really?

Nicky Lowe [00:12:43]:
Absolutely. And that actually brings me on to my next question about it being such a taboo. What do you think drives so much? I suppose silence around this.

Jo Symanowski [00:12:54]:
It’s a really difficult subject to talk about. It’s incredibly emotive. People worry about saying the wrong thing, people worry about putting their foot in it. People worry that they’re going to remind the that the parent or the family member that the baby died or the pregnancy was lost. And if there’s one thing I can say now, trust me, you won’t be reminding them because they’ve not forgotten. It’s often a real gift to have somebody you know remember or gently and compassionately use your baby’s name or something along those lines. There’s still a number of cultures where baby loss is taboo and you don’t talk about it. I could go off on a whole rant about how I blame the Victorians for sort of sanitizing us and removing us from death.

Jo Symanowski [00:13:41]:
You know, we still avoid talking about loss, but then when we add in loss, which goes against the order of things, it becomes even harder. We do training around pregnancy loss and baby loss, and within that we talk a lot about how isolating it can be. I only recently, earlier in this year, was chatting to someone who shared the story that they were getting ready for building up to return to work after their loss and their partner was leaving and they just happened to look out the window because they wanted to wave him goodbye and they Saw their neighbor over the street, open their door, see their door open, and quickly go back in the house and not come out and say anything. All the neighbor needed to do was just wave. You know, people worry that it’s. It’s a big conversation that needs to happen, and it’s not. It’s just, I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sorry this has happened.

Jo Symanowski [00:14:39]:
And I always say if there’s. If there’s one line that people take away from my training, it’s, I’m so sorry this has happened. I don’t know what to say. I wanted to say something, though, because that breaches that loss, that breaches the taboo. I’ve got a quote up here from Parker Palmer, which, if it’s okay, I’ll just read, which is, the human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed exactly as it is. I’ll share some links, share some video links with you at the end of this.

Nicky Lowe [00:15:10]:
My mouth just dropped open and that is such a beautiful quote.

Jo Symanowski [00:15:14]:
Yeah. We can’t fix pregnancy loss and baby loss. We can’t take the pain away, and we shouldn’t try to. What we’re looking to do is just walk side by side on a small portion of the person’s grief journey. We don’t get over the loss of a loved one. We don’t get over the death of our baby or the loss of our pregnancy. And that sounds quite depressing. What we do do, and this is where the hope comes in, is that we process our loss and we learn to carry our grief with us throughout our lives.

Jo Symanowski [00:15:50]:
So by having somebody say, I’m sorry this has happened, you know, and just recognizing it, acknowledging that loss and just allowing us to feel our pain and carry our grief, that’s how we support people. Not by suggesting that they go off and do something fun to forget about it or, you know, and it’s never nefarious. People aren’t, you know, it’s human nature to try and make people feel better, but actually, just letting people know that I see your pain and I recognize that that’s what’s truly. It is lifelong. There’s an expression in the baby loss world which is, there’s always an empty place at the table. And it’s really easy to think and really focus on the return to work, you know, in that. That. That early days, that first year, that there’s an expression that, you know, a year and a day and it all starts to get easier, and it doesn’t it doesn’t.

Jo Symanowski [00:17:34]:
It’s totally individual. Everybody’s experienced everybody’s loss. It’s very individual and very personal to them. So it’s about just thinking and checking in. And, you know, grief can be very heavy. It can be very exhausting. It can can, you know, drain all of the energy from the body. So it’s about thinking when somebody has shared with you that they’ve experienced the loss, that, yes, we need to support you now, but what can we do long term? How can we think about supporting people long term? One of the tricks I always tell to managers and colleagues is use your electronic diary.

Jo Symanowski [00:18:11]:
Make a note in it of baby’s birthday, baby’s anniversary, you know, whatever an important date is to the, to the parent or the grandparent or the aunt, the uncle, whoever it is you’re working with, whoever you’re supporting, just make a note in your electronic diary, mark it as private and then mark it as annual. And that just means that each year you, you can just. And it’s not a big check in, it’s a team’s message saying, thinking of you. It could be, you know, a WhatsApp message. Just like, you know, if you want to grab a coffee today, I can make time. You know, one of the parents that we share a video with in, in our training, she says that she has colleagues that just send her a heart on a message that. And that’s all it is. She doesn’t reply to it most of the time, but she just knows by receiving that message that somebody is thinking.

Jo Symanowski [00:19:02]:
And then there’s other things that we can think about. You know, there’s certain times of the year, Mother’s Day, we’ve got Father’s Day coming up. You know, they can be really difficult for people. Then there’s other factors like, you know, coming up the fifth birthday and starting school and, you know, other people sharing that. And then a real big one for me in the workplace is around other people’s pregnancies and children. And we never want to take the joy away from that. That’s not something we want to do, but we need to think about that 50%. So let people know it’s okay to opt out.

Jo Symanowski [00:19:39]:
You know, you don’t have to sign the cards, you don’t have to put into the collection if you don’t want to. Or there may be quieter channels for you to be able to do that. And then another one to think about is the, is the office baby showers. Don’t hold them in the office because you may have people that you don’t even know who’ve experienced loss, who feel the need to avoid work that day, who feel bad about how difficult this is going to be for them. So office baby showers, you know, have them in a park or a coffee shop or something where other people don’t have to go, oh, I can’t cope with that. I’m going to put a sickie, because that’s not great for anybody. But just remember that the loss is lifelong. And just because you can’t see doesn’t mean that people aren’t still grieving and aren’t having a hard day.

Jo Symanowski [00:20:27]:
You know, we’re very good in the uk. Stiff upper lip and, yeah, I’m okay. How many times have we all said we’re okay when we’re not? So just bear that in mind.

Nicky Lowe [00:20:38]:
I think there’s so many powerful insights in there, Jo, and I think that particularly that piece you said about it’s lifelong. You know, how easy it is as somebody that might be slightly removed from the situation to go, right, we’ve got them back into the workplace, they’re back into their role, like, we can now move on somehow. And of course, life does go forward, doesn’t it? But never in the same way. So just that being gentle with that whole journey and those key moments, as you said, I think there were so many powerful ones that you’ve said in there that hopefully will trigger for people. So what are some of the ways that you can support somebody beyond that? So I love the piece about putting a note in the diary because it is so simple, yet I’ve had people acknowledge my grief years later and you’re like, oh, my goodness, like you, it’s not just me carrying this, it’s, you know, you feel seen and validated. What might be some other insights that you could share, particularly for the workplace, whether somebody is a colleague or a manager.

Jo Symanowski [00:21:47]:
Yeah, I think one of the things. I spent 25 years in corporate learning and development before I came across to Sans. And in that time I spent a lot of time training Kubler Ross’s stages of grief. Can we please throw that out the window? Not knocking Kubler Ross, she has come out and said, you know, that it’s not linear. Grief is not linear. We ping around within those emotions. So it’s that thinking about the lifelong thing. But then there’s things that you can do to become a supportive worker place.

Jo Symanowski [00:22:19]:
So, for instance, having a pregnancy and baby loss policy, having a separate policy that sits outside your maternity policy. I’ve spoken to so many parents who’ve had to trawl through the maternity policy to find the paragraph that relates to their loss. And that hurts that that can, you know, can be quite cutting, have a policy make it really easy to find. People shouldn’t have to ask where the policy is. One of the big reasons we say that is quite often people haven’t disclosed their pregnancy. You don’t have to disclose a pregnancy in Most roles until 15 weeks before your due date. Now I say most roles, we’ve got frontline emergency services, working with chemicals, etc. But for most of us we don’t disclose until 15 weeks before our due date.

Jo Symanowski [00:23:11]:
And so many colleagues and managers have said to me that the first I knew that the person I was managing was pregnant was when they told me they were experiencing miscarriage. Or people saying to me, I’ve experienced a miscarriage and I haven’t told my manager I was pregnant. And I just want to know what I’m entitled to. So having that policy and keeping it separate, making it really easy to find. Quite often it might be three o’ clock in the morning when they’re logging into your intranet and just want to know what’s going on. So bear that in mind and then think about things that might impact the ability to work. So so many parents want to return to work for the normalcy of it, you know, it’s, it’s so when during COVID there were a few terms that popped up that we’ve been talking about a lot. New normal, new version of people.

Jo Symanowski [00:24:04]:
So the person returning to the workplace is a different person to the one that left, whether that’s miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death. And parents often talk about they feel like they’re trying to navigate an alien landscape. And even if they’ve worked with you for years and it’s, you know, so many places, you know, it’s like family at work. But it can feel really daunting, really nerve wracking. So when we’re talking about return to works, meet outside the workplace. When we’re talking about arranging it again. Parks are great. Walking side by side can be really comforting.

Jo Symanowski [00:24:41]:
Or maybe a coffee shop, just somewhere neutral, away from the office, from the desk. Think about what a phased return might look like. And that’s different in every role in every workplace. I don’t know anyone that has spare staff and spare hours. So we need to think about how we can navigate this in, let people change their minds when you’re roaring grief. Brain fog is real and we now have support. So research that Supports. Brain fog is a real thing.

Jo Symanowski [00:25:14]:
And when people are grieving, it can really feel like you’re wading through treacle. So break it down, make it easy to understand, give people options and time to mull those options over and let them change their mind, ease them gently back in. So, you know, when we’re thinking about a return to work, those first few days, we’re thinking about really easy wins. One dad said to me that on his first day back in, his manager said, you know, just go through your emails, delete the dross and just have a look. I don’t want you to do anything with any of them, but just, you know, go through. And he said that at first that sounded quite patronizing, but by the end of that day, he said it was the first time in months I felt I’d achieved and I’d done what was asked of me. And he said there was a lot of dross in there. He’d been off for sort of, you know, four months.

Jo Symanowski [00:26:08]:
There was a lot in there, he said, but just that simple act of just going through an inbox really helped bring him back in, but with no pressure. Be aware that some people may return and then may need to go off again. So it’s about flexibility and about understanding.

Nicky Lowe [00:26:24]:
And I know obviously you do corporate training. What are some of the things that you see organizations do really well in this space. So the organisation that you go, okay, you can tell, you really care and you really get this. What have been some of the best things that you’ve seen.

Jo Symanowski [00:26:41]:
Do it before someone experiences a loss. So you can be really proactive about this. You can bear in mind 50% of your workforce have been touched by pregnancy loss or baby loss or will be in the coming times. So think in advance. What does a supportive workplace look like? Well, it looks like we have a policy in place and if anybody wants a template policy, please let them get in touch with me because I can help out there. It’s about having trained your staff. It’s about, we offer management training. We also offer training for colleagues.

Jo Symanowski [00:27:22]:
And it’s about people thinking in advance. If this happens to. I hate the word subordinate, but if this happens to someone I’m managing or someone I’m working with, I want to be prepared for this, not reactively dealing with it. It’s about making an environment where it’s okay to talk about what’s going on in life, you know, and that’s not just pregnancy and baby loss, that’s all other loss, but that’s other factors. You Know, like menopause, like people going through medical stuff and, you know, just being a compassionate environment, really, and thinking compassionately. Some of the organizations that are doing great stuff here, they have either mental health first aiders and again, just a little pitch. I can do some work with mental health first aiders on a baby loss, pregnancy loss, angle a lot of organ, not a lot, but some organizations will have peer supporters. And again, we offer training here.

Jo Symanowski [00:28:27]:
So getting people within the organization who’ve experienced loss and feel able to support others, we can train them so that they know a little bit of what to say and how to support people and think about their own boundaries and things as well. And then there’s other factors to think about, like if I work from home, so it doesn’t impact me. But if you’re in an office environment and people have desks and they’re putting up photographs of their children, where does that stand with people whose babies died? Because all of those parents are equally as proud of their children, whether they’ve got the pictures of the first day of school or whether they’ve just got those few precious memories that they could make. So thinking about these things in advance, you know, what’s our policy on photographs? Where do we stand on talking about this? How can we enable each other, to support each other?

Nicky Lowe [00:29:24]:
Because, as you say, there’s no right

Nicky Lowe [00:29:25]:
answers to those questions. I’m imagining.

Nicky Lowe [00:29:27]:
But it’s about creating the environment where you can have the discussions in that compassionate way.

Jo Symanowski [00:29:33]:
Absolutely.

Nicky Lowe [00:29:34]:
So much wisdom in this. Like, I. Yeah. My hope is that every organization, I mean, just as you said, put this in place before. You need to. Like that for me, is just such a fundamental. Because if you don’t, you’re going to be on the back foot. And then there’s the risk of all of the unintended but potentially really harmful impact of not being best placed to navigate this with such compassion.

Jo Symanowski [00:30:02]:
The one thing I would say for those that I’ve worked with that haven’t done it proactively, those who’ve done it reactively, each and every person I’ve spoken to who has worried about doing the right thing is usually doing the right thing. If you, if you’re worried and you’re concerned about what you’re saying and how you’re saying it and things, then you’re already in that compassionate space. So I just want anyone who’s listening to this, who’s thinking, oh, we haven’t done it proactively. You know, you’ve, you’ve. If you’re thinking about it, you’re concerned about it, you’re worrying about it and you’re in a compassionate space, then that’s okay as well. I don’t want people to beat themselves up retrospectively.

Nicky Lowe [00:30:42]:
Thank you, Jo. So you’ve covered so much here and you very kindly kind of said that you can signpost to other information. For people that want to find out more about SANS and some of the specifics that you talked about, whether it be training, whether it be this template policy, where would you direct them to? Where’s the best place to find?

Jo Symanowski [00:31:03]:
So www.trainingans.orguk that will take you to our training website. It’s all going to move in the future, but that’s where it is right now. And in there you can see there’s a lot of different tabs. There’s one that’s bereavement in the workplace. Go into there and it gives you the information about the different courses. So whether it’s colleagues, whether it’s managers, can also direct you to an E learning module that we have that you can buy straight away on our website. It’s £25 per person and it’s about depends how long, how in depth, so it’s usually about 20 minutes. It’s got some scenarios in there to help you think about different experiences and how you would work and support that individual.

Jo Symanowski [00:31:52]:
I went through all of the scenarios really in depth, so it took me about 30 minutes, but it’s 20 to 30 minutes and that can really help people with learning as well. There’s also some resources on that website too, and it can also bounce you back to the SANS website where you can learn a lot more about the work that we do. Signposting is really important and something I haven’t touched on before is, you know, whether you’ve got a fancy intranet or a poster by a kettle having some signposting information to sans or to other organizations that can support, you know, if you’re thinking about loss generally, I would probably put Cruise on there as well. SANS on for pregnancy loss and baby loss, but there’s a lot of organizations out there that can support and making that information really easy to find again, is useful. So I’ve been working with large firms with really fancy wellbeing portals and all of this. I also worked with the hairdressers who literally printed our information out and put it by their kettle. And it’s about thinking what’s practical and practicable within your workplace. If anybody wants to talk any of that through, just drop us an email trainingans.org.uk that will get passed on to me and I would love to talk to anybody who’s listening about how we could support you, your colleagues, your workplace.

Nicky Lowe [00:33:13]:
Thank you, Jo and I appreciate you coming and sharing all of that information and also the just the really important work that you and the charity is doing in the world. And thank you. I’m in awe of how you’ve taken

Nicky Lowe [00:33:26]:
your own pain and turned it into such purposeful work.

Nicky Lowe [00:33:29]:
So thank you and thank you for your time today.

Jo Symanowski [00:33:32]:
No, thank you very much for having us. And our strap line is we’re always there.

Nicky Lowe [00:33:36]:
And we are before we close this episode, I’d like to invite you to take a moment for yourself. Today’s conversation explored a deeply emotive topic, and whether this discussion touched on your own experience or those of someone you care about, you may be noticing that it’s brought up something for you. If that’s the case, please know that’s completely understandable and I’d like to invite you to perhaps take five minutes before rushing on to the next thing. Take a few slow breaths, perhaps make yourself a cup of tea, step outside for some fresh air, or call a friend, or maybe write down a thought or feeling that surfaced for you. Whatever feels supportive and nourishing right now, These conversations matter, but they can also ask something of us emotionally. So as we finish, I simply want to encourage you to go gently with yourself and wherever this conversation has met you today. Take care and I’ll see you next time. If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Wisdom for Working Mums, please share it on social media and with your friends and family.

Nicky Lowe [00:34:43]:
I’d love to connect with you too. So if you head up over to wisdomforworkingmums.co.uk you’ll find a link on how to do this. 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.