‘I wanted to create something that cut through the wellbeing noise on social media’

“I’ve been in the incredibly lucky position of supporting people through change for over eighteen years so I’ve had the honour of seeing what works for people in creating the life they want to live,” explains Bethan O Riordan.

“So much of the wellness, wellbeing and self-care information out there is prescriptive as in ‘do these five things every day and your life will be amazing’, but my experience is that everyone’s lives are so different, we all have unique needs at different stages of our lives so I wanted to help people tune into themselves to meet their needs through the ups and downs of life.”

Bethan is a mum of three who runs her psychotherapy practice out of Blarney Co. Cork. She loves to garden and tries as hard as possible to live a zero waste life.

Learning to treat ourselves as we would do other people is the greatest skill in life

“I wanted to create something that cut through the well-being noise on social media and help people to create practical change that was meaningful to them.  I wanted to share my therapy experience and gently take people through a guided journey to make sense of who they are and what they need to feel well in their lives.”

Bethan says it was becoming a parent that took her on the wildest ride.

“I started off working in addiction and homeless services then moved to suicide and self-harm prevention which gave me this huge wealth of experience seeing how we can all suffer.

We all have a mind that can do rather crazy things, have thoughts which lead to self-doubt and criticism and we are so much kinder to others than ourselves – we really are up against it.

When we stop pushing, we can then cultivate the art of being.

Learning to treat ourselves as we would do other people is the greatest skill in life because when we can be kind about what we find hard it helps us to make decisions about our lives that have the best interests at heart and this will always lead us to a great place.

That’s why I created the planner. I wanted it to support people to be kind to themselves so that they can create realistic self-care plans that don’t involve pushing themselves and helping people to slow down. When we stop pushing, we can then cultivate the art of being.

Support

I now run the online parenting community, The Calm Parenting Club, and co-host the Mum Mind Podcast (or how to stop your mother falling out of your mouth).

So many moments in my life life led me here. In my personal life, I was excellent at pushing, achieving and accomplishing things, which has been great.  But like everything we are good at, it became a bit of a double-edged sword in that I was depleted.  This was sort of ok until I had children.

The weekends catching up on sleep and holidays away were gone, so I had to work out how to support myself so that I could support those around me.  I’ve been a mum for twelve years now, which is more than a quarter of my life, and I feel that now I have the mental, physical and logistical balance I’ve been yearning for.

Professionally, I feel that so many people are suffering with information overload – the message of “get up at 5am, meditate, go to the gym, practice mindfulness, practice gratitude, heal, do yoga, eat clean, get fit, lose weight etc.,” is everywhere which can be really helpful but this also needs to go with the message of “if this feels ok right now in your life”.

Balance

The self-care planner helps people to make that important decision around “Is this helpful for me right now?”, rather than “I should do this because it’s good for me”. It’s a subtle, but powerful, mindset shift.  I also wanted to create something for people tailored to when life isn’t feeling great.

There’s so much out there about achieving and getting there… wherever this ‘there’ place is we are all told to get to.  But it’s essential that we know how to mind ourselves through the lulls and lows with real kindness, warmth and care as this is where we all heal from

My tip I say to everyone is to get inspiration from those around you, see what works for them, get creative and cultivate your own life while respecting your individuality.  And remember that no one gets this right the first time or all the time.

As we grow through life, our needs change. So being reflective will help you to be realistic about creating the life you want to live rather than living a life that you think you should be living.”