Welcome to Finding the Keys
Self-care for parents, one episode at a time.
Finding the Keys is a podcast series dedicated to self-care for parents. It explores the challenges and joys of parenting while emphasizing the importance of nurturing your own well-being.
Hosted by Christine Forte Klotz, each episode offers practical insights, strategies, and encouragement to help you find balance, manage stress, and reconnect with yourself in the midst of it all. Because caring for others starts with caring for you.
🎧 New episodes every month | 🎧 Listen here, just below 👇or on Podbean, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
If you found any of these episodes useful please leave us a review or share it with someone else! Don’t hesitate to reach out with your feedback or experiences of this podcast!
Listener support of this podcast is helpful in order to keep it ad free. Participate now on patreon.com/christineforte
In conversation with Dr. Christine Forte Klotz, Julie Phillips, author of The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Body Problem, explores the complex intersection of motherhood and creativity.
They discuss the challenges of balancing creative work with parenting, the choices writers and artists have made—whether to leave their children or stay—and the societal judgments that come with those decisions. This conversation offers fascinating insights into the lives of mothers both past and present, inviting us to reflect on our own choices around balance.
Julie Phillips is an award-winning biographer, book critic, and author of The Baby on the Fire Escape.
In this episode, artist and mother Alexa Saxton Thomas joins us to discuss balancing the creative work of art-making with the creativity involved in parenting. Alexa shares how these two forms of creativity nourish each other, emphasizing creativity’s vital role in grounding both children and adults. She also explores how self-expression supports self-care.
Stay tuned for Christine’s closing reflections on processing emotions as part of self-care.
Join Dr. Christine Forte Klotz for this bonus episode of Finding the Keys: to take a moment for self care. To reflect on 2022, meditate on intentions for 2023, and truly check into what we most want and need right now. Genuine nourishment for mind & spirit.
The pdf journal guide that accompanies this episode can be found here.
We thank you for being part of this community and look forward to sharing more in 2023!
Parenting is a journey of constant change, with our children growing and our own identities shifting. Each stage can feel disorienting but offers opportunities for growth.
Rich Watkins, founder of Let’s Go, a global collaboration network, shares his experience of self-transformation through fatherhood. He reflects on navigating identity shifts, processing change, and the importance of interdependence.
In this episode:
Innovation and personal growth in parenting
The "Let’s Go Change Loop"
Rich’s journey of disorientation and reorientation
The rebirth of self as a parent
Prioritizing self-care during transitions
Finding time and energy to exercise with young kids is tough. In this episode, Janet Li Patel of RE Pilates (Brooklyn) shares how fitting in Pilates boosts energy and strength, creating a positive cycle for busy parents.
Janet, a former finance professional turned Pilates instructor, explains how Pilates supports physical and mental wellness for parents, helping them stay strong and present through mindful movement and breathwork.
In this episode:
Janet’s Pilates journey
Physical, mental, and emotional benefits
Modeling healthy habits for kids
Body changes through parenthood stages
Stay tuned for guided breathwork exercises at the end!
Becoming a parent is a major life change, and balancing work and parenting can be stressful, often sidelining self-care. In this episode, we explore smoother transitions for parental leave and return.
Amy Beacom, founder of the Center for Parental Leave and Leadership (CPLL) and co-author of The Parental Leave Playbook, joins us to discuss how better parental leave supports self-care, families, and companies.
Amy covers postpartum depression in dads, parental guilt, and tips for parents to reset and recharge. She also shares how to make parental leave a positive experience for everyone involved.
In this episode:
Launching CPLL’s parental leave program
The role of parent-coach relationships
Setting values and boundaries for self-care
The isolating effects on dads
How managers can support parent employees
Feeling overwhelmed and unsupported? Many workplaces lack family-friendly policies. In this episode, Dr. Simone Schwank, Zurich-based psychologist and founder of Une Sur Cent, discusses workplace trends in Switzerland and their impact on women’s self-care and parenting.
Women leaders often face burnout, leading to high dropout rates from leadership roles. Une Sur Cent is a community that connects and empowers women to inspire change and create new opportunities.
Dr. Schwank highlights how workplace culture affects women’s careers and families, the need for more female role models, and how communities like Une Sur Cent support women’s leadership.
In this episode:
Building a female empowerment movement
UNE SUR CENT events
Parenthood realities
Challenges of work systems for women
Post-pandemic loneliness
Read the full LeanIn Report: Women in the Workplace 2022
Engaging with parents and communities is a key pillar of self-care—especially after a period of widespread isolation. In this episode, we’re joined by Matt Schneider, co-founder of City Dads Group, to discuss modern fatherhood and how it impacts the whole family’s balance.
City Dads Group is an inclusive community of diverse, engaged fathers working to break parenting stereotypes and support each other through shared experiences and resources.
Matt talks about the ongoing pressures dads face, the need for open conversations about parenting, and how fathers can build stronger connections within their families and communities.
In this episode:
How City Dads Group began
Maternal gatekeeping
Balancing self-care and childcare
Postpartum mental health in men
A peek into City Dads’ social events
Introducing Finding the Keys – your guide to self-care as a parent and person. Host Christine Forte Klotz, therapist and coach, interviews experts and parents on topics from parental leave to relationships. She also shares insights and tools from her own experience. First episode drops end of October – stay tuned!