True Grit With Nicole Fowler

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptions podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Nicole, Nicole Fowler from Adoptions from the Heart. Uh, looking forward to our conversation today, Nicole. Let's pretend that we've not been talking for the last 20 minutes, right?

Yes, yes.

Um, so yeah, clearly Nicole is an adoption professional. She's also a a mum through adoption. She has a daughter in her 20s that she adopted from foster care. And if I remember rightly, it's a single mum?

Yes.

Yes, you're— yeah, okay. Sometimes I can't read my own notes, right? And it's, it's what, like coming up 2 months since we spoke last. So the biggie, right? Thriving. What does What does thriving mean to you, to you personally, as a mum, as a professional, as a human being, as a sister, daughter, whatever, you know, like, what does it mean to you? As wide as you like, Nicole.

Okay, thank you. Thriving means to me, I, whew, In a bigger picture, I definitely want to enjoy and cherish my family, my friends, my community, my relationships. And that's not always so easy to live through in the day-to-day with emotions and circumstances that come up. So I think building my community Um, has really been helpful to that for me, and having compassion for others. And then through that, others having compassion for me and seeing each other through this wild journey of being a daughter, a friend, um, a sister, a mother. I, I have to have that community around me too.

To, to support one another? To what?

Yes.

What does the community give you?

The community gives me empathy and advice and courage and enjoyment and fun and being seen, especially if you have a couple really close people to you who you share the good, the bad, and the ugly with, without— and can be vulnerable with without feeling judged. And there usually is just a couple to a handful of people like that. Um, that helps me be the best mom I can be in any moment, professional I can be.

Um.

Yeah, I've heard a lot about from other adoptive Mums or moms, right? We call them mums. You call them moms. Mums and dads about being about being judged by by others. And I I think I was talking to somebody who a Brit who lives in the States about this last last week and. So my kind of my theory was that are Americans more judgmental than Brits? And she said, yeah. You know, it was it was a loaded question. I knew my opinion, but luckily her or luckily I don't know, but her opinion did. And and so this kind of. Need the, the, the need to, to judge or to, to point out, or it just seems really nasty to me.

And a lot of it is done behind the, the keyboard, uh, with social media now. I think that's made people a lot more comfortable. But where does that come from? Is it from a rigid standard from your parents from growing up that I always think that judgment comes from insecurity. That's been my thought on that. And I think that there's room for growth for everyone, but that deep judgment of other people, especially not understanding— where I'm never going to understand another's circumstances 100%. All of us are living very unique circumstances and unique lives. So I, I don't know that, that rigid thought of exactly what a person should be is definitely strong.

Yeah.

It, it's a, it's a long story. I won't tell the whole story, but I, I, I did some work in an element— what you call an elementary school, we call a primary school a few years ago. And, uh, the— they didn't tell me what they wanted until I asked. And, and the headteacher said, we just want the kids to be, uh, nicer to each other, uh, comma, especially the girls. And she was talking about 8-year-olds. And this was probably 10 years ago. So, you know, there's, there's, I'm sure there's a lot more 8-year-olds with phones these days than there was 10 years ago. So it, it wasn't a, it wasn't a social media kind of thing. It was, uh, I, um, uh, uh, uh, the, the most important, most important, most longstanding mentor in, in, in my life who judges me not one bit. Um, says, uh, girl— girls cry and men fight and boys fight.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Um, and, and so there's a, you know, like, so for me, nicer to each other in the playground. I went to an all-boys school where we fought, we fought in the playground, whereas girls don't fight and play, they do, do something else. So, you know, I'm going back to the 1970s here. I'm that old, right? Um, how you, you, you talked about compassion early, uh, earlier on. And so how, how does, how does this idea of perhaps truth, right, that the judgments come from insecurity, how does compassion impact this for you?

For me, having compassion for others and having compassion— having compassion for myself really helps me navigate through any challenges. And to— I think it's just like a lot of things, to have something, you need to give something. So if I want compassion, I need to find ways to find compassion for other people as well. But that's not always easy in the day-to-day, in the moments and the normal. And also recognizing the negative, quote, negative emotions of, you know, anger and pain, fear. That's all a part of the bigger picture and not shoving that down. So I think having compassion is also having compassion for those and identifying. Again, quote, negative emotions.

So what's compassion for yourself? How do you— what does that mean for you?

I think being able to take the time to pause, recognize different feelings, recognize that I'm not going to be a perfect mother, a perfect sister, perfect friend. I don't expect that of others either. I think taking the time to really stop and not— I think sometimes when we're on autopilot, we can just keep moving through everything. And I think compassion takes meditation. I think compassion takes a well-deserved and needed break sometimes to just be with myself. Um, to have that self-compassion.

So it's pause and grace.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. What, what was coming up for me as you talk about grow passion for ourselves, it's like, it was, was this, have you come across this? Um, some people call it parts work and it's a therapy modality called IFS, Internal Family Systems. You come across that?

Yes, you had mentioned it last time, and I put, um, one of the books on my reading list, but I have not gotten it from the library yet.

Yeah.

Um, does it— because when we say compassion for ourselves, what we're talking about is a, a really, uh, what— yeah, we're talking about part relationships between different parts of us. Because, you know, we can't, um, takes, it takes two to tango. It takes two to judge.

Yes.

Yeah. So, but there's only one of us, right? Yeah. So how, how does that happen? You know, but part, parts work is about kind of would, would, would be investigating that. So there's a, there's a, uh, there's a judgment, there's a judge apart, and there's a Uh, a forgiving part. And, and, um, the, the, and then we would be the, so the, the Dick Schwartz is the IFS guy, right? His, his kind of, his book or one of his books is called No, No Bad Parts because we can, we can have an inner critic and then we can criticize ourselves for having an inner critic, right?

Yeah. Yes.

Right.

Right. So you talked about suppressing stuff, right? So we can have the inner critic can come up. The inner critic is, is the one that's saying we should know better and we should be better. You should have learned this lesson by now, Simon. I'm not talking about you, Nicole, right? So my inner critic says, right, you should have learned this lesson. I, I had one at, uh, I, I, I had one at the, at the swimming pool. Um, I was talking to a guy that I've a guy that I see at swimming pool quite, quite often. And I said, you know, like, I made some mistakes in, in, at school, at high school, right? And then I made pretty much the same mistake again at college, right? So we can really go to town with the inner critic, but the inner critic is gonna, there's The, the inner critic is criticizing another part of us, right? It's like a, like a board meeting.

Yes.

Yes.

Like a board meeting. And there's, and there's the different parts of us that are arguing with one another. They've got a different view. So compassion and the book. So the book's called No Bad Parts. The Dick Schwartz book is called No Bad Parts, right? So what, what it's saying is it's, we're not, we're not gonna try and, um, we're not gonna, we're not gonna try and eject the, the inner critic from the boardroom.

Mm-hmm.

We're gonna, we're gonna have compassion for the inner critic, the inner judge. Because we know, like, as you said, that, that, that judgment is coming from— the, the judge is coming from, from insecurity.

Mm-hmm.

I heard a great phrase this morning listening to a podcast: perceptual humility.

Okay.

Perceptual humility.

I'm writing that down.

I thought that was great because it's it's it's essentially being up, being up for the way, being up for for seeing that the way that we see the world is a little maybe a little bit off.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

So we may be seeing through dodgy eyewear.

Mm-hmm.

And what do you do with that?

Sorry?

What do you do with that?

What do you do with that? Well, it's kind of— it's a noticing thing.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

It's a noticing thing. So if I make it a bit more personal, Now, um, me viewing the world through trauma glasses.

Mhm.

So I can look back now. I can look back, and, and, and this happens quite a lot. I look back at certain things from 20 years ago, uh, and I think I wasn't seeing that right. So I bumped into I used to knock around with a certain group of people and then unfortunately one of those, that changed, right? And then I, one of the guys went off traveling and I tried to stay in touch with a couple of the people and it didn't work out. And I thought, I didn't— yeah, I bumped into one of those people a few years later, and I thought she'd kind of dumped me as a friend.

Mhm.

I didn't know that, kind of. So, but she was gushing about how great it was to see me, and I was like, well, you, you dumped me. Like, I don't know, I don't— I can't understand what's going on, right? I can't understand what— I don't understand what you're saying now. I don't know why you're so gushing now, because she You basically, you dump me. So, but looking back on that now, I can see that was, that was my insecurity glasses were on when she, you know, I, I, I, I was, I was off. I was off. My, my perception.

Mhm.

Was in, was incorrect. Um, I've got another one. Walked past, uh, walked past a, a, an old girlfriend in the street with a new boyfriend and a, and a mum, and she blanked me, right? She didn't, she didn't acknowledge me. I was on the way back from the pub and being a bit lippy, and, you know, I had a few beers, and I said, uh, don't say hello then, Fiona. 2 minutes later, I turned around, and, uh, as I turned around, this fist landed in my face, and, and I went down on the deck, and the guy was starting to kick me while I was down on the, on the, on the ground, right? And a friend of mine that was with me who knew him kind of pulled him off or got him to stop. And that, that was when I was 19, so I'm, I'm 59 now, so that's 40 years ago. 4 years ago. And he, uh, it only dawned on me a couple of years ago that she wasn't, she wasn't rejecting me. She wasn't ignoring me on purpose. She must have known what a boyfriend was like. She knew her boyfriend had this jealous streak and that if she said hello to me, it was going to cause some ructions. So Perceptual humility is seeing that how we see things might be a little bit off.

Mm-hmm.

And it becomes a whole new world. That, that, that little part of your world becomes completely new.

Yes.

Perceptual humility.

Can I ask if there was ever a time where, or what the, the moment was that, um, You started learning more about, about that perception and, and when that changed and kind of surrendering to maybe therapy or any sort of help with changing that?

Well, first off, I'm interviewing you, so that's—

It's the natural counselor in me.

I know, and, and I said that jokingly when you were taking a sip from a straw, right, uh, of a drink. So that went probably— yeah. Um, say, say the question again.

Was there a time— was it in, in your teens or 20s or 30s when you, when you kind of wanted to grow in, in learning more about your perception and your history?

And yeah, um, I, I would say it was It was, um, I would say it was in, in business. I got a business coach.

Okay.

And one of the things that the— so this business coach just asked me questions, right?

You—

it's really infuriating. A mentor tells you what to do, or an advisor tells you what to do.

Uh-huh.

A true coach never tells you what to do.

Uh-huh.

Okay, that's a mass simplification, right? But what one of the things that she did tell us to do was to do this, you know, when I say never to do— she, she never told me what to do about a particular situation, right? So if I said, should I ring this guy, shouldn't ring this guy, she would say, I'm, I'm not gonna answer that question, right? What— but what she did do is, is she got us down this, going down this, um, we did these what's called a DISC profile. So a DISC profile is like a— you're nodding your head, you know what I'm talking about. Yes, I have. So yeah, um, so for those who don't listen, um, it's a kind of a personality at work profile, and, and it reveals some stuff. You answer some questions on a computer and it gives you some stuff, and, and it's amazingly insightful. And, and it— another one of my mentors, his favorite phrases was, it's hard to see the picture when we're in the frame. It's hard to see the picture when we're in the frame.

Mm-hmm.

Now, when we talked last time, you, you were talking about, you know, the importance of the stuff that being, being a mum, uh, you know, that you've learned a lot about yourself, right? So it's— but it's hard to see the picture when we're in the, when we're in the frame. But something like, um, a DISC profiling questionnaire or an emotional intelligence questionnaire, um, that reveals stuff about ourselves based on the answers that we give it. The, the, the computer software brings up some stuff. So, and then you— then I see the error of some of my ways. And, and when you see better, you do better. When you do better, you do better. Um, so that, do that. Yeah, it's like holding our beliefs less tightly.

Mhm.

So what, what would you Big question, right? Um, and my turn now. What, what, um, what have you learned about— what, what are some of the big things that you've learned about yourself through motherhood?

That is a big question. Um, Things I've learned about myself through motherhood. I don't really know. I've—it's been a day by day. My son is three; he just turned three, so that's been a lot of the first year was kind of survival and just trying to get through the day to day. And then my daughter was eighteen, nineteen at the. time he was born. So it was kind of a juxtaposition of 2 separate generations, and navigating that has been a joy, lots of blessings, but lots of challenges as well. So really, I think what I've learned most about myself is Is having those relationships with my family and friends and community. That's, that's, that's what's valuable to me. And that's, that's what I want my life to be.

Yeah. So the community helps you overcome the challenges?

Definitely. And I, I've always wanted to be a part of my community. I volunteer as much as possible. I, and I want to instill that in my children as well. That to want community is to be community and to be involved and be active.

Yeah. Yeah. And your inner resilience in these challenging challenges, because I presume there's some learnings around that.

Definitely. I think the inner learnings have been just filtering out the logistical things. What, what do I want? How do I want to parent? How do I want to discipline? How do I want to set boundaries? And also navigating all of the, the feelings and emotions surrounding that and being able to pause and take care of my mind, body, and spirit. spirit. Because that's how I'm going to best be a parent.

Yeah. Yeah. And so what does that look like for you?

Going to the doctor for the first time in 3 years, going to the dentist for the first time in 3 years, going back to yoga for the first time in 2 years. And, and building in that time and Space for me to cancel plans as well, and space for me to say, oh, I was in a moment of thinking, oh, I want to do this and want to do that, and I want to plan this and plan that. And being able to say, no, I just need to— I just need to sit with myself or take my son to the museum today. That's what we're— that's what's going to be the best use of my time and our time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the, the logistics have in the past got in the way of your thriving, juggling.

Definitely.

Yeah. So is, are there other things that have got in the way of your thriving or get in the way of your thriving, you think?

I think definitely like the, the inner critic that we were talking about before, for sure. For sure.

Yeah. You know, there's a, there's actually, it's a, there is a place in the brain where it lives. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, what, what's your, what's your take on the inner critic? Do you try and talk it out of stuff? Do you, do you put, shove your fingers in your ears and go blah, blah, blah, I'm not listening? What, you know, what, what's your, what's your go-to strategy with the inner critic?

Definitely. I, well, I am a, um, I'm a freezer in times of stress. I freeze and kind of dissociate and kind of just get through things. And I've definitely learned more about that in the past several years of, okay, we got to face it. Just like you said, you got to go through it. So how are we going to do that without freezing? For as long as we froze last time. We're not going to fix everything overnight, but how do we— how do we get through that? And then that means allowing the inner critic to talk and being able to, to figure that out without just shutting it off. Oh, you're not there. You're, you're, you know, there is no inner critic. That's shutting it off. Allowing all of the parts of us to— to work together.

Uh, so kind of compassion for the inner critic then?

Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah, that— you, you, you unlocked something for me with that earlier on about the judgment coming from insecurity. So if the inner— if the inner critic is coming from insecurity, Mhm. Um, the, the, the other one that I hear a lot is, um, and everybody just kind of accepts it as, as truth, is, you know, getting in our own way. I'm getting in my own way. Well, we, we can't actually do that physically. Do you know what I mean? Like, try and walk down a— try and walk down We call it a pavement. You call it a sidewalk. Train. Sorry, listeners, if you heard me say this recently. I can't remember the last time I said it. But you can't actually get in your own way. It's physically impossible, right?

Mm-hmm.

It's physically impossible to get in our own way. But we say it all the time like it's— yeah. So that comes out to the perceptual humility, right? So we're just putting some ideas under the microscope here and saying, can we actually get in our own way? If we can't get in our own way because it's a physical impossibility, What is getting in, in the way? Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, sorry, I should have asked that question. If we can't actually get in the way, Nicole, what is actually getting in the way? What do you have a take on that?

Um, oh, probably go down a million, um, like psychological things. I do think mind, body, and spirit comes back to a lot of things for me. I, I try and explore Those 3 things. So, um, things from the past, traumas from the past, um, how we handle them. And you say, um, I get in my own way. Here in the States, a lot of people accuse other people of that. They just get in their own way. They just get in their own way. So I think of it in a— and, um, yeah.

We do it both ways. We do it. We do it both ways. We, we, we say I'm getting in my own way and we say other people are getting in their own way. Yeah. We project it onto others and we talk about it ourselves. And it's— but it seems it's seen as a criticism, isn't it?

Absolutely.

Whether it's somebody else getting in their way or us getting in our way. I was talking to a chap about this the other week, and I think it was after we'd finished the pod, the recording, and he got He got to a point and he said, this is Jamal, a guy I interviewed last week. He talked about decision or indecision, right? So what gets in his way if it's not him? And he said, oh, it's a decision. You know, I get to a fork in the road. and I don't know which fork to take. So indecision or decisions or indecision, decisions gets in his way, which I thought was brilliant because I'd never seen that before. I thought that was great. I kind of I decided that the only thing that gets in our way, right, was beliefs, like beliefs that we can't do something.

Mm-hmm.

So if you ask me a question, if you ask me a question about DIY, you're doing anything painting or decorating or anything around the house, I am not your guy, right? And I, and I have decided I am not gonna do that, right? I've decided I'm not gonna do that because I'm crap at it. So I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna, pay somebody else, I'm going to avoid it, or I'm going to live with the wonky shelf, right? I'm not going to— um, so I've kind of decided on that. So I, I think, so for me, beliefs get, get in, uh, get in our way. I, I agree. I think that past trauma gets, gets in our way too. I'm a freezer as well. Sometimes, on occasion, I'm a, I'm a freezer. Um, so we've got decisions, Trauma, beliefs. What, what else gets in our way if it's not ourselves? Any thoughts?

I think probably fear and just unknowing. If decisions get in the way, are you spiraling out over what decision could go wrong or right? Are all of the things that could go wrong or right with any decision and maybe just like kind of a lack of radical acceptance of what life is. And also having, I guess, beliefs, as you said, knowing what your beliefs are.

Yeah. As we were pausing and you were thinking the answer, the one that came to me was one of the same ones that came to you was fear. Mine had a, mine had a little bit more detail on it, and it was fear of failure.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Fear of failure. So I'm not gonna, I'm, I'm gonna freeze. I'm gonna freeze cuz I'm not gonna act. If I don't act, I can't do anything wrong.

Uh-huh.

And clearly that is not an option when you're raising kids, right? You can't, you can't, um, say you can't just opt out, can you? Yeah, business people can do this. I remember an Irish guy I dealt with, and he, you know, he was— we were on a deadline. They were putting— it was a client, he was putting us under a deadline. All his staff were, all his team, his boss was putting on a deadline. We've got to deal with him. And he wouldn't make a decision on something. And I'm thinking, I'm thinking really nasty thoughts, right? Like, I'm really criticizing him because he wouldn't make a decision. Like, just— and it was as if— well, what it felt like to me is it was a decision that was below him, you know? It was kind of like an ivory tower. Ivory tower. I come from a big organization. I'm now working for the small organization. In the big organization, I could avoid The decisions. I didn't get dragged into the details. You know, I'm, I'm a, I'm a big picture guy. You know, well, if the big picture is, mate, I mean, I didn't say this to her at all, right? But the big picture is if you don't make a decision on this, you're not gonna get your delivery on time. So, and honestly, I didn't say this, you know, but, um, but yeah, so fear of, uh, like, so you've got a You can't do that. You can't abdicate a decision when you're raising a 3-year-old or trying to support a daughter in her 20s. You can't abdicate. You've just kind of got to go with your gut, your best guess, is that it?

Yes, absolutely. Best guess and the most courageous decision you can make in that moment. And Yeah, and, and doing your best, but also understanding nobody's at a high level of the highest level of functioning at all times, but doing your best to role model for you. I think that's one of the most important parts of parenting and working and friendships and anything is modeling.

Modeling. Yeah. So tell us more. Tell us more. Maybe some details or some insights you've had around this, or particular moments that you're comfortable to—

Yeah, I would say like professionally, you know, there, of course, if you're working for a business, there's expectations of work, um, and management and things like that. But I've learned a lot through Supervising and management, and I have so much to learn, but role modeling is really important to me in that. And as a parent as well, I believe in grit, I believe in hard work, I believe in compassion and community, and I got to put my money where my mouth is and actually live that through my life.

Yeah. Uh, the, the, as you were saying that, the, the idea that came to, to my head is something that, uh, uh, a mum told me a while ago, it, that kids do what we do, not what we say.

Mm-hmm.

So we better be modeling because otherwise That they, they, they, they've got a, they've got a, a truth radar. They've got a truth sensor. Yes, they do. They've got a truth sensor in, in their, um, where is it? It's in their solar plexus, I think. Is it? Have you heard about this?

Yes.

Yeah, we've all got, we've got a truth radar in this, in, in our solar plexus. And there's, and we've, you know, we get that feeling in the, in the pit of our stomach. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. What have you heard about that stuff and how does that apply to you?

Well, the solar plexus, I was just working on that in yoga and it's definitely the gut feeling. It's right in there. And the stomach and the heart are at the center of our body. So definitely a lot of that. But I've had a mirror shown at me through both my son and daughter and through just copying my mannerisms. And I'm like, oh my goodness. But then that's— that becomes bigger picture. That becomes pointing out, well, you said this and now, you know, but this is what you did, Mom. So this doesn't, you know, align. And, and being able to sit there and role model, you know what?

Yeah.

You're right. Let me, let me take some time to think about that. Can we, can we pick this back up and talk another time?

Yeah. Yeah. Talking about time, we're coming up on time here. Yeah. Is there anything that you'd like to— I mean, fascinating. I've loved the conversation.

I've loved it as well. I appreciate it. And yeah, we're all learning together and just getting through this life. Yeah. And I, I appreciate, um, the insight and the, uh, recommendations too. Like I said, the ISF I have on my to-read list and I definitely wanna learn more.

Yeah. Is there anything that you'd like to share before we drink Brighton or bring it in? Are you, you good?

No, I think, I think this was a great conversation. I really appreciate it.

Yeah. Thanks, Nicole. And thanks, listeners. We'll, uh, speak to you again very soon. Take care. Bye-bye.