Episode 25: Feeling Safe to Stop People-Pleasing and Be Yourself with Charlotte Bailey

Hello and welcome to the Mum Means Business podcast, where we shine a light on inspiring women who have one thing in common. When they’re not managing tantrums, homework, P.E. kits and play dates, they are busting their gut to create something from nothing, to turn their passion into a thriving business and build a better life for themselves and their families. We dig into what motivates devoted mothers to pursue entrepreneurship and how they integrate their work and family life.

I’m Victoria Phipps, your host, and if you’re an ambitious mum in need of some solidarity whilst navigating the messy middle of making your big dream a reality, then stick around. This is for you.

NOTE: This is the transcript from the original recording, rather than the edited episode so timings may vary.

Victoria (00:01)
My guest today is a trauma informed psychotherapist, speaker, writer, mental and mum on a mission to help women feel safe to be themselves. She does this through her podcast, Let’s Talk People Pleasing and spoken word performances, bringing honesty and hope to conversations about healing and self-worth. She works with women who as little girls were made to feel they were too much and grew up believing they were never enough.

Charlotte Bailey knows that story personally. She spent years hiding parts of herself to feel worthy until finally addressing the roots of those patterns helped her find freedom and self-acceptance. Now she’s on a mission to help women and the little girls watching them feel safe to be seen, heard and fully themselves. Tackling the behavioral traits many of us will be familiar with from people pleasing, perfectionism, self-sabotage and visibility struggles.

Charlotte’s work reminds us that authenticity isn’t about performing confidence. It’s about feeling safe enough to be ourselves. Charlotte, based on this description, I feel like I am your ideal customer avatar. And I can’t wait to dig into all of this with you. So welcome to the Mummy’s Business Podcast.

Charlotte Bailey (01:15)
⁓ thank you.

I’ve been waiting to sit here and listen to you read my bio out and have, because of all the episodes I’ve listened to and you know, the way you sort of describe what people do and the message behind what they do, it always just, yeah, I just love it. And when you were reading that out and I was noticing, I was starting to feel a bit emotional, but I think that just reflects the fact that it does mean so much to me, you know, I love it.

Victoria (01:21)
I’ll be with you.

Yeah, yeah, but I

think we so often just don’t give ourselves credit for all the amazing work we’re doing. And I want to set these conversations off on a really good note, always, because it’s about celebrating you and your story and what you’re doing. And I’m excited. So let’s dive right in. What made you start your own business? Tell me the story.

Charlotte Bailey (01:51)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Looking back ⁓ now, it seems very obvious that I would end up being a therapist, I think, because I was that little girl who felt everything deeply and I was the sensitive and the quiet one, always picking up on how everyone else was feeling and wanting to keep everyone happy. And I learned early on, like a lot of women, that keeping people happy

kept me feeling accepted and safe. So it’s sort of now I can look back and see it was always gonna be the case in a way that I would be on this path. ⁓ But back then I wouldn’t have recognized certain traits as people pleasing like I do now. But going back to your question, in terms of setting up my own business from this, I suppose I need to maybe start from the fact that ⁓ like I’ve always

been interested in psychology it seems because even, I’m showing my age here but I don’t know if you remember record of achievements. ⁓

Victoria (03:17)
You know what, I don’t and I don’t think it’s

because I’m younger than you. I think it’s just perhaps because that wasn’t in my world. Go on, tell me.

Charlotte Bailey (03:24)
So

⁓ I recently found my old record of achievement from high school. So when I was 16, before you left high school, you would do a record of achievement with all your certificates and you’d write a personal statement. And within that statement, I even had written in there about how I wanted to do something, a job where I was helping people and how I wanted to learn more and study human behaviour and like the human mind and all this.

Victoria (03:29)
Okay.

Charlotte Bailey (03:53)
⁓ So even back then I showed, like that demonstrated basically that that was my interest. Now after high school and college it was really tricky for me in terms of there was a lot of stuff going on in my life at home and things like that and I wasn’t in a position where I could go to uni ⁓ so I had to complete a psychology degree part-time which took me seven years.

Victoria (04:20)
my god, yes, I imagine.

Charlotte Bailey (04:21)
to complete.

And during that time I was working full-time in insurance which is completely so far removed from what I do now and I was volunteering at the Samaritans so I was in my 20s and still I was trying to socialise and have a life as well. God knows how I did it but I did it and I suppose even then at that point I was showing these this pattern that I was often in of sort of striving.

to achieve more and more all the time and doing more and trying to do everything to perhaps feel like I was good enough at things or to feel enough in myself, which is a pattern that’s very familiar in the people, like the women I work with. And a lot of us, suppose, can relate to that. But yeah, so I am leading up to why I started my business as I have. But from that point of

getting that degree, volunteering at Samaritans left the world of insurance a shock ⁓ into the world of the NHS and the drug and alcohol services back in the day when they had funding and put you through loads of training. So I went loads of training and the criminal justice side, I was working from like police custody suites at times, like helping people with their mental health and.

and then went into primary care therapy services. And the reason I’m saying this, it all leads into why I’ve started sort of focusing my business where I have, because during that period of time, externally, I looked like completely capable. You know, like, I’m not saying I wasn’t capable, but I looked like I had everything together. Like I looked like I was easy going, I was calm.

I was good at my job. could help people feel like, teach people what they needed to feel safe in themselves and feel good enough and, you know, ⁓ help people with anxiety and things like that. But internally, I was like the opposite, you know, for myself. Internally, I was like so anxious, for want of a better word, riddled with anxiety and overthinking and…

was still like stalking really and like ⁓ how can I say like ⁓ really what’s the word? Engrained patterns of yeah of like and like of people pleasing and stuff of trying to keep every like juggling so much and ⁓ and yet like I say externally seemed fine but I would be hiding in ⁓ toilets because I didn’t want to

Victoria (06:56)
Destructive? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (07:14)
attend tea meetings. If the spotlight felt like it was on me, I would just feel like frozen. ⁓ I would like try and avoid being in the staff canteen or the kitchen because I didn’t want to speak to anyone at lunch. You know, I was really anxious and really just the opposite of how I was presenting myself. But this is all going on internally. ⁓ you know, criticising myself for being like that as well was going on.

Victoria (07:33)
Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (07:45)
and

Victoria (07:45)
Is this sort

of, just to sort of understand that a bit better, you know, you’re kind of hiding away from these kind of social engagement sides of what it is to have a job, you know, the meetings and is there a bit of sort of perfectionism in there and that like, if the spotlight is on, you don’t want to get it wrong. Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (07:52)
Mmm.

Yes, yes.

So there was that element of, yeah, wanting to, because I didn’t feel like I was good enough in some ways, I didn’t want to, like, I didn’t want other people to think that I wasn’t good enough as well. So it was like all this pressure.

Victoria (08:24)
It’s bad enough that you think it yourself.

You don’t want everyone thinking that you’re not good enough. Yeah, it’s horrendous. Horrendous. Yeah, it sounds really like a really difficult time. Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (08:28)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it really was. It really

was. I, yeah, it does make me feel a bit emotional like younger me because it was such a thing to be going through like silently as well because there can be so much shame attached to that struggle that you’re feeling internally, especially when a lot of us, the way we speak to ourselves when we notice we’re struggling as well, that like, what is wrong with me?

Victoria (08:38)
Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (08:58)
like, why am I like this? I’m teaching these people all these things. I’m good at it. Like people are, you know, feeling better at times and, you know, learning techniques to use. it’s like, and this is the thing, like I trained in, so with my therapy training and stuff like cognitive behavioural therapy, it’s very, you know, within the NHS, it’s very much about managing symptoms of anxiety and stuff like that. So teaching people how to challenge.

anxious thoughts, how to, ⁓ you know, sort of expose yourself to stuff you fear and change behaviours and patterns like that. It’s quite surface level in the NHS. So I was doing this like CBT training and I got it. I understood I learnt all about anxiety. I knew what I needed to do. But like so many of the women I work with, you can get it and you can know what you need to do, but actually implementing it.

or implementing it and feeling the benefit of that or feeling different from it. Sometimes it just doesn’t go like that. Like you can get it but not feel it. ⁓ And that’s…

Victoria (10:08)
Yeah. And do think you

gave yourself, well, I was going to say, do you gave yourself a harder time because you did understand it? You know, obviously there are a lot of women that will experience some of the feelings that you’ve described and you can throw all sorts of stuff in there, know, imposter syndrome and everything, but that they, they haven’t got that psychological training. They don’t understand kind of the roots of it they don’t understand the tools to kind of implement to manage it.

Charlotte Bailey (10:13)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Victoria (10:35)
kind of from an NHS point of view, you know, managing those symptoms. But you did, you knew and did you recognise, did you say to yourself, I have anxiety? Did you, were you honest? Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (10:39)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. I

can’t remember at what point that would have shifted for me because like I say I spent decades being a people pleaser but I wouldn’t have used that term, like it wouldn’t have clicked, I’m a people pleaser. It was just like my god I feel like I can’t say no to anything and I’m worrying, stressing out about what to wear every time I go out the house and I’m sat around in groups of people just nodding and smiling because…

don’t want to upset anyone but I wouldn’t have said ⁓ I’m people pleasing or ⁓ I’m a perfectionist because I’m retyping emails all the time because I don’t want to be seen to make a mistake or whatever it is. ⁓ So there would have been a point where that shifted but I can’t quite pinpoint when that was but that’s the thing as well like yeah you can and when you start noticing like I’m feeling this or I’m doing that there is something about like I say you you can

you do feel like ⁓ you give yourself a harder time when you know, it’s almost like ignorance is blissed, you know what mean? Like when you know that what’s going on and you can sort of see that you’re doing like unhelpful things, like for instance, I work with a lot of women who are at that stage as well where they might have had therapy previously or they’ve read the books, have listened to the podcast. They do get it. They do get what’s going on and they know that they would say to a friend,

Victoria (11:49)
Yeah. Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (12:11)
for example, ⁓ it’s okay to set a boundary or it’s okay to say no to something you don’t want to do. You don’t have to wait till you’re ill to say no, do you know? And things that, you don’t have to lie. It’s okay if you just don’t want to do something. But to apply that to ourselves isn’t always as easy as just say no, just let them be upset if they’re upset.

Victoria (12:20)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

No, it’s not easy at

all. It’s not, and I completely relate to this. feel like I understand a lot of what you’re talking about. I recognize it in myself and I will preach to my friends like, no, if you’re overwhelmed, just don’t do it. But then when that invitation comes to me to do something, which is like the sixth thing in my day, I will absolutely do it because I don’t want to let that person down. If I’ve got a choice and I feel like it’s not.

Charlotte Bailey (12:45)
Mm.

Yeah.

Mm.

Mm.

Victoria (13:05)
expected then I’ll swerve but if it’s someone close to me or if it’s something to do with work someone needs a hand and it’s urgent I will always say yes when I literally don’t have capacity and I will somehow make it work and I’ll take that time from something that I really need like my sleep or you know my time with my kids I’ll always find a way and it is much harder in practice to be that disciplined with it definitely.

Charlotte Bailey (13:16)
Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah and sometimes like yeah and I suppose it’s it’s less about ⁓ discipline at times and more about like your nervous system registering like saying has somewhere along the lines like been learnt basically that saying no equals threat as in some sort of threat of rejection maybe or threat of like loss of connection with someone or upsetting someone.

And then our nervous system isn’t distinguishing that as, ⁓ it’s not an actual physical threat. Like there’s no physical threat going on. What’s going on inside us, like why we feel so sick or shaky at times when we’re trying to rehearse how to say no, is because your nervous system is just trying to protect you from, it can’t distinguish between an actual threat and what we perceive to be a potential threat.

You know, it’s, it’s, cause we can get into cycles of like, I’m being irrational. Why am I being irrational? Why can’t I do this? And actually, like, you’re not being irrational. Like your nervous system is remembering something it has learned before about what it’s felt like if you’ve spoken up or if you’ve disagreed or if you’ve said no. Like it’s learned that somewhere…

something has taught it that that’s not acceptable, that you will be rejected in some way or punished ⁓ for saying no. So no wonder it feels awful. We have to do it, you know?

Victoria (15:08)
Yeah, yeah, but that is

deep conditioning. Like I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint that. And you’re so right. It’s kind of, again, it’s surface level for me to be like, I need to be really disciplined in my boundaries. And actually sometimes I physically cannot say no. And everything around me, like my partner will be saying, you don’t need to do that. Everyone. And also then we can get, I feel like we’re straying way away from the question that I asked you. We need to come back. But we’ll come around.

Charlotte Bailey (15:12)
Yeah.

Mm.

No it’s fine, I’m sure we’ll get back in a bit.

Victoria (15:36)
But then

you get into a situation where actually a lot of those expectations can be self-imposed. So, you know, we feel that we ought to be doing all these things, which is where kind of chronic productivity comes in. That that is where we have at some point learned that we gain respect and value by being productive and being everything to everyone. And good and being a good girl. Yeah, and always being available.

Charlotte Bailey (15:41)
Mm-hmm.

and code.

Victoria (16:04)
always being on hand to help out, being amenable. And so we do all the things and like we’re approaching Christmas, we’re both here in our red jumpers. And this is the classic time for women to impose a lot of this expectation on themselves, that we want everything to be magical for everybody. And perhaps we saw our mothers do this. And so we,

Charlotte Bailey (16:22)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Victoria (16:31)
We sort of have this list of things that we have to do in our mind. And we don’t even really consult, is this important to anyone? Does anyone care if I do this or not? We just feel like it’s our responsibility to make this sort of perfect day for everybody. And a lot of it is as mothers, you we want our kids to have a magical time, but I feel like we’re kind of, you know, this is one of those times of year and often you know, women that I’m speaking to in business, they might have a product business and it’s kind of the busiest time.

Charlotte Bailey (16:35)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm.

Victoria (17:01)
for work as well, and they’re still layering on all these expectations. And actually, if you kind of break it down, we’re doing it to ourselves.

Charlotte Bailey (17:02)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm. We, yeah, it’s hard that because there’s so many layers to that. So, yeah, it sort of feels like, like you say, it feels like a responsibility and an expectation that we’re imposing on ourselves. But we weren’t born with that expectation on ourselves. So, you know,

Victoria (17:13)
Which is crazy.

Charlotte Bailey (17:38)
It’s unlike, you you were saying it’s hard to pinpoint where it came from. And that’s because sometimes, you know, are people pleasing or taking responsibility for everything or not feeling good enough. doesn’t come from one thing. It can come from like all the systems that we’ve had to navigate along the way, you know, the messages spoken or unspoken that we’ve received from, you know, school, religion, even communities, parenting, what?

Victoria (17:57)
Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (18:08)
Like the absence of stuff that taught us it was okay to ⁓ disagree or like to feel certain feelings and express ourselves. There’s so many layers to it and…

Victoria (18:23)
It’s like

death by a thousand cuts, really.

Charlotte Bailey (18:25)
Yeah and there’s

something though about trying to shift a little bit away from feeling like or acknowledging that we can get quite critical of ourselves if we feel like we’re putting it on ourselves. Do you know like oh why do I keep doing this even though I know that I want to slow down and be present this Christmas? Why do I keep stressing over Auntie Deirdre’s present or something?

There’s something about, well, what might my body be remembering about, like, how can I say, where’s this come from? Rather than like, what’s wrong with me that I keep doing this? What has taught me to have this expectation? Where’s it come from? Like, just being a bit more curious as like, what rules might I hold about

Victoria (19:20)
Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (19:24)
what I should or shouldn’t be doing this Christmas and where did those rules come from? When or where might I have learnt them? And there might not be one thing, but just getting you thinking a bit more about, well, no wonder all these messages we receive from, you know, the media about the perfect Christmas, you know, the TV and the films, like unless it’s a soap opera, a TV and films all saying about this warmth and this magic that occurs at Christmas.

Victoria (19:51)
Cookery

programs, terrible. Like I want to be Nigella at Christmas because it’s all happening. And even you could go back to our childhood and watching Delia Smith, it’s all happening and it just feels effortless. And so you can internalize that and be like, well, it’s effortless for Nigella. So why do I feel like I’m literally climbing a mountain in the snow naked dragging a boulder behind me? why am I feeling so overwhelmed? And then

Charlotte Bailey (19:53)
Yeah!

Mm.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Victoria (20:21)
It seems effortless to other people. don’t think that’s particularly helpful either. Happily, we’ve got the soap operas like counter that where everything’s falling apart and there’s a disaster looming. But yeah, it is that pressure. And I suppose that’s a really helpful way of looking at it is not to kind of think what’s wrong with me? Why am I not Nigella? And why am I criticizing myself that I’m not Nigella? What’s making it? Yeah, so many questions. So many questions.

Charlotte Bailey (20:36)
Mm.

Yeah. What’s making me want to be Nigella in the first place as well? Like, an upset that I’m not. Yeah.

Victoria (20:48)
But it’s, yeah, where does it

come from? And is it’s, I suppose, is that story, that rhetoric, that expectation serving me in this moment?

Charlotte Bailey (20:58)
And would I want to impose that rule that I’m carrying on my children or someone I love? do I want, like, would I, because I suppose when we feel guilty or bad for not being able to fulfil some of expectation we might be holding on ourselves, or when we feel bad for not meeting someone else’s needs or saying no to someone, you know, that feeling like

Victoria (21:01)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (21:25)
that we feel awful and guilty, that guilt’s telling us that not necessarily that we’re doing something that’s actually wrong, but that we’re breaking a rule. And that can be quite helpful to notice and start getting curious about, what I’m noticing I feel guilty of. I must be breaking some rule. I wonder what rule it is. Like, yeah, where might that rule have come from? What different things in life may have created that rule? And…

⁓ Is it one I would impose on someone I loved? And if not, what’s the reason I wouldn’t impose it? In what way is it not helping? And not necessarily getting rid of the rule. It doesn’t mean like none of us wants to make an effort at Christmas, but just considering what might be a more realistic guideline that I could maybe practice living by. know, so rather than having to bake loads of ⁓ desserts for Christmas, maybe I could buy one from the shop.

and then I might be bit more present at the time when I need to be. It doesn’t have to be like, right, I need to go to me first all the time, put myself first all the time. It’s about, what about me too? Trying to think it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. ⁓ I’ve forgotten where we were going with that question. ⁓

Victoria (22:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let’s go back to your business.

No, it’s all right. Don’t worry. We’ve gone on a festive tangent and I enjoyed it. But let’s let’s go back to your business. So you were in the NHS. What made you what made you leave and decide to do this for yourself?

Charlotte Bailey (22:52)
yes.

Well, so during the NHS, I was trained in the cognitive behavioural therapy, which as I say, felt like it was very symptom management in the NHS. And I was noticing a bit what we were talking about earlier. Clients were provided with a certain number of sessions in the NHS. I don’t know if that still happens, but when I was there, that was the case. And again, I was seeing this theme of like clients getting it, like the

got what they needed to do. They were doing like what they called homework in between session and challenging their thoughts, but they didn’t always feel it, like the shift in what they were telling themselves or whatever. So there was something around that that made me want to go deeper in terms of my training, which unfortunately by that point in the NHS there wasn’t any funding for. So.

and they weren’t very flexible in terms of time off if you were funding for yourself. So that was an element of it. So I started doing training in lots of other modalities. And to be honest, with my patterns that I hadn’t yet fully worked on at that point, and the pressure, this is the thing as well. It’s not always our stuff. There’s systems we navigate that actually

cause us to sort of get into these, what feels like these people pleasing patterns and traps and perfectionism. If we’re in a system that doesn’t feel safe to say no to it or people in it, then that takes its toll as well. It’s not always about us.

Victoria (24:37)
But if that’s your job, you know, yeah, no,

if that’s your job, you, ⁓ you’re getting paid to do that. You can, you can easily feel like, I just have to do everything that they ask of me, even if it doesn’t feel comfortable or it feels overwhelming.

Charlotte Bailey (24:43)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah,

absolutely. And I would like be staying hours later to like catch up on paperwork. If something had occurred in a session, say like a safeguarding thing or something I had to follow up as priority, you know, and then I’d end up staying late to get everything else done. But you wouldn’t get paid for that. Like that was just normalised within that culture that you don’t get paid for that. You just expected to go above and beyond. And obviously that feeds into everything when you start feeling.

like quite resentful of that and quite like, well hang on, this doesn’t seem right. But then I feel bad for feeling like it doesn’t feel right because I’m in this caring role and I should care enough to want to stay overtime for free and all this. ⁓ before I… Yeah.

Victoria (25:28)
Yeah.

Well, there’s tension there between

your job and your patient. So, you know, this is a calling of yours. You feel really passionately about what you’re doing and you want to support your patients and you appreciate, you you might only have so many sessions with them and you want them to really count and you want to make sure you’re doing the best job you can. But the system that that is all facilitated through is taking the piss out of you and also taking the piss out of all of your colleagues. But also if they accept it, then…

Charlotte Bailey (25:37)
Yes.

Mm.

Yeah. Yeah.

spot on.

Yes.

Victoria (26:00)
It’s even

Charlotte Bailey (26:00)
⁓

Victoria (26:00)
worse for you to speak out if the culture is what it is. You’re on your own to complain.

Charlotte Bailey (26:04)
Yes, because those who…

Yeah, you’re so right, because those who… It was there within the culture because those who didn’t offer to stay late or to work extra or to do this or to do that, it was sort of known that it was frowned upon, know. Bad things were said, like, about these people. So it wasn’t safe to stand up and say, actually, I’m not going to do that for free. And actually, I don’t agree that…

Victoria (26:19)
Yeah, yeah, and they are judged. Yeah, yeah, which.

Yeah, yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (26:33)
you know, you’re treating ⁓ these people as targets and numbers in the same way you would a business product. ⁓ But so there was a lot of stuff within that, ⁓ that sort of organisation and the NHS that just didn’t sit right with me and wasn’t aligned with me. And I think it just, yeah, it just took its toll and the striving and doing and, yeah, struggling to just switch off in between. And ⁓ it just led me to just burn out.

and I went off sick actually before I left. I’d already started my private, my business. I wouldn’t have even called it a business back then, that’s interesting because it was just my private practice. ⁓ Yeah, so I’d already started that and then I went, ⁓ got poorly, was signed off and then I didn’t go back. ⁓ And my God, it’s the best thing I ever did. So yeah, it’s the best thing I ever did and…

Victoria (27:15)
Yeah, your little sideline. Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (27:32)
I just focused in on building up my private practice that, like I say, back then, I didn’t even consider myself to have a business. It’s just weird, how we, the meaning we attach to certain phrases and words and stuff. So I set up my business. I was trained then in EMDR. This is really highlighting a pattern of wanting to achieve and seek approval and perfection because I was then trained in EMDR.

Victoria (27:58)
Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (28:02)
⁓ Schema therapy, are like modalities that go deeper in terms of your nervous system and memories and trauma and attachment and stuff. And also sex and porn addiction counselling ⁓ and psychosexual therapy and somatic practices as well. So a lot. Yeah. And somewhere along the way, I was like.

Victoria (28:14)
Mm-hmm.

That’s a lot. Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (28:25)
what am I doing when I started to contemplate doing another course? I like, no Charlotte, you are enough, you are good enough, you know what you’re doing. But I wanted that, I wanted the modalities, I wanted my approach to go deeper, to fill that gap that we’ve seen so many people experiencing of not feeling the difference. So I needed to understand what it was that was at the root of it, like how we could go further than just trying to think ourselves.

out of how we’re feeling and to just fake it till we make it or what, to actually help people feel different longer term, like more lasting chain. Anyway, so set up my business and ⁓ at that then had a Facebook page for my business. I didn’t have a website and set up this Facebook page and God knows how I got work because I would not share it anywhere. I was so, like the patterns were still there.

Victoria (29:17)
Hahaha!

Charlotte Bailey (29:22)
I, ⁓ at times I called it that I was being professional because as a therapist, you know, it’s not ethical to promote yourself and all these like these stories I was telling myself, which were actually like to protect myself basically from what I feared and that was, well, what would my neighbours think? What would, you know, so and so ⁓ from school think? Like all these like fears of judgment.

Victoria (29:31)
stories.

Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (29:49)
And also absolutely terrified of putting my Facebook page or talking about what I did in Facebook community groups because, my God, that is like scary. So I just did not promote it. ⁓ But managed word of mouth, absolutely like got work and everything and built it up. during this time and everything and building up my business and stuff, I had my own therapy and really got to the root of these patterns I started.

Victoria (30:07)
Great.

Charlotte Bailey (30:17)
I’d had my training going deeper as well, like with the MDR and the Schema Therapy and everything, I could see then that it wasn’t just that this is how I am, I’m just a people pleaser, this is just the way I am, it’s a fixed thing. I could see, actually, this is like a learned response, this is like a reflection of stuff that maybe I’ve experienced growing up or ⁓ the conditioning that a lot of us are exposed to.

So with that shift again of, ⁓ this makes sense. I can see where it’s coming from. No wonder I believe this. No wonder this, da, da. actually, maybe I am good enough. Maybe it’s not that I’m not good enough. Maybe it’s that all these things have made, created this belief within me that I might not be good enough. And there was a lot to it anyway, but sort of working through my own stuff and yeah.

I suppose it’s just, this is why I do what I do now because I’ve gone from setting up a Facebook page that I would never have even dreamt of sharing anywhere or doing a video. know, people who say to me, Charlotte, you should share what you know on YouTube. I’m like, what? People don’t, like me, don’t do that. I couldn’t do a podcast. So now, you know, having that sort of want to do it, like feeling like, my God, and knowing I can do it.

I am capable and I am enough to do it and actually not just saying that I’m noticing still there’s that part of me that’s like Charlotte you sound a bit big-headed there but I can notice that but I’m not in it and this is why I want to do what I do now and why I’m doing it because yeah so now I like I say if you said in the bio just focusing on helping more women feel and know that they are enough as they are and the problem isn’t that they’re too much or too little.

Victoria (31:58)
Yeah, that’s the difference.

Charlotte Bailey (32:16)
The problem is how they’ve been made to feel along the way. And it’s not about blame. We’re not trying to blame someone necessarily. It’s just about knowing, like, recognising the reality of where it’s come from, you know?

Victoria (32:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, completely. I think it’s so interesting that identity piece, because I would just describe myself as a people pleaser. ⁓ And that’s not good. And then I would say, but I’m not flaky because being flaky is bad, but actually being flaky, I’ve got friends who are are flaky. And this is the thing that we do to each other. And you’re so worried about what this person is going to say about your Facebook page. And we’re kind of all propping up the system still little bit.

Charlotte Bailey (32:34)
Mm.

Mm.

Yeah.

Victoria (32:57)
because I have friends who I kind of expect to get a bail. And I am, because I’m such an intense people pleaser, ⁓ lacking in boundaries. I am not flaky, but I wear that as a badge of honor. Like I never would let anybody down on a social situation. It doesn’t matter what’s going on. could have, yeah, I’m a good girl. I could have a limb hanging off and I will just drag myself up the road to like see that person for a glass of wine. Like, it’s so, it’s so ridiculous.

Charlotte Bailey (33:14)
Yeah, I’m good. I’m a good girl.

Victoria (33:26)
But I think it is kind of separating yourself from it. Like you say, we were not born people pleasers. And to say, okay, well, but what is me and what is conditioning? And you kind of have to get, yeah, you have to get to know yourself afresh, really, because you do. And it’s almost like part of that conditioning is just you accepting that that is you now, you know, and it goes so deep.

Charlotte Bailey (33:32)
Mmm.

Yes.

That’s the tricky one, isn’t it?

I absolutely love what you’ve said there because this is a big thing of what I’m about really is that, you know, the way we see all these motivational slogans, we hear them, we see all these like sound bitey, click baity ⁓ mantras thrown at us through like Instagram or whatever about, know, ⁓ just let them or like just do this or just do that. ⁓

And I get like the concept is really helpful because it’s reminding us that we have permission to do that. But there’s something isn’t there about it’s not like we can feel like we have to become someone we’re Whereas actually, like you said, it’s about trying to tune back into who we are, like who we might have forgotten we are and remember that and reconnect with that. And we do that through actually pausing, perhaps before we respond to stuff and try and

sort of weaken that automatic response that we might have or been conditioned to have and just really like, it’s like, I used to roll my eyes at this sort of stuff by the way, because I was so cognitive. I was like, that’s like weird. But like close your eyes and actually really notice how stuff’s making you feel. Like what are you feeling in your body? Like what is that? What might my body be remembering? And like.

Victoria (35:02)
You

Charlotte Bailey (35:17)
This thing that I found really helpful is sort of framing certain feelings as like that little girl in me, like there’s a little girl there. And if you can imagine that anxiety is a little girl that feels unsafe, like what might she be thinking about? What does she remember? Like what’s she trying to protect you from or herself from? And it just brings with it this difference in how you speak to that.

part of you. So rather than that criticism and getting annoyed at yourself as much, imagine it’s like little you, it’s like how would I speak differently to her? Like what do I hear her saying and what do I want her to know? And it just brings like, yeah, this different feeling to it, you know, more like you won’t be trying to get rid of them necessarily, would you like?

Victoria (36:08)
Yeah, definitely.

Charlotte Bailey (36:11)
The amount of times I used to tell myself, like, oh my God, Charlotte, you’re such a knob, like, for how you’re feeling or, oh, you’re effing this, effing that. If it’s a little girl you’re trying to talk to, you’re not going to be saying that, are you? You’re going to want to, like, you’re not going to bat her away because the more you try not to hear her, the more she’s trying to get your attention. So if you can actually give her that attention and listen and acknowledge, you start to hear more about where it might have come from and what she is scared of.

Victoria (36:15)
Hahaha!

Charlotte Bailey (36:40)
and it might not be what you initially thought.

Victoria (36:44)
Yeah, that’s really interesting. it’s something just about kindness, you know, to yourself. And I think as a mother, we’re so protective of our children. And we desperately, you I have daughters, you you don’t, you don’t want them to grow up with this burden of people pleasing. You want them to have healthy boundaries and yes, to be, and there’s a tension, you know, you want them to be generous and you want them to be kind and to help other people. But

Charlotte Bailey (36:49)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria (37:13)
not if it’s to their own detriment, to be on that sort of repetitive cycle of always putting everybody else’s needs before yours, because cumulatively, there are times we have to do it and there were times we want to do it, and cumulatively, it takes its toll. But thinking about, you know, what would we say to our own children? I love that idea of just like, what would you say?

Charlotte Bailey (37:15)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah.

Victoria (37:37)
to yourself as a child because you’re so protective of the little you. just inevitably brings up so much emotion.

Charlotte Bailey (37:44)
Absolutely and you know, I’ve just what I’ve got on my desk that I always have ⁓ is a couple of little me’s. I don’t know you can see that.

Victoria (37:53)
that’s so cute. Do you keep them on your desk? That’s really good idea.

Charlotte Bailey (37:55)
Yeah, yeah, because

I like, yeah, because it just reminds me and I show clients sometimes and they probably think I’m a bit balmy at first. But obviously in the context of what we’re doing, though. And yeah, it just hits different. It just, yeah. And it can, like I say, it can bring to light some stuff that maybe you hadn’t like connected. yeah.

Victoria (38:04)
Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (38:24)
But how was it, how did people respond or did the environment respond or whatever? When I did speak up or when I did show emotion or when I did say I didn’t want to do something, like, did that, was that okay? Or did I learn that it was okay to do that? Or what might have told me that it wasn’t okay? And then therefore in these situations, no wonder I’m struggling because…

there’s that little girl that remembers that. And now reaching a stage within, you know, the work we do on ourselves to be able to take that little girl under our wing or by the hand and be like, it’s all right, I’ve got you, like, now it’s different. Now we do have a choice and we are allowed, we’re more free to make a choice. Because when we’re in those moments of like having to stand, like say to someone they’ve upset us or something.

We can feel like a child, can’t we? Do you know what I mean? You can feel like a child again, can’t you? So it’s just because, yeah, back when we were children, it didn’t feel like we had a choice really, because we didn’t have the same level of autonomy that we do now. ⁓

Victoria (39:19)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but that,

mean, I don’t know about you, that really sits quite high in my chest. Like sometimes I will have, and I’m, you generally I’ll walk through life fairly confident and secure, but there are always those moments where you feel like you’ve said something silly or you’ve been too much and you just sort of carry it around. And I just feel so wretched sort of deep to my core. And I have to remind myself that I’m 40 years old because it feels like I’m this little girl.

Charlotte Bailey (39:49)
Yeah. Yes. ⁓

Victoria (40:02)
and I’ve done something wrong. And it might be that that person that I was speaking to has not given it a second thought, but I think those cues and those little lessons that we learned through, and they’re all, we see it in our kids, they’re trying to understand society and interaction and friendships. And they’re just trying to piece it all together for the first time. And it’s a rollercoaster ride for all of us.

Charlotte Bailey (40:04)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Absolutely.

Victoria (40:26)
And we’re still kind of figuring it out as we move into like midlife and then also trying to help them navigate it. But it’s so telling that actually we can just feel completely wretched with ourselves if we feel like we’ve displayed those behaviors that were perhaps discouraged. And definitely this thing about being too much, you know, I was absolutely sort of nudged in the back when I was showing off in inverted commas and I was just being

Charlotte Bailey (40:28)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Mm. Yes.

Victoria (40:56)
And I was always described as being in inverted commas again, full on, always, and just very big person. But I think I definitely, and it’s not just down to parents, it’s the whole of society. I definitely learned that that wasn’t necessarily appreciated. And so when you feel like, especially in our businesses, you know, we have days when we’re in a really good mood and we feel like we can be big and we can be expensive. But then perhaps when we’re having

Charlotte Bailey (41:00)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Mm.

Yes.

Victoria (41:26)
a lower day, all of those sort of childhood waves come in and this is the imposter syndrome and the self doubt and self sabotage. You know, that’s when we’ll start procrastinating. We’ll be like, we need to, you know, definitely need to clean those windows before I do that Instagram reel. Like definitely do that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Because we just don’t feel energetically.

Charlotte Bailey (41:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

BOOM

or I’ll tweet my Instagram bio five times before I do a video.

Victoria (41:53)
you know, and obviously that’s going to ebb and flow anyway, but it is those kind of those internalized messages that kind of really rise to the surface then to the point where sometimes you can just literally feel them and you start to kind of tell yourself these stories. And it’s, it’s, it’s a mad roller coaster of hormones that we’re riding as women anyway, but those stories definitely come to play. And how have you found ⁓

Charlotte Bailey (42:09)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Mm.

Victoria (42:21)
the experience of kind of not overcoming because I don’t know if we can ever fully overcome it to the point where we don’t hear those stories anymore, but kind of liberating yourself to a certain extent. What does that feel like? What’s it like in the promised land? Tell me. ⁓

Charlotte Bailey (42:37)
Love that. Like you

say, firstly, yeah, I still notice the echoes, if you like, of those stories and the, you know, over apologising at times or I still notice these things, but I’m not those things. Like that’s a part of me that I recognise now and I know where it’s from, so it feels different. And ⁓ so I can notice it and name it and not beat myself up for it.

Victoria (42:46)
That’s a good word, Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (43:07)
that’s the important thing. So what was the question? What’s it like in the promised land? honestly, I can’t tell you how, again, I’m noticing now when I’m about to say this, there’s a part of me that’s like, I don’t want people to think like that. I’m showing off that I’m no longer considered a people. So that’s interesting.

Victoria (43:13)
Yeah.

You

Charlotte Bailey (43:37)
can’t tell you how freeing it is to, I’m not saying I never care about what people think. It’s not about getting rid of all these things that have stood us in good stead at times. The functional at times, these patterns and responses that we have and these things that want to protect us from making a fool of ourselves and stuff. But my God, is so, when you are able to just be yourself as much as you can, and that doesn’t mean that you’re always yourself all the time.

There’s something about when you reach that stage of feeling like you are making a grounded choice as to how much of yourself you want to show rather than how much of yourself you think you should show. Like there is such a shift in that and I honestly, I used to be so ill all the time. I used to be always ill and since I’ve

Victoria (44:26)
Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (44:37)
done the work on myself and you know, through what I’ve learned along the way in my own training and stuff as well, obviously. But it’s just so nice to just be able to say, like, I don’t fancy doing that. Full stop, rather than give loads of reasons why. To text someone without feeling like you’ve got to rewrite your text message and make sure it sounds okay and read it out to someone to check it’s okay and they won’t take it funny. Like…

Victoria (44:54)
Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (45:06)
to actually reach a stage where you do feel in a way that you are just letting them, you know, just letting them get upset, knowing that you haven’t, that’s not your fault that someone might be upset with you if you’ve not done anything actually wrong. It’s just so free and light. can, I’ve not drank, alcohol was a big thing for me. I used to drink so much because, like socially, because I was so anxious about everything.

Victoria (45:22)
Yeah. Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (45:35)
⁓ But like I’ve not drank for so many years. I can be, I can dance without feeling like there’s a spotlight on me. ⁓ I can just, what’s happened by being me and showing me and feeling safe to be me is that I’ve now gone from sort of feeling like an outsider a lot and not belonging in groups to finding, like being visible enough as myself.

for people to connect with me authentically and find my tribe as they say. And that in itself then reinforces that shift in belief of like, ⁓ the problem isn’t that I am too much. The problem lies in the fact that I’ve been made to feel that I have to be less to be accepted and I can be myself and it’s safe to be myself. And then I can choose if I do want to hold back.

Victoria (46:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (46:31)
That’s okay. Like you don’t have to just literally, there will be times when it’s appropriate to put on a mask or whatever, but it’s just so freeing. And you’re honouring that little you inside by saying, I’m going to show you now that you are enough as you are. We don’t have to keep trying to pretend or perform. We can just be ourselves. And, you know, it’s led to me doing spoken word poetry for the first time in…

Victoria (46:43)
Yeah.

Which is amazing, yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (47:01)
years, like recently, know, Little Me used to write all the time and hide it under a bed because she was scared of being laughed at. And honestly, when I was the first time on stage doing that spoken word piece that I did for the first time, like in front of people, again, people think, ⁓ gosh, she’s so deep. See, I’m noticing, I’m noticing the narrative there. ⁓ I am leaning into the deepness, but like Little Me was there with me, like I could feel her.

Victoria (47:22)
You

Charlotte Bailey (47:30)
And I could feel like she was like, ⁓ I’m accepted. Like I’ve accepted her. I’m not trying to get rid of her. And I’m showing her that, you know, I’m there for her and I’m going to honor her voice and help other women honor theirs by doing that. And I’m nearly going to cry now.

Victoria (47:33)
We’re doing it. Yeah. Yeah.

I love it. Yeah,

no, but I mean, I can see it’s, it’s such an emotional journey. And it’s this thing of not taking responsibility for other people’s reactions and emotions and just kind of concentrating on what you’re doing. And if you can get to that place where for the vast majority of the time you are yourself and you do feel like you’re safe and you’re confident to kind of just

trust your instinct as you go about your day and behave how, in whatever way that comes naturally. And then that’s a beautiful idea that actually you will start to attract your people. And you won’t find yourselves in these circles of friends or colleagues or whatever, where it just feels like you have to perform or you have to fake it till you make it, or you have to…

Charlotte Bailey (48:19)
That’s massive, yeah.

Yes.

Mmm.

Yes.

Victoria (48:41)
bend and fit yourself into a box that kind of works for the other person, but doesn’t serve you because it is exhausting. And I really worry about, you know, the physical repercussions of this sort of behavior over time, because I do hear, know, Gabor Maté’s done studies on it, like, you know, and even talked about his wife in this respect, that we, we do kind of condition ourselves following that conditioning from society to stay.

Charlotte Bailey (48:43)
Mm.

Hmm.

Mmm.

Victoria (49:11)
pleasant and to be the good girl. And actually we’re kind of fighting against ourselves internally and we can carry that for decades. And then eventually our body, like you were saying, you started to just be ill all the time and you started to lean into habits that were not healthy for you and were not in your best interest. Like you are going to have a lot, you you’re going to, as soon as you get to the bar, you’ve got all these people to talk to, where’s my drink, you know, and we all have done that.

Charlotte Bailey (49:12)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Victoria (49:38)
And sometimes we still do that and some, we might always do that to a certain extent, but it’s like noticing and it’s as well taking the time to notice and saying, well, it’s not self-indulgent for me to just take a moment here or like zone out and just go and think about what’s going on in my mind. Cause sometimes we can feel like even just considering ourselves as self-indulgent when there’s so much else to do for everyone else or they’re waiting for me over there or.

Charlotte Bailey (49:48)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Yes, yeah, we’ve been conditioned

sometimes to focus externally, obviously, on like everyone else’s needs, comfort, but that the more we’ve done that over the years, and more we’ve been encouraged to do that, the more it’s taken us away from what’s inside, what’s telling us internally about how we’re feeling. So we have to bit by bit start listening to what we’re feeling. And that’s hard because, you know,

we can have a tendency to try and think our way out of stuff, but actually we have to also get used to sort of recalibrating our system away from an external point of reference to an internal one and start learning to trust that. And with that, like I say, there’s something around that self-acceptance that comes with that when you can start trusting yourself and feel okay enough to start listening to that little girl in us and what she wants to say.

And the more she knows you’re there listening, the more she trusts you and the more she doesn’t shout to be heard. And therefore the less anxious and the less bad you feel, if that makes sense. I’m trying to use the analogy of the little girl here, but.

Victoria (51:09)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, completely. I imagine,

well, now I get that and it makes complete sense. And it’s about practice, I guess, with that, just getting into the habit of just taking a breath and a beat and pausing every now and again, and just checking in. And I imagine that you could get to a stage where you’re kind of, I mean, you’ve done it in this conversation. You’re like, that’s interesting. I’m thinking this. that’s interesting. I’m thinking that. But you kind of get it out. Yeah, but that’s good. Cause like, you notice it and you kind of literally verbalize it. You vocalize it, you get it out.

Charlotte Bailey (51:18)
Yeah.

Yes, pausing.

I’m always doing that. I’m noticing this. Yes it is. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria (51:39)
and then it’s gone. Whereas

if you kind of sit with it, it can really have an impact on what you do next. And that’s where we’re kind of going off away from ourselves. Yeah, that’s what I mean. Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (51:47)
I think it’s when you sit with it in a critical way.

If you sit with it with curiosity, it might give you more information that maybe you will be helpful as well. So I suppose it’s like the intention behind sitting with it is important. If you’re trying to sit with it to get rid of it, then that’s gonna be unhelpful to you. But if you’re gonna sit with it in order to explore and be curious about it, which actually in effect will probably help you get rid of it.

Victoria (51:58)
Yeah. Yeah.

investigate. Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (52:15)
that feeling at some point but yeah but you’re not intending it yeah

Victoria (52:16)
Yeah. Yeah, but it’s dealing with it, isn’t it? You’re actually,

yeah. It’s well, it’s like you were talking about with the NHS that, know, and I understand the NHS is, is appallingly under-resourced. So we all understand that we get why it is the way it is, but it does often feel like the symptoms are addressed and what you’re trying to do in your business is trying to get down to the root cause. And, you know, you’re right, there is a lot on social media, you know, I love Mel Robbins and the let them theory.

Charlotte Bailey (52:27)
Mm.

Victoria (52:44)
is brilliant as a little just it’s so memorable you can just inject that into your brain but in order for it to really deeply land and in order for you to always be able to kind of follow through and feel that not just sort of tell yourself you ought to feel it and that’s the subtle difference so yeah I ought to feel like I can just let them speak to me like that yes exactly yeah what’s wrong with me Mel can do it everyone else is doing it why can’t I let them

Charlotte Bailey (53:02)
Yes.

Yeah, why can’t I feel like just like, yeah. Yes.

Victoria (53:13)
And it can almost like just get you into a bigger hole really. But actually if you’re doing the deeper exploratory work where you’re trying to get to the source of why these things are coming up, which is what you’re doing with your clients. And again, it’s just, I feel like this is just the way that all healthcare kind of needs to move. Like these snippets are so useful and valuable in a moment as a cue to kind of just remind you that that’s possible. But unless you’re kind of.

Charlotte Bailey (53:17)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. ⁓

Victoria (53:42)
getting to that root source of why those feelings are cropping up, which is going to be different for everybody and needs a kind of bespoke assessment. You may not feel it. And I think that’s been a really interesting thing that I’ve kind of learned. It’s about actually feeling it and not just feeling like you ought to feel it, basically. That’s complicated.

Charlotte Bailey (53:49)
Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Yes, absolutely. No, but

I think you did a really good summary of what felt like I was going off in tangents there and bringing it all together. But absolutely, and to know that it’s understandable and that you’re not failing. If you can’t feel it, it just means that your nervous system is doing what it thinks it needs to do or what it’s learned it needs to do because it thinks it needs to keep you feeling safe. And that’s, yeah.

Victoria (54:07)
Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (54:30)
It’s not a failure, it’s just responding to what it remembers.

Victoria (54:34)
And actually, if you feel like that, probably is a cue that there is something there that you could spend a bit of time exploring and digging into. And then they should call you and just do that. Tell me. Just keep keep in touch and get on the list. Yeah. Tell me how you think that becoming a mum has affected.

Charlotte Bailey (54:40)
Yeah? Yeah?

Yeah, just do that, come here. Even though I’ve closed my waiting list but it’s alright. Be open in the new year I’m sure.

Victoria (55:01)
you’re thinking around all of this stuff, because, you know, when you’re studying this and when you’re in your twenties and you’re, you’re kind of trying to navigate it all afresh, and then you go and work in the NHS, you know, you, there’s, there’s another level to all of this stuff when you become a mum, not only, you know, just kind of navigating it on their behalf, but there’s this idea that you kind of have to reparent the parent in order to be able to raise your child to kind of break those cycles. So how’s that all impacted you?

Charlotte Bailey (55:25)
Yes.

Yeah, so I’m so glad I did a lot of… I’m trying to think of the phrase that’s not work on myself, but that sort of thing. I’m so glad I did learn what I had and did my own therapy when I did. ⁓ And then when I had my little girl, it sort of, yeah, it took it to another level. Like it deepened the work I was already doing because…

I was so aware that I want her to grow up knowing that it’s okay to express how you’re feeling, obviously in a respectful way, which is not at the stage of like actually knowing how to do that properly, obviously it being fact. Yeah, we’ll let her off. I’m not going to put perfectionism in there, but you know, just like knowing, just trying to basically…

Victoria (56:16)
And there was she’s five, yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (56:27)
I’m trying to think what your question was. How did it affect motherhood, you say? Sorry. Mind’s gone.

Victoria (56:30)
How did becoming a mum affect

the way you feel about all the work that you’re doing? Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (56:34)
yeah, and like the re-parenting.

Yeah, it just brings it to another level, deeper level and sort of reinforces how I’m speaking. It makes it even more emotional, I suppose, or meaningful when I tune into the little me inside me, because I’m also doing what I’m doing, not just for little me, but now for the little girl watching me. And that… ⁓

That just makes me, yeah, just want to keep doing what I’m doing in terms of showing, modelling how to set boundaries. telling her, you you don’t have to kiss that family member or give them a hug if you don’t want to. That’s OK. You can say no. You know, just modelling these things that perhaps, ⁓ you know, like I say, it’s not about blaming anyone for how we’ve been raised, but it’s just recognising that perhaps we might want to…

break certain cycles, like intergenerational cycles or how society and culture ⁓ used to condition our parents to be. ⁓ And just knowing that sort of it’s okay to not be perfect, like actually modeling, like it’s okay if mommy makes a mistake, like I’ve made a mistake, like modeling how to be human rather than perfect and showing her the

you know, in relationships, there will be ruptures and there will be things that we get wrong. And it’s more important to model that repair that comes after that and things like that. So it’s just really helped reinforce it. And also it, it really helps in a way that when I was pregnant, it was COVID. And that really helped me in terms of boundary setting, because at the point of like…

Victoria (58:27)
Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (58:29)
you know, 2019 to 2020 being pregnant and not having a clue about the effects on pregnant women. And I actually noticed that I got quite cross when people sort of were overstepping my boundaries or going to. And as a people pleaser for decades, I didn’t really like the feeling of anger. That was one I’d suppressed for a long time. So it provided an opportunity for me to experience the

Victoria (58:52)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (59:00)
actually this anger is telling me something here. Like it’s not, I’m not a bad person feeling angry. If I start listening to how I feel, it’s telling me something. And I can practice, well, I wasn’t consciously saying that, but practicing saying, actually, no, you’re not coming round. Like, you know, and nothing bad happening, but like providing me with the evidence and the opportunity and the evidence to show that, actually, maybe it is all right to say no and nothing bad’s happened.

Victoria (59:28)
Yeah, and it’s interesting, you have to, I found this too, like I am so much readier, that’s not a word, so much readier, don’t know what the word is, to uphold boundaries on behalf of my children than I am for me. And actually there’s no harm, you know, in the context of everything we’ve talked about, there’s no harm in gaining that evidence. It’s not why you’re doing it.

Charlotte Bailey (59:39)
Go for it, I can’t think of a word.

Yes.

Victoria (59:56)
but it does just go to reinforce like, okay, I didn’t want my child to do that. Or I didn’t want that person who’s like coughing and hacking everywhere to come and give them a kiss or whatever it might be, something in school, something in whatever it might be, something with their friends even, you know, that you, you’re guiding them. And sometimes you have to say no to stuff and actually the world doesn’t fall apart and your child isn’t ostracized and put in a corner with a dunce hat on.

Charlotte Bailey (1:00:12)
.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Victoria (1:00:23)
Like we keep

Charlotte Bailey (1:00:23)
Yes. Yeah.

Victoria (1:00:24)
going, it’s 2025, it’s okay. And if we start to see that for them, then hopefully that does give us more confidence to start doing that for ourselves. And there is something kind of sad about the fact that it might take that, but also we are where we are, we are where we are. And that’s fine, know? Yeah. Yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (1:00:27)
Mm.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I know what mean.

Yes, it is and it’s understandable that it might take that to

be that push that we need and it’s okay if sometimes we struggle to say no. You know, it doesn’t have to be like, ⁓ you know, once I’ve broken these patterns, I’m just going to be saying no to anything I don’t It’s not unlike I accept myself. So I’m never going to hold myself accountable. It’s it’s that’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s it’s it’s appreciating the what’s the word? The nuance, nuance. ⁓

Victoria (1:00:57)
Yeah ⁓

Yeah, yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (1:01:12)
of these things and it’s not what doesn’t have to be me first, it could be me too and it’s okay if you’re still over apologizing at times like when you do set a boundary you don’t have to like follow this rigid protocol of how to set a boundary just do what you need to do to allow yourself to move towards me too.

Victoria (1:01:28)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, exactly. And navigate it because you you can, it’s all very well, you know, you could take, you could take these kind of mantras to the extreme, but you could just become a complete asshole and a narcissist and you never do anything for anybody. And we don’t want that either. Yeah, exactly. You know, people who have no empathy, no compassion are not willing to put themselves out in any way. And you know, the reality is you are going to be alienated if you behave that way. So it’s not, it’s not clear cut.

Charlotte Bailey (1:01:42)
Yes. Go the hopeful way.

Mm. Mm.

Mm.

Victoria (1:02:00)
And it’s for all of us, you it might not be me too, it might be me tomorrow, you know, me next week, them this week. And it’s just, you’re just, yeah, hopefully not. Let’s try and get me this Christmas. But yeah, all it’s about having grace. It’s about having grace and like just navigating your own journey. But honestly, I have, I have got so much of this conversation, Charlotte. I’ve absolutely loved it. I feel like it’s been therapy for me.

Charlotte Bailey (1:02:04)
Yes, I love that. Yeah, me next Christmas.

Start Monday.

Oh gosh, I could… I was just looking at

the time, I was going to say, oh god, I could have gone on and on.

Victoria (1:02:31)
no, well, we definitely could. I have one last question to ask you though, and I feel like it was literally made for you. And if you’ve listened to the podcast, you’ll know what’s coming. So yeah, what would you say now to eight year old Charlotte? You’re very in tune with her. What’s your advice to her?

Charlotte Bailey (1:02:38)
I don’t know what you’re gonna ask me, I think.

There’s lots of times I talk to her, so I’m just trying to think of a way of like, well, let’s think now. So I would say to her that it’s taken me a long time to find you, but I’m so glad I found you. And I want you to know that I am here now and those big feelings that you’ve been maybe feeling like you have to carry alone, you can share with me and I can hold them. Oh, I’m gonna get emotional.

and I can hold them for you and show you that they’re not too much and the problem was never that those feelings or you were too much and ⁓ take my hand if you want to take it and I will keep showing you that you are enough just as you are. There you go. Where’s my tissues?

Victoria (1:03:36)
Charlotte.

God, that’s so lovely. I might just extract that from the podcast and like just play it to myself each morning. that’s absolutely gorgeous, Charlotte. Thank you very, very much for sharing that. Do you, I didn’t ask you before, have you got something written?

Charlotte Bailey (1:03:52)
You’re so welcome.

Yes. Have you got time?

Victoria (1:03:59)
Do want to share?

Yeah, we’ve got time.

Charlotte Bailey (1:04:03)
got a little poem for Mums at Christmas and I’m just going to grab a little water.

So if you are a mum who maybe is listening to this, wrapping presents still and things like that, I’ll just have a listen. So, they don’t see it. Not the weight you carry, how December grows heavy, and every little task somehow finds its way back into your hands again because you want it to feel special for them and for the little girl inside you who once squeezed her eyes tight.

wishing Santa would bring a bit of Christmas magic to arrive overnight. They see the lights, the table, the calm you arrange, but not the quiet ache beneath, not the thoughts that thunder you through you like a train, not a way you stretch yourself thin to keep every heart around you steady and safe. They don’t see you rewriting the list, scribbling the bits that somehow slipped, cling film batteries the smallest things you missed, still hitting like a storm in your chest because even one forgotten thing feels heavier than the rest.

They don’t see you first up, last down, moving on borrowed strength while holding the whole house together, quiet as a whisper, tending to what no one else sees. They don’t see the comments you soften, the tension you catch before it hits the air, skills learned long before adulthood, long before Christmas ever asked you to care. They don’t see you pause on the kitchen floor, roasting tin in hand, finally taking a breath because your body asked and this time you listened.

They don’t see the guilt for wanting a quiet minute or how you sit in the car for an extra five hands on the wheel letting your eyes sting before you pull yourself together again. They don’t see how hard you try to build a Christmas that feels soft and safe something that heals an old ache while wrapping something new in love they’ll get to keep. But I do because the magic was never in spotless rooms or perfect timing or the practice smiles you learn to wear. The magic has always been in you and your children.

They see that too. Your warmth, your depth, your tired, honest, real presence that has always been more than enough. So maybe this year the story shifts. Maybe you put down what was never your… Let’s start again. So maybe this year the story shifts. Maybe you put down what was never yours to lift. Maybe the wrapping stays messy. Maybe dessert comes from a box. Maybe you say no to the duties handed to you without anyone ever asking what they cost.

Maybe the real magic is giving yourself what you’ve given others your whole life. Kindness, softness, room to breathe, permission to rest. Because she’s still here. The younger you, waiting and patient, hoping you’ll choose yourself at last so the worry she carried for years can finally loosen its grasp. A Christmas that doesn’t only shine for others, but finally shines for you. A glow you can rest inside, a light that feels earned and true.

the magic you’ve poured for years finally circling back in view. And maybe this time you let it land and let it warm you. You let yourself feel it too. Thank you.

Victoria (1:07:17)
my God, I’m like so emotional. I think I’m like two sentences in and I started bawling. ⁓ that’s so lovely. Charlotte, thank you so much. You are an incredible talent in poetry. And I’m so glad that you’ve like just picked it up again because I think often we have these just sort of really innate forms of expression that we just like have to pursue as a kid.

Charlotte Bailey (1:07:25)
⁓

You’re welcome.

Thank you.

Victoria (1:07:47)
and thinking of you like writing stuff down and it might have been, you know, eight year old nonsense. Who knows, but you had to have you. That’s so gorgeous. But you you had to do it. And even if you never showed anybody and you hid it under your bed, like you just had to get these ideas out and then, you know, life happens and we have to get jobs and we have to get serious and we have to decide what we’re doing with ourselves and we have to have families and whatever, but to come back to it and

Charlotte Bailey (1:07:53)
I’ve got some of them. Yeah.

Yeah. And that’s what it’s about,

remembering it, remembering who you are rather than feeling like you have to find a way to be someone else, you know, finding a way to feel safe enough to remember and reconnect with who you have always been, you know.

Victoria (1:08:17)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I’m so, well, I’m

so happy for you that you have found this like form, this creative outlet because you’re obviously very talented at it and the world needs it. think honestly, I’m not going to be the only person in tears listening to this whilst wrapping presents at midnight on Christmas Eve.

Charlotte Bailey (1:08:34)
Thank you.

try

to make it a bit more hopeful and empowering at the end.

Victoria (1:08:50)
Ugh.

Yeah, completely. you know, even if even if it’s too late and they are listening on Christmas Eve, you know, take it with you. Me next year, me next Christmas. You know, there’s always time to change that narrative. yeah.

Charlotte Bailey (1:08:59)
Yeah. Yeah.

There really is and change really

is possible. I am proof of that and so are so many others, but it’s just recognising. It’s not certain things aren’t just the way you are. There’s a reason these patterns have developed and they’ve been learned and they can be unlearned and you can learn a way of like say feeling safe to just be who you are and choosing when you show that.

Victoria (1:09:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

And it’s, it’s a gift to share everything that you’ve learned and to share all your experience and the whole transformation that you’ve been through to share that and to help other women on that journey because, it’s a ripple effect, which is I’m so into ripple effects. You know, it’s not quantifiable this stuff, but honestly, you know, you talk about your having an input impact on your children, but if you can help all these women, these mothers, then

Charlotte Bailey (1:09:53)
Yeah.

Victoria (1:09:56)
It’s all trickling down and I think it’s really important work and I’m so grateful to you for sharing it with me today and for my therapy session which I also really enjoyed and was free for me so that’s good. And I would just ask you where can people find you? Your wait list is full but if they want to follow you on social media where should they go?

Charlotte Bailey (1:10:03)
Thank you.

I love it.

Yeah, come follow me on Instagram.

This is… ⁓ So my Instagram handle may change, but come follow me on Instagram. It’s charlotte__bailey__therapies, if it’s changed by now. ⁓ I am changing it to I am Charlotte Bailey, ⁓ which is interesting again, what came up for me as I said that, but I’m trying to change it because it’s not just therapy that I’m doing. I’m speaking, I’m doing my podcast and I’m doing my poetry. So…

therapies bit doesn’t quite fit fully with everything that I’m covering.

Victoria (1:10:52)
Yeah, and we evolve and yeah, you are Charlotte Bailey and all of those things that you’re doing. Yeah. Don’t know why you haven’t given yourself a hard time about it. Yeah. All of those things that you’re doing all you do, you’re the expert. All of those things that you’re doing fit very neatly under that umbrella of you and yeah, change it. So, okay. Depending on when you’re listening, go and find either of those Instagram handles and follow Charlotte. Cause yeah, your content’s amazing. I love listening to your poetry. It’s such a gift.

Charlotte Bailey (1:10:53)
Yeah and I am Charlotte Bailey so yeah. I do, I know why.

Yeah, I’ve loved this. Thank you.

Victoria (1:11:21)
I really appreciate it and I appreciate your time today and Merry Christmas. ⁓

Charlotte Bailey (1:11:22)
⁓ You’re so welcome. Yes, Merry Christmas! you’re so welcome. Thank you.