Mother, daughter, sister, wife.

Are you playing the role of the mother you think is a good mother? Or are you a mother that feels authentically you?

As women, we can get buried under roles and expectations. We often don't have time to explore how we want to show up in the world, what kind of woman we want to be. And I don't mean some vague "yeah, that's what a 'good woman' looks like, so I want to be like that woman." There are many different ways to be a 'good woman', and sometimes it's our own beliefs getting in the way of being the good woman we already are.

All the way down to the tiny, seemingly irrelevant details. Like asserting with clarity, "I like spiral pasta, not penne." Up to the more meaningful "I want my daughter to see me passionately engaged with my interests so she can do the same."

We are doing the world a disservice by pandering to the needs of others. Because if we are first our mother's reasons for living, and then our daughters become ours, then they never see us living for ourselves. They grow up with that same thinking, and every woman's existence becomes, in and of itself, for others.

You would not want your daughter to exist only to give meaning to your life. We want our daughters to have rich and meaningful lives of their own. So don't just vaguely wish that into the world. Go out there and show the way by engaging with what brings you joy, outside of anyone else. Why would our daughters believe they can, if the one who brought them into the world can't?

At the core of my work, I help women untangle from the roles and expectations we tend to fall into. Some by force, but others by accident. Like becoming a similar mother to our own, because she was a wonderful mum and that's what we think it looks like, failing to realise that there are many ways to be a wonderful mum.

My passion is in helping women to become themselves. That might mean themselves as mothers, daughters, sisters and wives, or it might equally renounce all these titles. It just means getting really clear on what that means specifically to you. Because hiding under these layers of labels is an elusive creature. A creature that is waiting patiently for signs of safety. This creature is the creature of you.

D.W. Winnicott said: "It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self."

I would be doing my clients a huge disservice if I gave into the pressure of 'being a therapist'. I have liberated the creature of me. I am myself as a therapist — a fun, playful and creative therapist. And I know that figuring out who you are can be a daunting task. The creature of you is often an elusive animal, hiding in the safety of the shadows, until it is absolutely certain that it is safe to emerge.

Surely there are hundreds of ways to encourage this, and I implore you to experiment with curiosity to find what works for you. But if you're looking for a place to start, I have one tool that's proven to be both incredibly powerful and yet simultaneously gentle and nurturing.

Creativity.

So often lost as we turn our focus to more 'grown up' activities, creativity is a whole lot more than a calming recreation. It is also a signal to the creature of you, that you are safe to make your mark on the world. To physically mark a page with paint or word. To mould clay in an expression of your experience. To make music.

All of these acts change the world in some fractional way. You may scrunch up and throw away your work, but once your mark has been made, you cannot undo the fact that, even if only for a moment, your mark on the world existed.

If all we ever do is consume, watch, read, listen, we are not contributing our unique self into the world. We signal to the creature of us that we don't want to hear from them.

Creativity is the quiet toe dip. Testing what it's like to be an active contributor to the forming of the world we live in. It tells the creature of you: your voice is wanted here.