Motherhood and Creativity Interview #17 - Amy Walsh

Amy Walsh is an Emergency Physician and mother of 2. She is passionate at healing through plants, creativity, and story.

Welcome to Motherhood and Creativity, an interview series where I share the words of creative mums who inspire me here on Substack and beyond.

I share words of joy, strength, creativity and community in motherhood.

I feel like when we read the words of mums who speak so honestly about motherhood - the good parts, the hard parts and everything in between - this can really help give us some comfort and feel less alone.

I find so much inspiration from reading about mums who are all weaving their work and creativity around their kids too, as this is the situation I’m currently in. Knowing that there are other mums out there with creative dreams and careers and they are making it work around the edges of motherhood, that is so encouraging.

I hope you enjoy reading the words from these wonderful mums over the next few months, and that you find comfort and inspiration in their words too.

You can read all 16 of the previous Motherhood and Creativity interviews here.

Motherhood and Creativity Interview #17 - Amy Walsh

Amy Walsh is an Emergency Physician and mother of 2. She is passionate at healing through plants, creativity, and story. You can find her writing, storytelling, and art at

The Nettle Witch, MD

How old are your kids?

8 and 5

When your children are older, what do you hope that they remember about the kind of mum that you were?

I hope they remember me as playful, curious, and becoming more compassionate toward myself and others. I hope they remember my physical presence, hugs, and snuggles. I hope they remember the wonder we shared.

When you think about the tough parts of your motherhood journey, which of your qualities/strengths have got you through these tough times?

I'm a physician, so I have the discipline to do just about anything for four years.

I also try to mix playfulness or music into the mundane aspects of motherhood, like making games of cleaning or using music to calm a fussing baby. My oldest loved the B-52s song Roam. My youngest can put on a mean Taylor Swift concert.

I found the physicality of early motherhood a bit stifling, so I really appreciate the spaciousness of motherhood right now.

Time outdoors is also a huge resource for restoring my peace.

What brings you joy in motherhood?

My favorite things are learning new things from my kids. For example, they are really into animals now, so they are a font of animal facts.

I love how they call my attention to the wonder in the world and I love introducing them to special plants and really looking closely at where we are.

I also love how open they are to magic and the otherworld. They are fertile soil for my story seeds to land on.

How important is creativity to you?

I am a relatively new creative. I think motherhood really opened up the door to the possibility, but it took all of the emotions that were dredged up during COVID to step through that door.

I would not have identified as a creative person at all until 1.5 years ago, when I signed up for an embodied poetry class. Now, I feel like it is a vital part of my emotional health and sharing my work, especially my writing is an important part of feeling seen by others in my life.

Tell us more about your favourite ways to be creative.

Writing essays and poetry, storytelling, watercolor painting and watercolor batik, plant spirit journeying

Since becoming a mum, have you experienced a creative surge? What did that look like for you?

There wasn't really a surge of creativity initially, but I feel like motherhood opened me to other ways of knowing and other ways of defining success that made my evolution into a "creative" possible.

I had what I call a "duh" epiphany recently when looking at my daughter's paintings. I realized that I could create just for the joy of it rather than having to make it deep or important. I still have a lot of feelings or layers to most of my work, but I prioritize fun in my creativity rather than stressing over its "goodness".

What does honouring your creativity look like for you in this season of your mothering?

Now that my daughters are bigger, I have a lot more space in my life for creating. We also can create side by side, which allows for some fun co-creations and also even more time for creating. My youngest daughter loves clay and paint, so it kind of pushes me to experiment with methods that I've never worked with much before.

Right now, I feel like I have gotten to the point in my creative journey where I am exploring how to take the joy of that initial inspiration and fine tune that creation to make it even more itself.

There is a lovely poem by Khalil Gibran about how your children come through you, but not from you and I think our creations are the same way.

What’s been your experience of finding a community in motherhood?

Finding community in motherhood has been a big struggle for me. I might have higher needs for connection than most, but my oldest daughter's infancy was one of the loneliest times in my life.

I also quit social media five or six years ago, so that took away the illusion of connections that were not really as strong as I thought and COVID further pruned other connections.

I've been trying to rebuild community so we can engage in real mutual care for each other, so my daughters can be witnessed in their rites of passage, and so we can just laugh and play and sing and dance together. I'm slowly rebuilding "my people", but it's a lot of work right now.

What words of encouragement would you offer to a mum who might be struggling at the moment?

A few things that I didn't know that helped me reframe things in early childhood were:

1.Matrescence, the transition into motherhood takes a good three years (at least), if you feel like you don't have your legs underneath you when you're a year in, that's fine, in fact, I'd say it's normal.

2. It's OK, and probably important, to redefine success and productivity for yourself. You turned food into a person, which is just such a powerful creative act, it's okay if you can't make in the same way.

3. Listen to your resentment, usually when your resentment is running high, it's probably a sign you're doing too much. (h/t to Devon Price, author of Laziness Does Not Exist for that tip)

4. From a professional perspective, what I really noticed in my medical practice is what our kids need most from us is that we give a s***. Try to seek enough nurturing and nourishment for yourself that you can do that and you're succeeding.

You can find out more about

Amy Walsh

on her Substack

The Nettle Witch, MD

Thank you for your wonderful words Amy.

I enjoyed so many parts of this interview and found it interesting when Amy talked about:

• how she sees herself as a relatively new creative, and how important creativity has become to her in a short space of time:

“Now, I feel like it is a vital part of my emotional health and sharing my work, especially my writing is an important part of feeling seen by others in my life.”

• her perspective of the importance of creating just for the joy of it when she says:

“I prioritize fun in my creativity rather than stressing over its "goodness".”

• her honesty around struggling to find the right kind of community as a mum

• how reassuring these words are for every mum to read:

“From a professional perspective, what I really noticed in my medical practice is what our kids need most from us is that we give a s***. Try to seek enough nurturing and nourishment for yourself that you can do that and you're succeeding.”

I hope you enjoyed this interview in the ‘Motherhood and Creativity’ series - I publish these interviews every fortnight, and will continue to for as long as the interviews keep coming through.

You can read all 16 of the previous Motherhood and Creativity interviews here.

I’d love to hear which of Amy’s words resonated with you - let me know in the comments.

Ways to work with me in November

In November, I have space for 2 mums who’d like to start a 12 week journey of building up tiny moments of daily self-care and swap their overwhelm, mum-guilt and anger for calm and compassion with my 12 week Bespoke Self-Care Plan for Mums.

I also have space for 1 mum who is ready to make positive changes in her life in a gentle and kind way, that fits in with her life as a busy mum right now with Rediscover YOU, my 12 week 1 to 1 coaching experience. Book a virtual cuppa with me to find out more.

You might also like some of my most recent posts:

• Motherhood and Creativity Interview #16 - Holly Brown

• Creating space and stillness in the mornings

• 3 things I’ve realised from running gatherings for mums over 6 years

• How taking imperfect action reduces your overwhelm - a guest post for

  Jillian Bybee’s Humans Leading