episode 41 - Lou Shackleton
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Permission to be Human, the podcast. I'm your host, Mel Findlater, mother, coach, and curator of Permission to be Human, the company and community. If you're a mum, know a mum, or want to be a mum, and you crave getting out in the world to make a difference, then you're in the right place. This is a space for mums like you to connect with yourself, your purpose, and your big, audacious dreams.
Because when you feel your best, you can better you, your family, and the wider world. Let's do this.
Today's episode is one that I hold very close to my heart. It's with a really good friend of mine called Lou Shackleton, and I am so excited to share. Her with you and the world, because she is. Incredible.
Lou helps people to [00:01:00] unblock, stuck energy and find freedom in their day-to-day life. At design for life. She dreams of a world where we all have the tools and skills we need to make change happen. For ourselves and others. Uh, her life's mission is to make personal transformation. More accessible and fun.
She not only is doing amazing work now with individuals looking for personal growth. She does a form of coaching through these incredibly creative tools that. I know have definitely helped me along the way. She's I feel like I was kind of her Guinea pig back in the day. And. She's so good at listening and helping people feel heard. And the Lou and I have been on quite the journey together.
And we share a little bit about that today. She was right there at the beginning of my entrepreneurial. I want to change the world journey. So you'll hear [00:02:00] what that was like and what are the core values that we were really digging into there? And Lou and I have done some pretty incredible things. Built communities, supported people through transitions. Created a misfit local event, like so many different things. And we have always had this ability to play. And Lou really brings that out. You'll hear about. How Lou became danger, Lou. And we ended up being in a field. Me dressed up like a robot, the robot of mediocrity and her as super Lou with some friends and so much more.
So I encourage you to listen in. To find a little bit about our history, but also about Lou, who is this? Just. I can't really even describe who she is. Cause it's so amazing. There's no word to attach to her. [00:03:00] Sense of being
we go into some tools at the end of the episode, which I think will help you all as well. She's very good at bringing in quotes and books and all the knowledge that she has collected over the years and the people that she's collected over the years. So have a listen and get in touch with her. If. You're so inclined.
Mel: Okay, hi Lou. Welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have Lou here because I've known Lou for, I don't, I don't even know a number right now. I just want to say donkey's years. Maybe 20? I don't know. Something like that though. Quite a long time we've known, we've known each other and not as close the last few years because we're like on opposite sides of the world but , Lou is full of great information so I'm excited to
Lou: have you here.
It's great to be here. It's very exciting. I get, I love [00:04:00] that we get to have our first catch up in ages, uh, on the podcast. Recorded. Why
Mel: not? Exactly. But I mean, our work and life always kind of intermingled, didn't they? So it makes
Lou: sense for us. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's
Mel: really nice to be here.
Yeah, great to have you. So tell us, tell, for those who haven't known you for donkey's years, tell us a little bit about who is Lou.
Lou: Well, I'm now a mum, which I wasn't last time we met face to face. I'm mum to a toddler who is almost three called Alex. I live in the UK on the northeast coast, which is a relatively recent development just, uh, about 18 months ago.
, that's been a long held. A dream to live by the sea. And, um, in terms of what I do, [00:05:00] I guess I help people make change happen for themselves. And I've done that in lots of different ways, I think over the course of my career, but I started out in, with a degree in psychology. So that's my background in psychology.
And, um, I've also had always had a love of art and design and what I do now kind of sits in between those two things.
Mel: Yeah, I think, uh, that's a great description in terms of what you do, because I've always envisioned this, you just make everything beautiful, you just have this way of like making things look so pretty, but also makes sense, it's like simplifying beauty somehow, um, so that's great, yeah, that, yeah, um, I was actually, like, yeah, I have someone Taking a quick look at your website beforehand and it goes, Oh yeah, that's, that's Lou's design.
Like it's a very specific, um, font and just style to things.
Lou: [00:06:00] Yeah, I was listening to, um, I had some actually before I tell that story, I had someone, um, who used to call me the sense maker in chief at somewhere I used to work. And, um, I know you talked to Nick Heap. That's the story that I was going to say, um, on a recent episode and talked about his approach, the core process.
And when I worked with Nick on mine, it was, um, growing our lives was my core process. And it's kind of shifted and evolved over, over time. And now I tend to say I'm a sense maker. , I help people make choices by making the options clearer by helping make things make sense. So I think, yeah, that really resonates with me too.
In my language, it's about making sense. Yeah, and that
Mel: makes sense completely who you are, you know, everything I know about you. Um, So tell us a little bit about your journey to getting there like to where you are is if you're well firstly No, I'm gonna start that question again, because my first question [00:07:00] is what is the big audacious dream?
And then I want to go journey wise. So what is the big The big, the big dream,
Lou: the big dream is a work in progress. I think, um, I think it's really shifted my idea of what that is. Perhaps that's through getting older, or perhaps it's being a mother. I'm not sure which one, but it's definitely something that, um, yeah, I see it more as a work in progress.
Whereas before, like maybe like 10 years ago. When we were working on other things together, I thought of it more like a thing that you would just know exactly what it is and all the details, and then you would execute it. So at the moment, my big goal is around helping people, uh, live a life well lived.
And there's a, it comes from a quote in a book [00:08:00] called Radical Help by Hilary, Hilary Cotton. , and she has a very specific definition of a life well lived, which is around work. It's about finding and creating good work. And by good work, she means work that offers a decent income and time for the other things in life.
But for me, it's, that's just one piece of the puzzle. A life well lived is, um, finding and creating that work so that there's time for the other things in life, but it's also figuring out what those other things in life might be. Friendships, somewhere to belong, whether that's a community, a family, or both.
Some kind of concept of being healthy, whatever that means for each person, having interests that are a place where you can express yourself and a place where you can have fun and grow. Um, and you know, you, you talk about this a lot, a purpose, a sense of some kind of calling, which, which I don't use in a religious sense.
That means you feel connected to something bigger than yourself. [00:09:00] That's kind of at the heart of everything I do, I think. And my sort of mission is. Perhaps my more, because there's a quite a strong, um, part of me that is interested in social justice. Um, my kind of, My big dream around that is to democratize personal transformation, so everyone is capable of leading a life well lived and figuring out what that is.
It is only fair that everyone should have equal access to that.
Mel: I love that. I hear so much sense of like this sense of belonging, this sense of self. That everybody should have the right to have and be, and yeah, that fits in really well. , for those listening, the work Lou and I used to do together involved a lot of work around [00:10:00] inclusivity and involving people based on their interests as opposed to their disability or ability or background.
And that I can, I can feel it coming through the screen right now, your like sense of that social justice, like that's, I love that you're leaning into that now and are naming that because it's definitely, definitely you and much needed.
Lou: Yeah, and I think that the moment when we met was a really big pivot point for me. Like I'd been. I've become this person who knows about change and how it works by virtue of experience, really, and having gone through some very significant changes in my life that have come from the outside. , but also changes that I tried to instigate and I use the word try to because, you know, when we're trying to make change happen, it doesn't always go the way that we planned.
But, you know, my [00:11:00] husband and I were not married at the time, but we moved to Cambridge, which is where I met you in the UK, and you hired me for my first job. And all of that work is really, you know, woven deeply through the fabric of everything that I'm doing now. Um, you know, even down to the tools that I use now, and I kind of, you know, I was making some notes today about some of the things that we might cover, and I really just went back to thinking about.
That program that we worked on for people where it was helping them to design their life for people that had had, you know, they perhaps hadn't been in a residential home like people in olden days used to be kind of completely separated from society, but they still had been quite segregated and. been on a stream of, you know, going to a special school and perhaps going away to a special college, and then only being involved in activities with other people who had some kind of, , [00:12:00] learning disability or was set apart in whatever way.
And so people who Didn't necessarily have a sense of what they liked and didn't like. And I remember mutual friend Ruth always talking about that, you know, how if someone has had very limited choices in their life if you ask them what they want to do, how can they answer that question. So, the first year of that program was always just about trying things, even if they weren't things that you thought you wanted to try.
So yeah, that was like really a pivotal moment for me. It was my first like proper job. Um, and it opened up a whole new world for me in terms of what it is possible to help other people with and why it's not possible to help other people with and what you can just kind of give them the tools and create the environment and they will.
Help themselves. [00:13:00]
Mel: Yeah, definitely. And that, especially in that context, right? So we were working with people who the language there would be learning disability. We often said learning difference. , But yeah, you're right, there are people who have, have had lives that have been limited in a variety of ways, and giving them that, that choices, , it opened my, that opened my world 100 percent in a similar way.
I don't think you started too long after I did, actually. , so we were definitely on that journey together, uh, supporting people to really Find their place in themselves, like find their belonging inwards first. Right? And then we're working on the outward stuff as well. And it's, it's such a beautiful journey.
And it's so relevant to everybody. Right? So, yes, if, if you only, if someone's only used to being said, do you want an apple or an orange? How do they know these other choices? [00:14:00] Right. And I kind of think of, I think of that course. So we had a confidence course then, which was a lot of that, like, let's go experience these things.
Yeah. And it's actually like top of mind right now for me to, to do. Uh, we used to all talk about it, just deal with, the average person. Like, we all need it. And now I'm like, mums, mums need confidence. We've stepped into this new identity and we're still figuring out how that plays out with our existing and old identity and who are we now.
And um, being able to try those new things out to see what we think of them. Because you know what? I don't like some of the stuff I used to like. I don't, it doesn't sit the same with me anymore. Right? , so, yeah, it's, uh, that was, that was, that was great times, at the, we worked at a charity at the time
Lou: together.
Yeah, and I think, you know, working alongside Ruth, who is just like the absolute wizard. [00:15:00] Yep. Of what she does and watching her create space around people and people who were, you know, the pickiest eaters at the start of the program. At the end, we're hosting, you know, their sort of parents and carers and friends and serving sushi as part of that experience.
That's incredible to be able to create that container around people that they can feel safe in order to make those discoveries and then find certainty in the new choices that they're making.
Mel: Yeah, definitely. And looking back now with the, the different experiences and knowledge and, and learning and growth that I've had since then, I'm sure you have as well, Lou.
You know, I can look back and I can see it through a different lens and be like, well, of course, like we gave them that sense of belonging. And safety where, like, they probably didn't have that in a lot of contexts before. So that's where growth comes from. [00:16:00]
Lou: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And
Mel: then we, um, and I would, I would, I would move on to the belonging that I always felt with our little group of change the world people, whatever we called ourselves, our change the world crew, I think it was, um, we were a gang, I think, a gang, change the world gang.
Yeah, right. It's giving ourselves the, , permission to explore What that meant, what difference did we want to make in the world to feel like we belong to something bigger than ourselves and, um, to experiment, which is really what we did for a very long time. And yeah,
Lou: exactly. And I think that kind of having just talked through the experience working together and doing that kind of work that we were doing.
Um,
that idea of creating a place of safety as being the first [00:17:00] step, a place to belong, I think, is equally valid. In that other example, you know, we kind of, we created that gang in response to outside events where, you know, the project that we loved and the work that we loved to do came under threat and we were all at risk of redundancy and what did we do in the face of that where now when we turned up to work, it was not the fun.
open, , growth focus, like not organizational growth, but individual growth focused organization that we knew and loved every, going to every day with sort of morale had plummeted overnight. So we created this other space. And I don't think we really knew that much about what we were doing at the time.
It was very intuitive. It was just like quite spontaneous. It's just what we did. Yeah, just created a space where we did feel safe, and then from that place of safety, we could be ourselves and [00:18:00] be creative and experiment and explore.
Mel: Yeah. And it makes me think like, so the people listening in now, the question I have for you is, Where's your place of safety and belonging and who are those people and can, can you gather some to create that space for yourself?
Because that's something we needed to do for ourself, really. Um, we were lucky enough to have found each other in a safe container already, but then when, like you said, when it was under threat, we, we kind of went, okay, what are we going to do with this? We need to move this container. Move it over here.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Lou: Exactly. We must protect this container or all costs by taking it out of this
Mel: organization. And pretty much like, well, not quite across the street, but not far from it to the, the cafe slash pub down the street with wine and ginger beer.
Lou: Exactly. I forgot the ginger beer. Yeah. Yeah. [00:19:00]
Mel: We drink a lot of ginger beer.
Now I'm like, oh my God, there's so much sugar. It doesn't help. It doesn't sit in my stomach very well, but back then I did love my ginger beer. Yeah. Yeah. That's
Lou: the difference that 10 years can make. Yeah.
Mel: I know. Right. That's it.
Lou: I can't drink ginger beer anymore.
Mel: Yeah. So that's awesome.
So you have this dream of. It's enabling individuals, no matter who they are, to have this personal growth. And I would say, listening to that, and listening to myself describe that, it's at the individual level so that it's at the societal level. There's, there's like, it seems like there's both kind of going on there for you.
Lou: Yeah, I think that we learned, we learned through change the world, gang. You know, we had audacious goals, right? We, our goal was to change the world. And I think we all realized that the [00:20:00] best place to start with that was with ourselves. Yeah. And I think I've carried that with me since then. Yeah. That, you know, if you focus on yourself and make changes in your own life that are the changes that you want to make for yourself, it's actually kind of infectious and the people around you want to join in and have a taste of the magic too.
Um, you asked before about, you know, kind of how to find other people I think was kind of hinted at within your question. And I think what we did with. Change the World Gang is relatively simple, just bringing a small group of people together and creating a space where you can talk about, you know, if you had a blank piece of paper, that you could Start with what would that what would you put on it?
That's it. It can be that simple. Yeah. [00:21:00] And it can be fun. Like my favorite ones were the were the potluck ones where we just all bought food and we shared food and then we tried. It was great.
Mel: Yeah, food and drink was often this I feel like it's an integral component to conversations. Yeah, in terms of like.
Lou: Sorry. Go ahead. Well, I, cause you asked as well, , about like, what's my place of safety now. Yeah. And I think it is, I think I've learned enough about myself and the world that it is actually myself now, but it's taken a long time to get here. And I do have like a support team of people that I go to that have helped me to get here.
Yeah. Um, but I think now the place of safety is. is myself. And that's like an incredible [00:22:00] realisation to get to that I wish that everyone could have, that that is the safest place you can be, is who you are right now in this moment.
Yeah, that's
Mel: beautiful and, and hits home because there are times when, if I heard you say that, I'd be like, Oh, that doesn't feel very safe right now. Right. Yeah. Um, and I imagine some of the listeners that will be, that will be the case. Uh, so there's this, this bigger question of like, what's the work we do to help make that the case.
So that we are the safest people. Inside ourselves, we are our place of safety.
Lou: Exactly. And I was just revisiting a book that I read when we were first working on Change the World Gang and then what that turned into the You Can Hub, which is called Transitions by William Bridges. And he is really clear about this distinction between change that's going on.
In the [00:23:00] outside world outside of you and change that's going on in the inside world inside of you. So the outside world can be unsafe. And that's what we think of as being unsafe in this moment, but in any, however unsafe the moment is. There is the opportunity to find a place of safety within yourself, even if it's however unsafe you feel, even if it's just reconnecting with your breath for a moment that you can make a big better decision about how, you know, how are you going to navigate or get out of this dangerous situation, but the place of safety is, is inside in the internal world which.
Bridges refers to as like transition is what happens on the inside, change is what happens on the outside. , but now he kind of talks about people being in transition and that obviously has a very specific meaning now that it didn't have like 20 years ago when he published that book.
Mel: Yeah. Yeah. [00:24:00] And then there's the question in there of, okay, so if, if the inside world, if the internal world isn't feeling safe now, like what can we do to help that world feel safe?
And that's a big, like, that's the life journey, I think. And, um, we all get there at slightly different times and it's a lot harder when the outside world is, uh, very loud
Lou: in context. Yeah, or unsafe. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and I last year I worked with a healing coach called Wade Briggs at Ninth Path Coaching.
And I've been kind of like, I had this one realization in my work with him and I've kind of been, you know when you have like one of those insights and it's just such a golden nugget, and it just kind of sits with you in a really beautiful way over a long period of time. And.[00:25:00]
And he sort of said, like, in that moment where you're feeling safe, what do you do? The urge and desire from inside is to do something. Or, you know, to talk back to the negative talk, or whatever else. You know, to respond to whatever that thing is on the inside. And Wade just said, like, what if you did nothing?
You don't have to ignore it, because that's another thing a lot of people do, right? They avoid it, they squish it down, they push it away. But equally, you don't have to agree with it. You don't have to disagree with it because that gives it its own power to you can just kind of go and move on. Yeah. And that's been a really powerful practice for me.
The last kind of like 10 months.
Mel: I love [00:26:00] that. What it reminds me of is, um, when I went to the Good Life Project camp, um, in New York that one year, the meditation practice they did once was around, um, being in a fishbowl. And when you have a thought or a feeling or something, you just notice it as a fish going by and just be like, okay, thanks.
And just like, don't push it away, don't push it back the other way, like it wants to flow this way, just let it flow. And then it just goes out of the bowl or it turns around and circles around and you do it again. Um, that's, that's what, uh, the kind of visualization that is coming to my head when you mentioned that.
Lou: Exactly. You don't have to grab the fish. Yeah. That's the important thing. And I think that's what a lot of us are doing all the time, is either trying to or actually grabbing all the fish. Yes. But you could just watch it go by. Yeah. Give it a little nod. That's it. Yeah. [00:27:00] Yeah.
Mel: I think that's really beautiful.
And there's that, that differentiation between that and ignoring, because you're not ignoring, noticing that the fish is there. , because we can't ignore, ignoring really is grabbing the fish, right? Or at least like punch it out of the way or something like there's no, right? Exactly.
Lou: You're still interacting with the fish.
Exactly. And you don't need
Mel: to. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so tell us a little bit more about your journey. We've gone through your, , doing psychology and then coming to Cambridge and your work in the charity we were working in and then over to our Change the World gang, which turned into The You Can Hub.
And, you know, we did that for a good few years and that was definitely a lot of experimenting and exploring and, , and becoming who we are. Growth, I think, is actually. I think what a lot of those years were, [00:28:00] um, and a lot of fun. Uh, I feel like we should share the fun story of, like, going to a field in a robot costume and superhero capes, just to show people that, like, this growth stuff doesn't have to be boring, right?
Like, it is about play.
Lou: Yeah, it was pretty silly at times. And that's, like, I think a really, really good point because so much self development content now is so serious. Yeah. or earnest, um, in some way. And it kind of often veers into philosophical territory, but yeah, it can be fun. It can be silly. It can be representing your nemesis in the form of a cardboard robot that you go and fight in a field pretending to be a superhero.
Why not? You know, if you had an arch nemesis, what would it be? Yeah. If you had a superhero alter ego, what would it be? [00:29:00] Yeah. These are quite fun questions to ask yourself. Exactly. And, and fun questions, you
Mel: know, the story of that came from a dark, hard place, right? I don't know how much you want to share about that, Lou, but, you know, coming out of a really hard place and asking yourself those questions of like, okay, who do I want to be?
What's my superhero? And, and
Lou: who's my nemesis? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think that There was , so I do a lot of doodles on Instagram now and one of the doodles that I did was the mountain of motherhood and the mountain of motherhood is made up of the sunny side and the shadow side. Both sides are equally important.
And I think that's what you're getting at there is the, the sort of dangerous story was part of the sunny side, and it wouldn't have existed if not for the shadow side, which, [00:30:00] um, you know, it's yeah. It's the kind of story where it's like, where do you begin? Yeah. I think probably for most of my life, I've struggled with anxiety.
Um, and then in, um, 2012, I think it was, my, my dad died after a sort of relatively short illness of about seven months. And it was expected, but also unexpected. And I think that when you're there when someone dies, It really does change you in ways that you will probably never really properly understand or be able to articulate.
And it made me much more aware of my own mortality. , and it also crystallized things that I really wanted to do and things that I [00:31:00] didn't want to kind of waste time on anymore. , and that, that kind of eventually led to Danger Lou after a certain amount of healing. It was like, okay, I'm, I'm ready to take risks now.
And I want to celebrate that and make it fun and silly.
Mel: And so you donned a cape full out costume is a pretty amazing one. Um, I'm sure I can find some links to post to for those that need the visual.
Lou: It was modeled on Danger Mouse, um, which was my favorite cartoon as a kid, I think. Yeah. And, but yeah, it was pretty simple really. And. Then I think danger, I think Danger Lou came first and the robot came later, where we were like, well, what is the nemesis.
[00:32:00] Yeah. And we were like, what's the opposite of kind of living a more adventurous life, which was what Danger Lou represented to me was taking more small risks every day that might add up to big risks. The opposite of that is mediocrity. Yeah. And I think probably that now you know the language that I use a life well lived is.
It's the opposite of mediocrity too. It's not just kind of accepting you a lot, but it's not just, um, sticking with things because you feel obliged to. And going back to core process, one of the other phrases that I come to use myself is rainbow maker. And the idea of that is kind of, I remember when we first started working with Carrie, she said when she worked with us, it was like.
you'd be thinking that there was just two options and then we'd show, [00:33:00] uh, that there was actually a whole menu. And so Rainbow Maker comes from the idea of being a prism where you might start with black and white, a single shaft of white lights, but through the prism, you can create the full rainbow and bring Technicolor to, to life really.
Um, so yeah, I think, you know, I mentioned the Bridges Transitions book before, another book that's really informed my approach and how I think about the world and life is Body of Work by Pam Slim. And I think that's what we're getting at here is like the thread, she would say, that connects everything together in my life.
Yeah. Has been about that sense of like opening things up, bringing clarity in order that then action can happen. [00:34:00] Yeah. I love
Mel: that. And I love the I love the concept of bringing Technicolor, um, because I just got a massive visual full of color in my mind as you said it, and And, you know, and that is what it is.
And with the, you know, with the moms listening in here, maybe it feels a bit black and white right now, you know, it's this or that, and neither of them feel necessarily like good choices or good options for you. And, um, where, what if, what if there's a whole menu of other colors out there? And Technicolor just makes me smile because it's like really playful, so it brings in that other element of it too, right?
So like, what if your, your life could actually be Technicolor? What are the other ones? And I think that's where the big audacious dream thing comes from for me. It's not that it's one big dream you're always going to have in your whole life. It's more that it's, it's just outside of what mediocrity says we have to do, [00:35:00] right?
It's outside of what the limitations are that we put on ourself. Based on the ones that society and culture has put on us. Um, or maybe it's within, but it feels without, right? Like it's, yeah. Uh,
Lou: but there's this whole menu of color. As a, as a mom, it's really easy to feel stuck because you have so many demands on your time and energy.
And you know, if kids are good at anything, it's constantly adapting. So this. Cycles of this are longer now Alex is older, but we found that we would go through a cycle of we really don't know how to handle what is happening right now. We feel like there's a way to respond to it like you know whether it was his sleep or his eating or some of his behavior or whatever, we were like, you know, we can't understand why this is happening.
And we have no idea what [00:36:00] to do, but eventually you'd kind of muddle through and you'd find a place where actually everyone felt more. Blind and happier with things and everyone was kind of more or less getting their needs, needs met, but then you go back around the circle again. And, you know, kids are constantly adapting the thing that they love that got them to sleep last week, every single night, suddenly doesn't work anymore.
Because they've grown and their awareness is higher and they're interested in different things or they have a new preference now. And so that is challenging to navigate and adapt to. And. It's exhausting and you're sleep deprived anyway, so it's really easy to feel trapped that everything is changing around you, but you can't change anything yourself, um, and I'm I'm wary of talking about control when it comes to change because I don't want to create the illusion that we [00:37:00] learn to control change because I don't think it's that at all, but we learn to feel more in control.
And I think a lot of, a lot of mums with the demands that they have on them within their own life and their child and their family life and then society around that mean they feel out of control. Yeah. So it is really important and I was thinking about. You know, which bit is most important, because what we don't want to do is put a load more pressure on mums, like, you know, okay, you feel like you're in this world of mediocrity or black and white or grayscale.
You know, you really should be in a world of technicolor and having fun and connecting with your dreams. That's like putting another layer of pressure on the already highly pressurized union of motherhood, with many layers. And I think really the thing that most mums need the most is space. [00:38:00] And if everybody else in the world knew how to give them some space and could do it regularly, I think that's the one thing that would really help a lot.
Yeah. And that's my one bit of advice, really, I don't tend to give advice, but yeah, it's just to find some space. It's kind of like clearing the ground before you plant new seeds. That's the thing that you really, that is going to be the catalyst. It's just having some space that is only yours, an hour.
That's it. Um, and then what you put in that space will emerge.
I love that, Lou.
Mel: I think that's so good. And I think, you know, your point about the extra pressures of, you know, creating this life of [00:39:00] Technicolor, um, that that's a real reality. Right. That's, uh, for me, for sure, like becoming a mom and, you know, you saw my iterations of all the work that I've done around that it was, and can be, it goes through cycles of like not feeling in control, like you say, of what can happen in my life, but also this pressure I had put on myself of like having to do it all.
Right. Um, and, when we create that space, like when I was in survival mode, that was just pressure because I, there was just, there wasn't space. There wasn't space to do that. And then as soon as I got to the various, uh, points in my kid's life and in our journey together where I could get a little bit more space, then I could start to dream again.
Right? The other dreaming was still there, and it can happen in those early years, for sure, if you can create the space. It's [00:40:00] just harder. It's a lot harder, because
Lou: we're shattered, you know? Yeah, and I think that my son is easiest. When I'm connected with him, which means not thinking about the other thing that I could be doing right now when he's like, you know, he just wants to lie on me for 45 minutes.
Yeah. It's really easy to be like, Oh, I'd started this other thing and I haven't finished it. Like that's something that I've got really good at as a mum is not finishing things. I think I was probably always quite good at that. I'm trying to get better at working out like which are the ones that I really definitely want to circle back and finish.
And how to find the time to do that. But yeah, I think, to sort of give them the message that, you know, you just need to make this technical a life for yourself, takes them away from the present moment, which is [00:41:00] where they're going to find more ease is in connection with what they're doing right now, you know, those newborn years are so intense.
, And the more disconnected you become, the more tired you become, the more disconnected you become, the more disconnected you become, the harder it becomes, the more tired you become, and the harder it is to find your way back to connection. But connection is where the ease is. And Alex, like my son, teaches me this over and over again.
Mel: How old is Alex now?
Lou: He'll be three in April.
Mel: Yeah. Yeah. Aw, it's so nice to see, like, Mumlu. Because I, that's new for me. I don't know Mumlu. So it's nice to have that.
Lou: So I was going to say before when you were talking about moms, is [00:42:00] that no mom's journey is the same, right? Every mom's experience of motherhood is different. But they can kind of, I think we, as I am a mother myself, we can find our way through motherhood by talking to each other about how we're finding our way through motherhood.
But there isn't a framework for that. I have frameworks for lots of things, but I don't have a framework for becoming a mother. Because it's such a unique personal, individual journey. Um, and it's magical and terrifying in equal measure. I think for me, I think a lot of moms feel like they really lose themselves.
I didn't really feel that I lost myself. I felt like myself was always there, but it was pushing up against something that wasn't allowing it to be expressed. Um, [00:43:00] and I took a year off from maternity leave, but then when Alex was about eight weeks old, I was like, I know that I cannot do this. It's just not going to work.
I need to go back to some kind of work. I don't want to go back to the job that I was doing at the time. But I need I need to create that space for myself to work on something that isn't Alex. And so we managed to get together some really good care for him in a quite small window of time. And I think what I found was that motherhood really crystallized what's really important to me and what's not.
And then I felt more driven to focus on the important things. But that experience of motherhood is just so unlike loads of other people's experiences of motherhood. Some people take it completely in their stride and they don't really seem to have a wobble. Other people, they [00:44:00] feel completely lost for ages and then they have a sense of coming back to themselves.
Other people just feel like, you know, they've stepped over a threshold and they're a completely different person afterwards. There's just so many. Different versions of it.
Mel: Yeah, definitely. And that changes and adapts based on age of the child and what's happening in our life. When you have a second child enter the scene or a third or fourth or whatever, right?
Um, you're right. All those journeys are completely unique. And I think what brings them together is that,
well, that they are unique, essentially. What brings them together is that they're different. And that we're all gonna have some sort of a rollercoaster at some point in time. I don't think there are the mums out there that don't have a wobble. Ever. You know, because that's, that's being human. That's,
Lou: right?
Yeah, and I think sometimes it's [00:45:00] a deferred wobble. Like, so a lot of the generation of mums that kind of felt forced to stay at home. Yeah. And then came back to the workplace or when their children left home. That's when their wobble happened. Because there was space for the wobble to happen all of a sudden.
Yeah. Oh, that's brilliant. But the common thing is the trigger for the change, right? That's the thing we all have in common, is that there's this new, demanding, completely dependent human.
Mel: Exactly. That isn't exactly what we thought it was going to be because it's impossible to envision and imagine what that's going to be and how we'll react and how the kid will react and, and all the things that intertwine.
Lou: Exactly. Yeah.
Mel: Excellent. So we're going to start to bring it to a close, Lou. And I'm curious if there's anything else you would like to share with, , so I'm going to start with our listeners in terms of, you're doing some [00:46:00] incredible work, , that I'd love to know more about, firstly, what you're doing right now, , and anything from within that, or just what you know, in terms of tips or tools that might be useful
Lou: for our listeners?
Sure. Yeah, at the moment, the main thing that I'm doing is called Design for Life. And that's something that I created based on work that I'd done one to one. With a lot of different people and it's a program that enables people to make choices about what they want to change in their life and work. And I love this program.
I love delivering it because everyone who comes to it is slightly different. And even where someone might say, well, I want to change my work. The journey that unfolds through the frameworks that we use can be very different. And I called it Design for [00:47:00] Life because. You know, we worked together on UCAN hub and then I took a sort of step away from that.
And I went and worked in design for a while as a business designer. Like when we worked with Carrie, I really kind of got a lot out of lean product development and stuff like, like that. And the kind of design thinking frameworks. Um, and I came across this quote, this definition of design, which is the rendering of intent.
That's the definition of design by a guy called Jared School. And this connects deeply with the work that Nick does on core process. Like basically you choose an intent and then you're trying to realize it. That's what you do when you're in a chair, using a phone. That's what you do when you're designing your life.
And even if you say, you know, well, I don't really want to design [00:48:00] my life. I want to wing it and go with the flow. That's your intent, . Um, and it will guide whether you know it or not. It will guide all the decisions that you make. So why not know what is? Um, and a lot of the tools in design overlap really deeply with the visual planning tools that I learned from our work together right at the beginning when you first employed me.
Um. It's tools that help with decision making that help you to get clarity. Um, so that's what I bring in the design for life program is there's a sub there's a set of tools. I don't use exactly the same tools with everyone, but most people do maybe two or three the same. Um, and it's three or six months and it just helps you to get really clear, more clear on who you are and what's important to you and then understand what that might mean.
The [00:49:00] decisions that you want to make, and it's really important to me that it's applied. So it's not just theory, it's not just self discovery. It's like, how can we learn just enough? How can we get just enough clarity that you can then take action and then come back? Because the action will have shown you something, you'll have learned something.
So what's that? And then the change continues as a process from there. Does that answer your question?
Mel: I think so. Yeah. I love the, , just enough concept, just enough clarity to take action, right? We can often get stuck. I know that's my, that's where I get stuck most of the time is that I need all of the clarity before I want to take action.
Lou: And just like so many people experience that exact same thing. And I've been doing like, since we moved up here, , [00:50:00] well, a big part of my life is yoga, and I discovered this branch of yoga, this style of yoga that where every class starts with an intent, which was just like, well, this is perfect for the work I'm doing.
And the alignment was just spot on. And so with a A yoga teacher who teaches this kind of yoga, we did a vision board workshop in January together, , we delivered it, she led everyone through yoga and a guided meditation, and then I led people through creating a vision board. , and that is a tool that people might use, a vision board crafting, you know, a set of pictures, a set of images, , represent the kinds of things that you want more of in your day to day life.
And when I first learned about vision boards, I remember. I can't remember who it was, but whoever was delivering the workshop said beware the pretty plant. You can really focus on like having everything totally clear and everything totally beautiful before you take action, but that's not how it [00:51:00] works.
It's the increments. Tiny steps, you learn something, you can change direction then, and every step is less loaded than if you try and make one big leap all at the same time.
Mel: Yeah, that's really beautiful, Lou. And it is through the action that the clarity comes, which I remind myself every day.
Lou: Yeah, I draw it like a cycle.
Yeah, I don't think I've shared that one on Instagram yet. It's in the queue. But yeah, clarity drives action, action drives clarity, and on and on.
Mel: Exactly, exactly. So what action can, can we take today, right? Yeah, and what I love about, uh, doing this podcast is that my action is to talk to cool people like you and get clarity and then do it all over again.
So it works very well and it can be as simple as that. Um, it is as simple as that. Right. For, for many people, this podcast seems like a really big action [00:52:00] and it certainly was at the beginning to make that decision. And each and every day, it's just little decisions from there. I didn't know what it was going to be or where it's going to go.
I still don't, you know, I, I changed my mind. I make the clarity, I get the clarity through talking to cool people like you and taking action.
Lou: So, yeah. And I think what you're doing is, um, is collecting guides. People that can show you a way so that you can decide if you want to try that way. And if I was going to give another tip to people, it would be to find a guide or a set of guides that can provide some handholding.
Um, one of my, one of my past therapists used to say that they stood shoulder to shoulder with me. And that's, that's quite a nice image. Someone who can stand shoulder to shoulder with you and who can maybe present you with. You know, some options. Do you mean like this? You mean like this? Um, that you can then [00:53:00] respond to and it just gives you some mile markers along the road of what is the, you know, gigantic messy ball of wool.
That is the change that happened. This happening continuously in our lives. Yeah.
Mel: Beautiful. Now that my, my, my brain is full of wool, I can literally see it in front of my eyes right now. Um, we will leave it at that. Where can people find you, Lou?
Lou: Um, Instagram is a great place at Lou Shackleton. You can find me there with my doodles.
And that also connects to my website, which is loushackleton. com. And that's where there's information about the Design for Life program.
Mel: Brilliant. I love that. And yes, I highly recommend the Instagram route with Lou because doodling is a huge part of your life. And actually, you brought doodles into my life, I would say, as well.[00:54:00]
And, , well, the clarity of what they are isn't always there for mine. It helps me get clarity in my brain by just starting to doodle things. So, um, so follow Lou on. Instagram, Lou Shackleton, I think you said. And yeah, thanks for, thank you so much for chatting today, Lou. It was exciting to, to catch up at this different stage in
Lou: life.
Yeah, it was great to be here and, let's catch up again soon.
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That is it, folks. This has been Mel Finlayder on Permission to Be Human, the podcast, and I am so glad that you have joined us here today and hope that you have taken away some tidbits that will help you go away, connect with your big audacious dream, and make that massive impact in the world that you are dying to make.
If you liked today's episode, please, please, please like it, share it, find Think of one person, think of one [00:55:00] person that you think would also like it and send it on over to them. Let's get this out there and more moms feeling like themselves. Inspired, dreaming big, and out there being them. Please do head on over to find me on Facebook with permission to be human or Instagram or you can even Off me an email and say hello.
Have permission to be human, always, at gmail. com. Say hello and let me know that you listened. What did you like about it? I would love to hear. If you didn't like it, I don't really want to know. Just kidding, you can share that if you want. I would love to know, however. who you are. Let's connect. Let's find out what you want more of.
Yes, this is a newer podcast, so I want to hear from you and I want to make it what would be useful to you. As always, remember that you have [00:56:00] permission to dream big, permission to feel big, and permission to be you. You have complete and full permission to be human. For real. You do.
