In this episode I talk about allowing ourselves to be seen in our process - not as a performance, not as a polished “final version,” but as who we are: human, messy, in motion.

I share a story from the ReWilding Motherhood Facilitator Programme, where one of my facilitators-in-training was terrified about leading a session. Instead of trying to hide it, I invited her to name it, to begin with “I’m nervous, I’m going to take a moment to ground, and I invite you to join me.” Not to get rid of the fear, but to model mindful self-compassion by actually living it.

Because somewhere along the way, we were taught to show up as the finished article. Polite, polished, perfect. Presentable. Performative. Palatable. Productive. Half a story. We forget that, just like in a maths exam, you get points for showing your workings, even if you don’t get the answer “right.”

Children know this. They don’t care about the perfect sandcastle, they care about building it, smashing it, and doing it again. The magic is in the process. Yet as adults, especially women, we’ve been trained to hide our workings, to look neat, behave neatly, speak neatly, and be consumed neatly.

But the world doesn’t change when women burn out trying to keep up appearances.
It changes because women stop pretending and start telling the fucking truth.

Because someone might not believe they can do something if all they ever see are finished performances. But if they watch you show up with your shaking voice, your messy process, your truth, your honest humanity, they might think: If she can do it like that, maybe I can too.

This is an invitation to stop hiding the parts that make you real.
To show your workings.
To tell the truth.
To let yourself be seen as a human in motion, not a product to be presented.

Not everything needs to be polished.
Not everything needs rehearsing.
Not everything needs to be perfect.
It just needs to be yours.

Come as you are.
Show your workings.
Let that be enough.

and then come tell me what you thought at www.instagram.com/emma.while. And if you enjoyed this episode please do share and tag me.

In this episode I talk about one of the phrases that comes up again and again in my world: don’t let the perfect get in the way of the perfectly good. And I’m laughing because, naturally, it’s one of the things I still have to keep learning.

I used to think podcasting meant jingles, editing software, studio microphones, the whole formal performance. Which meant I didn’t record unless the stars aligned: tech working, time available, brain switched on, quiet house, childcare sorted (ha), and zero life happening in the background. In other words…ie, hardly ever.

But that’s not how real creativity works. And it’s certainly not how my neurodivergent brain works. If the process feels too complicated, I don’t do it. Not because I don’t care, but because the friction is too high. The faff kills the expression.

So now I’m recording this in bed, in my pyjamas, on my phone, not waiting for the “proper” conditions. Because the thing itself wasn’t the problem, it was all the unnecessary extras I thought had to come with it. Perfection, performance, production. All the peripheral bullshit that stops the thing from simply existing.

And that’s the invitation:
Where are you making something harder than it needs to be?
Where have you turned a simple desire into a 19-step project plan?
Where are you resisting the actual thing because of all the invisible admin surrounding it?

Maybe your brain needs shortcuts. Maybe your life needs ease. Maybe “good enough” is the only way the thing gets to happen at all.

So here’s the question to sit with:
Where are you letting the perfect get in the way of the perfectly good?
And what would happen if you let it be easier?
Not polished. Not impressive. Not “proper.”
Just doable. Right now. In the way that works for you.

Perfection can wait.
Expression can’t.

If this resonates come tell me at www.instagram.com/emma.while

In This week’s dog-walk ramble episode I talk about celebration…not the champagne-clinking, prosecco-fuelled kind, but the quiet, personal kind we’ve never been taught to recognise. The kind that looks like noticing yourself rather than performing an achievement.

Big success? Claps, applause, gold star.
Small everyday survival? Nothing. Next. Move on. Do better.

We explore why so many of us ( hello straight-A girls, “do it perfectly or don’t bother,” high-functioning mothers, productivity-addicted humans shaped by achievement) only celebrate when there’s something measurable to show for it. Grades, promotions, milestones, awards, outcomes. Somewhere along the way, celebration became conditional, a reward we had to earn.

Which means most of our real lives - the becoming, the tending, the trying, the holding, the tiny shifts no one sees - go completely unacknowledged.

I talk about how time blurs into a long, relentless splurge when we don’t pause to mark it, and how weekly endings, small rituals, lunar moments and seasonal punctuation help us actually register that we exist and that we’re moving. Not achieving - moving. There’s a difference.

Because what if celebration isn’t for the final product?

What if it’s simply for being someone who is growing, composting, shifting, trying again, or just breathing through a day that asked a lot from you?

✨What would you honour if you didn’t have to earn it?

✨How would you celebrate yourself if celebration didn’t need confetti, permission, or proof?

✨What parts of your life are happening beneath the surface right now, quietly becoming, even if no one else can see them?

This episode is an invitation to stop waiting for a finish line. To stop outsourcing endings and applause. To give yourself punctuation. To mark your own becoming. To notice your own existence, not as something to justify, but as something worthy of witnessing.

Just a stop. pause. breathe.
A quiet, private “I’m here.”