Rosemary Daynes Kearney
When I talk about the new vision for my business, the reactions I get from people are very powerful and that reinforces to me, okay, there is a space for this in the world world needs this. I'm a person that can can bring this to the world.
Finola Howard
That's Rosemary Danes, Karney, award winning businesswoman, scholar, data governance and GDPR specialist and founder of the kerucut. Rosemary is a beautiful example of the idea that everything she has done has brought her to here the care advocate is at its early stages, and yet it has a powerful remit to advocate for world where care is prioritised, visible and valued. Join me as we explore how all this came about. I'm Finola Howard, intuitive marketer, your host and founder of how great marketing works, I believe that every business has a story to tell, because that's how the market decides whether to buy or nurse. And your story has to resonate with who you are and with the people you want to serve. And this podcast is about helping you reach the market in a way that feels right to you. So if you're an entrepreneur with a dream you want to make real, then this is the podcast for you. Because great marketing is your truth share. Does the thing I talk about a lot with clients and with people on this podcast, which is bad, bringing your whole self to a business, but also that we're here with purpose. And everything that we've done has led up to here. And I found someone who is the beautiful embodiment. And this is like I'm giving her pressure down. But anyway, but it is beautiful embodiment of this idea. And she's a scholar, a businesswoman, a carer, a data governance person, an advocate, and more. Welcome Rosemary Danes, currently,
Rosemary Daynes Kearney
thanks for now. Thank you for that introduction here most welcome.
Finola Howard
But it's so true. Like I really thought about our conversations. And there were so many parts that I really loved. And I think my favourite bit, right, my favourite bit is when you said, I have to tell you something funny phenomena. When I was a child, I wanted to be a missionary. And as a teen, a human rights lawyer, I would love you to tell that story of all the parts of your journey, starting from the child, because I think I just love how you've integrated. And the other thing that I love about this and I want you to share with people is the importance of self awareness as well in this process, because you're also psychologist, so Oh my God, you have such a long list of things
Speaker 1
I was born on. And yeah, I I was raised in a Catholic household and spirituality and a connection to I suppose a religious faith was very important. And so we had nightly prayers,
Finola Howard
more, more than more than more than the average family, you think? Is it? Or is it the typical? No,
Speaker 1
I would think because what my parents did was they took their faith and they they created a structure that had meaning for them. So in our nightly prayers, it wasn't a rote prayer. They created a structure, which was I can't quite remember maybe I think we did an our father and a Hail Mary. But then we talked about our family and we had, you know, a lot of our aunts and uncles who were spread around the world, we used to pray for them every night. So every one day it was, you know, Mary in America at every Tuesday it was married Australian. Yeah. And it was, I suppose it was a structure you know, on going to Mass and we signed into choirs, and we used to go to prayer groups. And, and so my early childhood was exposed to I suppose an organised religion. And I went to Catholic school and I, you know, had an very Trump's add to the norm. And I always had a sense of being I suppose, there's some things in the world that aren't quite right, right. And I'd like to change them or to work to change. And what I saw or what I was exposed to was missionary nones, not really knowing what they did, but I wanted to travel I always have wanted to travel and I wanted to contribute positively to the world. So one school assembly, they are head teacher who was unknown at the time, you know, said to whatever 600 or 800 girls that were there who would like to Vietnam? I was this So yeah, in us, and I was very committed to it because not so much, I think the faith part of us, and but the purpose part of that you're connected in to a lifestyle that was bigger than your own. And I think that's part is always I felt,
Finola Howard
and how old were you to have that insight,
Speaker 1
I'm going to say 1010 10 to 12, some age around that. And it was, you know, in my teenage years, and as you get more exposure to things, and I've subsequently left the church, I wouldn't subscribe to any organised religion, although I'm very spiritual person. And, you know, we were I was, I was exposed to kind of law. And, again, you know, I do debating and public speaking. And, you know, I kind of I'm not shy about having an opinion of atheists. And I thought, again, human rights lawyer, sounds good. But I only discovered that that I wanted to do that, or remembered about four years ago, five years ago, when I found a letter that I had written to myself, as you know, we do you do these exercises in first year, and it was, you know, save this letter, write this letter, give it to yourself when you're 18. And I actually had given it to the end, who sent out and she posted it to me, and I kept it but I put it in a box. And now these boxes came from my parents house, at that time, and I was going through, and I was in the midst of a crisis, I had been made redundant. I was, wasn't sure what I was going to be doing. I was setting up my own business. And I found this letter, and is really brought home apart to my you know, of myself to myself. And I didn't really know what it meant, at that time. Body kind of gave me a signal, well, whatever has happened, and you've been made redundant, and all that kind of stuff was really difficult thing to go through, you know, maybe there's a different purpose to you, for you, aid us. And so it connected me into that part of myself.
Finola Howard
How providential Hmm.
Speaker 1
I suppose I've always had the, in me, I get to be a contemplative person and to sit with myself, and to listen. And I think one of the ways my brain operates is, is naturally filters through noise. So I can be in a room with people and I'll be listening. But what I find myself doing is trying to hone in to well, what's, you know, what's really happening here in this room and what's going on. And I do that with myself as well. And over the last five years, particularly, I've been very involved in, you know, discovering, are we discovering that personal relationship with myself. And really, I suppose it's a journey of, you know, self love, deep listening, and trust. And coming from a period of my life, which was particularly difficult, into a space where I feel, you know, very good about things. And none of it has been by myself. But I would say I've moved from a space of coping with life, into a space where I'm working on a space of healing. So working with healing myself, and bringing that energy into the world as well.
Finola Howard
It's a laugh, because, first of all, the realisation that you're in a space of coping with life is enormous. And at a time in your life, when you're able to do something about it to actually transform that into this place of healing, like, it requires this huge degree of self awareness and that stillness and reflection point that I'm hopeful that more and more people are making that time for themselves. We have too much of you know, from an entrepreneurship perspective. There's this battle against the hustle culture and the need for it to have to be that way. Instead of this tuning into yourself to see the connections This is why I'm really wanted to speak to you today because you consciously unlocked that were As often people stumble across it,
Speaker 1
I think it was, it's a bit of both. I think that, you know, all my life I, you know, I, I've done different things like journaling, or, you know, going on retreats and things like that, which would be me being conscious about it. But I think in the particularly the last five years, I, I have a particular friend and person who supports me professionally as well, who recognise that I was at a particularly broken point in my life, and was able to hold me in it and offer her wisdom and her skill set, to allow me the space to really look at that and examine it, and grow from it, and developers develop fast. And I would have along the way, I mean, my husband is very supportive, and my family are very supportive. And we're in this, I suppose what I would say is a transformational space. It is something that I have been held in and I have been supported in. And, again, I read a piece recently by a scholar called dalla Mozley, and she was talking about healing versus coping. And her distinction is that healing is collective. So when we are coping, we're in our individual space, or when we're healing, it's a collective action.
Finola Howard
That's a really powerful insight, because it gives us a phrase that used of getting given yourself permission to address what was going on in your life. But But if if we have a fact, like, for lack of a better word, if we have a fact that healing is collected, then it gives us permission to ask for the help.
Speaker 1
And that's so important. And I have, again, go back where I was an age as a child and a teenager, and in my early years, I'm a very independent person and my parents attention. Absolutely, from art, totally independent, found it very difficult to open up and ask for help. And so were the contemplative parts, which would have been beneficial in working through things myself. It was only to a certain point, because I would then not ask for help or maybe not talk about, you know, things and I just worked through them on my own self.
Finola Howard
That's very interesting. Because you went into the caring profession. Yeah. Yeah. Can you tell us that story, so we know that you discovered that piece of paper that says you want to be human rights lawyer, so when so take us to the, you know, a cliff note version of the of the core kind of career to give us a sense of that. So
Speaker 1
when I finished school, I studied psychology with a view to becoming a counselling psychologist. The reason for that was people told me, you know, I'd be good as I thought he was, you know, and I enjoyed, you know, listening to people and working with people would be counselling, psychology, I had to be 26 to get into the further training programme. So I went off, and I worked overseas, and I spent nine months travelling South America, and then four months living in South Africa. And I suppose I had worked in settings with psychology, and again, it was very individual, you were just working with an individual person on a on an individual issue. And again, with the exposure to the world I was really looking at, well, a lot of the things that are hurting people and are affecting people are systemic. And I had really, I was like, you know, is working with the individual enough. So I went back and I studied international development with a view to working out more structure level. So that I worked in community development and I worked at homeless services and I worked for then I worked when a family carer Support Programme. And as a project worker where we run support groups and respite and did advocacy and information. And then with restructuring within that organisation, I moved to be a regional coordinator, I'd work primarily through the poverty. And so that was, that's the Cliff Notes version. And that job ended with redundancy.
Finola Howard
But can I just ask you the whole food poverty thing? And even all of the homelessness stuff? So here's the obvious question for me is how did that affect you? Did it affect you do become do you become you know, when you're working in this space? Do you become motivated to change? Or do you become numb to it?
Speaker 1
I became both, I think, in reality. When I had worked in Sudan, South Africa, one of the things I had worked in as I volunteered in an organisation called feedback. And it was an organisation that took fruit from the government buildings and from factories. So one of the things that really struck me there was we went to a fish processing factory. And they were preparing the fillets of fish that we see in our supermarkets, and then the charity was taking the off cuts and bringing the way to townships, into the community centres there, and then they will be distributed aid. And that gave me a connection to well, a lot of this is maybe bigger than one person can do. So it gave me maybe a sense of realism. And I always felt connected to the people that we were working with. And so I was never known to the people, those you were, you know, I was working with, I think it's you maybe get a little bit jaded or a little bit disenfranchised or a little bit, you know, if you're really trying to look at, you know, how do we change something that stops this happening? And but I learned myself, how to manage that in myself as well.
Finola Howard
Yeah. How did you learn,
Speaker 1
it's a, again, this contemplative part of myself was partly as so putting in a really strong programme of self care. And I'm working in organisations where that was also part of the principles, Albert. So I think in a caring industry, you can't care for other people, if you don't care for yourself, it's really important that you care for yourself. And I think you refer there to the hustle. And particularly when you run your own business, it's very difficult to make the time and make the commitment to caring for yourself. And I think we saw people in COVID. And when the world star people realising actually, maybe there is a different way here, and, you know, how do I do and I think, sadly, a lot of that lesson just got, I feel we, we've lost a lot of that, that space that we created for ourselves to consider a different way of life. And I've been very lucky that I had really good people around me all my career, all my work, and really good managers, really good colleagues, people that you can talk to about things, you know, in frontline, in my frontline work, we would have debriefing sessions. So at the end of every shift, you'd go in, and you'd say, well, this is what happened. And if so, we're taking nothing home. So that was a really good structure that was in place. And in the work with the carers. I just had a really great colleague, who was very receptive, very good. And again, we had really good strong structures in place around looking after each other in our work as well. So it's a journey all the time, though, that things that worked for me when I was younger, don't necessarily work for me now as well. So I've learned to really listen to myself, and to not be upset with myself if that thing that I did. We talked a little bit about sea swimming, and I used to, you know, go for the dips and COVID and I'm not doing them now worked really well for me at the time. You know, I've learned before I think in my mindset, I would have been very critical. If I talk to you, I would have been like, Okay, I'm not doing that. Now, I don't know if she'll be right, I got a road straight down to the sea and jump in. Because I haven't done in ages. What I've learned is to be very compassionate with myself, and to say, you know, it's fine that you're not doing that. And I've also learned that you need to try and be much more in tune with the seasonality of myself. And I've realised I kind of have a three month period of doing things where I'm really good at that after that, no matter the best rule of the world I move on to something else and to start to see that now as a strength as opposed to you know a state that I can beat myself with so it's this conversation with myself now and I think age and maturity and life experience brings that knowledge and wisdom with us. Yeah,
Finola Howard
I love for me. The sea swimming is very interesting for me because It's, it's absolutely therapeutic. And at this time of the year, when you can swim for long, you it's not about burning calories or, you know, getting getting all the the swimming know what I mean. But I find I find the cold water is amazing. And I find like, it's hilarious because I know some people cringe. But so it's minus three, yesterday was minus three to minus two or like Cahoots and another degree warmer. And in the water, it's, it's 7.9 degrees at the moment. And my, and it's crystal clear. And I put my face in the water. And there is this cold, I've learned so much from it. And I think that's the biggest thing that there's, I've learned so much, there's so many physical things that I've learned about my body and what it's able to do. And the fact that the body wants to move, I've learned so much from a, from a mental space of, for me, it's like, I am consistently doing this, cuz this is I can do this. And also that idea of, if I can do this, I can do anything. And then there's also the stuff of the hot micro changes you make in how you swim, the impact it has on how you swim to tiny things, the complexity of the simplicity of it, the freedom of it, I stopped now you don't have to. So we all have different experience, what I love is we all have different experiences and and that's this truth that you're speaking, which is we have to know what's working for us. And I can't
Speaker 1
really add I need to go hard because you just spoke about this, the the experience so beautifully there. And it sounds to me like you, when you're in that space, you're also in conversation with yourself. And I don't think that we allow ourselves enough time to have conversations with ourselves. And that's, that's where we can really connect in with, you know, our purpose, our needs. Our true state. And for me, over the last number of years, particularly connecting in with myself, has allowed me to envisage a life and a business that is deeply aligned with my principles, I believe, so I values that are responsive to the needs of my day to day life. And as busy as it is. And it's everyone's day to day life is and has brought great richness into my life in ways that I couldn't have imagined. And so I think creating spaces for people, and it's very hard, if you're in a busy job with a busy family, with a busy life to do that. And I'm not saying it's easy. Sometimes it's really hard when you hear people talking about things that you can't gosh, you know, it is hard. And and for me, I've seen things that I wrote three, four or five years ago, I would like for myself that, you know, I keep having this aspiration, I'll be able to get up early in the morning and do an hour of exercise before the kids get up. And over the summer, I was able to do it. And over the winter, I'm in my bed. And I don't know if I'll ever get back to it. So for me what I recognise it's a process and it's baby steps. It's what you talked about there those, you know, those those micro changes. That's really what I'm trying to focus in on in my life. It's the micro changes that I can make, rather than the big grand changes, because I've had enough big changes in my life I you know, I really would like it, but it's focusing on those micro changes. Looking at, you know, what do I need to change maybe in a tiny, tiny way? And how can I bring that into my life? And then building on those?
Finola Howard
Yeah. And great change happens when you do it that way. Let's return for a moment. There was so you were regional coordinator. And then that awful experience of being made redundant. I don't think I realised how awful it was or how hard it is. I had two interviews on this podcast before one with either Blake and The other one with the name has a lot of, it'll come back to me. But I remember Louise McDonough. And they found it very, it was a very challenging, it affects your identity and your sense of self and your sense of worth. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker
absolutely. Are
Finola Howard
you okay to share this next stage of your journey? Yeah,
Speaker 1
absolutely. And it's a funny situation, because I wasn't happy in my job. And I knew that redundancy was coming. So I was on maternity leave, I take an extended maternity leave. And during, you know, when I went on maternity leave, I'd say to my husband, you know, I might have to have a job to go back to. So I'd had loads of time, in some ways to get my head around us. But when it did happen, it really shocked me. And I think the uncertainty of your life, it brings all that into play, whereby you talked about there, the identity, and if I'm not this person, and I'm not good enough for them to keep, you know, if they really want me there to find a way, you know, in our case, it was fun day, you know, day to find the funding, or they'd have done this to keep me they really, you know, it's about me, and it becomes a very personal rejection in some ways. It's like, when you're, you know, you're broken up by somebody that you're involved with. It's that shattering now. Your confidence. Yeah, who am I now? And what do I did? And, but I'm really grateful. Because if, if I hadn't have happened to me, I'd have never left my job, I think because financially, you know, kids have mortgage family, you know, the financial security was very important. But
Finola Howard
you chose entrepreneurship instead of another job. That's an it's a particular industry do they chose to get into I find interesting,
Speaker 1
you know, I'd worked for nearly 20 years in the community and voluntary sector and you know, those people who work in that sector now, it's not well paid, and there's, you know, you're out, you're, you're, you know, you're at a certain salary level, and I was just tired, I was tired, you know, and I decided to retrain in data protection and GDPR, because the GDPR is coming.
Finola Howard
Because it's such the, the most obvious thing for you to do, of course, and yet, it is in retrospect, but I find it hilarious
Speaker 1
when I was able to align myself to it, because I'd always thought it in my jobs naturally, because I really believe that they are working with vulnerable people, it's essential that you keep their information safe and secure. So a lot of that just really struggling if I take them out on my job, so like, before, it was a pig, I was just doing it and setting structures and stuff and know the legislation, and that just age of a pure, we've got favourable people here, you know, it's really important, we have the right things in place to keep their information safe, and to protect it for them. And I was also able to align it to myself, because GDPR is human rights legislation. So it's background is the fundamental Charter of Human Rights in Europe, it dates back to the Second World War tag, Nazi Germany was able to abuse personal data, in order to locate the categories of people that they wanted to break to concentration camps, because they had a very good system in place. And so I, I was able to align myself or, you know, align myself to it because of its human rights background and my belief and the absolute, you know, need to keep personal data safe and in organisations and, and, and I figures, you know, I knew people who were working in the area, they said, There's got to be loads of work out there that reloads jobs, it's it's a growth area, and I thought, right, well, chance fresh, you know, fresh page, clean sheet. And we'll go I because I had been made redundant, there was support in place to a storage business, but I, I considered it but I only consider it because of my family circumstances, because I have three children, two of whom have additional needs. And I didn't know how I was going to approach an employer to say well, I might have to go at the drop of a hat or I just couldn't see how to sell myself in an interview. I'm not able to lie I really valid liar and I just didn't know people were saying just don't tell them. But then I was like, I'm setting myself up to fail because I don't have the stability in life that you know, a high pressure high paying job requires. So what do I do? So I took the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance. And I said, right, I'll just go and do it, and just set up a business leap of faith and see where it brings me. And that was nearly five years ago now.
Finola Howard
Bravo. But
Speaker 1
in that, it's only last year that I really felt either businesswomen
Finola Howard
say more about that.
Speaker 1
So I never really felt I committed to the path of being an entrepreneur. Until last year, I kind of reacted to the circumstances around me. And again, it's this coping, versus healing. So coping with life. You know, being running my own business. Being a consultant, working in the sector, it was the best way to deal with particular set of circumstances. I never had to drive to be an entrepreneur, I never saw myself as being an entrepreneur. I never, you know, it was never something in my wish list of things that I go to visionary non human, right. So he entrepreneur lesson in there. In fact, he was just I was like, why would people do such hard work? And you're putting yourself out there? And, you know, here's your paycheck coming from and where's your stability, and I just this world, I just couldn't imagine for myself. So when I did it in the back of my mind was like, Well, if it doesn't work out, I can always go back, you know, to the paye sector, I can always apply for jobs and I know keep an eye out and jobs and go, Oh, I could apply for this one. I could apply for that one. So I always had, I wouldn't say one foot in one side, I was certainly 30% of the Watson fully committed to us.
Finola Howard
Did that affect your how you work then?
Speaker 1
We don't do it. It doesn't affect how I work. It affects how I dream and how I vision and how I how I, you know, where I see the business going. It affected that. So I was kind of in a, we'll see where it goes. You know, the work side? Yeah. Um, in the last year, I've really stepped into right. I don't want to go back to the PA ye sector. I really love byo and vas, you know, and I have a dream and a vision and something I feel that I sneakily can offer the world that isn't going to fit with somebody else's agenda. So there's a line from a poem Invictus. And it's, you know, I am the captain of my fate. I am the master of my soul. And that's the space I moved into last year where I was like, I'm, I'm not a first mate. I'm not I'm not a deckhand. I'm captaining my ship, and I'm committing fully
Finola Howard
to it. How did you feel? How did it feel when you made that shift in your thinking?
Speaker 1
It feels brilliant. Yeah, it's brilliant. Because I don't have the self doubt. I have self doubt, continuously. I think maybe everybody does. But I don't have the self database. And what I'm offering to the world, how I offer it is where the self doubt comes in, like what services are bringing who like, I want to talk to where am I getting my clients that the operational side, but again, go back to the visioning and the dreaming power. So when I talk about the new vision for my business, the next stage, the evolution of us, the reactions I get from people are very powerful and, and that reinforces to me, you know, to firms to me that, okay, there, there is a space for this in the world worm needs this. And, you know, I'm, I'm a person that can can bring this to the world.
Finola Howard
So let's talk about what this is. very obscure. Cheese and everyone. So this is the care advocate. This is the care aplikace.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. Which
Finola Howard
makes now as people are listening makes complete sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1
it's beautiful. Yeah. I'm, it's the bringing home of all the parts myself and that journey from the child, you know, through the various stages of my life, and it's bringing my personal and my professional experience together into an offering and, you know, putting my talents and my skills at the service of people and getting financial return for them. And I think learning to accept for I'm not sure return, you know, that has been part of the process as well,
Finola Howard
I'd say more about that learning to accept financial return. I.
Speaker 1
So I think as people, you know, people who feel maybe they want to do something, you know, in community and in society and create change, or a, have a have a mission or, you know, or that or women or Irish women, you know, we find it difficult to get paid, and ask, you know, ask for help we're worth it's, it's something that's not in our psyche, it's not naturally instilled in us, but also
Finola Howard
to define that worth. It's not, we're not even at the point. It's the, it's the knowing what you're worth first, before you know how to ask for it. It's very common, specifically, you know, like, it's interesting, because you, it's the care advocate, and you're carrying background, it is absolutely the nurturing space, the caring space, that purpose and mission. Space, there is a and I know this from all of the clients have dealt with that flip of a switch to going, but I should be just giving this to the world. Which is what What's your thought on that? I wouldn't make my comment,
Speaker 1
I think if you have finances behind you, where you don't need, you know, you can pay for your food in your home, to your children, that stuff, absolutely give it to the world. But if you need to earn a living, you need to get paid. And that's okay. Because if I'm giving it to the world, that means I have to work on something else in order to get paid. Because I don't have the you know, the finance, financial resources to do it for free.
Finola Howard
But I would even advocate that that's not enough. There has to be more because it's not just about getting just enough oxygen. It's not it's got it's, it's, I would go as far as to say it's very similar to your 30%. In if you're if you're sorry, 30 percentage 30% of us naughty, and if you don't have enough to be comfortable. It's like as you said, How can I dream? Absolutely. You have to create a space to dream. And there is a part of this not just our psyche and our spirituality and our belief and all that there is this financial aspect of it have space to dream? Absolutely,
Speaker 1
absolutely. I totally agree. And I remember a number of years ago, I think it was 20 Maybe 20. And some are 2020. And I had gone to I redid a couple of different things around setting goal setting and, and different things like that. And I wrote three goals for myself to be professionally fulfilled, to be financially secure, and to be, you know, connected to a community and, and my values and beliefs. And I'd recently changed that second goal to go from being financially secure to, you know, being financially wealthy. And that's the growth, that's the dream, because as you say, that gives freedom that, you know, gives you a fuel, it gives you feel it takes away. And because we have lived, you know, there was a period of time where we lived just on social welfare. And that's what we had is our income for a number of years, because of different circumstances. And that's really tough. There's no space to dream, when every penny is accounted for. You know, it's it's very, very tough. And I think if you're running your own business, and you're putting your time, your effort, you know, your skills, your heart, your soul into us. You need to be getting a return a service or else you know why put yourself through the hardships? You know, it is the hardest thing I've done in terms of a job is set up a business and keep it going over five years and provide for my family. You know, that is singularly the hardest thing. There's easier ways I could have done it. So I think for anyone who's out there running their own business, he is it's a slight change. And I again, I just recently did a business course, the Neo and the facilitator plays bras and his his message was, you know, if you're running a real business, you have to make it worthwhile for yourself. You know, at the end of the day, when you retire, you want to make sure you have like a pension in your back pocket. You want to make sure that you're able to have a good life.
Finola Howard
Well, I all the thing that I find myself saying is it's not enough to make it. Making a difference is really important to a field very passionately. But it's not enough to make a difference to everyone else. You have to make a difference to you too.
Speaker 1
I agree with that. Yeah, yeah. Were you But
Finola Howard
some of the other things that were interesting in our conversations were about being self aware enough to know, to know, at an early stage in the business, that you were approaching burnout. Yeah. Can you say a little bit more about that?
Speaker 1
Yeah. I set up the business in summer 2019. January 2020, my husband got very sick. And March 2020, we entered COVID lockdowns, and you tried to 20 I was on my knees, I wasn't even on my knees, I was on my back, I was absolutely floored. And that's where my friends that I refer to, you know, she rang me one day to see how I was, and I was just lying on the bed weeping. And she was able to hold me in that space. And it was, it was, you know, that witnessing of brokenness is important. But also that allowed me to experience it, or not carried and then start to move on and put steps in place to look after myself. And so I, you know, did a programme of counselling. And, you know, did, you know, started bringing in, that's where I wrote the list of eight, you know, I'd like to be getting up and doing our exercise of the morning, and she said, you already have an offer at your place? Where are you trying to get up an hour earlier? You know, and you know, that was, so I got through that phase,
Finola Howard
but I loved the thing where you became conscious enough to, to put a stop on things to say, I need to take care of myself now. Yeah, yeah. And you told people I need to take care of myself now. And then, and you realised things like, you needed to get out of the house. So you found a place to go and work. And that's the piece I find really interesting to, to share with people to actually acknowledge, I'm approaching burnout. I've got to reach out. Tell people, yeah, that happened
Speaker 1
two years later. So by by 2020, burnout, I didn't tell people I was teaching burden. Yeah, I coped with this. I dealt with it. I'd like moved on. In 2020, we just had a series of unfortunate events that happened, could have, you know, happen to people every day. But for me, where I had been operating on the carefree balanced scale of things, the quick succession of Unfortunate Events tipped me over the edge. And I apps that that's both the two years of work prior to that had taught me that if I really want to deal with this, now I need to tell people, and I need to really action this for myself to put things in place so that I don't end up permanently sick.
Finola Howard
But for me hearing you say that, I felt it was the most empowering thing that I heard of you. Because there's shame attached to asking for help. Absolutely shame attached to burnout. Or you didn't, you weren't able to do it to be hard enough, you know what I mean? That, that piece, so and I find this much more empowering to go. I need to take care of myself. Yeah. Like, it's, it's, you can't even argue with it. When someone says that to you, what
Speaker 1
I found is that when I did start talking about the shame went away. Because people like of course, look at all your daily stuff. Or I've been through something similar, or, you know, so like, I went to my GP and you should put me on a programme of anti anxiety tablets to help me sleep because I wasn't sleeping. I was putting nightmares at night. i Right. I wasn't eating or if I was eating, it was all the wrong kinds of stuff. I wasn't exercising, I had no capacity to really be there for my children in the way I wanted to be like I was there and and applet and so it was dealing with the fundamentals first you know, that's what we worked on getting good sleep, you know, reducing down the stressors that I caught. Do you taking things off my place? So I'm I'm also doing a PhD at that, you know, for that I'm in my final year of that that's that's why I love doing my PhD that's why like my mom said to me, why are you doing it? Why would you not do something for yourself? And I was like, No, this is doing so pick for myself like this is for purity for me, really. But I talked to my supervisor and he was like, take summer off. Look after yourself. And if you're not able to come back full time, you can work, you know, part time and here's all the different options so he immediately just stepped into a space of go and
Finola Howard
look after yourself. But I think it's a message I'd like to get to people, which this is a place of power to ask for help. Absolutely. Okay, I place of power to be self aware enough to go. I'm not right, I need to, to send I need to now give to myself. There's a phrase I hate it is, you have to give yourself the oxygen mask first. And we're like, yeah, yeah. But we're so immune to that phrase. And it's all logical, and all the good thing, but nobody, I don't think that has ever motivated, well, maybe it hasn't being flippant, definitely doesn't motivate me. So it's this sense of presence to listen to, to when you when you tune in, and listen, you have more power, and autonomy over yourself, and freedom over your own choices, you start to remember, you're free, I
Speaker 1
think, for us, it's very hard because looking after yourself feels selfish. And I think for me, I felt, say, my 2020 experience, there was a lot of stuff going on. And I got to the point where I was back able to manage, because going deeper into the asking for help felt selfish, because all of these other people need help and care and all that stuff. You know, I can't ask for help, too. You know, I think what I've learned is I need it was the mantra and and this will come from when I was working with family carers, and I would say to them, you know, if you don't look after yourself, how can you look after your loved ones. And so it was really a process of me, practising plus, I preached and really living us, and saying, if I don't look after myself, I'm not going to be able to look after the people that are most important to me in my life, you know, I'm not going to be able to do it. And that took that moved it from a space of feeling are selfish, for me to look after myself. It's never selfish to look after yourself. But in my thought process and allow allowing myself to get into a space of doing it was really saying, No, I'm actually it by looking after myself. I'm also looking after them. And by being in touch with my humanity, I'm also seeing what's divine about myself. Because in our, in our absolute humanity is, there's absolute beauty. And I, that's what makes us special. As, you know, as a people, and as a race. We feel things we experience things. You know, we're not observers of life, like I love nature, very connected to nature, trees and the plants. You know, they, they, they're kind of existing, and they're doing what we're doing, what we have, you know, we these experiences that are heartbreaking or traumatic and devastating and beautiful and joyous. You know, we have this great richness of emotional and spiritual and mental and physical life. And allowing ourselves to be in that is beautiful. And it's an honouring, you know, of ourselves, of people around us. I know a lot of people say are, you know, sure, I'm not so bad. They're in a lot worse situation than me. But everybody's situation is unique. And the weights and the worries that we carry individually, they're ours. They're what we have to deal with, and allowing a chink of light into into your life. And people really seeing that, then you find out so much about other people as well. And we realise actually, we're all the same in a lot of ways we're all dealing with, with stuff like nobody's life is perfect. And that can that creates connection at a deeper level. And going back to that COVID experience, I think we had a chink of that connection at a deeper level of that sense of collectiveness and, and then gain that collectiveness brings healing brings change. And that's a wonderful thing.
Finola Howard
Agreed. I want to just one last thing I want to ask you about, because we kind of skirted over it. And I feel it's important. And it's this next stage, this vision for the next stage. Because what struck me most of all, and I know it's early stages, so you're you're probably It's still forming in itself. But can you share specifically what is the core care advocate because I find it interesting because I feel it's a culmination. And and I feel that very often when I'm working with clients, I'm having to explain to them that you bring all of yourself and I just love that this feels so much of all of yourself. So what can you share the Psalm You probably in your fermenting? And then there's others that perhaps you can share, but give us like a quick snapshot of what the care advocate? Yeah, so
Speaker 1
the care advocate is, it's about making care of prioritised and visible, where my journey has really centred and is this framework of care. So how I lived my life and how I got through my job somehow, you know, got through and personal things. It's been about really self care, and really coming into this framework of care. And I feel care is what it is, I suppose higher states like gratitude. And so it's building this framework of care into making caring workplaces for all and putting care at the heart of all policies, services, products, and decisions. So that's the very high vision. But
Finola Howard
that's the thing I wanted you to share with people. Because early on, you realised this whole idea that we needed systemic change. And I wanted that piece to come across for people that, that you can have this bigger dream, and all of these things to turn, which is the GDPR stuff, understanding about the connection to human rights legislation, that you can bring all of these steps along the way, means we can even see this starting to shape in the care advocate, and the importance of it, because we need to take care of our cares. That's it.
Speaker 1
And on my I suppose the phase one is working with health care workers and people who are in the care caring sector. It's because we are in the middle of a wave of, you know, older people who are requiring care and all of us will require care at some stage and the structures that are in place for them and seeing that our care workers aren't necessarily happy in what they're doing, they want to do a lot of what's around them isn't supporting to do it. And that's creating a lot of problems. So working with that sector. You know, to assess that and look at how that can be worked through for for for them. So we're at the start for wave which is for family carers in the workplace, and you know what my own parents are heading into their 70s now and you know, who knows what they're going to bring in, we have so many people who are caring for family members, whether it's children or parents are about. And our workplaces aren't settle, to look after them by keeping, particularly women in the workplace who find themselves in caring roles. So we're at the crest of that wave. You know, family caring is how our health care system is supported. And it's only going to come more important as we move to, you know, virtual care and telehealth and all the great things that are are coming forward in our healthcare system is reliant on having people at home to look after the patient as well. And that's going to put more stress and strain on people in our workplaces. We can't lose everybody, we, you know, carers want to work as well. It's great for mental health, for Financial Health for social, you know, connectedness. And so our workplaces, you know, it's looking at them and how could they be designed to add
Finola Howard
the model has to be changed.
Unknown Speaker
So that's phase one. I
Finola Howard
love it. I'm, I want you to come back and tell us as it evolves.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'd love to, I'd love to. Yeah, it'd be wonderful.
Finola Howard
Rosemary, what would you like to leave people with today?
Speaker 1
I think it's really going back to this, that we can't do everything ourselves. We are part of a collective. And if we can tap into a collective, caring for each other. We, we can create something that's really beautiful and powerful and a great space to live in. Which remember that you're not alone. And remember, it's okay to ask for help. And remember that what you're doing is enough. Beautiful. Thank you so much. You're welcome.
Finola Howard
I hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you'd like to find out more about rosemary, connect with her on LinkedIn and check Get out or MD K consultancy.ie and the care advocate that I eat. And if you'd like to support the show, please follow or subscribe on your chosen platform makes all the difference to the impact that I'd love this podcast to have on the world. deeper conversations that allow us to grow, to celebrate each other's truths and to know that there are many who are working with a greater purpose in the world.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
