Nourishing the Mother Podcast By Bridget Wood & Julie Tenner cover art

Nourishing the Mother

Nourishing the Mother

By: Bridget Wood & Julie Tenner
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Mothering can be an inspired journey to our most glittering, authentic, passionate, creative and connected selves. Through the mirror offered to us by our children, we are taken to every hurt, unmet need, and also every joy and excitement we’ve ever experienced. We want every woman and mother to give themselves and those around them the compassion, love and healing they so readily offer their children, but rarely allow themselves. Journey with us as we discuss the many layers of being a mother today, where we have come from and where we want to go. Learn tools to connect with yourself, offer compassion to those parts we’d rather deny and get back in love with yourself, motherhood and who you are as a feminine woman.© 2026 Nourishing the Mother
Episodes
  • NTM 552: Friendship Drama at School: When Do You Step In… and When Do You Step Back?
    Mar 16 2026

    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

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    1 hr
  • NTM 551: Why Some Friendships Don’t Survive Motherhood
    Mar 5 2026

    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

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    34 mins
  • NTM 550: Parenting, Pressure & Protecting Your Partnership
    Feb 23 2026

    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

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    48 mins
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