“Conversations from my Duvet”

This one is more lengthy than the others. This is because we are taking a little break before we head into an evolved version of Conversations. Season 2, if you will, is on it’s way. I spend for first few minutes explaining what’s happening. The content of this episode though, is one which you will have experience of 100%. I recount my experience of my period, which I call bleed these days, my first sexual encounter and pouring my diluted blood onto our plants in the garden as ceremony. I welcome your thoughts, as always and look forward to welcoming you into the next part of the journey as it comes. Please leave me a review or tap on the stars if you are on Apple Podcasts. This really helps other people find the podcast and is the most wonderful way you can endorse it. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. Thank you to Sophie Hargraves, @the_rebel_mother whose Made in Womb documentary and exhibition is of invaluable value. We bleed. Together. We live. We grow. We thrive.

The final one for June. Skirting around the concept of who we are, amongst other things. You’ll ask yourself who you are and who you are doing stuff for several times in your life, and that’s totally ok. We change, so I think it’s natural to have these moments of reassessing how we play out our lives. This is particularly prevalent when you have your own business (new or otherwise) and you see yourself as the brand, the unique quality people ‘choose’ YOU for. I share how inspired I am by the women who share their inner truth, their art, and how it is so rare for people to do this, to show who they really are to the world. I see this inner truth work as THE way to finding your authentic, unique path and that’s the way I want to operate. I want to speak from my heart and I want to feel. Within all these considerations, there is mention of my mind struggles in terms of whether I will return to the police or not - what it means financially, professionally, emotionally? These are honest deliberations around a vocation I chose to go into in 2003 and how I can’t go back if I don’t feel 100% committed because otherwise, I’m doing the public a massive disservice. At the time of journaling these 2018 conversations, Mark and I found ourselves speaking and opening up about money more that we ever had. As a subject, money is huge and all of us have a story around what it is to have or not have it. Any of you had to make big career leaving decisions that impacted your life hugely on lots of levels? I’d love to hear from you.

This one is for you if you are running your own gig and having doubts as to how to market yourself, how to set goals.  You may not get the exact answer you are searching for, but you get a real, authentic, true account of a talented woman (just like you are), who has got the option of taking the ‘easy’ road of going back in to the police for a regular wage and paid holidays, who instead has chosen to see what it can be like to go your own way.  It’s not easy.  For every person you follow with their own business, for every thought that they are doing SO much better than you, I ask, how do you know?  This is me, back in 2018, being honest, scared and ashamed about the lack of clients and the lack of money. When you look ahead and have a vision board, or goals – do you actually think about each one and going into WHY that specific goal is important to YOU?  Is it something you feel so deeply that you feel lighter at the prospect and it sounds true to you, or is it a goal that you hear thousands of other ‘entrepreneurs’ spout and therefore you think that you ‘should’ also have… Yes, that’s what this episode is about.  Getting real and authentic in your business, with goals which are as unique as you are.  I share my personal ones with you from a couple of years ago (not a lot of people do this, and this is where I believe the power of this podcast to be.  Truth, that we tend to conceal behind the perfect social media photo #lovinglife)  What is remarkable though, is that lots of these have now come to fruition.  Evidence based truth.    Get in touch with comments and as ever, please leave me a review, and/or rating on apple podcasts so that this podcast can reach more women like you.  You are amazing.

There are days you feel like a complete imposter. Time to own up. Time also to look at why you are involved in what you are involved in. Where does it come from? What’s the real block? For me, it’s going back to the old story of “all looks no substance”, believing I’m a bit thick behind it all. This journal entry flips the script. From feeling unqualified to teach pregnancy yoga to laying down on paper and relaying exactly why my own experiences of pregnancy have brought me to this precise moment. Thank you for tuning in. Please leave me a review or a rating if you enjoyed this. This is me with my cap in my hand. Lots of love, Sophie x

At its heart, this episode boils down to exploring our willingness to deep dive into ourselves to explore our uniqueness. The episode covers themes around personal accountability, and how we are much, much more than our ‘qualifications’. We have become complacent and reliant solely on the piece of paper in order to determine someone’s worthiness or indeed, as a way to generalise someone’s skills. (PS: not saying I’d go to a surgeon who has only an NVQ in papier mâché...) I’m talking about digging back in to our creative reserves to dust off the gold that makes US unique and individually special. This topic invariably leads onto the competition we feel with other women. Where does this come from? Who has taught us this? Are there times you feel more or less confident around other women? Have you questioned why? We are all so capable and full of all the skills to blow ourselves away with our awesomeness. That’s the world I want to live in.

This one is another ‘get your Natural High on’ episode. I talk about having gone to a daytime alcohol free rave and having had the time of my life. I talk about how much I value my time and my space to allow for my creativity to thrive. The irony does not escape me - the moment when those words were captured, back in 2018, could never have predicted a 2020 where the kids wouldn’t be in nursery/school and when I would once again be exploring how much SPACE means to me. For my mental health. This is a really positive podcast, and it’s emphasis is on you saving yourself first and foremost. A message we hear but that goes in one ear and out of the other. Enjoy and leave me a review with your thoughts - they mean everything, I appreciate every single one. Thank you, Sophie xxx

What does it mean to be home? How do you make yourself feel at home? Join me during another intimate moment, caught while the world is seemingly asleep, during a moment when it seemed the blue sky was there and in evidence for that only moment alone. Can we take just one moment and just be... without making it complicated and full of intention or expectation? This episode is the equivalent to laying on the perfect sandy beach - the waves are lapping, your thirst is quenched. You are a goddess.

Welcome back and thank you for sharing this space and experience of life back in 2018. Welcome back to this moment in June when as a family, we had driven to France to see my family. All its resonant parallels. We can confuse ourselves so easily. Make mountains out of molehills, so the saying goes. I realise that I found a way to cut right through it - by spending some time with a pen and some paper. Using my senses to bring me to the moment. What do I hear, see, smell and taste and simply - what am I grateful for. Right here, right now - what do I have available to me, within me, to lift a cloud out of the way? Lots of love to you all, Sophie xxx

Big theme. Asking for help. Asking for guidance. Of your friends, of the universe around you and more importantly, of yourself. There’s a massively key message from universal source here that comes right at the end... whatever your calling in life, whatever you want to talk about and change, know that it’s not for you to change people, it’s for YOU to live your life according to YOUR BELIEFS so that you are the embodiment of change. And to trust that this alone, those vibes will do their thing in their magical way. You do you. So much love to you, Sophie xxx

Have you ever felt lost? Trying to find your way home? Then wondered what home is? Where that is? Is it out of you? Inside of you? While we are here, who is that person at home? The work of questioning the inner you and dismantling the bullshit is a constant showing up for yourself. It’s not something which happens in a week - it’s a whole lifetime. What I see is that it can feel ‘easy’ and satisfying to feel ‘at home with oneself’ during a yoga lesson, or having a bath or enjoying a glass of wine but.... that feeling of surety, pleasure, satisfaction: HOW ANCHORED ARE YOU IN IT? How long have you practiced getting to know YOU and being YOU so that you stand up for yourself and speak YOUR language wherever you are? A way to test this is to immerse yourself back into a family meal - you know, like a Christmas gathering. That’s it - drop that bomb and see how long it takes for you to move out of yourself, away from your centre. Just a question. A consideration. And a note on the practice of rest and Yoga Nidra as the ultimate way to come home to yourself. Lots of love, Sophie xxx thank you for being here xxx

Welcome to my French holiday in 2018. My space at ‘home’, back in the homeland, trying to feel myself back within MY actual home first and foremost - my body. My Earthly vessel. Here, I take a moment to explore the concept of living life by following and doing what gives us PLEASURE as opposed to PRESSURE. There’s so much engrained in us - and even if we explore the pleasure aspect as a woman... pleasure makes you fat, a whore, selfish, lustful. Basically, a bit too exotic and out there. WHAT????????????? How about allowing the pleasure - like the doughnut, the saying NO to the thing that we feel we OUGHT to do because if we don’t, it will offend, but then all we feel is wretched with ourselves because we know we are having a shit time and our body knows it and on top of this we will add the GUILT and SHAME that we are not STRONG or BRAVE ENOUGH to stand up for ourselves. Guess what. You are. You are. ENOUGH. A work in progress. Never finished, never perfect and brave to embark on the questions of where YOU STAND on the subject of PLEASURE AND PRESSURE. Enough said. Enjoy. Thank you for being here on this 2018 ride. Follow my 2020 ride on Instagram @therestgirl Apple platform listeners, I would be so grateful for your review, observations- if these words are impacting you, KNOW that they will impact another woman asking those same questions. Truth and authenticity is what I am about and I want to reach the hearts of millions of women. If we can be the change inside of us, we will will change the world. Numbers my sisters, numbers. Thank you xxx

Right here, right now, in this moment of when I am publishing this podcast episode on the 4th June 2020, in the UK we are slowly easing the ‘lockdown’ restrictions. Whatever your experience of this powerful moment in your lifetime, I hope it brought you to your knees at least once. That moment of deep loss of whatever that represents for you, where there is no option but to meet it, because it is in those deep feeling moments that a gateway of choice opens. Your opportunity to choose to make a change from here on in. A tiny change, a bit change, whatever that may be: job, kids, money, relationship, self esteem. I hope you allowed yourself to release into the discomfort. The discomfort helps us to KNOW. What matters. In this period of 2020, the past few days have been about reflection over race. Privilege - what it means. A silence over social media for black voices to rise. Once again, an opportunity to look in the mirror at our preconceived ideas, at where we are in the space of being ready to hear peoples truths, or not. Back in the world of Conversations from my Duvet (the diary entries from 2018 which I publish on exactly the same day in 2020), there was a pause for 4 days. Here I am right here, right now, absolutely AMAZED at the parallel universe situation. The silence, the pause, partly because in 2018, at that time, our family was taking a two day drive down to the South of France to stay with my family, but also because I was dropped into an environnement where I was conscious of needing to rest and not post anything on social media. In my 2018 diary entry, a universal message - “I’m not feeling what I want to say at the moment”. So, while I feel this moment of natural instinctive pause, I will feel into it before I speak. This brings me right up to today, in 2020, when it may be that we have felt we have had to say things on the current situation when we haven’t allowed ourselves the time to really digest it because we have seen everyone on social media stick on black squares. Our reaction upon seeing this tumbling of squares like a house of cards was either: 1) pressure to add one because it would look complicit to racism if we didn’t, or 2) a genuine feeling of the only way we could express solidarity. Either way - know there is only one way for you, and this is YOUR WAY. When you get off the fucking merry go round of relying on everyone else’s actions and opinions in order to determine yours. No matter how long it takes you, take the time to make the time to feel into your pain, your discomfort, your joy. Your wobbly spots and go into your heart, your body... your KNOWING WHAT’S RIGHT AND CONGRUENT WITHIN YOU. This, my dear friends, is YOUR TRUTH. This is your way to effective, loving change, because you begin to change inside of you. Feel before you speak. Feel before you speak. Thank you for hearing me.

Here we go, last one for May... tighten your seat belts - this one may be a little bit cringe... for whom? Me? You? I’m all about truth. There’s nothing in this episode that Mark doesn’t know already. He listens to this, by the way. He isn’t quite up to date, but he knows this one is coming up. Let’s get to the wisdom of this episode: when we look for a ‘partner’, how many times have we caught ourselves chatting with girlfriends about what our ‘type’ is? The tick box. Have we dug into where we got this ‘type’ from? And why certain attributes are important to us? I know Mark is a mixture of me receiving what I asked for (did I ask without asking?!?) and him being sent in all his bedraggled glory to really test my powers of trust in my intuition and deep gut sensation... We all love a good “how did you meet story” - know this, there is no perfect way. When I met him and I wasn’t swept off my feet, I remember googling “is it meant to be if i don’t fancy him straight away?”. Just goes to show how we are always searching for guidance outside... yet... I knew to not sack him off straight away. Enjoy. It’s the last one for a few days before we head into our June 2018 universal adventures xxxx

Major dream sequence time - I absolutely LOVE dreams. Who hasn’t googled “dream meaning” ever? It’s not really until I did my Yoga Nidra course and we explored that realm of liminal space that the beauty of dreams really revealed itself. You see, it’s never so much about the detail - more the theme and overall sensation. These days, I write my dreams down first thing - whatever i can remember. Be it detail or prevalent sensations/colours/numbers... I don’t analyse them. I know that my dream space is where everything that needs to process is given the vessel, the cooking pot of my sleep to breathe, to air, in it’s beautiful fantastical way. I’m also open to receive signs too. Anyway, back to this episode, from the Sophie of 2018, who clearly was subconsciously expressing the old life of working in the police versus the new possibilities. In my dream space, where the depths of me was feeling out my impending thoughts on whether to apply for a career break or not. I’m definitely in love with Stop Thinking, Feel. Whether awake or asleep xxx Please leave me a review on Apple Podcasts, either episode specific or an overview of how you are receiving the podcast. This is not merely for my ego (!) I mean it when I say that those words, written back then, are UNIVERSAL. It’s the sharing of true stories that effects and affects change. If it’s effecting change in you, it will do so for another woman. Sending you huge love, Sophie xxx

This ones a bit longer - and rightly so - this subject fires me up. It did back then, when I wrote the words, fresh on my 2018 page and NOW, in May 2020. This is the one for you: woman. Powerful, soft, denied, suppressed, misunderstood, ‘misogynised’ and undervalued. You, me, and every other woman who needs to feel and hear that we are WORTHY OF IT ALL. Our bodies are beds of pleasure - all the senses. Even if you took the sexual element out of it - it’s in our curves, our swagger, our jangly bits, those are just a tiny part of the sweet sweet nectar. This body is your pleasure palace, for you. This body, this heart, this soul: is your power - once you see that for millennia, a world has been crafted in order to make us feel less than; “here: shave your legs, hide your curves, for if you show them, you’re a slut.” Fuck that big old load of bollocks. Right off. We are immense. This is the era of emotional intelligence. We are pros at this - the more of us break out of these corseted shells, the more opportunity for planet earth and its ‘governance’ to regain her equilibrium. Bleeding is the source, the root, the beginning of it all. It’s the story of woman.

Hold on to your horses - the ride on the rainbow up to Fizzland has commenced! This is the sane madness that takes hold when you get a feel for the free drugs that the simple beauty of life has on offer. When in a moment, the whole world and its why reveals itself to you. From making love to religion and women and family and patriarchy, this episode is immense. The wisdom: FEAR IS BLOCKING EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING. Read it again. And feel. Having these crystal clear clarity moments are like a multiple orgasm: rare, and accessible only when you stop giving a single shit and let yourself go into the pleasure of the simple moment.

I’m repeating this Mantra of “Stop Thinking and Feel” quite a lot. It came from the depths, and it made sense. It made sense because when I drop into the feeling, I ‘read’ the situation on a totally different level. When I think, I find the answers I come up with to rationalise the thing I’m thinking about come from the opinion of others. When I’m in the ‘feel’ mode, it’s another planet of exploration, and as a language, it’s delicious. It’s mine. There’s a shift with these episodes, this and the ones coming up. Tiredness was something affecting me constantly, and here, I declare my love for Yoga Nidra. This practice, this ancient sacred practice of rest which will eventually lead me into becoming ‘The Rest Girl’ - this practice opening up the dreams within. I challenge you today, when there’s a decision coming up, WHATEVER THIS MAY BE... stop thinking about what you should do; feel into what your body, your intuition, is guiding you to. Make note. Will you listen? Do you trust? Be honest. Lots of love and thanks an absolute bunch for listening. If you are appreciating my daily offerings to you, please leave me a review. Please mention this podcast to friends by sharing and tagging me far and wide. If it matters to you and helps you, it will matter to someone else too. Sophie xxx

Welcome to the beginning of a shift taking place back in May 2018. The incredibly powerful synchronicity is that EXACTLY the same is happening now, in May 2020. I am on the eve on a huge shift, only this time, it’s deeper. I urge you to note your feelings down, however you choose - I guarantee there will be patterns, threads, coincidences, ways you do things that will surprise you. Investing in yourself by carrying out investigations into YOUR who, what, why, where, how is the most powerful and rewarding journey/adventure you will ever go on. It never ends - you are always learning, there’s always a surprising twist around the corner. This episode’s theme came out of spending time in one of my favourite places - alone. Medicine for the soul. Writing down the ways i can treat myself like a precious object in order to be the best version of myself. I invite you to journal on this too. Go, wax lyrical. Don’t wait for others to surprise you, SURPRISE YOURSELF.

This one is a bit like Easter. I woke up and was rolled out of the dark cave. My baby was brought to me and milk miraculously came out of my breasts to feed her with. Life is a gift. To live is a gift. I know I got to the gates - I saw them. Yet, I travelled back Earthside. I don’t need to know the science of what happened in my body. I’m grateful to science for bringing me here. Now I know I have shizzle to stir fry. This interlude ends with this episode, after which we will be back into the parallel universe of 2018, on the eve of the awakening.............. what is she on?!?!?!?!? You have to give me a shout out if any of this is striking a chord - that’s the whole point. I am not just one voice. I speak and from one voice, another speaks, and another, and another, and another and then what do you know??? We have strength in numbers. Then we can get to work. Lots of love, Sophie xxx

Episode follows on from Part 1. This one comes with a warning signal. Emotional content covering my near death experience of post partum bleeding. You choose whether or not you want to hear this story. You can go in, or stay in the overview and join back in with part 3. A ton of love to you and thank you for being on this immense journey with... not just me... but with yourselves xxxxx