Dear All, I hope you are keeping well and being kind to yourselves at this sometimes stressful time of year. I wanted to reach out to thank you for your support so far and update you on the direction of travel for The Village Learning Community. I have been speaking to lots of mums, parents, and professionals working in the UK healthcare system, and have learnt a lot over the last five months since launching The Village. One of the main things I have identified is that there are very few mechanisms available for mums/parents to share their experience of care/experience of becoming a mum/parents (during pregnancy, post-partum and beyond) and for this information to be used to actually improve things for families and make things easier for mums/parents. I have therefore decided that this will be the mission of The Village going forwards. In the new year, I will be working hard to create a platform to listen to mums/parents and to use our collective voice and stories to improve the lives of mums, parents and their families. This is a lofty aspiration and as you can imagine a very complex piece of work. I therefore ask for your patience and your support. I will be closing this platform in the meantime while I work things out. I would love to keep you updated about my progress and to give you the opportunity to share your story/experience if want to contribute to this important work. Please enter your email address here and I will be in touch in due course. No spam and no sales garb. I really hope to catch-up soon. If not, keep being kind to yourself and I'll catch you on the flip-side 😘 The Village Learning Community Instagram - give us a follow!

It's 52 days to Christmas and I have decided that this year will be my year! For the last 4 years I have been sick or had tooth ache or generally just been a bit miserable and feeling sorry for myself. This may have been acceptable in my pre-kid days but with the littles running about super excited, it makes being sick all the more difficult. Over the next 50 days (because I'm letting loose come Christmas eve!!) I will document my journey into understanding how you can boost your immune system to stave off sickness and use my bespoke coaching framework to take action. Want to join me?? Comment 'Yes' below and let's work together to make this the least snivelly Christmas yet!!!

Good morning lovely ladies! In the spirit of collaboration I would like to offer you the chance to decide what masterclass I publish first. This masterclass will be free to founding members (that's you!!)!!

Happy Monday See below your new Focus and Boost activities. *Focus* A core element of the structured Resilience Redefined coaching programme (coming soon) will be to teach people how to reduce the impact of negative thoughts and feelings. It is perfectly normal to have negative thoughts and feelings, in fact we will all experience a range of emotions throughout the day. My aim is not to try and help people get rid of negative thoughts and feelings but to reduce their power so they do not dictate our actions/behaviour. For this Focus activity, I just want you to try and notice what thoughts and feelings you are having throughout your day. Try not to get caught up in the thoughts, or judge them, just notice and continue on with your day. Below, are two more structure activities to help you notice your thoughts and reduce the impact they are having on your wellbeing. *Boost* Try these exercises whenever you notice you are feeling a bit rubbish or you are doing/getting an urge to do something that does not align with the person you identified in the first Focus activity. I've included a reference guide for each practice below. 1. RAIN: Recognise, Allow, Investigate, Nurture - Recognise what is happening; - Allow the experience to be there, just as it is; - Investigate with interest and care; - Nurture with self-compassion. 2. ACE: Acknowledge, Connect, Engage - Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings - Connect with your body - Engage in what you're doing. You can find a reflective log in the Focus and Boost Classroom page. Please complete this as and when you try the activities.

One of the key aims of The Village is to support you to better manage the stress and chaos of life with littles, so you can be the person you want to be and do the things you want to do. Each week I will introduce you to a different tool to enable you to do this. We all experience stress, it is a normal part of being a human being. Stress isn't actually inherently bad for us, and sometimes it can be a great motivator. However, too much stress in one go or prolonged stress over a period of time can cause us harm. The Stress Bucket model (developed by Dr Brabban and Turkington) is a great tool to help you think about what causes you stress, how you can better manage those stressors and what helps you release/reduce stress. It is also a great visualisation to help you understand why sometimes seemingly insignificant things may tip you over the edge. Why sometimes you feel like a study rock and other times you feel like you could just blow away in the wind. Below is my interpretation of this model and some guidance on how you can use it in your chaos. Imagine you have a bucket... - above it are clouds that rain into it and fill it up (things that cause you stress - can be positive or negative)... ...to stop the bucket from overflowing (leading to overwhelm and unwanted behaviours e.g. snapping at partner/withdrawing from friends/losing it with kids/engaging in non-healthful activities ***insert here your particular brand of crazy***), we can... - cover it with an umbrella to slow down the rain (stress management techniques/coping strategies - this is my addition to this model) - fit some taps to drain the rain water (stress reducing techniques/coping strategies) We all have different sized buckets: the bigger the bucket, the less vulnerable you are to stress. The smaller the bucket, the more vulnerable you are to stress. When you become a mum, the size of your bucket may change. We will also have a different number of clouds, different sized umbrellas, different number of holes etc and the water obviously fills up over time so some days we may start with a more full bucket and others we will start with plenty of room to fill (with snot, vomit and continuous noise!).