Josephine Hughes on God’s Love for Us ALL

We put ourselves down the whole time, and that so does tie in with the good enough, doesn’t it? Because we don’t believe, you know, she says, you know, we don’t believe we’re children of God, yet here we are.

Previously, the Feel Better Every Day Podcast, you’re listening to what’s now the Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD with Eve Menezes Cunningham podcast. Learn to love and care for all your parts, including your AuDHD and trauma, from the soles of your feet to your soul.

I’m your host and producer, Eve Menezes Cunningham. I’m also the author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing. I’m a columnist for Platinum Magazine, monthly columnist, and I use my Feel. Love. Heal. framework to support readers with their questions each month.

I’ve also written for hundreds of titles over the years as a freelance journalist, and also contributed comment around my specialisms of sleep, trauma, anxiety, neurodivergence, burnout, confidence, finding more purpose, meaning and joy, embodied somatic approaches. It’s very holistic, my approach. I’m a trauma therapist and trauma survivor.

I’m an AuDHD coach and AuDHD-er, and I’m a Self care coach where I integrate all of my therapies and coaching. So that includes the NLP, the EFT, the crystals, the psychosynthesis counselling, the yoga, the meditation, the mindfulness, the psychoeducation. It’s a very collaborative approach.

In the podcast, Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD, certain episodes may be more in one direction, more another. Not everyone is interested in all of my offerings, and obviously that’s fine. My intention is to help you remember that you know yourself best, to help you connect with your whole Self, to help you work with all your parts and to help you find that tenderness, that care, that love.

You can help me keep this free by sharing, by subscribing, by giving me a five-star review if you’d like and letting me know what you’d like more of. You can email eve@solestosoul.ie or comment in any of the comment sections. I also encourage you to visit solestosoul.ie for full show notes (as well as wherever you’re listening) and links and additional resources.

There are lots of free resources, and you can sign up for my free weekly newsletter, Míle Buíochas Mondays. It comes out every Monday. Míle buíochas translates as a thousand thank yous in Irish, and as well as encouraging a gratitude practice, it’s a polyvagal informed journal prompts approach to help you map your nervous system, to help you acknowledge that yes, there’s a lot to be grateful for, there’s a lot that’s magical and awe-inspiring in the world and there’s also an enormous amount coming up for healing. And it’s not about denial, it’s not about toxic positivity, it’s about meeting yourself where you are and accessing the supports that are going to help you with that. Do sign up for that for free at the website and you can, if you’re local enough to Westport, you might be interested in the Westport Lunar Circles that I run each month around or on around the Waning Half Moon.

The focus is on releasing blocks to balance and harmony. It’s a lovely small group and you can find out more again at the website. I hope that you enjoy this episode. Thanks again for listening. And as you listen to the episode, connect with your soles to your soul, scan your whole self, notice what emerges, what parts of the body, what parts of yourself need extra tenderness, need that love, need that care.

Ask yourself, if I truly loved myself, what would I be doing? And aim to do that. Get to know yourself and enjoy.

I’m delighted to welcome Josephine Hughes back.

I love what she’s sharing about finding a place to worship that aligns with her values.

And that feels like a proper support. And how she played a big part in creating that space for herself and for others in our community. So let me know what you think and enjoy this episode.

Thank you so much for joining me, Josephine Hughes. Thanks for asking me. It’s really nice to be here.

And thank you so much for your patience while Zoom was doing weird things and I couldn’t go on. It’s so annoying, isn’t it? Why does tech always do this to us? So you were on before, you were on in season one. And I’ll have a link in the show notes.

I think it surprises me that it was such an epiphany when you were saying you wish then that you had four hours every morning for self-care. Because you said that and I really like ADHD, timeliness, all of it. And it’s like, oh, I kind of think a part of me thought that it was just me who was failing to fit all the things in.

It’s so obvious. Yeah, there’s so much we want to do, isn’t there? It’s as simple as that. And so much we need to do, I think.

Absolutely, yeah. And so I wanted you to come on again. Because I know your brand is very much about good enough.

And at this time of year and thinking about the framework that I work with. So you’ve got the feel bit for the regulatory lowercase s hyphenated self-care. So I ask everyone about their ideal self-care and their actual self-care.

I think good enough feels friendlier somehow at the moment. Especially in January, yeah. I mean, this will be February (March!), but it’s tweaking it.

But you created the Good Enough counsellors group a long time ago. Of asking, would you like to say a little bit about and also your Therapy Growth Group?

Yeah, sure. So I think the thing is, you know, when I first had therapy, I came out of therapy thinking, I’m someone who doesn’t believe they’re good enough.

And I thought that that was very individual to me. And gradually, the more I spoke to people, the more I found out that a lot of us don’t think we’re good enough. And it’s actually the vast majority of us.

And out of that grew the Good Enough Counsellors Community. Because I think there’s so much to be said about if you’re really open with people about how you really feel, you usually find that there’s somebody else in the room who feels very similar to you. And that’s how the Facebook community grew.

Really, I just called it Good Enough Counsellors. And that name appealed to so many people. A lot of people joined because of that name.

So it’s all about normalising it really normalising those feelings of inadequacy, normalising those feelings of being an imposter. Because I think so many of us feel it. And I think so many of us, I don’t know if it’s particular to women, I don’t know, but you know, sort of low self-confidence, not being able to push yourself forward, feeling that you should stay small, for example.

And I think that really does impact us, especially those of us who are running a therapy business or running private practice. And that’s why I then subsequently started my therapy growth group, which is a membership group for therapists. But the funny thing is, is that actually grew out of giving people a voice.

Because what I did was I ran a free challenge over COVID, where people could come on and learn how to use video. And they all talked on video. We all had loads of time because we were all stuck at home.

This was in lockdown. And they were just telling each other stories. And there’s such power, I think, in community and telling each other stories, listening to each other’s stories.

And that’s really, I think, the heart of the work is about normalising it for people. And when you know that you’re not the only one who feels like this, it actually gives you courage. Because you realise that, you know, actually, if an awful lot of people feel like this, it actually isn’t to do with you being not good enough.

It’s just a universal feeling, or certainly a lot of us feel it. I think we all feel it. You know, we can take action anyway.

I think, like, because although I’m a writer, and I used to be a big part of a journalist group, and in all my hundreds of years on the planet, all 50 of them, I met one person who didn’t believe in imposter syndrome. And she’s gone on to become a bestselling author. She’s amazing.

She’s really lovely. I just find it astonishing. But when you say about women, I interviewed Valerie Young years ago.

She wrote a book about imposter syndrome. She’d worked with the two people who coined it. I’ve forgotten their name. I think it’s Suzanne Collins. I don’t remember. I’ll have a link in the show notes.

But she regretted calling her book, she called her book, which I’ve forgotten, Valerie Young. But she got so many letters from men and people saying, it’s not just women.

It’s not just, she found in her research, immigrants and children of immigrants and first generation, say, to go to university from working class backgrounds. It’s any kind of group that’s been othered. And yeah, you’re right, enormous power in owning it and owning it safely, not saying it where you’re then going to be shamed for it and feeling worse about yourself.

And that context is really important, isn’t it? To say, you know, it might be working class people, it might be Black people, you know, that because it’s so easy to take it personally, to think it’s located within yourself. And often it’s the societal forces and context that we’re living in that actually, you know, it’s privilege as well, isn’t it? I don’t know how many educated men feel imposter syndrome. They probably do.

Yeah, maybe less. I don’t know any white men, but I think a lot of white men also struggle enormously. I think everyone, it’s that sense of expectations.

And it’s like we were just talking about, like, even though I read a book about it, even though it was such a big part of my work, I still, until you said the four hour thing, I hadn’t recognised how much pressure I was putting on myself to somehow fit all the things in all the time. And yeah, so can I ask you about what you would like to be doing in terms of the feel part of the Feel. Love. Heal. framework? So that kind of regulatory, like I’ve just been for a medicinal swim, my hair’s chaotic. It’s grown out from my DIY haircut before Christmas as well.

And the kind of things, like for me, swimming is a huge part. I went to a yoga class this morning, I had someone’s foot in my face, which meant I had to go for a swim because it was like, excuse me, can you move forward? Oh my God. It’s like, it wasn’t her fault. I mean, she didn’t know, it wasn’t like she deliberately did or anything, but it’s like, oh dear Lord.

But all the things that we do, like eating well, I mean, to get enough sleep or all the little things, what would you say are your essentials? What are your good enoughs and what are your ideals?

Yeah, I mean, you know, ideally I’d love to eat perfectly and really healthily, but I don’t, and I think there’s some self-care in eating chocolate. And I think in terms of sort of what I feel, I am someone who likes to be active, so movement really does help, I think.

And then a big thing I’ve discovered recently, well not recently, but the last few years is giving myself the chance to play music while I’m working. If I’m on my own and I can play music, I’m not on a call, obviously, but there’s something really soothing about particular types of music. So it’s, you know, obviously music that I like, which is fairly gentle, so guitar led stuff.

That’s sort of like become increasingly important to me, but I think movement would definitely be my absolute go-to and the movement usually involves being outdoors as well, because I think that’s really important for me. I grew up in the country and I don’t know if it’s that or whether it’s just we all feel that need to connect with nature, but I think being outside is really important. When I was a kid, my mum always used to say, for goodness sake, go outside, and I’d be wanting to read a book.

And now I kind of sort of appreciate so much more why she was telling me. Yeah, but yeah, I think, you know, reading, you know, being able to switch off is really important to me as well. I was going to say, they all have their place, don’t they? Like, skipping into a book can be wonderful, or like learning, like going more into a special interest in a book, whatever it might be, but it’s both, not either or, and yeah.

And what would be your biggest, like your essential, if you had time for one thing in that area? I’ve actually, it’s interesting, actually, because sort of thinking about it, I’ve come up with something completely different, and I think for me, my essential would be that time to be able to talk with my husband, you know, that’s absolutely, that doesn’t matter what else I’m doing, but, you know, just somebody who really gets you, who you don’t have to explain yourself to, that’s really invaluable to me. And I’m a verbal processor, so being able to talk out loud, have someone there who just listen, not in the right places. So, you know, I would say that’s top of my list.

Ah, and when you say not in the right places, like, but properly listening, not just phoning in. He often, he’s sitting on his phone playing a game, and I think he’s not listening, and it turns out he is. He’s very good at multitasking, he’s game playing and nodding.

But yeah, no, and he will sometimes put the phone down if I say it’s really important, so yeah.

Moving on to the love part, that self-acceptance, the love archetype, the support, the acceptance of everything, the recognition, you don’t need to do anything to, like, you don’t need to find peace. Like, we’re inherently at peace, it’s about releasing all the blocks to that.

We’re part of the divine, we’re part of nature. What helps you connect with, like, that uppercase Self, that miraculous self, that high self, that part of you that knows with every fibre of your being that you are enough, you’re not too much, you’re lovable, you’re worthy, all those things. I’d say probably music is the quickest way for me to get there, actually, you know, if I’m really honest.

Yeah. Quite often because of the lyrics. You know, I come from a Christian background, so quite a lot of the lyrics in those sorts of songs are quite helpful because they are talking about, you know, how you’re loved and accepted.

I mean, there’s obviously lots of other baggage that you have to put to one side with that, you know, there’s a lot of baggage. So it comes with…

So you’re discerning the kind of the Christ Consciousness message of love and acceptance for all other than the political side. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

I was listening to some music the other day and my husband was listening to it and he says, was there a bit of casual homophobia in that song? And it’s, yeah, there is actually, you know, and yeah, you know, it’s just, it’s often just permeates and you just have to sort of not throw the baby out with the bathwater, I guess, but you do have to throw the bathwater out. Yeah.

No, I was raised Catholic and I remember as a small child, like, I read the lyrics ahead in the book and I really, like, sing the lyrics I could 100% sing even though I was a small child. I know the whole Eve thing, banished children of Eve, meant I took them very personally. And I didn’t know the directions.

You have the name and all that baggage, like you say, about Eve being the first woman, you know, throwing them all out, you know, it’s her fault and all the rest of it. Yeah, that’s the baggage we have. You know, I’m thinking Ellen Coyne wrote a book, Are You There God, It’s Me, Ellen about looking to see could she reclaim her Catholicism without the horror associated with some of it.

And I think the fact that you’ve got music that speaks to your soul and that gets you to that love that helps you connect. That’s fantastic. Yeah, yeah, I think it’s just finding the right things.

I mean, I was listening to one recently and it was exactly the type of music that I like. It was a really lovely song. But then when I started listening to the lyrics, it was very much about sort of like the prodigal son.

And it’s only a young man singing it as well and how bad he’d been and all this, that and the other. And I just couldn’t identify with it because I just thought, oh, this is so lacking in compassion, really, you know, where you see yourself as so bad that you have to throw yourself on the mercy of God. And I just don’t, you know, I just don’t see it like that any longer, which perhaps isn’t very Christian.

But there you go. You know, I sort of think. Oh, you have to remind me of her name, but often I pause in here because I’m absolutely hopeless with names, but it’s a writer and she says, you know, our greatest fear.

Oh, Marianne Williamson. Yeah. Yeah. I interviewed her!

You know who I’m speaking about. Yeah. Did you? Yeah. [link in shownotes]

Yeah. You know, our greatest fear is, you know, that actually we’re more powerful than we imagine because, you know, we put ourselves down the whole time and that sort of does tie in with a good enough, doesn’t it? Because we don’t believe, you know, she says, you know, we don’t believe we’re children of God, yet here we are. Yeah, we all are.

And you just sort of think, wow. And yeah, so connecting with that sort of thing can be really powerful, I think, but having to let go of some of the sides of it that just don’t chime with what I believe any longer. Yeah.

And moving on to the, you’ve already kind of alluded to it with your community with your husband, but also the community you created. But what is your ideal and essential and good enough way of that kind of collective care, that healing in community with others? And where do you let yourself be held? Because, like, it’s one thing holding for others, but it’s another allowing yourself to be held. Yeah, I think, you know, again, you’re coming back to my church community.

I’m very fortunate in that my church community is a fully inclusive church. So, you know, LGBTQ inclusive church, which is really, really important to me. A bit of an odd question, I know Brené Brown wrote about this and her efforts to find similar in Texas. But what helped you find that for yourself?

Because there might be watchers and viewers or listeners who crave that and that it’s not possible for them. Yeah, I mean, the really interesting thing is that, you know, my kids came out as trans and other kids in church were coming out as trans. And we just had someone who, a pastor who was very open to becoming fully inclusive.

And he led the process because I think what he said to me at the time is that an awful lot of people, pastors within the church, recognise theologically that you can be inclusive. You know, we went through a whole process where we looked at all the arguments and there’s, you know, the arguments, they all fall down, basically. And it’s either you can be fully inclusive and therefore be in line theologically with the Bible, or you can say, no, no, no, that’s not what the Bible says at all.

And really between the two positions, people try and fudge it, but it’s either one or the other. So our church, very fortunately, decides to go for full inclusivity. And it was a journey we all went on together, but we did lose a lot of people.

And so, you know, other people have gone elsewhere. I think we must advertise, actually, that we are fully inclusive, because we do have people who’ve come quite long distances to find us. But as I said, the interesting thing was, was the pastor saying, you know, actually, this is accepted in very many circles.

It’s just that a lot of pastors don’t feel able to introduce it to their church because they’ll be seen as somehow hugely, you know, untheological, but there isn’t really opposition. It’s fascinating.

Then what are some work around the Gnostic Gospels, which were deliberately excluded from the St. James Bible, when Christianity went from being a persecuted religion, because it was all about love for everyone and very radical, and when it became a state religion, they took out like Philip and Thecla and Paul and Thomas and Mary Magdalene.

And it’s astonishing to think how much was lost, and hopefully how much is being found and helping people now, that they weren’t destroyed, they were hidden. And what do you wish you had known when you were younger?

Like, I imagine it might have been quite a turbulent time for you, if you could send love back to yourself before you knew you wouldn’t be able to keep and feel a greater part of this community. Like, what love, wisdom, what advice do you wish you’d have sent back to yourself? I think sort of like, where I’m at currently with this is learning that I’m a very enthusiastic, passionate person, but there’s a lot of drive there.

And that some of the drive is actually a quest to feel good enough, you know, and that actually, true self-care is going to be letting go of that drive to a certain extent. Obviously, I love being who I am. I love being passionate.

I love being enthusiastic. I love the work that I do. But also allowing myself to let go as well, and not to be driven in terms of you’ve got to keep going, you know, I think it’s about learning to be kinder to myself.

And I think, you know, what I’d like to say to that younger Josephine would be, you know, you are good enough. You don’t have to be anything but what you already are. And it’s the heart of self-compassion, really, isn’t it? Is to be able to say to yourself, you are worthy and deserving just by virtue of being here on the planet.

You know, you don’t need to prove anything. You don’t need to be driven. You don’t need to work for recognition or love or, you know, it just isn’t necessary.

So, you know, you don’t even need to be good enough, because you are already enough. Yeah, something like that.

That’s why the rescue cats help so much that kind of they’re not trying to prove themselves as worthy in any way, shape or form.

But it’s that conditioning we have to keep letting go of. And remember, yeah, it’s a real uphill, uphill struggle, actually. But, you know, it’s sort of like, you think one day I’ll get there.

It’s like the getting there, but also knowing you’re already there. There’s nowhere to get. It’s such, yeah, there’s so many contradictions.

And it’s so weird. Today, the day we’re recording this, my Inner Farty McFartface episode came out. So my RSD has been, it’s the RSD Part 1.

And it’s like, I’ve gone too far. And I’ve had a really raw morning in a number of different ways. And it makes me laugh that in many ways I’ve come so far, like happier now at 50 than ever before.

But also, like, it doesn’t take much to feel like a raw open wound walking around a bit. Swim, get under water, reconnect.

Yeah. I think we do, we move in and out of it, don’t we? You know, we can move from this lovely place of feeling confident, to then feeling really rubbish. Because, you know, external circumstances or whatever. Yeah.

What you were saying earlier about, like, recognising through conversations that most people feel like that, like feel they’re not good enough. And how much stronger that then makes everyone, rather than people feeling like they have to somehow be perfect and any mistake is going to be punished. And like that destroys creativity, it destroys morale and well, all sorts.

But I want to thank you as a member of the Good Enough Counsellors Facebook group. Thank you for creating that and your gorgeous podcasts. And is there anything you’d like to mention where people find you most easily? Yeah, so probably, as you say, my Good Enough Counsellors podcast, which is a sort of variety of stuff.

Obviously, I do things on there for counsellors who are in private practice, but also just sort of talking about the things that are really important to therapists, you know, like intersectionality, that sort of thing. I’m really looking forward to introducing some new guests in the next few weeks as well to people. And that’s sort of like one of my public places.

And also, there’s obviously my podcast, Gloriously Unready, which is for parents of transgender people. Award winning podcast? Yeah, award nominated. My podcasts are award nominated, but neither of them have won yet.

I’m still seeking that out, actually a win. And then for therapists, the Good Enough Counsellors community is somewhere on Facebook. People can find me or Josephine Hughes on Facebook.

So yeah. Well, thank you again for joining me. Absolute pleasure as always.

Thanks.

As you think about this episode, I want you to imagine scanning your whole body, your whole energy field from the soles of your feet to your soul. Notice what has come up for you as you’ve listened, as you think about it now.

How might you show yourself some extra love, some extra care today, this week, make some notes, doodle whatever feels good. And if it feels comfortable and you want to email eve@solestosoul.ie, or comment in any of the comment areas, do feel free, subscribe, rate, review all the things but thank you for listening. I’m your host and producer Eve Menezes Cunningham.

Find full links in the show notes and full transcript. And let me know if you have any questions. Really looking forward to joining you again next week.

And have a brilliant week.