Woo Woo Mum Podcast

Trusting Your Intuition in Motherhood: Autism, Ancestry and Healing

• Alexandra Sheppard • Season 1 • Episode 3

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In this episode of the Woo Woo Mum podcast, host Alexandra Sheppard engages in a heartfelt conversation with Mel Green, an academic and budding herbalist. They explore Mel's journey into herbalism, her health challenges, and the empowerment that comes from reclaiming one's health and cultural roots. The discussion delves into the importance of intuition in motherhood, the emotional challenges faced by black mothers raising autistic children, and the significance of community and ancestral practices. Mel shares insights on creating a spiritual toolkit and the realities of balancing motherhood with personal well-being.

Takeaways

  • Mel's journey into herbalism was triggered by health issues.
  • She faced medical dismissiveness and sought alternative healing.
  • Herbalism connects her to her ancestral roots and cultural practices.
  • Daily rituals and teas have become part of her spiritual practice.
  • Motherhood has taught her to trust her intuition more.
  • Writing a book about black mothers raising autistic children was a collaborative effort.
  • Emotional challenges in parenting require community support.
  • Intuition is a vital part of a spiritual toolkit for mothers.
  • Mel emphasizes the importance of agency in healthcare decisions.
  • The conversation highlights the need for representation in literature.

Order your copy of Mothering at the Margins: https://livedplacespublishing.com/book/isbn/9781916985018?srsltid=AfmBOorYYljDSq78YRmE8HBDCVnenbSVFJlLldS9ZmsC-ZS20uG-xRtY

Mel's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melalygreen

Mel's TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@melalygreen

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Alexandra (00:04)
Hello, hello and welcome back to the Woo Woo Mum podcast, the show for mums who want to reconnect with their inner magic. And I am your very tired host, Alexandra Sheppard. And I'm tired because my son has not received the memo about the clocks going back and is still operating on a different body clock. So he woke us up at 4am this morning. It's about midday now and I feel like I've been awake for a million years,

But I am excited because I get to share today's episode, which I recorded a couple of months ago with a really good friend of mine. It's a really powerful conversation with academic mother and budding herbalist Mel Green.

Now, this conversation is the reason I started a podcast about motherhood and spirituality in the first place. I wanted a place where mothers could get together and talk about the fun and inspiring side of spirituality, but also the healing and the awe inspiring.

Mel opens up about raising her autistic son, reclaiming her health when doctors wouldn't listen, and that is a story that is all too familiar with black women. And we also talk about reconnecting with her ancestral roots. Most of all, she shows us what it's really like to truly trust your intuition in motherhood. And I think that's why this episode is so powerful and an absolute must listen for anyone who's ever ignored their intuition and paid the price for it.

can find Mel on Instagram and TikTok at melallygreen. And her book, which she co-wrote with Claire Malcolm is called Mothering at the Margins, Black Mothers Raising Autistic Children in the UK. Definitely check it out and I've put all the links in the show notes.

As always, I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on this episode. DM me, leave a comment, rate and review in all the usual places. You know I appreciate it. And you can connect to the podcast on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Just search Woo Woo Mum podcast.

And of course, just a quick reminder if you're new here, please subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if this conversation resonates with you, I would love for you to share it with another mum who needs to hear it.

All right, let's dive into this week's episode with Mel Green.

Alexandra (02:26)
Hi Mel, welcome to Woo Woo Mum podcast. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Mel Green (02:28)
Well thank you for having me, I'm really excited.

Alexandra (02:34)
Yes, I'm so excited because recording a podcast for the first time is pretty nerve-racking, so when I can do it with an actual real-life friend, it kind of takes some of the pressure off.

Mel Green (02:45)
Yeah, it feels like more of a conversation for us.

Alexandra (02:49)
Exactly. And one of the reasons I really wanted to talk to you was because we have a lot of the same spiritual beliefs and practices, but you are an incredible budding herbalist. And this is something I'd like to get more into because I've noticed how different teas make me feel and how I can use them to adjust my mood. So what I'd like to ask you is what triggered your journey into herbalism?

Mel Green (03:16)
So it's bringing some sort of positivity out of quite a negative space. So ⁓ after I had my first son, it's like a year after, I started having some gut issues, like quite bad pains after I was eating. And I went to the doctor ⁓ about this for like 18 months.

⁓ before I actually got the support I needed. So I had 18 months of being told I had IBS or I just needed to not eat dairy or ⁓ I needed not to eat fatty foods and ⁓ my doctor was really dismissive ⁓ and one day I passed out ⁓ from the pain. Pete and so my husband and

⁓ My son found me sort of just lying on the floor and I was just holding my gut but I was really out of it. So they obviously took me to the hospital. I had varying tests that day. The last test was ⁓ an ultrasound. ⁓ They did like an MRI and all that sort of stuff but the ultrasound found that I had a gallbladder full of gallstones.

And it's funny because the sonographer, she was like, whoa, when he was doing the ultrasound, and I was like, whoa, what does that mean? And he went, whoa, did you know that you have like gallstones, like loads of them? And I was like, nope, no. And then, yeah, and then he actually said like, you must be in loads of pain. And I was like.

Alexandra (04:54)
And that's how you found out.

Mel Green (05:01)
⁓ So I had my gallbladder removed ⁓ after that and it just really started my distrust of the healthcare system. like I say that with a sort of a caveat that I still go to the doctors anytime I need to go to the doctors to get checked out.

but it's also made me want to have some agency over my own healthcare. ⁓ I think at that point, because once I had my gallbladder removed, I asked questions like, do I need to change anything about my diet? Do I need to do anything differently? ⁓ The doctor who did the surgery was like,

like you should be fine now. And I was like, well, you know, what do we actually need to go bladder for if, if like, you know, I can have my removed and just live normally. It's, through my own research that I've sort of found that, that what happened to me next was actually quite likely. So what happened to me after having my second son?

was that I got diagnosed with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is quite common for people who have had their gallbladder removed to get because your liver is now doing a lot of the work of your gallbladder. So I did have to be really, I do have to be really conscious about my diet, about even things like drinking alcohol ⁓ and the types of foods.

and even medicines that I take. And all of this just sort of led me to think I need to look into my own healthcare and how I can manage this by myself before I get another diagnosis of something that I've never heard of before. So yeah, it led me to, I think I'd listened to this podcast and God, I can't remember what it's called now. I think it's like the Black Girls Guide.

to Menopel or yeah, it was an American ⁓ podcast and she had a herbalist on this episode that I listened to and it was amazing just listening to her not just talk about herbalism from a sense of kind of taking care of yourself, but also the ancestral historical narrative of herbalism for black women.

that we've kind of pushed aside or, you know, and it reminded me of my grandmother and a lot of the stuff that she used to say, oh, you know, how many times that she made me eat a clove of garlic that has been covered in honey when I was sick. And all the, a lot of the things that she did that could be seen as being herbalism that left with her when she went back to the Caribbean.

So yeah, really long-winded way of telling you about that, but yeah.

Alexandra (08:14)
That's a beautiful

answer. Thank you. And so you say that herbalism, like how does herbalism support your health now that you've got to consider all these different things?

Mel Green (08:25)
So ⁓ another diagnosis to add to my rap sheet, ⁓ I was also diagnosed with ⁓ adenomyosis, which is, ⁓ I always describe it as something, it's like ⁓ endometriosis, ⁓ but endometriosis is sort of abnormal tissue that kind of grows outside of the uterus, whereas ⁓ adenomyosis is abnormal tissue that

Alexandra (08:48)
Mm-hmm.

Mel Green (08:53)
grows on the inside of the uterus ⁓ and it can cause like really bad ⁓ period pains, really heavy flow, ovulation pains as well. So I have been trying to ⁓ have teas and food that really

kind of supports my menstrual cycle. ⁓ And because of the ⁓ adenomyosis, I'm anemic quite a lot of the time. So like my day starts with ⁓ drinking nettle and dandelion root tea, which is really good for the liver, but also nettle is really iron rich. So it kind of supports the potential for things like fatigue.

So I think it's more,

It's being really intentional about what I'm eating, but also the teas have been quite a nice part of my daily practice, I guess. I used to be someone that drank a lot of coffee and it's kind of replaced that and it feels like a really nice shift. So yeah, that's how it's kind of been part of my daily practice.

Alexandra (10:12)
I love that. And for anyone listening, because I feel like your story is so relatable, how many women have been dismissed by doctors by a crumbling NHS, failed systematically. And I love that you've used that to empower yourself and to go back to your roots. If you're thinking about, for anyone thinking about wanting to learn more about this, where should they go? Where did you find out?

Mel Green (10:41)
So I got this book, yeah, which is, it's great because it's linked to spirituality as well. It's got the sort of herbalism elements and it's got some really lovely teas. It's descriptions of

Alexandra (10:44)
African-American herbalism.

Mel Green (11:02)
the types of herbs that I'm talking to you about and how to grow them yourself and what their properties are. But it also has that relatable nature ⁓ towards our cultural practices. So it's got a whole bit about Shea butter that I don't think other herbalist books would have. And then, so there was this book and obviously that podcast that I mentioned,

⁓ as well. This book has been really beautiful ⁓ for me as well, which is called The Art and Practice of Spiritual Herbalism. so I found out, and again, this has got some really lovely, ⁓ like, different descriptions of like, gods and goddesses in there as well, which is, it was really lovely. But I guess I have been finding

through like just doing the Google search, finding the types of people that are talking about it in social media as well and what works for them. And kind of coming at it from a cultural, ⁓ a black woman cultural practice rather than just the sort of herbal remedies that you'd get in your kind of standard ⁓

herbal books. I really want to link it to my experience as a black woman rather than just, know, Nettletease is good for iron. It's kind of like, you know, how have our ancestors practiced this as well?

Alexandra (12:32)
you

Yeah, I think tapping into that ancestral practice really makes herbalism so much richer for me because not even just going back hundreds of years, going back to my grandma and the teas that she used to make. And I often think about, you know, she grew up in Jamaica and then she moved to the UK. And what would that have been like tending a garden in a whole different climate with a whole different set of foods? And there's often like a tension, I think, as black people who are maybe displaced.

Mel Green (13:13)
Exactly.

Alexandra (13:19)
You know, when I read herbalism books about the UK, I want to honour where I am, which is in England, and make use of the stuff that grows near to me. But I also want to honour my ancestral roots. And it's just interesting how we try and do that. Like, how do I make the most of the local environment and the herbs and the fruits that grow here, but also honour, like, the ginger and the hibiscus that comes from Jamaica? How do you do it?

Mel Green (13:47)
Yeah,

I think that's been actually quite

because it's like this African-American herbalism book is very much focused in places where there are African-Americans living. so there was one herb that was mentioned a lot when it came to the womb, ⁓ black cohosh. And I really want to be able to make or to kind of grow the herbs that I'm using.

Alexandra (14:12)
you

Mel Green (14:19)
and I could not find like seeds or a plant that I could start growing in our own garden. And is it Demiana as well? The same sort of benefits for the womb, for women's menstrual health. I want to be able to sort of grow them in...

in my own garden and just haven't been able to find it. it's been, there's been that sort of level of disappointment and having to sort of buy them from, online apothecaries rather than being able to grow them at home, which I thought for me that's been part of the experience. Has also not just been making my teas with stuff that I've sort of, with herbs that I've just bought, but actually

growing them, harvesting them, taking part in that sort of quite meditative preparation stage as well. ⁓ So I've done more research of what grows in the UK and I've also, because I've got chickens, I've got a ⁓ son who...

has something called pica or pica, don't know how you say it, which is just eating ⁓ inedible ⁓ or things that he shouldn't eat basically. pregnant women have it like, you know, sucking on coal and yeah. So Maxie will ⁓ just eat anything, any sort of plant that he sees in our garden. So I've had to create these ⁓ kind of like ⁓ polytunnels.

Alexandra (15:47)
And sometimes pregnant women have that, they, when they want to eat charcoal? ⁓

Mel Green (16:07)
⁓ to keep everything in and then actually lock it all up. But that has actually created a kind greenhouse effect, which means I've been able to grow things that aren't necessarily known to thrive in the UK. ⁓

Alexandra (16:24)
So in case anyone listening was under the illusion that you're a trad wife who spends all day gardening and raising chickens, that is absolutely not the case. You're also a lecturer in education studies and your book Mothering at the Margins Black Mothers Raising Autistic Children in the UK came out in July. So congratulations for that because writing a book

and having kids and a full-time job is an incredible achievement and I would love to know why you wrote the book and what you hope it will achieve.

Mel Green (16:53)
So it's co-authored with a wonderful woman called ⁓ Dr. Claire Malcolm. And ⁓ we met through an initiative actually at the Open University, which is called 100 Black Women Professors Now. And that is an initiative to

increase the amount of black female professors that we have in the UK. And we worked at the same institution, but we didn't know each other because of the nature of the APU University, you can work in a place and never have met people that you're working with. And when we met, it was the first time I'd met another black woman academic who ⁓

had an autistic child. So we ⁓ just connected ⁓ because of that, you know, that commonality, which is a massive thing. ⁓ Having someone who has that lived experience ⁓ is just something that is a bit like a unicorn, finding a unicorn really. ⁓ So when we started ⁓ speaking, we... ⁓

were just amazed by how similar a lot of the things we were going through were. And I said that one day I really want to write a book about how similar ⁓ both of us are ⁓ married to white men and both of us have had to kind of

use our white husbands to advocate for our children because as black women we often get told that we're too intimidating or too aggressive. So using our white husbands to kind of, you know, giving them a script to be able to go and advocate for our children so that it comes across as, you know, oh, what a hands on dad rather than, oh, what an aggressive mother.

So yeah, we had those sort of commonalities and we really wanted to look at whether they were just commonalities between us two or whether that was the experiences of other black women. We kind of knew the answer, but yeah, we wanted to actually do some research into that. as a researcher, when you look at the literature that exists on black women's experiences of raising autistic children.

When I tell you that there is barely anything, there is such a paucity that it's actually quite embarrassing, think, considering what we know about autism, what we know about being a black woman, that those links haven't been made is quite embarrassing. So not only were we wanting to sort of fill the gap, the research literature gap, we also wanted

You know, there's that whole thing about sort of telling our stories. We wanted black women to have something to refer back to when they're thinking about their experiences of raising autistic children. Because as I said, there's nothing, if you're looking for like, is this just me? Or, you know, is this just my experience? Being able to go onto the internet and find, okay, no, it's not just me. It's such a powerful thing.

when you are raising an autistic child.

Having a kind of reference point, having like what worked for other people is so important to your parenting journey because even I'm a former primary school teacher, I've worked with autistic children most of my career, but parenting an autistic child is completely different and being able to sort of have a reference point.

to know what works for other people has been a lifesaver. So we wanted to just provide that for other women.

Alexandra (20:56)
Was it draining, like emotionally to read all of these experiences?

Mel Green (20:59)
yeah. yeah.

It was, mean, we cried a lot writing this book because also it's part memoir as well. So we've got our, we've got vignettes within it that are based on our experiences. And ⁓ I shared a lot actually in that book about

Alexandra (21:10)
Hmm.

Mel Green (21:23)
my experiences of blackness, my experiences of mothering, my... And it's hard because I didn't want to...

write about my son in a way that could be seen as ⁓ negative. But I also wanted to tell the truth about what it can be like parenting an autistic child. And so it's a really hard balance to achieve because I don't want anyone to ever look at me raising my son and think that I'm not.

blessed to have him in my life. ⁓ But people, mean, some of the comments you can get from people when they see you like, I could never do that. Or, you know, I've had someone say to me, I would definitely have aborted if I knew that. And yeah. And it's really like harrowing, like to have you be told that like, your son essentially doesn't deserve to exist. ⁓

So, and I think that's something that we really wanted to come across in the book is that the mothers we spoke to, celebrate their children's life, they're blessed with their children, but it's really hard to navigate the world because the world is not made for autistic children at all.

So, yeah, as I said, it was a really hard balance, but we wanted to acknowledge the impact

blackness has on that experience. Because we get we got asked a lot why black mothers, why not all mothers? And I think there is a uniqueness in the experiences of being a black woman and so therefore there's a uniqueness in being a black mother raising an autistic child that we wanted to speak to.

Alexandra (23:18)
Absolutely.

And I'm just so shocked that you, you experienced those comments. That's just awful.

Mel Green (23:26)
People are wild,

man. They will say things that I don't know. I've been told that my son's never gonna be capable of love and that I can cure him through giving him some sort of gut medicine. Yeah, people are wild.

Alexandra (23:48)
it's really interesting because some of these kind of come from the spiritual space of like, you know, don't give vaccines because they'll make your kid autistic. And as spiritual moms, like I'm with you, I don't eschew doctors altogether, but if there's a remedy I can give myself or my child first, I'll definitely try that. But it can veer into some really like nasty ableism.

Mel Green (23:53)
Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

yeah, I mean, what I'm always just shocked by is just how.

blatant and how emboldened a lot of people are to say things about my child that I don't think that they would say about a neurotypical child. ⁓ And I think in the spiritual community, not just a spiritual community, religious communities as well, like you can pray it away that, you know, that maybe I've sinned in previous lives and that's why I'm being punished.

Alexandra (24:39)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mel Green (24:46)
But yeah, so I suppose that that's a kind of a part, unfortunately, of being a mother of a child with the needs that my son has. But it also is something that I think has empowered me to be a much stronger-willed person. I think you have to get quite a thick skin, but you also have to get quite a loud voice to tell people about themselves.

when they think that those are things that they can say to you.

Alexandra (25:20)
Yeah, I that's one of the beautiful things about motherhood is the way that it brings out parts of us that really needed to grow. And so thinking about how demanding and challenging, I know there's the beautiful parts of being an SEND mom, but how do you replenish yourself because your time is perhaps more limited than the average mom?

Mel Green (25:24)
Mm.

I completely agree, yeah.

I think that's something I'm still struggling with, ⁓ to be honest, because it's...

You can have weeks when you think that you've got it. mean, I think all mums can resonate with this, but you can have weeks where you feel like, OK, I completely know what I'm doing. We've got a routine. We've got this rhythm in our lives and it's all going really well. And then there might be something that's just destabilizing for ⁓ my son and can make him really dysregulated. And suddenly you feel quite rea...

to things and ⁓ so routines that you're in suddenly get pushed aside because you're reacting to a need ⁓ and I think I struggle with that a lot because I think one of the ways that I've I keep myself regulated is by feeling like I'm in control of things feeling like I know what's coming and feeling like I can ⁓ plan for things and ⁓

So yeah, it's definitely something I'm still struggling with. But in my day to day, I think one thing's that

whatever kind of day we're having, we always have ⁓ morning meetings and ⁓ circle time before bed. I think those are kind of anchoring points for our family where we... ⁓

We think about what the day is going to bring us. We think about even the things like talking about the weather, which is a very British thing to do, but also how we're affected by the weather. That's what we do in our morning meetings. And then in our circle times at bedtime, we talk about what we're grateful for. that's sort of already kind of the children learning like this gratitude for their day.

As I said, the sort of bookending the day with that is quite anchoring, quite grounding for everyone in the family. And so those are kind of non-negotiables that have happened within our family. And I think they're probably the only things that definitely stay. ⁓ sometimes I have like baths that...

I make very sort of woo woo and spiritual with like bath teas. I use like, sort of make my own bath tea bags and have incense and candles and but at the same time you still get children sort of banging on the door because they want mummy and so yeah you can be in really nice space and then like my youngest yesterday was like mummy I need a poo and you're like okay completely ruined the moment there so.

Alexandra (28:19)
You

Yeah.

Mel Green (28:32)
So yeah, it's something I'm still working on. It's an active project, is making sure that I replenish myself, but it's not completely easy.

Alexandra (28:42)
No, it's not. And thank you for showing the reality of that because, yeah, we can't always lock the door, run a nice hot bath and expect to have peace for half an hour. And I love the idea of circle times and meetings. when my son's only 19 months, but as soon as he's old enough, I definitely want to introduce that because I love recapping on the day and the positive sides of it. What went well, I think it sets you up for really nice, peaceful sleep.

Mel Green (28:51)
Yeah.

Yeah, we have our sleepy tea ⁓ at that time as well. So it has like valerian ⁓ passionflower and lavender in it. ⁓ Both boys drink that tea and it's part of, it sort of made me realize, think, thinking about this podcast, that it's quite a ceremonial part of the day. ⁓

I think because we do it all the time and because it doesn't always look pretty, might, you know, the boys might be bouncing on the peanut ball while we're doing it. But it is quite a, yeah, as I said, it's a nice ending to the day that actually anchors the boys and, you know, autism is something that you're looking for that pattern recognition, you're looking for that safety in our activities and... ⁓

It's something that really helps both of my children.

Alexandra (30:10)
Yeah, think there's something really magical about rituals. There's something elemental or ancestral almost. So it's incredible that you're able to introduce that magic to your boys.

Mel Green (30:14)
Hmm

Hmm.

Alexandra (30:24)
And I'd love to know as well what your children have taught you about spirituality.

Mel Green (30:28)
It is such an important question because I think, again, this is why I think autism is something and it's why I choose to call my son autistic rather than as having autism because his autism is a really...

significant and irrevocable part of him that I cannot detach, not disentangle from his identity. he has really, from birth, I feel like, has really taught me to listen to my intuition. I think I've always been quite an intuitive person, but I think over the years and the

I've gone into academia now, I've learned to intellectualize my intuition. So if I get a bad vibe for someone, I'll be like, well, they haven't done anything. So I just need to ignore that feeling and just sort of interact with them just as they're presenting. there's...

There is always often a voice in my mind with certain people where I'm just like, there's something about you I don't trust. And I often am proven right. Like it might be years later, but I'm often proven right. And I think I've over the years just stopped listening to that before I had children, stopped listening to that voice. Whereas ⁓ my eldest son, he's non-speaking, but

he definitely lets people know whether he's interested in them and he will, if he's not interested in you, if he doesn't get good vibes from you, then he'll completely ignore that person. ⁓ And I think that element of him ⁓ has really helped me to sort of listen more to my intuition, that feeling of there's something about

Alexandra (32:28)
you

Mel Green (32:41)
off about your energy and I'm going to kind of hear what I'm trying, my intuition is trying to tell me. It's also, my eldest has taught me, he ⁓ has sensory processing disorder, which ⁓ for him that shows up as he can be both sensory avoidant and sensory seeking. So one of the things ⁓ that

affects him is primarily in his vestibular and his proprioception senses. ⁓ proprioception is basically kind of how you're grounded in the environment. So that feeling of actually being in that space ⁓ and vestibular is kind of the sense that we have when we're spinning or when we're going around. So for some people that sense is really active and can make them feel sick.

⁓ For other people, can do that for spin for ages and not feel that. Watching him in the world, he's so aware of his body ⁓ and how his body is affected by certain environments. He really taps into that and he'll do things like regulate himself through spinning, through climbing, through balancing.

And it's actually both boys, not just my eldest. I think they've really taught me to tap into the sort of somatic embodied nature of caring for myself. So recognizing what my body needs, rather than I can get into my head a lot and I can think, you know, if I can just process this, if I can just sort of, and I can get really cognitive about it, rather than thinking about what.

Alexandra (34:35)
you

Mel Green (34:38)
my body is telling me about a situation.

So yeah, being a mother has been an incredibly empowering experience as a woman for me. But I do really, I'm so grateful to my children for providing that space for me.

Alexandra (34:59)
Yeah, I find all of that so relatable. feel like for me, motherhood has been the beginning of a journey of me getting out of my head and into my body. Because pregnancy forces you to do that, really. It forces you to be in your body and, you know, dealing with all these changes. can't just, you know, I really took for granted being a relatively healthy person beforehand whose body didn't hurt or ache.

Mel Green (35:12)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Alexandra (35:26)
or make me sick and then pregnancy happened and suddenly you are forced to reckon with the fact that you are skin and bone and that is what we are made of. We are more animal than anything else.

Mel Green (35:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, and actually just noticing the triggers of what your body is actually saying to you as well. Because I think the sort of most eye-opening experience I had with my body was when I miscarried. And I had, at that point, a really negative relationship with my body. I felt like my body had let me down and that meant something bad about me.

Alexandra (35:43)
Yeah.

Mel Green (36:07)
I think I'm growing into that motherhood. So I'm obviously like eight years into motherhood now, growing into motherhood and...

just actually recognizing how amazing my body is and what it's done. You know, I've breastfed my children. I've had my children. And then, you know, having these sort of problems that I'm having that, you know, with my womb currently has really just made me think about womanhood, has made me think about how I can keep my body happy. But as you said, it's come from

It started at pregnancy and this has sort of worked its way and it's hopefully a continual relationship that I have with my body and its triggers and keeping it safe.

Alexandra (36:56)
that. Thank you. So if you were to build a spiritual toolkit for other black mothers, what is the most important thing that you would include?

Mel Green (37:05)
Oh wow, that's such a good question! And like, just one thing is a really... It's a really tough thing.

Alexandra (37:10)
you

Mel Green (37:14)
I think if I was to build a spiritual toolkit, would be that intuition. ⁓

having

a relationship with ⁓ the energies that we naturally pick up on, that we've been told by society to ignore or to, as I've mentioned, intellectualize. I feel that I've had this since I was a child, an awareness of the energies of the universe and

it's something that I have unlearned. So when we say that we're triggered by people or the vibes were off or when you walk into a room sometimes and you just get a a shift in energy, us being able to tap into that and not ignore it and not just sort of think, oh, maybe I'm just overthinking things, actually to believe in that intuition that we naturally have. Because I think that

It's something that we can apply to everything. We can apply it to our relationships. We can apply it to us knowing when we need to stop and rest. Because I definitely don't listen to that intuition that I'm feeling burnt out or I'm coming close to burnout because I'm like, well, I haven't got time. I haven't got time for being burnt out. But actually stopping and listening to those...

I don't know if they show up as voices for some people or sort of energy shift for other people, but listening to it. So I guess it's listening, I guess it's intuition, but I think that's a massive part of our spiritual toolkit of just knowing.

Alexandra (39:06)
I think that's such a good point. It's one thing having the intuition. It's quite another thing to stop and listen to it and to act out on what it says because I'm sure you'd agree that the only time my intuition has gotten me into trouble is when I've not listened to it and when I've ignored it. Okay, on to the quickfire questions.

Mel Green (39:22)
Exactly. Yeah. Definitely.

I'll try.

Alexandra (39:30)
So, quickfire question

number one, on a scale of one to ten, how woo are you?

Mel Green (39:36)
I would say eight. Yeah, I think I've become, as I said, I'm leaning into it a lot more. ⁓ the conversations I have, like we've got things off Facebook marketplace and my children are involved in cleansing the energy of those things before we bring them into the house. So that's pretty woo. That's, where's my husband like.

Alexandra (39:39)
Eight, that's pretty high.

But you have to. ⁓

Mel Green (40:04)
proper sort of, you know, scientific kind of guys just watching us cleanse things and talk about the energy and stuff going, okay. But yeah, so I think that's reasonably woo.

Alexandra (40:15)
I think that's sufficiently woo as well. Well done. What does your daily spiritual routine look like?

Mel Green (40:17)
Okay.

⁓ As I mentioned, think at the minute it is really sort of the teas, the anchoring kind of ⁓ meetings that I have with my family. ⁓ And that will be, you know, having things like incense in the background, having teas that match the energy that we are either trying to achieve or have at the time. Like my children know the difference between Tulsi and... ⁓

mulling and what it does. So I think including my family in that daily spiritual practice. I used to say that I don't meditate anymore but I think having, I'm always clean with music on and you know my husband knows that if he hears Cleo soul soul in the house then I'm emotionally processing something.

So I do think, you know, I use music to kind of get into that meditative state and that's a daily practice as well. So I think my problem is that I try and make it perfect. And when I thought about this question before, I get upset that it's not like, you know, I meditate at this time and I do this and I do that. It is more what

fits in with my family and our day to day, but I still think, yeah, yeah.

Alexandra (41:48)
and that is so much more real and relatable. I don't think any

of us listening have that perfect spiritual routine and children and a job. When was the moment you realised the universe truly has your back?

Mel Green (41:57)
Yeah.

I think actually a long time ago when I was going through a lot of mental health challenges, I got to like the lowest of the low and I think

I

I was making some decisions that actually I think my ancestors or someone or some element kind of held me back from making a decision that would have potentially been sort of life ending. And I felt from then that I'm being held by someone that even when I'm going through...

really, really tough times. It's not that I sort of say there's a reason for this, I think I'm being punished or I think I'm, you know, but I do sort of see the lesson in the things that I'm going through and I try to hold on to that and I also feel held by an entity that I hope is my ancestors. ⁓ So yeah, when I was at my lowest of lows as a teenager was when I first kind of felt that the university.

university, the universe had my back.

Alexandra (43:14)
I love that. And finally, what is a woo-woo story from your life that still gives you goosebumps? So by this I mean a strange coincidence or something happening that you couldn't explain.

Mel Green (43:27)
I've had quite a few of these where I've had a voice in my head that has either said stop or look or something. And again, when I was a teenager, I was one of those teenagers that would walk around with my earphones in and when I'm...

walking down the road and I should probably be paying attention to what I'm doing rather than actually just losing myself in the music. And I went to step out into a main road when I was walking to school and I genuinely felt something pull me back onto the pavement and a massive lorry went past, like zoom past and it felt like I could feel the wind of it.

there was no one there, there was just me on the pavement but I really did feel that feeling of being pulled back onto the pavement. I've not, yeah, I really, I tell that story to certain people and you know, you've got this sort of like, ⁓ okay, whatever. But I truly believe that that happened, it felt like it and it still gives me goosebumps because I do think I was saved by something at that point.

Alexandra (44:46)
And it sounds like to me that something is really looking out for you.

Mel Green (44:51)
I agree, I agree, which is really sometimes when you're feeling low that is really a lovely thing to be able to hold on to.

Alexandra (45:01)
⁓ thank you so much Mel for coming on the podcast. I really enjoyed this. I knew you'd be an amazing guest and you have been.

Mel Green (45:09)
Yeah, I'm really grateful that you've invited me. I think you know that I've struggled with defining myself as woo woo. ⁓ yeah, just having the opportunity to sort of think about my practice, my spiritual practice in this level of detail has actually been really important for me. So I'm really grateful. Thank you.

Alexandra (45:33)
welcome. That's what we're all about. I want to reclaim the woo.

Mel Green (45:37)
Yes! Yes, that's your tagline right there.

Alexandra (45:40)
Yeah exactly! ⁓


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Alexandra Sheppard

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