Jo Moseley promotes positivity to a midlife audience as a writer, speaker, mid-life adventurer, and award-winning film-maker. Jo says that joy is simply knowing there is a blue sky above the clouds, which many women will relate to. After losing her sense of self, Jo realised that she desperately needed to do something to help herself and to rediscover that joy. She talks with Zoe, sharing honestly about her experience with the menopause and how the grief of miscarriages, divorce and the death of her mother washed over her like waves. Jo offers golden advice for dealing with the many pivotal stages in our lives as women, often through exercise and adventure. She talks about how she dealt with her own grief through movement using rowing, and 'not fighting the grief but just recognising the grief'. While heading right out on a huge challenge to stand-up paddleboard from coast to coast, 162 miles from Liverpool to Goole, Jo realises that the success is not in the completion of the journey, but that 'the triumph is in the trying'. Although she finds some days hard, she knows that the slog bit in the middle is where the magic happens. Jo is such an inspirational individual and exudes empathy, joy, care and a ‘Yes I Can’ attitude from every pore.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  00:24

Hello, and welcome back to the HeadRightOut Podcast. My name is Zoe Langley-Wathen, and I am here to help encourage you to step out of your comfort zone, doing things that scare you, building your resilience in the outdoors. We have conversations with resilient women, and particularly today, I am so excited to bring you an interview with Jo Moseley. Now although I recorded this episode with Jo back in August, I'm only just publishing it now. Jo promotes positivity to a midlife audience. Her Instagram account is @healthyhappy50, and obviously that speaks volumes. Jo says that joy is knowing there is a blue sky above the clouds. For some women I know that is really going to make sense to them.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  01:14

After losing her sense of self, Jo realised that she needed to do something to help herself, for herself, and to rediscover joy. Now I was so moved by Jo's story, I cried when I watched her film 'Brave Enough'. Her authenticity touched my very core. I loved her honesty about her experience with the menopause and how grief came to her in waves. While it was tough at times, it's perhaps a reassurance to other women that there is hope, and if they're feeling similar things, it means you're actually not going crazy. So enjoy the episode. It's a real treat, and a total honour for me to be able to call Jo a friend.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  02:05

Okay, well welcome everybody. I am really excited because we have a very special lady here today, to speak to us. I have Jo Moseley. I chatted with Joe a couple of times and I feel like I've built up such a relationship with her already, even though it's only over the telephone or over social media. But I am so excited to actually speak to her, almost face-to-face. So this is not quite in person but it as close in person as we've got yet. So Jo is a mum of two sons. They are aged 24 and 20, and they live on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. Now she describes herself as a beach cleaner, joy encourager, and a midlife adventurer. In August 2019. Jo became the first woman to SUP, that's stand up paddleboard, coast-to-coast, 162 miles along the Leeds and Liverpool canal, picking up litter, fundraising, and raising awareness of the problems of single-use plastic.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  03:04

Now Jo loves writing and speaking about adventure and wellbeing. She also makes tiny films about the joy of the outdoors for our mental health, particularly after losing her mum and experiencing a difficult menopause. Her films 'Finding Joy' and 'Found at Sea' have both won awards. Jo's recently launched a podcast called The Joy of SUP - The Paddleboarding Sunshine Podcast and if you'd like to listen to the podcast, there will be a link in the show notes. A documentary film about her coast-to-coast adventure has also just been released to great reception and four, sell-out online screenings which I was at the second one I believe, and it's called 'Brave Enough - A Journey Home To Joy'. There will be a link to the trailer, also in the show notes.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  03:52

In addition, Jo has a newsletter called 'Postcards of Joy - Stories To Lift The Soul', and there will be a link to the Postcards of Joy also in the show notes. You know, this is amazing because all the way through this, I just sense and feel that there's this element of joy and positivity, and thoughtfulness, care and kindness about not just Jo Moseley but about Jo's brand. And so yes, Joe, welcome to the podcast!

 

Jo Moseley  04:25

That's really kind. That's everything. Yeah, kindness, joy, encouragement. That's exactly what I try and promote really, and to a midlife audience in particular, although I get a lot of younger women as well saying, oh, watching you and the people that you share means it encourages me to know that it doesn't all end at thirty or forty or fifty.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  04:47

I think that's important as well, isn't it because our younger women are at some point going to become older women, and they need to have that message that there isn't an end to adventures, there isn't an end to the fun, there isn't an end and they've got lots to look forward to, and I think that's such a wonderful message that you impart to them.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  05:08

So you have got that great list of achievements all wrapped up in the word 'joy'. But where did it all start? Because I know there's quite a lot of experiences that you've been through this got you to this point.

 

Jo Moseley  05:20

Yeah. So I think the joy is really important to me, because joy for me is knowing that there is blue skies above the clouds. It's that sort of sunshine, whatever the weather is, and it's finding that internal sunshine and it comes really from a very personal experience, in that I lost that understanding that there was sunshine within. That joy was there, whatever I was particularly going through at the time. It wasn't like just a one moment, it was over a few years, I really lost my sense of self, my sense of joy. I lost what made me happy outside of my roles as a daughter, mother, sister, friend. Those roles always bring me joy, that's a given. But I'd lost my sense of joy outside those roles. It all kind of came to a bit of a crashing when I just burst into tears in the biscuit aisle and just said to my boys, I can't cope. I just can't do this anymore. That wasn't the first time I burst into tears, and also not the last, but it was just that one moment where I just hit that rock bottom, really. From then I started to learn how to find my joy again.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  06:31

Wow. So the meltdown in the biscuit aisle. Was that a whole culmination of things... life kind of getting on top of you? Was there something that triggered it?

 

Jo Moseley  06:42

I think that there was a lot of things. One, I was a middle-aged mum, I was 48 at the time and a single mum kind of juggling all the things doing what I could for my boys.  Both mum and dad were going through chemotherapy. So dad has had breast, bowel and skin cancer, and mum was being treated for lymphoma. And then on top of that, but not realising that I was also going through the perimenopause. So I wasn't sleeping, I had night sweats, heart palpitations, incredible anxiety, tinnitus, itchy legs, aching bones and joints, cold flashes, you know the whole, I think there's thirty-eight different symptoms, and I could tick off almost all of them, except hot flashes, I don't get hot flashes. And so that was the background to these other things that were were pretty stressful at the time. That moment was just when it all came to a... it wasn't that it just came to a head. It was that moment, I guess, because I had cried in supermarkets. And I had been upset. But I think it was the moment which then turned me from thinking I've just got to keep going to, I probably need to do something about this. With that recognition that there was a problem. And the first time I vaguely asked somebody for help, or vaguely even mentioned to somebody that I wasn't really managing everything very well. So I think like many women of our generation, the sense that you just have to keep going was very, very, very much part of the way I looked at my life. And also, as a single mom, I had that terrible belief that I had to do everything a thousand times better, because I didn't want to be seen as as not coping. So it was one moment that just represented a lot of moments.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  08:34

So yes, Supermum comes into mind that isn't it you you just feel like you have to be Supermum, and you can't do it. You're going through all those things, but particularly then with your parents care as well, and the worry for them. Yeah, it's such a difficult time. So you mentioned to somebody that you needed help?

 

Jo Moseley  08:55

I just said a friend of mine because mum and dad were obviously really busy with their own appointments, I didn't want to worry them. So I just said to a friend, in that sort of joking way, "haha, I was crying in the supermarket" and jus