Episode 12

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Published on:

6th Jun 2023

Navigating Queer Motherhood, Birth, and Identity, with Dana Struthers

How do you navigate the complex world of relationships, parenting, and identity while embracing your true self?   

This week, I'm joined by Dana Struthers from New Zealand, who answers this million dollar question for us through the lens of her own matrescence journey.
 
Matrescence has been no straight road for Dana. The journey into and through Motherhood saw Dana experiencing pregnancy loss, severe postnatal depression & anxiety, a changing career, a break up in her marriage, and having her own sexual realization and Queer awakening.

In this episode, Dana opens up about her decision to end her marriage,  her journey into dating women, and her vastly different birth experiences, while exploring the importance of being mindful of our biases and the opinions of our ego in the birth space. With her now-partner, Rebecca, we discussed their experiences during lockdown, navigating relationships and parenting, as well as Dana's experience with postnatal depression and the significant changes she went through during this period.

Finally, join us as we delve into the balancing of divine masculine and feminine energy within a woman-loving-woman relationship and how it shows up within the partnership and household. Dana's valuable insights on the importance of standing in your own truth and being aware of your own biases serve as a powerful reminder for all of us to live life unapologetically and intentionally.

Connect with Dana on IG (@BirthCraftNZ)  & TikTok (@danabirthcraft)

Dana is a Transition to Parenting Educator & Seasons of Matrescence Guide.  With BirthCraft, Dana creates and delivers evidence based  info with a holistic approach to expectant parents as well as a project in a high school with students (who are not pregnant!).   Based in Aotearoa (New Zealand), Dana does face to face as well as zoom sessions with clients in NZ as well as the world for Antenatal Education, Birth Planning & Support as well as Matrescence connections.
Dana's free resources can be found online at www.BirthCraft.co.Nz
 
Connect with Nicole on IG (@nicolepasveer)
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About the Podcast

REWILD + FREE
Stirring good kinda trouble. This is a podcast where conscious entrepreneurship and personal exploration meets decolonization, nervous system healing, and cyclical living
What happens when you stop trying to fit neatly into this world?
When you unbecome everything you were told to be?
When you breathe nuance into a world obsessed with the binary?
When you stop chasing linear success and remember the power of the cyclical, the seasonal—the way we were always meant to be?

This is REWILD + FREE.

Not a blueprint. But an invitation.

To unmask. To unravel. To break free—not just from survival, but from the deep conditioning that keeps us disconnected. From each other. From our bodies. From the earth.

In all facets of life—motherhood, womanhood, conscious business, spirituality.

These are the conversations social media can’t hold space for. The ones that don’t fit into bite-sized posts or neat little soundbites. The messy, layered, deeply human ones. A mix of raw personal musings and soul-stirring interviews with those willing to go beyond the surface.

I’m Nicole Pasveer—mother, truth-seeker, activator. Someone who spent years untangling herself from stories that were never hers to hold. I’ve done the people-pleasing, the perfectionism, the fitting into boxes too small for me. I know what it feels like to wake up and realize—this isn’t who I am.

So here we are.

Stirring good kinda trouble.

Having the conversations that matter—healing, liberation, decolonization, reimagining how we live, work, and lead. Not with easy answers, but with big, bold, sometimes impossible-to-answer questions.

Where nuance, reclamation, and reimagination collide

Let’s rewild and remember. Together.

Connect with Nicole on IG (@nicolepasveer)

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Nicole Pasveer