Manly Author & Yoga Babes Creative Mum Katie Brown
Katie Brown is a mum of three energetic, beautiful and challenging children. She also runs Yoga Babes and teaches pre and post natal yoga, baby yoga and infant massage.
She has also produced a DVD about Yoga for pregnancy and birth and two relaxation CD’s for mums to be and new mums. Katie has been teaching on the Northern Beaches for seven years and practicing yoga for more than twenty years. She is interviewed by Janine Brown. Photo by Jackie Cooper.
Janine Brown: Tell us about your more recent book 'Mother Me' and how you came to write this.
Katie Brown: I began to write the book after I had my first child. I adored my son but worried about returning to work, my relationship was strained and I found it hard to adjust to spending so much time in the house. Instead of feeling calm and at peace I was anxious and stressed. I was a mother but I wanted someone to mother me! Knew I had to do this but I didn’t know how. So this book was born from serious soul searching, my own experience after having my son and then my daughter, my knowledge as a pre and post natal yoga teacher, and speaking to hundreds of mothers and dozens of experts.
I wanted to give women the tools to make that transition from being a woman to becoming a mother as smooth and rewarding as possible, to help women become mothers, without losing their sense of self and keeping inner peace and life balance.
'Mother Me' is a companion that offers a new way for mums to navigate their own personal journey while facing the challenge of being a mother, knowing what to expect and how to cope with the different emotions, physical issues and practical situations you’ll be confronted with. The book combines practical advice, creative exercises and stories from real mums, about how they have achieved and overcome aspects of motherhood. It focuses on the well being of the mother after the birth of the baby and addresses the need for balance in their lives.
J B: How do you balance work and a young family?
Katie Brown: I had always worked in journalism which can be quite stressful so I took up yoga and massage therapy. When I had my first child I was offered full time journalism work or nothing and I couldn’t put my son in care. I had been teaching some pre natal yoga and I loved it. What had began as an interest was turning into a career as I started doing baby yoga and did a baby massage course and lots of reading and practice with my own baby. This led to me producing some relaxation CD’s and after my second, child, a DVD. So at the moment, everything is revolving around motherhood.
J B: I notice you have an English accent. Is there anything you would like to say about choosing this area to live in and raise your family?
Katie Brown: When I first came to Manly I fell in love with it. I had come from a small place in England as far from the water as you could be. When I was fourteen, my parents went to Surfers Paradise in Queensland because my uncle lived there. We went to Sydney for a couple of days and spent a day in Manly. I remember watching a girl dive in the water in her lunch hour and hop out and get dressed for work. I just thought how amazing it would be to live here. I would never have imagined then that I would end up living in this beautiful place. I absolutely love it. I came back packing years later and felt this place was always in my heart. Convincing my very English husband was going to be the hard part where as coming here for me was like coming home, in fact going back to England feels foreign now.
J B: Any last comments you would like to make on the importance of the job of being a mum and passing on our knowledge from mum to mum.
Katie Brown: I think mums need to let go of what they can’t do and focus on what you did get done, even if it might only be the three loads of washing you have done. In terms of passing down important beliefs from mum to mum I think there is nothing more special than that mum daughter relationship and we can truly appreciate our mums so much more when we become a mum ourselves. What is so special for me is the fact that my mum had a lot of trouble having children and I was therefore an only child. My mum and I were extremely close. She was like my best friend. When she got cancer she told me on her death bed that I would have a daughter. I had been trying for a little while to have a child and was worried I might be having fertility issues that were in my family. Not long after that I became pregnant and although my first child was a boy, I have since had two more children, one being my daughter, I feel this is so special as a part of my mum is in my daughter. This mother daughter thing is really very strong.
