The standards expected in motherhood are impossible. And most of us don't even notice we've signed up to it until we feel burned out and miserable. .

This episode starts with a poem Jacky wrote called 'Yummy Mummy' - all the ways in which we can try to show we have 'got out shit together' as mothers, whilst nothing goes according to plan. Because that's what it's like when you deal with frustration by 'upping your game'. YOu keep trying. It looks like effort. It looks like caring. And underneath it is one quiet, relentless message: if I can just do enough, I'll feel okay.

Jacky introduces the frustration triangle - the three places we go when frustration hits. The blamer. The self-shamer. The up-your-gamer. And explores the one she lived in for years. The one that motherhood is particularly good at triggering. Because nobody gives you feedback in motherhood. Nobody tells you you've cracked it, and that lack of validation can trigger old 'not enough' wounds.

In this episode:

What the up-your-gamer actually is

The moment Jacky realised she was doing everything 'right' and connecting with nothing

Why motherhood is such a perfect mirror, showing you every wound you thought you'd dealt with

The despair magnet - how one rupture can pull in every previous failure until you're not just feeling bad about today, you're tallying evidence against yourself going back years

The shift from perfect to present.

What the up-your-gamer is really asking for underneath all that effort - and the four things worth getting honest about.

'Matrescence' is a word that has been around since 1973. It only made it into the dictionary in 2022. That gap tells you almost everything you need to know about how well we've been holding the experience of becoming a mother.

Lucy Wylde is a matrescence activist and coach who works with women navigating the identity shift of motherhood - before, during and long after. She's also a poet. And in this conversation, she and Jacky go deep into the places most parenting content never reaches: birth trauma, the inner split of wanting to be two people at once, feeling unseen in the experience that changed everything.

This is an episode for anyone who has ever felt like they were supposed to be grateful - and found something more complicated underneath.

In this episode:

• What matrescence actually is
• How poetry became Lucy’s way of telling her truth about the traumatic birth of her daughter Matilda, the loss of the woman she was and the parts of motherhood that no one validates
• The ‘inner split’ - wanting to be fully present as a mother and fully yourself as a person, at the same time
• How ‘premenstrual tension’ is actually ‘premenstrual truth’ - what surfaces when hormones that act as a buffer shift and change
• Why “you matter” isn’t a platitude - and what it actually takes to feel it

| "My scar is amazing. My stretch marks are too. They remind me of growing and welcoming you... well done, strong mama. Please know you'll recover. Birth trauma is real and we must help each other." — Lucy Wylde

Website: https://www.lucywyldecoaching.com

Do you ever feel the urge to cry out, but swallow it back down instead? That specific, lonely feeling when you want to howl but it feels pointless, so you gulp it down instead — and there's no one to reason out your sadness, your guilt, your fear with.

This episode maps the journey from that swallowed feeling all the way through to hope using the unexpected power of poetry to witness, name, and navigate what we're really going through.

In this episode:

• Why we need our own vocabulary, and how making up words can be the first act of self-understanding
• The Frustration Triangle: the three places we instinctively go when change gets hard: blamer, self-shamer, or up-you-gamer
• What's really underneath blame
• How writing your shitty first draft of emotions can unlock the vulnerable wound hiding behind the vitriol
• What happens when someone who harmed you never takes accountability and how we end up turning that inward
• Why the blank page is the perfect therapist: it doesn't answer back, doesn't charge you anything, and never fails to witness

You were probably taught that poetry has a meaning, and your job is to find it. That's exactly why so many of us decided it wasn't for us.

In this episode, Jacky is joined by Dr. Stephanie Aspin - poet, therapist, academic, and author of Poetry and Therapy: Why Words Help - for a conversation that might just change how you think about language, feeling, and what it means to be witnessed.

Stephanie describes a poem not as a text to be decoded but as a little machine - a kinetic object where meaning shifts and moves. And in that movement, something therapeutic happens: language speaks back. It holds what we can't say directly. It gives us agency over a story we thought was fixed.

In this episode:

• Why poetry has a bad rap
• The poem as container: how an image can hold fear, grief, rage at arm's length
• What it means when language "speaks back" - and why writing can reveal what we didn't know we knew
• How to take your very first tentative steps with therapeutic poetry (even if you're completely resistant)
• Why all poetry is therapeutic - whether it was written to be or not

| Quote from the episode: "The me in my poems is the articulate me that's okay - and says I'm okay. And the world, if it thinks I'm not okay, it's wrong."

About Dr. Stephanie Aspin:
Websites:
https://stephanieaspin.com/
https://a-typicats.com/

Link to her book: https://www.pccs-books.co.uk/products/poetry-and-therapy-why-words-help

Poem Links:
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/the-masque-of-anarchy/
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/101581/poems-of-protest-resistance-and-empowerment
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/found-poem
https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Revolution-in-Poetic-Language-by-Julia-Kristeva-author-Margaret-Waller-translator/9780231214599?srsltid=AfmBOopuTEDNlgFqEEJYiqZHR4r7ZQN-FLs-RjDCnnQvMNvl2349pMrd

You know that moment when something rises in your throat - a howl, a truth, a need - and you just... swallow it back down?

Jacky has a word for that. Hulp. A howl and a gulp combined. And this episode begins there; right in that frozen, swallowed place, because that's exactly where Jacky found herself when she sat down to record!

This is an episode about what it actually feels like to start something. A behind the scenes look at the recording and deleting, the shame that crawls up when old wounds surface, the "here we go again" of it...

Jacky takes you through the process she used to move from freeze to finally pressing record: writing a letter from her fear, sitting with the grief of it, reaching out - and what happened when she did.

In this episode:

• The HULP poem - and what it means to have a pile of swallowed truths
• Why the antidote to shame is love, not self-improvement
• The gap between your ideal self and your actual self - and why staying with the actual is where the richness lives
• Why feeling like you don't fit in might mean you're a leader, not a misfit

Link to the Youtube video Jacky refers to in the epsiode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0872fKNtIw

For the scared souls, the never-dared souls, the lost and double-crossed souls — the ones sitting in the wilderness of change, wondering if anyone else feels this way.

Words in the Wilderness is a podcast for people in the messy middle of becoming who they really are.

Hosted by therapist and poet Jacky Power, this is the space where we stop performing and start witnessing.
Where your feelings aren't problems to solve - they're wisdom to decode.

Through poetry, honest storytelling and real conversations, Jacky accompanies the changemakers and cycle-breakers who are walking away from what doesn't serve them, toward something that finally feels true.

Each episode uses original poetry as a starting point - to bypass our defences and reach the feelings we haven't found words for yet.

This is not a podcast about having it figured out. It's a companion for the brave work of figuring it out - one poem at a time.

This podcast is for you if:

• You've made a big life change and feel more lost than you expected

• You're exhausted from performing 'fine' while something truer waits underneath

• You've never thought poetry was 'for you' - but you're open to being surprised

• You want to feel less alone in the wilderness of becoming

"Please receive my words as gifts. Each poem a billet-doux, each line a delicate heart string to see the tough times through. All I'm ever trying to say — all I want to do — is encourage you to be who you are. To be the you-est you."

Understanding Addiction, Recovery, and Transformation

In this powerful episode, we sit down with Thomas Delaney, who shares his deeply personal journey from ketamine addiction to recovery and advocacy. During his recovery, Thomas has spoken to audiences in the thousands and reached an online global audience of over 20 million people. He has spoken at some of the UK’s most significant wellbeing events and the world’s largest performance arts festival, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Thomas's story offers a raw and honest look into the complexities of addiction, the challenges of recovery, and the potential for profound personal transformation.

Key topics discussed:

1. The interplay between childhood trauma, intergenerational patterns, and addiction

2. Hierarchies within addiction and their impact on treatment and societal perceptions

3. The realities of residential treatment and the recovery process

4. Power dynamics and stigma surrounding addiction

5. Controversies of ketamine therapy for mental health treatment

6. The importance of addressing underlying causes rather than just symptoms

7. Finding purpose and meaning in life after addiction

Highlights:

- Thomas's courageous sharing of his personal experiences with addiction and recovery

- Insights into the nuanced nature of addiction and the challenges of seeking help

- Discussion on the use of substances to treat addiction and mental health issues

- Emphasis on holistic approaches to healing and recovery

- The power of finding purpose and meaning in recovery

Takeaways:

This episode underscores that recovery is not just about abstaining from substances, but about rebuilding a life filled with connection, purpose, and self-understanding. Thomas's journey offers hope and inspiration for anyone struggling with addiction or supporting someone on their recovery path.

Remember, healing is possible, and every step towards recovery is a victory worth celebrating.

Join addiction psychologist and poet Jacky Power and her guest Thomas Delaney for this enlightening and thought-provoking conversation that aims to destigmatise addiction and help those affected feel less alone in their struggles.