Chill Like a Mother Podcast
This show shares stories, offers tips and tricks, and provides education to help you feel more chill like the mother you know you want to be.
Hey! I'm Kayla Huszar, a creative counsellor who's all about unconventional therapy that encourages creativity, curiosity and finding what makes you feel alive (again). I've helped so many women navigate the waves (ups and downs) of motherhood, and I'm here for you, too!
So, if you're feeling overwhelmed or need a moment to yourself, grab your headphones and press play on an episode!
You're not alone, and you already know what you need.
Chill Like a Mother Podcast
Finding Yourself Again: How Motherhood Can Fuel Your Creative Spark with Hayley Dunlop
Motherhood isn’t just about raising kids—it’s about rediscovering who you are. In this episode, I sit down with Hayley Dunlop, a former PR professional who thought she had life all figured out—until motherhood flipped her world upside down (and the pandemic forced her to slow down).
Hayley shares how becoming a mom didn’t put her identity on pause, but instead, sparked a whole new level of creativity.
We’re talking about how motherhood can push you to reconnect with the real you—both in and outside of parenting. Hayley’s story is raw and relatable. She’s not talking about having it all figured out, but about finding moments for yourself in the midst of the chaos.
If you’ve been feeling like motherhood has taken over who you are, this episode is your reminder: motherhood doesn’t erase you—it can help you see yourself more clearly.
Get ready for a conversation about creativity, authenticity, and embracing the messy journey of parenting. This one’s for the moms who are figuring it out as they go.
BUY ENTWINED: an Anthology of Creativity & Motherhood
A collaborative anthology and art journal to kindle creativity in motherhood.
Meet Kayla Huszar, the Host of the Chill Like a Mother Podcast
Hey, moms! I’m Kayla Huszar, and I’m here to help you calm the chaos in modern-day mothering with expressive art therapy. As a creative counsellor, I support moms who feel stuck and are looking to regulate their emotions, reduce anxiety, and tackle stress and overwhelm.
SOCIAL WORKER | EXPRESSIVE ART FACILITATOR | PERINATAL MENTAL HEALTH
Join me on Instagram for more tips and inspiration. And thank you for letting me be a part of your day—even with the kids running amok! If this episode helped you feel a bit more chill, please leave a rating or review. Your feedback helps the podcast reach more moms who need to hear it.
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Chill Like a Mother podcast. Today I am here with Haley Dunlop and we are going to be talking about the complexities of being a creative and a mother, even if you haven't always identified with that word. And as we start today's conversation, I just want to like preface everything with if you're not in a particularly like creative place or it's not something that you're drawn to, not something you've ever really thought about, I just want you to know that there could be wisdom and little bits of pieces in the episode, even if you don't necessarily identify with that. For me, creativity and curiosity and imagination is like in the top three of my, you know, kind of core values that lead actions and lead my life, and that has always been true, but it's not always the case for everyone. So, haley, can you share with me some of the adjectives or the words that you would have described yourself with pre-motherhood and now?
Speaker 2:motherhood, Absolutely, and thank you for having me on your lovely podcast. Before I had children, let me think I would have described myself as organized, responsible and probably very reliable, and I think the career that I was in at the time sort of encompassed all of those sort of qualities and values. I was working in corporate PR. I was very on it, I was on call. I had to be a reliable person because I was a spokesperson for quite a high profile brand and I was successful. I was very successful at what I did. And then I was pregnant with my first child, who's now nine years old. And yeah, let's just say that it doesn't just feel like a lifetime ago, it feels almost like a sort of whole human ago.
Speaker 2:Describing myself that way, and tell me about how creativity was kind of like thrust on you as you entered motherhood and became a caregiver to another human being yeah, I mean it definitely wasn't an immediate thing at all, because I'm sure many people listening can relate to the fact that when you have a baby, especially your first baby, you're just in survival mode. Um, you are learning how to be an entirely different person and an entirely different identity. The way that I described it is that it's almost like when I had my first baby. It was almost like I was turned inside out. All of the kind of values and like adjectives that I associated with myself suddenly just kind of disappeared. They weren't needed anymore. Those I mean organised, yes. Reliable, yes. But suddenly I was expected to have way more energy and way more physical capacity and way more wide awakeness than I'd ever had at any moment in my life before and absolutely, just completely knocked me for six and, to be honest, I think I was in that mode up until after I'd had my second child. So we're talking like three years of just being in this like survival pattern, of just getting by day.
Speaker 2:I absolutely did not go back to my PR career after I had children. I decided to focus on copywriting, which was an element of my job up until that point, because I've always just loved writing. This always just felt very kind of natural and enjoyable. But as the years went on, as I was a mother, it didn't just become natural and enjoyable, it actually became necessary. Like I'd never felt that compulsion to write so fiercely as when I was processing this whole transition from like me to mother, and writing really, really helped me to untangle so much in those early years of motherhood. But then it was really COVID pandemic lockdown when everything really started to change for me in terms of realising that maybe I was a creative person after all.
Speaker 1:Can you say more about that?
Speaker 2:well done. So when lockdown hit in the UK we're talking March 2020, which I think it was probably similar for everyone everywhere and I had a. My eldest was four, he'd just started his first few months in school, and my youngest was oh, she was a little toddler, so about 18 months old, and my son was absolutely loving school and my daughter was absolutely hating nursery. So we had, you know, we always had this kind of like push-pull, tug of war battle, um figuring out what the best was for our family unit in terms of you know where the children wanted and needed to be. And before Covid hit, we just were on this treadmill. I kind of see it as, like we were on this treadmill of life, we were doing what we'd always done and then, obviously, the treadmill just stopped and like, kind of like, we tumbled off it. That's the way I kind of visualize what happened, um, and when we hit the ground, each of us dealt with it in like very different ways. So my son he missed school so much. He's an extrovert, he he need, he needed that routine, he needed his friends, he needed constant stimulation and constant sort of social uh exposure, uh, and that all just fell away and he, you know, it just became extremely challenging, uh, with with him at home. On the contrary, my youngest, who I mentioned was about one and a half, suddenly became like a different child. She was absolutely loving being at home, and I found that fascinating because I realised that if I'd have been a child when COVID struck, you know, even a young child, or when I was at school as a teenager, I would have absolutely loved to have been stuck at home. That would have been my dream, and seeing it kind of like there with my own eyes that, oh, my goodness, here's another human who has suddenly got this opportunity that I never had, which was just to be at home with the people she loved the most in her safe space, and that really opened my eyes to like the treadmill image. And suddenly here I was with an opportunity to step off that treadmill, and so stepping off that treadmill was so major and it, it suddenly I just I had the urge to just write. I just cannot explain it.
Speaker 2:There was um, an online writers group that an amazing, uh, woman and book coach called Georgina Green set up towards the start of lockdown in 2020 and, like I mentioned, at the time, I was a copywriter, so I was writing for a living, but it was, you know, I was writing for a brand. It wasn't, you know, groundbreaking stuff. And she set up this group of mothers in lockdown who just wanted to come together once a week and write, and there were no expectations about what we were writing. We could be just free journaling, we could be writing poetry, we could be doing freelance copywriting or we could be writing fiction. And I began joining those groups every Sunday evening once the kids were in bed, and it was just this. I describe it as like a refuge. It became like my weekly refuge.
Speaker 2:That was really the only time back then when, you know, we were all holed up at home 24 7 that I could just have time for myself and time for me, kind of hunker down and just write. And at the beginning I was writing this kind of lockdown journal, but it got very like depressing and it wasn't really bringing me any joy whatsoever. And it was only a few months in, as we kind of approached the winter lockdown of 2020, which was like a very dark time for me in terms of my anxiety and mental health, that I decided to start writing a completely different project, which was a romantic comedy novel. I'd never had any notion before then that I was going to write a rom-com, but I started writing a romantic comedy in. In winter 2020 continued the first time I'd ever stuck at a project, thanks to the co-writing group, and a year later I'd finished a novel for the first time in my life, and just the sense of kind of joy and fulfillment and just like sort of peace that just this sort of ritual and routine had given me during that very, very difficult time made me realize that I was a creative person.
Speaker 2:This was all of my ideas and you know, yes, it's a rom-com, but there are so many kind of themes and influences and kind of issues that are all kind of wrapped up in this, in this story, but it was important for me that it was told in a kind of joyful and comforting way, because I think that was what we were all lacking back then was just those, those comforts that we'd all taken for granted for so long. So, yeah, at this point, uh, my, I'd been a mother at this point now for maybe six years, and that was the point where I was like, oh, my goodness, I've just written a book. I wasn't expecting that, uh, and that was really the first time I'd ever been able to call myself a writer for my whole life, even though I've been, you know, paid to write for most of my career. I've always been interested in writing, but it was, yeah, it was just the kind of compulsion that took hold once motherhood kicked in and once the treadmill stopped. Motherhood kicked in and once the treadmill stopped, and the challenge now, of course, is now all of everybody's treadmills have started back up again.
Speaker 2:To what extent do we actually want to kind of hop back on? You know, what speed do we want to put that? Do we want to put that treadmill at? And also, what do you do in a family whose treadmills all operate at different rates? And how do you kind of marry that and make peace with my son's treadmill? He wants to just be kind of like sprinting like Usain Bolt, 24 7 um compared to my daughter, who'd quite happily just turn this, turn the treadmill off and just lie on it, which, frankly, would be my choice as well. Um, so, yeah, that that's where we are at the moment. Um, delightfully, I've recently um been given a publishing contract for that book. Um, nothing's been, uh, formally announced yet, but yeah, there's going to be an announcement soon and yeah, I'm going to have my first novel published next year, so I'm very excited about that.
Speaker 1:Incredible, incredible. Oh, thank you for sharing those pieces of yourself with me. Similar stages of motherhood though halfway across the world. My child was just five when the the lockdown hit and I had an eight month old and, wow, also similar temperaments and in that way my son needs lots of stimulation and action. Structure like needs never, I don't think ever once didn't want to go to daycare ever, like just never. Actually was upset when I would pick him up exactly the same, exactly.
Speaker 2:There was no separation anxiety here. It was kind of like pickup anxiety.
Speaker 1:I don't want to go home, I want to be here. Yeah, and and my, my youngest, not old enough to real show some of those temperament pieces, hadn't started daycare yet, but was also just very content to be at home. And and also watching the very overstimulated brother run laps around the house as we were contained and um, the I started painting in the pandemic. Um, I, I would just like get a canvas and just like splash paint around. There was no um agenda, no shape, no like thing that I was trying to create. Um, it felt like it was the only thing that was mine. You know, my, my bed wasn't mine. My body wasn't mine, yet, um, I couldn't even go to work wasn't mine. Yet, um, I couldn't even go to work, which I love, like, I love my job.
Speaker 1:Um, and it felt like it was the only thing that was mine. And it felt so cathartic to just spend 15 minutes even on it. And and my family started to see the positive impact of me having something that was just mine. And and then, with the support of of my husband, it was like that time was very guarded for me. It was like you don't interrupt mom when she's doing that. Um, he would very diligently keep the kids you know away from my space. And, um it's it truly breathed life into me in a time when, um, I felt like I was so broken yeah, that's so familiar that that definitely resonates with me in terms of what I was feeling back then.
Speaker 2:And did you paint much before then, or was this a new urge that you'd had?
Speaker 1:I had painted in the sense of, like mixed media, art journaling, but that was the first time that I'd like, bought a canvas and and really had the intention of just allowing whatever to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was equivalent with me writing a romantic comedy.
Speaker 2:I think I had no idea what the story was going to be when I started writing it. I had one idea that I wanted to explore and then it just kind of snowballed from there. I wanted to explore and then it just kind of snowballed from there. So, yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it, how that compulsion kind of pushes itself to the surface when, a, when we most need it, but also b, when we are off that treadmill and when we do suddenly have the opportunity, even though there was hardly any opportunity, let's be honest. But there arguably is more opportunity to explore that part of yourself at that moment in history than there otherwise would have been. And I honestly don't think for me, if it hadn't have been for the lockdown and the pandemic which, don't get me wrong, I would never, ever want to repeat that that time, ever again but if it hadn't have been for it, I wouldn't be here now, like on the cusp of having a novel published, and yeah, that that blows my mind a little bit, to be honest.
Speaker 1:Yes, share with me, if you can, how you continue to honour that urge, to honour that part of yourself now that you're back on the treadmill.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's been very tricky. So the treadmill started up again I guess latter half of 2021, into 2022. And I'd been in my sort of current job at that point and I've managed to keep working. I was still working, but I was working from home to keep working. I was still working, but I was working from home. Um, and I just knew I needed to do something new, I needed to do something different. So at the back of my mind, I was hopeful that I would get an agent for my book and a book deal. And I and I did get an agent, but the book deal has been years in the making, so absolutely no kind of reliable income from this project at all.
Speaker 2:I found a creative agency based in London who were looking for a copywriter, and I'd never considered working for an agency before. I always thought I was sort of like an in-house kind of of person, you know, very focused on a brand that I felt was aligned with my values and so I could focus on, on, on really sort of nailing that brand's voice and doing something that felt meaningful. And this agency happens to represent brands and charities and non-profits who are all working for social good. So it's a they kind of describe themselves as like an ethical creative agency. We've got this certification I'm not sure if it exists in Canada called the B Corp certification. In Canada, called the B Corp certification. It's like a sort of global benchmark for ensuring that the work you do is for like, for the good of people and the planet, which means that all of the projects we work on have to sort of reach certain criteria, and it just means that every single project I work on I was lucky enough to get the job and it's a part time job, which means I can do my creative writing around it, which is fantastic. It means that I'm kind of like exercising that creative muscle every single day.
Speaker 2:Always loved copywriting and words and just being really geeky with language and puns. I used to have this pun website, oh, and I love the New Yorker caption contest every week, which is, like, my favorite thing to do. Um, but now my, my job, uh, I could be working on like three, four, five different projects every single week and they are so creative working on campaigns, working on branding, working on naming which is one of my favorite things to do is if, like, there's a campaign that needs a name or a new brand that needs a name. That's just like delightful. I can just like dive into the thesaurus and put my music on and just kind of like play with words, which is just wonderful. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I realised what it was that kind of made me feel good from a work perspective in the process of like learning about this creative side of myself, and I've been very fortunate to find a job that enables me to actually put those skills into practice on a daily basis. So it to me now it doesn't feel like, oh, I do a job and then the creative stuff comes, you know, in all of the spaces in between parenting and that job, because the job itself is super creative, and I think the most wonderful thing for me about it is in all of the kind of jobs I've done previously and there's been many.
Speaker 2:I've been working since 2003, so over 20 years now since university. I've never worked amongst other creatives before. I've always been kind of like a little pocket of an organisation where there's maybe like just a very small group of us who are creative people working in a very uncreative environment and having to kind of like basically battle for any recognition or autonomy as creatives and that can be soul destroying. I now realise why I was finding it so soul destroying because I wasn't being, I wasn't being allowed to be creative, I was being constrained, whereas now working just surrounded by like artists and amazing designers and illustrators and like every single person who works for this organization, is just incredible and I'm very lucky. But just the amount of talent that is there and the amount of value that they put on creativity and knowing that creativity isn't just kind of sat at your computer like just churning it out, it's about taking time away from your computer and kind of like having that like active thinking where you're sort of I don't know hanging, hanging the washing out or you know cooking. That's still part of the work because that's when the ideas come.
Speaker 2:And so working for an organisation that values that has been like, yeah, quite life changing really, and I feel really really fortunate that I was able to recognise that being creative was no longer just something that was nice and it was like, oh, this is kind of like a nice hobby, it's something that actually is like baked into me and I just needed that moment of getting off that treadmill to kind of make me see it, um. So yeah, I absolutely have my children to thank for making me realize that this is who I actually am and what I want to do for the rest of my life. Kind of have pandemic to not thank, but maybe just like acknowledge briefly, uh, that without it, um, I probably wouldn't be here. I probably wouldn't be here. I probably wouldn't be here either.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's just fascinating to think, you know, even as a child, as a teenager, had no creative inclinations whatsoever apart from stories and writing.
Speaker 2:And I think what's a really interesting thing to think about when you think about like creativity, especially in the context of motherhood, is, I think for me personally and I don't know if this is true for people listening as well that whenever I thought of the word creativity, I always thought about practical, hands-on creativity, about like practical, hands-on creativity, so kind of like making things and getting your hands dirty and crafts and and sculpture and paint and using your body to kind of create and make something, so being like a maker.
Speaker 2:And I've never, ever identified with any of that at all. Like I've always hated drawing, I even hate writing by hand, like I find it exhausting, um, and I think, understanding that creativity isn't just about that kind of like physical making of something you can absolutely have like a really creative brain and still produce work without you know getting a paintbrush out or like molding clay. You're kind of molding ideas, and I think that's the way that I see it is that I've got like so many ideas all the time and I finally kind of have like a way that I can channel them into product that people can then hopefully connect to.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, there's so much in my work as an expressive arts therapist that is like unlearning what creativity is, or even what self-expression is. You know, um, you know breaking down from others that like you just like sing in the shower, like that. That's a form of self-expression. That's like a form of self-discovery If you, if you want to drop into these moments, you can like be creative about the way that you drive to work. You could be creative in the way that you, you know, approach conversations with your partner or your family members, like there's, there's so many parts of creativity and curiosity and imagination that that we all have. There is not like creative people and not creative people. There are people who use creativity and people who don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I think, yeah, we are all creative, yeah, and I think, yeah, you've really hit on something interesting there and I've never thought of it that way before is that it's not like the creativity suddenly appeared, it was just that I was then I was using it for the first time, for sure, and I think, yeah, it's whether you've got it's whether you allow or you have an opportunity to kind of let that little nugget like see the light, sort of kind of be exposed to the kind of outside world. And for me it was definitely motherhood, and then, following on from that, covid, that kind of you know it wasn't like this gentle, you know, sunrise it was like it was almost like alien, horrible, bursting out, you know like, oh my god, this is not, this is not pleasant, but it's necessary.
Speaker 1:Um, yes, and can you share with us, Hayley, one of your most recent projects with Sarah in the Entwined anthology for creative mothers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was absolutely chuffed to be invited to contribute to this anthology, because Sarah is this amazing artist who I've admired for years and in fact it was during kind of like COVID and lockdowns that we connected online. We've never actually met and, yeah, we've always had fascinating conversations online about creativity, life and motherhood, so to be asked to submit a contribution to this was fantastic. I wrote an essay actually capturing a lot of what we've discussed today about how motherhood helped me to kind of like awaken the creativity inside of me that I never realised was even there. I use kind of like an analogy of colour to explore that idea and about how perhaps the colours that I thought represented me and who I am aren't my actual colours after all. So it was an extremely like cathartic, quite raw piece to write, but again felt absolutely compelled to do so, and the anthology that Sarah has created, curated, looks wonderful, um, and I can't wait to actually get my hands on a copy and sniff it. I love smelling books.
Speaker 1:It's me too. I'm like I can't wait to hold it in my hands. So, um with with the anthology of entwined. There's also a uh journal that she's written, called ember, and I've submitted some uh journal prompts to that in, in particularly, um for mothers to explore this kind of like sense of identity. And and who am I now? I originally found her through the um moms who create podcast. I don't think I don't know if she was a guest, but I know that she was like a takeover on their Instagram and that's how I found her and I just love what she puts out into the world and how she connects and like stands at the intersection of motherhood and creativity and just like navigates that traffic stop and, um, I just yeah, I live with you. I cannot wait to like hold the book in my hands.
Speaker 2:The cover is so beautiful and it's been like a labor of love for Sarah, for I mean, I think the idea was literally born pre-lockdown I think, and like the best things in life, it's taking a number of years to sort of like come together and organize and yeah, it looks like a really sort of stunning product and I can't wait to it. Looks like a really sort of stunning product and I can't wait to. Yeah, just can't wait to see it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much, hayley, for sharing these pieces of yourself with us today and a pre thank you for your words in in the entwined book. I cannot wait to hear about your metaphor of colors, of of before and after, if you include some during. Um, as, as someone who lives and breathes creativity, you know as a as an expressive arts therapist, I love metaphor. I work in metaphor a lot with my clients, especially when there's resistance to actual art, making you know when that that is part of the narrative of creativity. Or art like I have to paint or I have to draw. No, thank you, I would literally rather do anything else. We talk a lot in metaphor and and pulling out some of those unconscious, you know thing, the imagination, pulling that to the forefront, and so I just I cannot wait to hear about and read your metaphor around color and motherhood.
Speaker 2:Thank you, yeah, and I'm really looking forward to reading all of the prompts in Ember as well. That's definitely something I'm going to be doing and encouraging yeah, lots of my friends to do it as well yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thank you everybody for listening to the chill like a mother podcast this week. We will see you or hear you. You'll hear me, uh, next week, and I wish you well and I hope you have a creative day and or.
