Strocel.com Podcast

I am totally inspired by Britt Reints, of In Pursuit of Happiness. In 2011 she and her family embarked on a year-long road trip around America in an RV. To make that happen, they did a lot of planning and saving, selling most of their stuff and enrolling their kids in an online school. When I ran the Crafting my Life online class and I wanted to talk to someone about life mapping, I knew Britt was the one. I was thrilled when she made time to talk with me from the road. And now I’m thrilled to share that interview with you in today’s podcast. As the name of her site suggests, Britt writes about pursuing happiness. In the process she’s open about her journey, her shortcomings and her relationships. If you’ll stop by you’ll see that she writes a lot about personal growth and living a happy lifestyle, and that she has a passion for travel. She’s honest, and easy to relate to. And her experience driving around the US is a great example of how we can make our dreams into a reality. During the podcast, Britt talked about how she decided to set out in an RV, and how she prepared for the journey. I asked her how her kids were faring, and what the best part of the experience had been for her. And we discussed the juxtaposition of being a planner with not knowing where you’ll be sleeping tomorrow night. It was a great conversation, and afterwards I felt like we can all do a whole lot more than we give ourselves credit for. If you could use a little bit of inspiration to follow your own dreams, you’ll want to listen to the podcast: Next week on the Strocel.com podcast I’ll be sharing an interview with Melissa Vose of Mothers of Change. It’s a non-profit group dedicated to ‘birthing better maternity care’. If you’re interested in birth issues, especially here in Canada, you’ll want to tune in. Subscribe to the Strocel.com podcast in iTunes, and you won’t miss a minute! Also, if you have a podcast idea, please share it with me. I’d love to hear your suggestions! *Photo Credit – Jared Tarbell on Flickr

I can’t be the only one who ate my way through the holiday season, and then spent most of January recovering. And, sadly, the older I get, the harder it is for me to recover from my overindulgence. I’ve dutifully spent my month eating more veggies and less chocolate. However, today on the podcast I’m sharing an interview with Van Clayton Powel, author of You Are NOT What You Eat. Van says that, when it comes to digestion, it’s not so much what you’re eating, but how you’re eating it. Digestion is one of those slightly squeamish topics for many of us. It borders on the icky, and doesn’t exactly make for polite dinner table conversation. Spending your time complaining about digestion seems to be the province of cranky, older relatives, and not one that most of us would choose to veer into. But Van makes a very good point when he says that our digestive system is one of the most critical systems in our body. Understanding how it works, and how best to promote your own digestive health, is very important. During the podcast, Van shared his own story, explaining how he healed his digestive system. We talked about modern science and ancient wisdom, and the preoccupation our society has with food. Van is very passionate about this topic, and his enthusiasm was catching. It was really interesting to learn about how different cultures approach food and eating and digestive health. Even though I, personally, have what I would refer to as an iron stomach, I definitely learned some things in speaking with Van. If you’re still trying to get over the indulgences of the holidays, if you or someone in your family struggles with digestive issues, or if you’d just like to learn something, I encourage you to listen to today’s podcast: I’m still working out what I’ll be sharing next week on the podcast. I have several good options to choose from, so I’m playing scheduling Jenga at the moment. I can promise it will be worth tuning in for, however. Subscribe to the Strocel.com podcast in iTunes, and you won’t miss a minute! Also, if you have a podcast idea, please share it with me. I’d love to hear your suggestions!

If you read parenting blogs, the odds are good that you’ve come across Annie, the blogger behind PhD in Parenting. Thanks to her consistent writing, her strong voice, and her relentless advocacy, she’s gained a large and devoted following. When I ran the Crafting my Life online class I wanted to talk to someone about using your voice, and Annie was my first choice. I was thrilled when she agreed to connect for an interview. Today, I’m once again thrilled, as I share that interview with you in today’s podcast. Not everyone will agree with what Annie’s opinions on controversial issues. But anyone can see that she does her research, creates a well laid-out argument, and then promotes the issues she cares about. That’s not easy. If you’ve ever tried your hand at blogging, you know that it takes work, and risk-taking, and time. You also need to have a bit of a thick skin to tackle certain subjects. Annie does all that, and through it all she maintains a voice that is unapologetically her own. You don’t have to agree with her opinions to see strength of her voice and the integrity of her work. More than a year after I recorded this podcast with Annie, I took part in her study of parenting blog analytics. She gave me some suggestions that I actually implemented here, like listing my categories and my popular posts, and creating a Facebook page. If you’d like to know more about how your own blog’s stats compare, check out her post Parenting Blog Analytics: How Do My Stats Compare? If you’d like some inspiration for using your own voice, or some ideas for building a platform of your own, you’ll want to listen to the podcast: Next week on the Strocel.com podcast I’ll be switching things up, as I share a conversation with Van Clayton Powel, author of You Are NOT What You Eat. If you’re still trying to get over your holiday indulgences, or if you’d like to learn how to improve your digestive system, you’ll want to tune in. Van is very passionate, and I learned something myself for sure. Subscribe to the Strocel.com podcast in iTunes, and you won’t miss a minute! Also, if you have a podcast idea, please share it with me. I’d love to hear your suggestions! *Image Credit – Mike Licht on Flickr

Money. It’s one of those topics we’re not supposed to discuss in polite company, and the reasons are really rather obvious. No matter how much you have (or don’t have), money pushes a lot of our buttons, and triggers a whole lot of emotions. But that doesn’t mean you can just ignore it – particularly not when you’re sharing it with someone else, like your partner. This is even more true when you’re trying to live a more purposeful life, because that often means deliberately choosing to spend less time earning money and more time doing things you enjoy. You need to do that mindfully, but how? When I ran the Crafting my Life online class I decided to talk to writer Sierra Black about it, and I’m sharing our conversation on today’s podcast. In addition to her blog ChildWild, Sierra has written extensively elsewhere, including on finance sites like Get Rich Slowly and Wise Bread. As someone who turned her own finances around, and who is willing to talk about that experience online, she seemed like the perfect candidate. She didn’t disappoint me. In fact, speaking to her spurred me to make some positive changes in my own financial life. During our podcast, Sierra and I talked about making mindful choices around spending money. I asked her for tips on broaching the subject with your partner, and ideas for making positive changes in your own life. Sierra is a freelance writer, and so we also discussed how she balances work and family, and sets her own rates, as a work at home mom. She also talked about how she teaches her own kids about money, and creates good financial habits. Whether you’re financially savvy, or the idea of talking about money makes you want to run and hide, you’ll learn something by listening to this podcast: Next week on the Strocel.com podcast I’ll be sharing another interview from Crafting my Life, this time with the amazing Annie from PhD in Parenting. She’s definitely been one of my inspirations as a blogger. I love how she shares her opinion clearly, and without apology. Subscribe to the Strocel.com podcast in iTunes, and you won’t miss a minute! Also, if you have a podcast idea, please share it with me. I’d love to hear your suggestions!

With 2013 just beginning, it seemed like a good time to re-run my podcast with Master Success Coach Susan Washington. If you’re looking for ideas for getting your own year off on the best foot possible, you’ll want to tune in. If you hang out on Twitter, as I do, you begin to get the impression that there are a whole lot of coaches out there, of all different kinds. Coaching is huge on social media. There are life coaches. Business coaches. Success coaches. Personal coaches. Dream coaches. You get the drift. I myself have a coach. Her name is Susan Washington, and she’s really pretty awesome. She’s helping me to focus, let go of the things that are weighing me down, and get moving on the things that I keep putting off. But still, the truth is that even though I have a coach, I have a hard time coherently explaining what a coach does. So I thought I would talk to Susan, since she actually does this professionally. Plus, she’s a pretty inspiring person, and I kind of just like talking to her. That’s probably what makes her such a great coach. During our interview, Susan talked about what a coach does, and how a coach is different than a friend or a therapist. She also shared some tips for creating positive improvements in your own life. These are practical, tangible things that can make a real difference. In fact, after interviewing her I took some of her suggestions for cultivating good personal habits to heart, and started going to bed at a reasonable hour. I feel less tired. Shocking, I know! But seriously, sometimes even when you know something yourself, it helps to have someone else lay it out for you. If you are on your own self-improvement journey, you’re looking for some tips to make your life a little bit better, or you’re curious about what exactly a coach does, you’ll want to listen to what Susan had to say: Next week on the Strocel.com podcast I’ll start sharing some of the interviews I did for the Crafting my Life Online Class. Up first, I talk money with Sierra Black. It’s an important topic, and one that we probably don’t discuss enough. Subscribe to the Strocel.com podcast in iTunes, and you won’t miss a minute!

Today I am thrilled to be re-sharing the second part of my podcast with parenting author Marcy Axness. This interview first ran last February, and it’s one of my favourite to date. I hope you’ll take the time to listen – I can promise it will be worth your while. Last week I shared an interview with Marcy Axness, author of Parenting for Peace. I also mentioned that our discussion went on a lot longer than I expected it to. I decided to split the podcast into two parts, and I’m sharing the second half with you today. In her book – and in our podcast – Marcy shares some very practical, easy-to-understand tips for parents who want to raise peaceful children. She’s taking what we know from research and hard science about infant and child development and distilling it down. In the process, she’s helping us raise kids who are intelligent, imaginative, trusting, empathetic and have a strong inner balance. During the second half of our podcast Marcy really gets into the nitty-gritty. She shares what she sees as the three biggest parenting mistakes people make. I make two of them pretty much every day myself. In fact, I found what she had to say compelling enough that I’ve made some big changes myself since I spoke with her. It’s still a work in progress, but I found much of what she had to say seriously practical and helpful. It was a perspective-changer, for sure. Marcy isn’t sugar-coating life with kids when she talks about raising peaceful people, she’s giving you tools to make it better. In the process, she doesn’t just help to create more peaceful kids, she helps to create more peaceful parents. If you could use a little more peace in your life (and really, what parent couldn’t?) you’ll want to listen to my interview with Marcy Axness: Next week I’ll be taking a break from the podcast for a couple of weeks as I enjoy the holiday season. But I’ll be back in January with more great interviews. Subscribe to the Strocel.com podcast in iTunes, and you won’t miss a minute! Also, if you have a podcast idea, please share it with me. I’d love to hear your suggestions!

Today I am thrilled to be re-sharing my podcast with parenting author Marcy Axness. This interview first ran last February, and it’s one of my favourite to date. I hope you’ll take the time to listen – I can promise it will be worth your while. I met Marcy Axness on Twitter, when my childhood hero Raffi had glowing things to say about her. Did you know that Raffi and I are totally Twitter buddies? It’s true. It may also be true that my inner six-year-old lets out an audible squee every time he replies to me. But this is all an aside, because today I’m all about Marcy. Before she had kids, Marcy was an Emmy-winning documentary writer and producer. Post-kids, she is an educator with a private counseling and consulting practice. Plus she has a PhD. This woman is no slouch. She’s also the author of the recently-released book Parenting for Peace, about raising our children to be peacemakers. It all sounds a little bit woo woo, but it’s based on hard science. Basically, it’s about using what we know about infant and child development to raise kids who are intelligent, imaginative, trusting, empathetic and have a strong inner balance. When I sat down to interview Marcy for our podcast, I was planning to speak to her for 20 or 30 minutes. Somewhere around the 27 minute mark I knew I was nowhere near finished. I found Marcy to be a really compelling person to speak with. In fact, our conversation caused me to make a fairly fundamental shift in how I parent. She breaks down a lot of complex research into easy-to-understand pieces, and helps parents to work through their own feelings around how they approach life with their children. Marcy is authentic and easy to relate to. When she talked about her feelings of rage as a new mom, I found myself nodding along. She’s not sugar-coating parenting here, she’s giving you useful tools to make it better. In the process, she doesn’t just help to create more peaceful kids, she helps to create more peaceful parents. If you could use a little more peace in your life (and really, what parent couldn’t?) you’ll want to listen to my interview with Marcy Axness: Next week on the podcast I’ll be sharing the rest of my interview with Marcy Axness. She’ll be talking about the three biggest mistakes that she sees parents making. This is the part that caused me to totally shift the way I parent my own kids, and you won’t want to miss it. Subscribe to the Strocel.com podcast in iTunes, and you’ll hear every last bit! Also, if you have a podcast idea, please share it with me. I’d love to hear your suggestions!

Last week I told you that I’d be re-sharing the first part of my interview with the amazing Marcy Axness today. I’m reneging on my promise. This week I scored a last-minute interview with Tovah Paglaro, a.k.a. David Suzuki’s Queen of Green. We had a great chat about greening your holiday season, and I wanted to share it with you sooner rather than later. If you’ve left your house at all in the past month or so – and even if you haven’t – you can’t have failed to notice that Christmas is rapidly approaching. Bing Crosby is crooning while I do my grocery shopping, there’s a festive tree in my dentist’s office, and my daughter is practicing for the school holiday concert around the clock. We’re all shopping and baking and negotiating arrangements for the holiday meal. But, as it turns out, all of this celebrating comes at a big of a cost to the planet. Our consumption has a carbon footprint. All those presents in brightly-coloured packages mean a lot of garbage on Christmas morning. And when we cook enough to feed an army and don’t end up eating it all, that impacts the planet, too. As the David Suzuki Foundation‘s green living expert, I could think of no one better than Tovah to ask about how to make the holiday season a little bit greener. We talked about taking steps to reduce consumption and waste. We talked about preserving the magic of the holiday – especially for our children – without trashing the planet. We talked about setting green New Year’s resolution, and she shared the Queen of Green’s holiday wish. If you’d like some practical, manageable tips for making your holiday season a little less commercial and a lot more meaningful, I encourage you to listen to the podcast: Over the next two weeks on the Strocel.com podcast I’ll be re-sharing my interview with Marcy Axness, author of Parenting for Peace. Our conversation was so amazing that I had to break it up into two parts. We covered a lot of ground, and I had a lot of my parenting pre-conceptions challenged. I’ve listened to the conversation many times myself, and I can tell you that I’ve learned something from Marcy each time. Subscribe to the Strocel.com podcast in iTunes, and you won’t miss a minute! Also, if you have a podcast idea, please share it with me. I’d love to hear your suggestions!

I’m taking a bit of a hiatus from podcast scheduling over the holiday season. But with more than 70 episodes in the vault, there are plenty of great conversations to re-visit. Today, I’m once again sharing my interview with the fabulous Willow Yamauchi. It was seriously the most fun I’ve ever had during a podcast. If you could use a good laugh, you’ll want to listen, whether for the first, second or fifth time. Picture it: Christmas, 2010. My husband Jon comes across a book called Adult Child of Hippies by Willow Yamauchi. Immediately, he knows that he should buy it for me, as I myself am an adult child of hippies. On Christmas morning I open the book. I promptly devour it. I laugh heartily, in a knowing fashion, at such gems as: You know you are an Adult Child of Hippies if… You chewed licorice roots as a treat. - and – You know you are an Adult Child of Hippies if… You shaved your legs as an act of rebellion. As an extra-fun bonus fact, my mother really wanted to name me Willow, but my father didn’t like the name. Instead, I was named Amber Dawn. If you had any doubts about my hippie roots, revealing my middle name should have put them to rest. Given our similar pasts I felt a certain kinship with Willow Yamauchi after reading her book, even though I’d never actually spoken with her. Bad Mommy Fast forward 17 months, and Willow herself got in touch with me via my job at VancouverMom.ca, telling us about her new book, Bad Mommy. I knew immediately that: I had to read the book. I wanted to interview Willow Yamauchi. Luckily, Willow is an incredibly good sport. She left a copy of Bad Mommy hanging in a bag from her doorknob at her house in East Vancouver. I stopped by, picked it up, and devoured this one, too. The premise of Bad Mommy is that, as parents – and particularly as mothers – we’re served a heaping helping of guilt and blame. There’s simply no way to do everything right when it comes to raising kids. From the moment of conception someone, somewhere, believes you’re doing something wrong. Childhood vaccines are a perfect example. Miss one, and you’re a bad mommy. Vaccinate your child at all, and you’re a bad mommy. There’s no shortage of ways to fail your children at every turn. Willow’s turning that on its head so that we can laugh at it, and liberate ourselves from the cycle of mom guilt. Willow and I set up a time to chat, and she was every bit as awesome as I knew she’d be. We talked about our respective hippie childhoods (hers was way more hardcore than mine), all the ways that we fail as parents, and what it means to embrace the “bad mommy” label. If you’re tired of trying to do everything right and failing, Willow says that it’s time to do what works for you. And you know what? I agree completely. Strocel.com Podcast with Willow Yamauchi If you’re a mom, an adult child of hippies, or you’d just like a good laugh, you’ll want to listen to what Willow had to say: Over the next two weeks on the Strocel.com podcast I’ll be re-sharing my interview with Marcy Axness, author of Parenting for Peace. Our conversation was so amazing that I had to break it up into two parts. We covered a lot of ground, and I had a lot of my parenting pre-conceptions challenged. I’ve listened to the conversation many times myself, and I can tell you that I’ve learned something from Marcy each time. Subscribe to the Strocel.com podcast in iTunes, and you won’t miss a minute! Also, if you have a podcast idea, please share it with me. I’d love to hear your suggestions!

I’m re-sharing this episode of the Strocel.com Podcast. My friend Gina Crosley-Corcoran (a.k.a. The Feminist Breeder) recently had her breastfeeding photos removed and her account suspended by Facebook, and I’d like to shine a light on this issue again. Over the years there have been countless stories about mothers having their breastfeeding images removed from Facebook. In some cases, mothers even had their accounts deleted. Over three years ago, in December, 2008, I myself participated in a virtual “nurse-in”. I updated my own profile photo to an image of myself breastfeeding my daughter Hannah and changed my status to say, “Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!” And yet, in spite of the outcry, new stories continue to crop up all the time. Emma Kwasnica lives here in Vancouver, and she herself has had a number of photos removed from the social networking site. She’s also had her account de-activated. Finally, it reached the point where she had enough, and she went public with her story. Media coverage followed, and as it did, Facebook took notice. They held a conference call with Emma, and issued statements underscoring the fact that they welcome breastfeeding photos on Facebook. In part, their policy regarding images depicting breastfeeding reads: We agree that breastfeeding is natural and beautiful…Photos that show a fully exposed breast where the child is not actively engaged in nursing do violate Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. The problem, according to Emma (and other mothers whose images have been removed), is that Facebook sometimes removes photos that do not show an exposed nipple that is not engaged in breastfeeding, and which therefore comply with the site’s policy. It has also locked mothers out of their own accounts without warning or recourse. Emma is trying to stop that from happening. She wants Facebook to follow its own rules and regulations. Breastfeeding is not an obscene act, and the Facebook policy agrees. It should be applied properly, and it should be applied in the same way for all users. The question of whether or not an image is obscene should not depend on whether someone else decides to flag your photo or not, and it also should not depend on who happens to be evaluating a complaint on any given day. To reinforce this message, a Facebook page called FB! Stop harassing Emma Kwasnica over her breastfeeding pics was started. Like Emma Kwasnica, I’m one of the one billion Facebook users worldwide. The odds are pretty good that you are, too. Facebook depends on us for its livelihood. It might be free to sign up, but our presence allows them to sell ads, which make them a lot of money. We have power in this relationship to make our voices heard. To get started, listen to my conversation with Emma, find out how she’s working to ensure Facebook plays by its out rules, and learn how you can take action: I’m working on an interview for next week at the moment. No matter what happens, I promise I’ll be sharing something worth listening to, so please tune in. Or subscribe to the Strocel.com podcast in iTunes, and you won’t miss a minute! Also, if you have a podcast idea, please share it with me. I’d love to hear your suggestions!

This week on the Strocel.com Podcast I’m speaking with Lorelei Rozzano. She’s the author of the book Gracie’s Secret, which aims to help kids develop skills for handling difficult situations. While I’d love to be able to protect my kids from all the bad stuff in the world, like all parents, I know that I can’t. Instead, I’m doing my best to provide them with tools, and to cultivate an open and trusting relationship so that they’re comfortable speaking with me. But, let’s be honest, we can all use some help from time to time, which is why I’m excited to share this podcast with Lorelei. So, how do you help kids deal with their difficult feelings? How do you make sure that you cultivate the kind of relationship that makes you a safe person to speak with? And how do you differentiate between the kinds of secrets that are dangerous and the kind that are, for the most part, normal? These are the kinds of questions that I asked Lorelei. Whether your own child is dealing with some difficult stuff, or you just want some tips for your own parenting toolbox, I encourage you to listen to the podcast: Next week I’ll be re-sharing a podcast with Emma Kwasnica, talking about Facebook and its ongoing practice of removing breastfeeding photos and suspending users. You would hope, after years and years of this practice, and after a whole lot of time spent editing and clarifying their policies, that they would have stopped removing photos that do not, in fact, contradict its stated rules. However, my friend Gina over at the Feminist Breeder recently had one of her photos removed, and her account suspended for three days, over a breastfeeding photo. So, once again, I’d like to shine some light on this issue. Subscribe to the Strocel.com Podast in iTunes and you won’t miss a minute! Also, if you have a podcast idea, please share it with me. I’d love to hear your suggestions!

This week on the Strocel.com Podcast I’m speaking with Dr. Margaret Weiss. She’s a Clinical Professor of Child Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia here in the Vancouver area, and an expert on ADHD. If you have any questions about what ADHD is, how it’s diagnosed and treated, and what causes it, you’ll want to listen to this one. Like a lot of people I have some preconceptions about ADHD. For example, I wonder whether it’s an actual disorder, or just a case of a culture that doesn’t allow kids the space to be the energetic little people they are. I wonder why the number of children being diagnosed with ADHD continues to rise. And like many other people, I have reservations about the medications that are used to treat ADHD. So far, neither of my children show signs of ADHD, but as a parent I’m not sure how I would respond if, say, one of their teachers suggested that I might want to take them to a doctor. How do you tell what requires treatment, and what’s just a normal phase of childhood? Dr. Margaret Weiss heads up the provincial ADHD program here in BC, and she very generously answered all of the questions I asked her during our podcast. We talked about what ADHD is, how it’s diagnosed and treated, whether the medications commonly prescribed are safe, and whether or not most children outgrow the disorder. I asked her why so many more boys are diagnosed than girls. We talked about how ADHD impacts adults. And we talked about how our modern lifestyle presents additional challenges to people with ADHD. During our conversation I learned a lot, and Dr. Weiss changed my mind on several fronts. If you have questions about ADHD, and how it impacts people of all ages and genders, I encourage you to listen to the podcast: Next week I’ll be sharing a podcast with Lorelei Rozzano, author of Gracie’s Secret. We’ll be talking about helping kids to deal with difficult situations, and learn to handle their emotions in healthy ways. Subscribe to the Strocel.com Podast in iTunes and you won’t miss a minute! Also, if you have a podcast idea, please share it with me. I’d love to hear your suggestions!

This week on the Strocel.com Podcast I’m speaking with Maggie Baird and Lori Nasso. They’re moms, actors and screenwriters, and they made a movie called Life Inside Out. If you could use a little nudge when it comes to following your own dreams I encourage you to take the time to listen to our conversation, because these are two very inspiring moms. Maggie and Lori met through a shared love of music when they both belonged to a group that performed at open mic nights. The idea was that by joining forces and creating a group they would be more likely to show up and do something for themselves. They would also have moral support, knowing they weren’t doing it alone. As the two got to know each other, they realized they had a lot in common, including a desire to write a screenplay. They made a pact: they would write a screenplay together, and then make the movie. When I heard their story, I knew I had to speak to them on the podcast. It took years and a lot of effort, but they did write the screenplay, and they did make the movie. Maggie, who is a homeschooler, worked around her kids and her acting gigs. Lori did it around her own kids, and a more-than-full-time job as a writer for a TV show. They ran a successful kickstarter campaign, got their friends and acquaintances involved, and created a film that chronicles a mother and son’s connection through music. During the podcast I asked Maggie and Lori about the process of making a movie. I also talked to them about their journey as mothers and screenwriters. We talked about ideas like bravery, inspiration, setting an example, and reaching out to others for help. We talked about setting examples for our children, and growing in wisdom and experience ourselves. I asked them what happens now that they have this finished film. If you’ve ever had a dream that seemed really big, and kind of hard, and maybe a little bit out of your reach, I encourage you to check out Life Inside Out on Facebook. And, of course, take the time to listen to the podcast: Next week I’ll be sharing a podcast with Dr. Margaret Weiss, Clinical Professor of Child Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia. We’ll be talking about ADHD – what it is, how it’s diagnosed, how it’s treated and more. It’s a controversial but important topic, and I learned a lot during our conversation. Subscribe to the Strocel.com Podast in iTunes and you won’t miss a minute! Also, if you have a podcast idea, please share it with me. I’d love to hear your suggestions!

This week on the Strocel.com Podcast I’m speaking with Kate Hopper. She’s a writing instructor, blogger and the author of Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers. As a blogger, I get a fair number of pitches. When I got the pitch for Use Your Words, I was intrigued. However, I didn’t fully understand from the email what the book was about. I thought maybe I would skim through my review copy to prepare for my podcast with Kate, and then pass it along. Once I held it in my hands and started looking at it, though, I knew I was keeping it. This book is part writing anthology, part writing text, and part literary coach. Each chapter contains pieces from published authors, writing craft tips, and writing exercises. Whether you’re thinking you’d like to start a blog, you’re a blogger who’d like to take your writing to another platform, or you’d just like to improve your writing, you’ll find something in Kate’s book. I was excited to have the chance to sit down and chat with Kate. We talked about a whole lot of things: why writing about motherhood isn’t taken seriously, how mothers can hone their writing, how to find time to write when you have a whole lot of other commitments on your plate, and how you share your story while honouring your children’s privacy. As a writing teacher who runs classes specifically for mothers, Kate had a lot of great tips and ideas to share. She inspired me to work on my own writing, and I’m feeling pretty grateful for that. You don’t have to be a blogger or a paid writer to put your words to paper or keyboard. As parents, recording our family memoirs is a great idea whether you share them publicly or not. Kate can help you get started, and give you tools so that the finished result is something your kids will really enjoy reading someday. Whether you’re a writer or not, I think you’ll find something to take away from this podcast. I enjoyed recording it immensely. While the sound quality is a little lacking, I hope you’ll take the time to listen, because the take-aways will be worth it: I’m working on several interviews for next week, and I’m not completely positive which one will be running first. I do promise that whatever it is, it will be worth tuning in for. Subscribe to the Strocel.com Podast in iTunes and you won’t miss a minute! Also, if you have a podcast idea, please share it with me. I’d love to hear your suggestions.

This week on the Strocel.com Podcast I’m speaking with Kate Sutherland. She’s a self-described change artist and the author of two books: Make Light Work, and the recently released Make Light Work in Groups. I was excited to chat with her about embracing change, and improving group (and family) dynamics. During the podcast Kate and I discussed change, including what makes it scary and how to accept and live through it. We talked about connection, with ourselves and others. And we talked about groups and how we can make those relationships flow more smoothly. What do you do when someone triggers you? Why do groups create scapegoats? These are some of the issues that Kate discusses during the podcast. We all interact with groups, whether we work in a traditional job or not. We live in families and have groups of friends. We may volunteer with our daughter’s Brownie group, sit on the PTA at school, belong to a book club, or attend church. Anytime that we interact with others, group dynamics are at play. This is one reason that I wanted to have Kate on the podcast, even though I no longer interact with groups in the same way that I did when I had a traditional job and held several volunteer gigs. One of the biggest questions that I had for Kate during our podcase was how we know when belonging to a specific group serves us, and when it doesn’t. She shares lots of tips for making group dynamics better, but one of the things I wrestle with often is whether I should invest the work in improving something, or recognize that it’s time for me to move on to something else. Knowing when to stay and when to go isn’t always easy. Kate talked about how she makes that decision for herself. She’s absolutely not advocating for staying in a toxic situation. She’s offering tips to make every group situation better, so that if it does serve your interests to be involved, you can accomplish as much as possible as you work together. Whether you could use some help handling change in your life, deciding where to invest your precious time and energy, or making your relationships better, you’ll want to take the time to listen to the podcast: I’m still working on my interview for next week, but I promise that whatever it is, it will be worth tuning in for. Subscribe to the Strocel.com Podast in iTunes and you won’t miss a minute!