Nourishing the Mother

Friendships are one of the first places our children meet the raw edges of relationship: loyalty, exclusion, conflict, repair and belonging. And if you’re a parent watching from the sidelines, it can stir up everything. In this conversation, Julie and Bridget unpack the emotional complexity of children’s friendships, particularly through the tween and teenage years, where identity, social power and belonging start to take shape. 

They explore the difference between protecting our children and rescuing them, the courage required to teach accountability, and why sometimes the most powerful thing we can do as parents is step back and allow our children to learn how relationships actually work.

In this episode we discuss:

• Why our children’s friendships can trigger such a deep emotional response in parents…especially mothers

• The different ways boys and girls often develop socially and how this shapes their friendship dynamics

• Why the tween years are a “trying on” period for identity, belonging and social power

• The challenge of holding the reality that our child can sometimes be both the hurt one and the one who hurts others

• The temptation to rescue our children socially - and why stepping back is often the more powerful parenting move

• Teaching children accountability and helping them understand the impact of their behaviour on others

• The difference between true bullying and the messy, normal friction of childhood friendships

• How parents can guide children through conflict without taking sides or becoming the referee

• Why going directly to other parents about friendship issues often escalates problems rather than resolving them

• The importance of partnering with teachers and schools when social issues arise

• Navigating the complicated world of group chats, devices and digital friendships

• Helping children recognise who their friends really are and what healthy friendship actually looks like

• Allowing our children to learn resilience, communication and repair through real-life friendship experiences

• Why parenting through friendship struggles is less about fixing the problem, and more about raising relationally aware humans

Want support on this journey? Come join us inside Honey Club - where we melt these blocks together, one breath, one practice, one deep remembering at a time. Find out more at julietenner.love or visit: https://julie-tenner.newzenler.com/courses/honeyclub

Reach out to Bridget for 1:1 coaching - bridgetwood.life

Adult friendships can look very different once life fills up with partners, children, careers and shifting values. In this conversation we explore what it really means to navigate friendship as grown women: the grief when friendships change, the beauty of seasonal relationships, and the quiet truth that the friendships that last are the ones built on reciprocity, honesty and shared values. We unpack the pressure women often feel to maintain friendships exactly as they once were, and why allowing relationships to evolve can actually create space for deeper, more aligned connection.

In this episode we discuss:
• How friendships naturally evolve through motherhood, career shifts and changing life seasons
• The grief that can arise when friendships change, stretch or quietly fall away
• Why some friendships are seasonal gifts rather than lifelong commitments
• Navigating different parenting styles, values and life circumstances with friends
• The emotional labour women often carry in maintaining friendships
• The importance of reciprocity; friendships need deposits, not just withdrawals
• Setting boundaries when friends expect more than you can realistically give
• How children can sometimes mirror our own relationship wounds and friendship patterns
• The difference between friendships built on proximity and those built on deeper alignment
• Creating space for friendships that feel nourishing, mutual and authentic in this season of life
• Why mature friendships allow for distance, difference and changing capacity without punishment
• Investing in the friendships that truly support who you are becoming
• A reflection on community, belonging and the role spaces like Honey Club can play in supporting women through these seasons

Want support on this journey? Come join us inside Honey Club - where we melt these blocks together, one breath, one practice, one deep remembering at a time. Find out more at julietenner.love or visit: https://julie-tenner.newzenler.com/courses/honeyclub

Reach out to Bridget for 1:1 coaching - bridgetwood.life

In this honest, grounded conversation, we unpack what it really takes to sustain a long-term relationship through parenting, midlife shifts, sexual differences, resentment, novelty, and the quiet drift that can happen when life gets busy. We share personal stories from our own marriages - the escapes, the misunderstandings, the accountability, the grace - and explore how intentional action, communication, sexual intimacy, and self-awareness can transform a partnership from obligation back into choice. This is a conversation about choosing each other again and again, with freedom, truth, and depth.

In this episode, we discuss:

-The reality of long-term love beyond the honeymoon phase

-How parenting reshapes identity, intimacy, and friendship

-Why modern couples spend so little quality time together...and what that costs us

- The power of novelty in preventing complacency

- Grace as the glue in decades-long relationships

- Masculine accountability and moving out of resentment

- What happens when love languages don’t naturally align

- Why immediate action often creates more connection than endless planning

- Balancing personal freedom with relational responsibility

- Sexual intimacy as a sustaining force in long-term partnership

- When women have higher desire — and normalising that dynamic

- The difference between possession and conscious choice in love

- Self-awareness, capacity tracking, and ending people-pleasing patterns

- Making the most of fleeting moments of connection as parents

- Building trust with children while holding your own truth

- Why relationships require ongoing adaptation, not autopilot

- The transformative power of compassion, honesty, and consent

- Choosing your partner again; not because you have to, but because you want to

Want support on this journey? Come join us inside Honey Club - where we melt these blocks together, one breath, one practice, one deep remembering at a time. Find out more at julietenner.love or visit: https://julie-tenner.newzenler.com/courses/honeyclub

Reach out to Bridget for 1:1 coaching - bridgetwood.life

In this episode of Nourishing the Mother, Julie and Bridget dive into the invisible labour of advocating for your child inside school and medical systems; especially when your child is neurodivergent, anxious, or simply doesn’t fit the mould. 

They unpack how our own history with authority shapes how we show up, why systems can both help and harm, and how constant advocacy quietly erodes mothers’ energy, self-worth, and capacity. This is a raw, practical conversation about choosing your battles, preparing proactively, assuming positive intent where possible, and tending to yourself so advocacy doesn’t consume you whole.

In this episode we discuss:
• why advocating for your child can feel emotionally brutal, lonely, and never-ending
• how your own experiences with authority shape how you deal with schools and professionals
• the difference between fighting a system and learning how to work within it
• why choosing aligned schools and services matters more than trying to change broken ones
• how neurodivergent kids often need proactive planning, not reactive discipline
• why diagnoses can open doors, even when they’re emotionally complex
• the mental load mothers carry when they’re the default advocate
• how to prepare teachers early so the year doesn’t unravel later
• why assuming positive intent can protect your energy (without bypassing reality)
• the importance of decompression, support, and not carrying advocacy alone

Want support on this journey? Come join us inside Honey Club - where we melt these blocks together, one breath, one practice, one deep remembering at a time. Find out more at julietenner.love or visit: https://julie-tenner.newzenler.com/courses/honeyclub

Reach out to Bridget for 1:1 coaching - bridgetwood.life

A simple ask for help on the sidelines becomes a powerful mirror into long-term relationship dynamics. In this episode, Julie and Bridget unpack a very real rupture between Julie and Nick, revealing how moments of overwhelm can activate old attachment wounds, masculine defensiveness, and feminine collapse. Together they explore how childhood patterns quietly replay in adult partnerships, why competence can become a barrier to intimacy, and what it actually takes to keep choosing each other when nervous systems are under pressure. A raw, honest conversation about communication, polarity, and the ongoing work of conscious love.

In this episode we discuss:
- How small moments can activate old relational wounds
- What happens when asking for help is met with defensiveness
- The grief and humiliation that can arise when support isn’t available in panic
- How childhood patterns (especially with our mothers) replay in adult relationships
- The strategies women develop to avoid rejection, and the intimacy cost of those strategies
- The difference between trusting your partner generally and trusting them in chaos
- Masculine and feminine nervous system differences under stress
- Masculine fixing reflexes versus feminine needs for presence and support
- How polarity breaks down in moments of overwhelm — and how to restore it
- Why clear, moment-to-moment communication matters more than good intentions
- How to name behaviour in real time without attack or collapse
- What accountability looks like in a conscious, long-term partnership
- Why healing in love is ongoing, layered, and deeply relational
- How understanding masculine–feminine dynamics changes the way you ask, respond, and repair

Want support on this journey? Come join us inside Honey Club - where we melt these blocks together, one breath, one practice, one deep remembering at a time. Find out more at julietenner.love or visit: https://julie-tenner.newzenler.com/courses/honeyclub

Reach out to Bridget for 1:1 coaching - bridgetwood.life