Are you struggling with the decision whether or not to have children? If you are feeling pressured to make a choice, based on someone else's feelings, you will benefit from listening to today's guest, Karin Rahbek, author of "Do I Have To Be A Mother? A Childfree Woman's Honest and Unspoken Thoughts and Feelings."  Karin's hope is that this book will help other childfree women to understand and accept their feelings and be happy in who they are (and not focussed on the mother they could have been).

Karin spent several years looking for precisely the book that she ended up writing for herself. The book describes in a potent and personal manner, the thoughts and feelings that are associated with not wanting to have children at all, in a society that views motherhood as the most natural part of being a woman.

It is Karin's hope that by reading and talking openly about the doubts felt by other women, that women can become more honest with one another. She intends to help make the decision about motherhood less fraught with taboo. Listen in today - this is such an emotive topic! 

“You define your own femininity and feel beautiful and valuable and loved as the woman you are and not the mother you could be.”

Today, Karin talks to Michelle about: 

• Her choice to not have a child, even with the pressure of family and friends, who were all becoming parents.                                                                 “The feeling that motherhood is not for me has been with me for as long as I can remember.”
• How Karin's book came out of some deep thinking about motherhood and the different facets involved in making this kind of choice.                                 Karin notes:” I didn't know any parents who actually had a life I would want to swap for." (Very thought-provoking).
• The difficulty in making a choice contrary to that of most of the people in your life, with all the pressure that goes with that, to conform.                          Karin says: “Yes, it definitely takes courage to choose a life without children.”
• How many women feel pressured to have a child, even after having previously made it clear that they have no desire to be a mother.                                   Karin says: “When you say that you don't want a child, many people hear you say 'I don't want a child right now'.”
• She highlights: if it's the man's choice not to have children, they often get the same type of pressure to conform.                                        
  “There was a man writing to me that the exact same story, just the opposite... he didn't want to have children..... after a while his partner said the same thing 'you must have the urge to have kids now?”
• How she got the idea to start a dating network for childfree people.            Karin says: “My husband and I saw a program with a guy creating a dating network for people who really wanted to have children.”
• The reason that she started her network.                                                    She says:  “I thought why can't these two people meet, they need another person that doesn't want to have children either and that made me start the network.”     
• Karin finds it interesting and special about women who choose not to have children - is that they know exactly what they want.                                       ”Some people will just go along with the desire of their partner, because they don't really know what they want.”
• How different people make the choice with different levels of certainty.        Karin says: “There are different levels of having this feeling I don't want kids because some people are kind of indifferent.” (Ambiguity is a huge topic).
• Some of the beliefs and questions that Karin explored around the time that some of her family members changed their minds. It made her question why she didn't want to have a child when everybody else had that desire.
• The number of women not having children in Denmark is increasing.  
  “Not only in Denmark, but in all the Scandinavian countries.”
• Her interview with the BBC about her book and also about the paradox that the Danish population is in decline, while the market for Danish sperm donation is booming!
• What she's had to deal with in terms of pressure from family and friends, to change her mind.                                                                                     She says: “I think I felt the pressure within myself.”
• A TV show she was interviewed on about choices that people make around having children. Karin says: “They don't really understand the term 'childfree'.”
• Karin discusses how she uses her energy to create in other ways and how important it is to her, to help and give to others.

Links: 

Karin's site www.childfreewoman.com

Karin's book is available from Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/lcpvsfb

I do hope you enjoyed this episode. It's fascinating to hear perspectives from various countries and cultures to understand what the differences AND the similarities are, no matter where you are in the world. 

Please share this episode with another woman who would benefit and of course eternal gratitude if you would subscribe and leave a review. Thank you!

For more episodes go to michellemariemcgrath.com

Welcome to today's episode of Unclassified Woman and today we have a special episode for moon lovers! It seems very apt with today's full moon.

If you'd like to understand more about how the phases of the moon can affect your mood, mind, body and soul, join Michelle and her guest, Dr. Ezzie Spencer, with today's show. 

Today we're going to be talking about Ezzie's new book, An Abundant Life, Flourishing With The Cycles Of The Moon, which is her concept of Lunar Abundance and also her personal practice. This practice partners intellect with intuition and it has helped many women throughout the world, through one to one coaching sessions and through the support of Ezzie's flourishing online community at Lunar Abundance.com

Ezzie has trained as a lawyer, worked in government non-profit and research sectors and earned a Ph.D in Women's Wellbeing and Justice After Violence. As a result of feeling that something elemental was missing in the intellectual world of law, Ezzie began to explore the correlation that she noticed between her feelings and the phases of the moon. Listen in... I know that you're going to love this magical topic!

On today's show, Ezzie and Michelle discuss:

• Ezzie's book- Ezzie starts out by giving a summary of the subject at hand, as in her book. 
• She says: “It's a step-by-step guide to working with the moon cycles, to be able to create your best version of your life - and it's really practical.”
• How it stood out for Ezzie in her cultural research, that different cultures, in their beliefs about the moon, would view it as either a Goddess or as a God.        As she says: “Often times we think about the moon as feminine and indeed it is Goddess-related in many cultures, but in other cultures, it may viewed as masculine.
• Ezzie's favourite phase within these cycles, with the understanding that things are constantly moving within the different stages and cycles of the moon, going between the yin and the yang.  She says: “I would find that those yin phases would really be welcome and really my favourite phases throughout the month- although they had their own sets of challenges.”
• Michelle and Ezzie discuss a particular time that people tend to struggle with the most during the cycle. People are familiar with the obvious setting of intentions at the new moon and the dramatic and visible impact of the full moon, but there's a lot more to working with the moon!                                 Ezzie says: “I would say that the number one phase which women tend to struggle with in the practice, is the Gibbous moon phase- a few days before the full moon.”
• The daily practice which is necessary to develop the awareness within you to assist you through the transitory phases, which may be really intense.        Ezzie says: “Just following that constant practice over time will render really great results and change.”
• Whether this is yet another example of how we have become disconnected from the cycles of nature. Ezzie says: “You're hear anecdotally all the time, even from people you wouldn't expect about the impact of the full moon...”
• The original meaning of lunacy, according to the Greek Triple Moon Goddess. Ezzie says: “Hecate was a very powerful Goddess and she was one of the very senior priestesses (or patron of priestesses, or patron of witches in Ancient Greece) and she represented wealth and magical powers.” 
• Whether Ezzie has found, in her working with women with her Lunar Abundance Practice, that they have become more in touch with their menstrual cycle. Ezzie says: “I would say that it's one of the things that women are most interested in with the moon work.”
• What is the best approach when working to deadlines, when one feels that the current moon phase is counter productive to what needs to be done?               “It's about working with these two principles (yin and yang) in tandem and harmony.”
• Working with non-negotiable principles and values during the moon cycles. Ezzie says: “To find those pockets of agency you have to be able to be very intentional about how it is that you live your life.”
• Ezzie shares some wonderful advice for those women who are still challenged with learning to receive.                                                                                “There is a whole chapter in the book on receiving and it is correlated in the Abundance Practice with the sixth of the eight lunar phases.”
• How working with the lunar cycles can have a really positive effect on your level of productivity.                                                                                       Ezzie says: “The yin cycle is key to being, I feel, highly productive, highly effective, but doing it in a way where you're really able to take care of yourself.”
• The greatest gift that Ezzie feels she's received in practising Lunar Abundance. She says: “I feel like...this sense of relaxing and being able to enjoy life a bit more has been central to my life now, vs my life before this practice.”  

I hope you love this episode. Find out more about Dr Ezzie Spencer's work and her book at www.lunarabundance.com and for more episodes of Unclassified Woman with Michelle, please see www.michellemariemcgrath.com

If you enjoyed this episode please share the love (and abundance) and leave us a rating or testimonial on Itunes, so more women can receive this valuable sharing. 

Thank you!