In the first bonus episode of this ‘Family Matters’ season, Emma Wooldridge, a Life & Relationship Coach, talks about her experiences of an expanded family and shares insights, gleaned from her coaching role, into financial matters that can be significant for families in general.
Some key points of interest covered in this episode include the following:
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Simon
::Welcome to ‘Where Your Treasure Is…’, the podcast where faith meets finance.
Bex
::I'm Bex Elder.
Simon
::And I'm Simon Glazier. Each episode, we're going to explore how biblical wisdom can guide our everyday money decisions.
Bex
::We'll be looking at how we can give generously, save wisely, and navigate the complex financial realities we face.
Simon
::But remember, investments can go down as well as up.
Bex
::This is ‘Where Your Treasure Is…’
Simon
::Let's get started. So, Bex, we are back with another bonus episode. We've recorded a whole season since our last guest was in and we have another friend of the show on; looking forward to this, and we're going to be talking a bit more about family matters, are we not, Bex?
Bex
::Indeed. And I am very excited to have this guest on. I have known them, I think, pretty much my whole life. I've also had the joy of working with them because now this person owns a business and so, Mystery Guest, reveal yourself! Give us an introduction.
Emma
::Hello. Well, thank you for having me. My name is Emma Wooldridge. I'm a daughter, a wife, a mother, a sister.
Mike and I have three birth children, two adopted children, and a young man who’s adopted at heart and calls us Mum and Dad. I'm a friend to quite a few people and I am an animal lover, most of all dogs and guinea pigs, but, you know, others will do!
Simon
::Our job then, Bex, is to pull out from Emma anything we can related to our theme for the season. Our theme is family matters. Let's start off with some of the basic questions we ask all of our guests.
Tell us a bit about your journey to faith and why family matters as well to you. So, faith and family, give us some background.
Emma
::I became a Christian when I was 17, although right through my childhood I had been in pencil at the bottom of my gran's Sunday school register for when I visited. And I'd been to church with her. And I think I had grown up with a sense that Jesus was my friend and that I believed God existed.
And when I was 17, a Christian friend of mine, Fiona, joined our school in sixth form and I realised that what she meant by being a Christian was different to how I expressed any sort of faith at all.
And so I asked her a gazillion questions in the music practice rooms in our sixth form school and so went on a journey of actually, really understanding who God was and who Jesus was and what he did for us. And on May 4th, in whatever year it was when I was 17, I gave my life to Jesus and so started my faith journey properly, I suppose.
Bex
::And I love that even from the outset we have that impact of family in terms of going to church with your gran when you were visiting as well. Now, in your introduction you talked about having three birth children and two adopted and one adopted at heart.
What led you to make those decisions and to form your family in that way?
Emma
::I think for Mike and I, family has always been important. And about 20 years ago, we started supporting couples and families within our church pastorally and felt that God had really spoken to us about supporting marriages, especially. I love supporting marriages because it means that many, many families stay whole and the children don't have to experience divorce and separation within their unit. And we love to see people thrive in their family lives. So, family has always been very important to us.
And when we bought our second home that had five bedrooms, we had a sense of wanting it committed into God's hands. We had plenty of space and we wanted God to be able to use it. You never know where your prayers are going to lead, do you!
And so, we had our three boys; really enjoyed parenting them! I'd stayed at home most of the time that they were little; really loved being a stay-at-home mum!
And then I had been involved pastorally in a little family unit through church who were struggling. And that led to the children needing to be placed in foster care. At that point, we knew we had a decision to make.
Interestingly, at the same time, our whole church family was going on a bit of a spiritual journey in terms of radical family. We'd had a couple of prophetic words about how we would be a church of radical family.
And Mike and I had tossed aside one evening going to an awareness evening about fostering and adoption. We were like, ‘Yeah, we're going to that? No,’ and were very dismissive about it. Three weeks later, of course, when we knew a child who was entering the foster system, then it was a different matter and we realised we had a decision to make. What were we going to do about this little girl who potentially needed a family for life, definitely needed a family for the time being.
And so, we pursued her, really. And God had already spoken to me about how we were using our spare room through reading Titus and we put a new bed into it.
And it just felt like all things were converging to set us on this adoption journey. And so, we began extending our family from being five to eight in about two years, which is quite rapid growth!
And you know, to be fair, I wouldn't recommend it to many people! People, it was honestly wild - I've never been so tired in my life! But it was really sweet to be feeling that you are living out God's purpose in your life and what he has for you. And so, very sweet times!
Simon
::But it comes with some financial implications, I imagine. Did you enter it with a thought towards, how are we going to afford this? How is this going to change things? What does this do to our household? We've got the spare bedroom, but we need some more stuff. Have we got a big enough car? What about holidays?
What kind of thoughts went through your mind in a finance matter between you and Mike when you were talking about this opportunity?
Emma
::The biggest impact, financially, has been that we reset our family clock, if you like. So, when we started our adoption journey, our eldest was 19 and our youngest was 12. And so, really, they were working their way out of school and into maturity; not quite the 12-year-old, but we could see the end of the most intense part of parenting on the horizon.
And we reset the clock to zero! So, we went back 19 years, really, and we recognised that at that point, it would mean that we would probably work for longer than we had necessarily planned. In fact, the whole plan of how we imagined our late 50s, early 60s going got turned on its head, really, because we knew that we'd still be really actively parenting at that time of life, instead of spending our money on traveling and visiting places - places that we hadn't seen - and enjoying freedoms that we have chosen not to. And so, it's extended our working life, especially for my husband, because he's our main breadwinner; he brings in most of our family income.
And so, the impact on him has been significant. And for me, I thought I'd always go back out to work, maybe experience a 9 to 5 again. I was ready for that. And then I was at home some more.
So, as Bex said, I have my own business now that's just beginning to thrive. So, now I'm able to contribute to the finances of the household again.
And I think we just accepted in terms of holidays that maybe it would be more camping again rather than anything very luxurious, and we were okay with that. We'd lived on quite a tight budget when our boys were small and camped lots. And in the Wooldridge recession, as we called it, we can remember having to deliberately decide not to have pizza and wine on a Saturday night. The wine had to go! And so, we were ready for that moment if we needed to be.
One of our considerations was the fact that from an inheritance point of view, we had just changed things radically for our birth children. But we took them on the journey of adoption with us. So, at almost every point of decision making, they were involved and understood what it meant.
We thought, let's just discuss it all to begin with so they know; like, nothing's going to be a surprise or something they haven't thought about later on. And occasionally, because we're a big family and we can't do something, we just say, ‘Hey, are you feeling the burn of being one of six!’ We have a little laugh about it, try and recalibrate a bit if we haven't been able to give somebody something that they need in terms of financial support or in terms of time and energy.
And so, you know, it's like the rest of life. You're on that juggling balancing act all the time! It feels a lot of plates to spin, but we're feeling quite well practised at that now!
Bex
::Plenty of opportunities to practise, for sure! I'm really interested in the way you said you took the boys along the journey with you. And we've just been reflecting in this season, and in many other seasons, how difficult it can be to start conversations about money in particular. What did that look like for you, practically? Were you nervous about that? It sounds like those were largely very successful.
Do you have any tips for people in that?
Emma
::So, I think Mike and I have led in many spheres of our lives, and at this moment in time, when we were going on our journey of opening up the family, we realised that we were leading our family actually, in a different way. And so, we started to do bacon butties for breakfast around our dining room table, not the kitchen table where we eat all the time. And that's where we spoke to the boys about things. And so, that seemed quite a successful little place. It had been a place we'd used for family chats before.
And then, of course, there was the whole rigorous process that you go through with social work. So, each of the children had their own time with a social worker and knew they could say what they wanted to and knew that we wouldn't necessarily know what they'd said. So, it was a completely safe space. I know that they appreciated that time – actually, to be listened to and heard.
And I can remember one of them leaning back when we were talking about having a little girl in the house: that we didn't know how long it would be for; it could be permanently. And one of them just leant back on his chair, and I was so waiting for Mike to tell him off, because that was a heinous crime, obviously!
Please don't bother telling him off now! Mike didn't! He just let it slide.
Anyway, he leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head and just said, ‘So basically, we're getting a little sister?’
And I said ‘Yes,’ and he went, ‘Hmm, I think that's cool!’ And then immediately, of course, the others took each other along on that journey.
Simon
::The journey that you've been through as a family, we could spend hours and hours, of course, talking about it. What I'd like to think about next, Em, is your journey.
You're clearly passionate about family generally. Can you give us a wee snapshot of your career journey that got you to what you're doing now? Tell us a bit more about that as well.
Emma
::Since I was 14, I knew that I wanted to be a speech and language therapist. So that's what I trained as. Really loved studying and really loved going into clinic. Mostly worked with children.
And then I stepped back out of that a little bit as we had the children - sometimes worked part-time; had a very part-time job, four hours on a Saturday morning (don't get much more part-time than that!) - just to help with clinic waiting list times.
And when our kids were little, Mike had been travelling, having quite a brutal travel regime; Daniel was a baby; I was breastfeeding him – so, it was quite tough time.
And we went down to London to this conference about family life with HTB (Holy Trinity Brompton Church) and we were literally speechless on the plane home, which is really quite unusual for me!
And it's because we realised that God had imparted something of his heart, his blueprint in terms of families and healthy marriages. And so, I worked for a little while looking after our connect groups in church, which is all about creating church, family, community – so, very in sync with what I felt God had put on my heart. Then I worked as the family life ministry lead and I enjoyed that, but it wasn't quite as fruitful as I thought it was going to be.
And I felt a little nudge to get back out into the wider world a little bit. So, I lay that down, which seemed a really weird decision to make at the time, but I had begun to explore coaching. We had had a couple of couples at church that we'd been supporting that we had signposted to a couples coach, so I got in touch with her and I said, ‘Julia, I think I might want to do what you do, but I'm not sure.’ And so she invested in me.
Always be investing in people, everybody!
She coached me for free, gave me two, three sessions so that I could experience it and so that she could recommend some courses, based on my style.
She brought lots and lots of different things into our coaching sessions to see what I responded to and what my style might be. Through this, of course, I was praying that God would bring his guidance into all that situation. And she recommended two courses and they were the only two that I had been looking at.
So, I studied solution-focused therapy, which is a very niche branch of psychology that often relates into family wellbeing.
And then I was due to go on a taster morning for a coaching course, and the night before, the prophetic team were doing some training in my house.
And so I'd prayed to God at lunchtime. I was like, ‘Come on, God; got the prophetic team in tonight, Open Morning tomorrow - there has to be scope for some sort of prophetic word or guidance.’
Anyway, the evening came and I had two really significant prophetic words. The most important, I think, really for me was that someone had a picture of me shearing sheep. So, the sheep were coming very heavy laden, with very heavy coats. I was shearing them and they could go off and frolic and enjoy life again, feeling much lighter – so, they were blessed.
And then I was spinning the wool that I'd sheared and was taking it to market. So, there was also that financial blessing for me as I sold the wool.
And I hadn't actually earned any money in about seven years at this point in time, and one of the things that I was struggling with was making money from people's problems, if that makes sense, even though I know I'd worked in the NHS and I was being paid to help people with problems there. But for some reason, I just got inside my own head about this point.
But in that moment, as Carine shared that word, I felt permissioned by God to both be of use to the sheep and also to earn money through it. And it was really liberating for me.
And so, the next morning, I went on my taster session. Really, really loved it. Had that sense of, ‘Oh, I’ve found my people. I could spend time with these people that I was online with.’ And so, I did a course in personal and business coaching. And since then, I've led some training to help couples in their relationships.
Bex
::It is such a joy listening to you talk, Emma, because you can just feel the excitement and the overflow of your heart and you being in God's will in a really beautiful way.
To get really practical, you talked about, as you grew your family, that had a financial impact. And then, the reality of training, of starting a business, also has a financial impact.
How did it feel balancing that?
Emma
::Mike and I have always run our finances as a joint venture. In fact, before we were engaged, we had a joint savings account. We used to save our coppers and our 5ps into a glass jar and take them down the bank together, into our savings account, so that we could afford an engagement ring. So that's how financially planned Mike and I's relationship has been over the years!
Bex
::Love that.
Emma
::And so, by the time I was doing my training, Mike's job was going really well. And so, we had set aside money for my training, and I felt OK about that because we run all our finances together.
I think it's easy for stay-at-home partners to feel like they haven't contributed enough, but I've been pretty secure in the knowledge that my contribution has been quite significant, and Mike would be hard pressed to pay for anybody to do what I do. And so, thankfully, his company were able to bless me with the training money that I needed. Now, I haven't felt no pressure in earning that money back or making things a success, but we do have a very joint lens when it comes to our finances and so that has been to my advantage in this moment.
Simon
::One of the themes, Emma, that has consistently come through as Bex and I have been speaking, whether it's been in this season or in previous seasons, is the power and the need for communication when it comes to the topic of finances.
And I'm wondering, are there any top tips you'd be able to give, any examples of people telling good stories of communication skills that have helped them with finances, or even warning signs where you've thought, ‘This isn't looking so good because you're not communicating about money’?
Emma
::Well, it's interesting, isn't it, because money is the most argued about thing. It's the top cause of conflict within relationships, which is why January is a really bad month for relationships, actually, because you have the post-Christmas stress of both spending too much money and spending a lot of time with extended family, both of which are significant pressures. So, I think it's really important to try and have open dialogue in our relationships about money.
People are good with money in different ways, I think. We have friends and when they first got married, there was quite a lot of blame circulating around who was spending too much money on buying kitchen roll and things like that for the house that the other one hadn't had growing up and seemed a bit unnecessary. One of them wanted to spend too much money on gifts in the other one's eyes, but the other one was a really great saver.
So, they realised that actually one was better at spending money, but that's not a bad thing because that's about using your money well.
So, actually using your money to get what you need for in the house and using your money to be generous and give good gifts is all good. And saving is also good, obviously. But they had discovered that it was making them clash because they had different strengths.
So, Mike and I would have different strengths. I am the saver in our household. He is the spender, apart from when it comes to the children, which has shocked us all - I find it very easy to spend money on the kids! (So, I had to watch that a little bit, obviously.)
But I think we all come from different backgrounds and different narratives of money in our life. So, I grew up hearing my dad tell me about how when he was on his way to the butcher’s, he had dropped his money and it had rolled down the drain; and so, they had potatoes and cabbages for two nights for tea, because that was the food in the cupboards!
So, I had to eat everything that I was given all the time. There was no leaving food, There was no not liking food in our house. And Mike's parents were much more relaxed about money, so he came from a very relaxed atmosphere.
And so, I have to budget in our house, or it just doesn't get done. We tried it the other way around and it was a disaster!
And so, we all come from different money narratives in our lives, and it's good to speak about them because it helps us understand each other's use and attitudes towards money. And that can help with conflict, if it is causing some.
Bex
::I think that awareness of narratives is really interesting because we all have one, whether we are consciously aware of it or not. And I can imagine if people aren't aware of it, then it makes it even trickier to untangle some of that situation.
Earlier, you spoke about coaching and being solutions focused. And I know that the heart of coaching is that people find their own solutions to problems. If you were working with a couple professionally who were struggling to talk about money - they maybe have that conflict - can you give us some examples of questions you may ask to open up that conversation in a new way?
Emma
::I think we would definitely discuss the money story of their upbringings so they could understand where each other were coming from. Because money's not just about the practical things in life, is it?
It's got the emotional tie-ins of the fact that money enables you to almost make dreams come true. It enables you to do the things that you want to do and to live out your values in life. We would explore their backgrounds and what they really wanted.
Often, I would work on communication skills with people, just making sure that people are doing their best listening and their best expressive work as well. Because it's important to be able to express how you're feeling and what you want out of life and relationships.
And then it's always helpful to have a little dig around on what people really value in life, what are they valuing as individuals, and what do they want their values in their relationship or their family life to be? Because quite often you feel a bit of tension if you're not living according to what life really means to you.
And so, we could explore that a little bit as well: ‘What makes you tick?’ ‘Where are you aiming for?’ ‘What's your story so far?’ ‘Let's communicate about it well!’ - that's probably where we would go, something like that.
Simon
::That's so good.
What it sounds to me like you're saying, Emma, is, it's never too early and it's never too late to open up these conversations around possible areas of conflict - whether that is money, whether it is children, whether it is those sticky moments of, maybe I want to think about adopting and fostering, but I'm not sure if you do.
What would you say to an individual who is in that moment with a relationship - whether it's a spouse or a child or a parent - it's like, ‘Oh, this is really hard to open this conversation at this moment in time. I'll leave it. It's going to get easier in the future.’?
Emma
::I think one of the best ways to approach what you think might be a difficult conversation is just to express things from your own point of view. Talk about what you would like. So rather than ‘Simon, I just don't know whether you'll want to have this conversation…’
Simon
::No, I don't.
Emma
::… which is immediately slightly confrontational because you're worried because it might be difficult; then you would say, ‘I really need to have a conversation with you,’ or, ‘There's something I'd really like to share with you; I don't know what you're going to think, but can I share it anyway?’ And so, you open up a safer ground to share it and then talk about what you want rather than what you want from the other person. So, just your own desires.
Picking the right moment helps. Not too late at night, not too early in the morning - when you've got a bit of peace and quiet.
You know, it's interesting for couples to open up: ‘Let's talk about where we want to be in five years time or when we're old.’ It's just nice to have those really ‘paint the future’ conversations together because it helps you stay on the same track. Basically, you know, you're both aiming for the same thing.
I always think that coaching - well, the style I use that's solution focused - is like handing somebody a blank piece of paper really and saying, ‘Where do you want to be? I wonder how are you going to get there?’ - and begin to map it out a little bit.
And so, for difficult conversations, start with how you're feeling and don't assume anything on the other person.
Bex
::I got asked a similar question the other day of what does Bex thriving in two years’ time look like?
And I found it such a helpful question because it actually engaged the creative part of my brain and then I could build systems and habits that would help me reach that. Rather than if you just asked me, ‘Where do you want to be in two years’ time?’, I could have come up with a very different list of goals which may not have got me to that picture of thriving.
So, yeah, I just want to commend coaching to people in terms of being able to unlock creativity and think about things in a new way.
Throughout our conversation, the thread of faith has been very clear and consistent, but just to pull that out in a more overt way, what have been key things from your faith that have guided your financial and family decisions?
Emma
::I have a couple of verses that have been really significant to us as a family. So, Mike and I, we chose Ephesians 5, verse 1, which is about the imitators of Christ; and so, that's how we determined on our wedding day that we wanted to live to be Christlike. And so, we have tried to do that, and I think it's been helpful. We see the pattern that Jesus has of being very busy and then withdrawing and resting. We're not so good at that, but it's a good pattern to try and establish, and then being busy again. And we see the pattern in his life of being prayerful. We see him quoting scripture, so he knows his scriptures in life.
And so, that's how we have tried to live through our marriage.
And then when things were a bit tough when Covid hit, our family definitely didn't thrive.
And so, we had a year of really leaning into the verse, ‘Love is kind,’ that's in Corinthians.
And just really in terms of, ‘We have to cut each other some slack and remember to be nice to each other and kind to each other when we feel like we're on our knees.’
And, you know, that has been so helpful - just three words to hang on to that you can just run through your mind, to think of. That's been really key for Mike and I when times have been tough.
And so, those are my two main verses: the one that we started our wedding day with and that one that's helped our family
Simon
::Love it! So good. We're going to have to start to bring this to a close. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us? Any top tips? Any words of wisdom from your heart, from your family to ours?
What would you love to leave us with that we can think, ‘Yeah, I could do that in my family. I could make a change if I did that.’
Emma
::I think the main thing is that there is always hope and there is always the possibility for change.
We've gone on this adoption journey of increasing in number, but it opened us up emotionally in a way that I hadn't expected. We had these new members in the household who didn't know the way of things. We have lots of unspoken ways that we operate as a family and we had to suddenly verbalise them all because the little ones wouldn't have known.
And even just in terms of the fact that we wanted them to be part of the family and that they were loved here as part of the family, took us on a journey of expressing ourselves emotionally in a way that we just hadn't done. And I would say to people, don't wait to do that! I wish I'd been as emotionally open 25 years ago with my parenting as I am today, because we have all sorts of difficult discussions about life and parents and where we came from, and history and creating our family. And we've got used to that. We've got more confident with that.
And so, subjects that you think make people wince, they can always be tackled in a loving way. So, there's always hope and there's always possibility for changes to happen.
And you can create the opportunity for change as well.
That's why my coaching practice is called Kairos Coaching. And Kairos means a window of opportunity, but not one that necessarily just happens upon you, one that you can create.
And also, I think that having the right support at the right time can be an absolute game changer. So for us, we came out of COVID limping. The children had found it tough and Mike and I found it tough, and we were really struggling.
So, we got in touch with Adoption UK and they put us on their support programme, and it was amazing! It was the right support at the right time, and it revolutionised our family life back into a place of thriving.
So, we know what it's like to feel like you're only just surviving; and we know what it's like to bring ourselves back to a place of thriving.
And I think that's what I really love about coaching is that it can take people through that journey from surviving to really thriving in life. Because we all want to live more joyful lives at the end of the day, don't we?
Bex
::Absolutely! And if someone has been listening to this and thinking, I haven't really considered coaching before, but maybe that's the support that'd be really helpful in this season, how could they go about seeking that support, either from you or from anyone else?
Emma
::If you're looking for a coach, look for one who's accredited by the ICF, the International Coaching Federation. It's not a regulated industry, so you need to choose carefully.
There's various places if you look online, like the Life Coach Directory has coaches listed; Barefoot coaching has coaches listed who will definitely be well trained. And people can get in touch with me if they want to explore it more as well. My email is emma@kcoaching.uk; ‘kcoaching’ is all one word - no hyphen, just a little ‘k’, and then ‘coaching’.
And even if they just want to talk about coaching as a whole, just come and have a chat for half an hour, see where they're at, what they're looking for.
Simon
::I know there is such a thing as Christian coaching. Would you recommend that to those of the Christian faith? Is it better or worse / no different from finding a Christian coach.
Emma
::I think coaching looks at the whole person and if you're a Christian, it might be nice to have a Christian coach. I don't think it's totally necessary for the coaching process to be successful, but I think it adds a nice dimension.
And with my Christian clients, I would pray and we'd be listening to see what the Holy Spirit was saying through the sessions and comparing notes when appropriate on that - sharing that with each other. But the coaching process in itself is really rigorous and robust, so it just depends what you are looking for.
Bex
::And we will have links to all of the fantastic resources Emma mentioned in the show notes. But if you would like to find out more about Emma herself, you can head to kcoaching.uk and find out all about Emma's work there.
Simon
::Emma, thank you so, so much for being a guest on our family matters podcast this season. It's been great having you on.
Emma
::Thanks very much for having me.
Simon
::We might have to touch base with you one day in the future if we have other topics to think about.
Emma
::I'd love to come back!
Simon
::But we’re going to wrap things up for today so, hopefully, you have enjoyed listening to our first bonus episode of season 12. We have another guest coming in, so do tune in next time for bonus episode number two.
And then we have a whole other season coming up, details yet to be revealed.
Bex
::And we've even got our guests lined up for the next season. We are ridiculously organised! So, we look forward to seeing you there.
Simon
::We pray a blessing over you guys, whatever you're going to do next and we look forward to speaking with you next time on the ‘Where Your Treasure Is…’ podcast.
Bex
::That's it for this episode of ‘Where Your Treasure Is…’.
Simon
::Thanks for listening. Let's keep learning to be good stewards of all we've been given.
Bex
::See you next time.