Inspired by her own experiences and her personal 15-year study, Martine Shelley wants to helps mothers heal old wounds and trauma, break generational cycles, find authenticity, and step into their true selves. At Mother Lines, she encourages women to embark on a profound journey towards self-discovery and emotional healing, guiding them back through their lives, looking at their ancestors, their mother lines, their birth stories, their lived experiences and how all of these factors create a vision for them to see their stories clearer, to help their hearts and souls, and bring peace back into their homes. Here Martine talks to The Natural Parent Magazine about the passion behind what she does, the challenges she has overcome, and her hopes and dreams for the future.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
The passion for starting my new business venture, Mother Lines, actually began when I was a very young child. While growing up in a military family and learning about my ancestors, it became apparent that there were wounds in my families past that were still impacting us all to that day. So, it became a lifelong mission to gain a deeper understanding of how we were being affected by our ancestral lines and I could feel this was bigger than just my family. It was also to do with how humans seemed to be changing those natural, birth right connection and bonds we have with our whole families and were moving away from nature’s natural flow of living authentic lives. We were living in divided, separated, wounded, cellular families and this wasn’t how nature intended us to live. This wasn’t natural – nature works organically and in balance. So it was obvious to me that if the balance and nature of a whole family is affected by trauma, then this is having a big impact on the natural flow of wisdom down through our generations too.
Despite being a young child, I knew this would have consequences on me too, beyond what I was able to comprehend at such a young age. This started a lifelong quest to understand how generational trauma was impacting myself and my family and I was determined to ensure I regained the knowledge and wisdom I should have received, so that I would ensure my future children didn’t have to carry this ancestral burden and they could grow authentically, without the inner pain and loss this is all bringing us.
Despite having done a lot of healing work prior to becoming a mother when I was 31 years old, and feeling like I had “fixed” myself, it was when I was holding my 4-day-old son, who was crying in my arms, that I felt the depth of those ancestral wounds for the first time. Throughout my whole life, my intuitions had guided me deeply. Through everything, I had always had an inner knowing of what to do and how to solve things…until this moment. Instead, when I needed it the most, my internal guidance system was silent, there was no intuition, and I had no idea what to do. This never happened to me; I felt incredibly alone. I also knew in that moment that I had found the gap, how the broken chain had passed down through generations and I felt it all: the pain, the sadness, the loss, the motherless child….empty space sat where intuition should have been. This new awareness only accelerated my passion and drive to heal. I had to understand the importance of the mother-daughter relationship and why the breakdown of this relationship is having a much bigger impact than we are aware of.
Delving into the phase of my healing journey as a mother healed parts of me I hadn’t even acknowledged before. My children really were my greatest teachers, shining lights to help me come back to myself. They helped me heal my heart in a way I never knew was possible and I was able to be the mother I had always longed to be.
It’s been a desire of mine for a long time to be able to help and support other women, the lost daughters of wounded mothers, so that they don’t feel alone and so that they can also heal and restore the natural flow through our mother lines once more, healing our families, one person, one generation at a time.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
Getting to this point of bringing my work online has been a journey all on its own. When I first became a mum, I wanted to learn everything about natural parenting, breastfeeding, attachment parenting, co-sleeping, baby led weaning, the science, the function… I wanted to understand everything about how this should happen organically, through authentic connection, through nature.
I decided to train and become a breastfeeding support worker and postnatal doula. I also started a mother and baby group in our local community and worked with women for several years doing this. I had found a place where I could explore this internal jigsaw puzzle I had been piecing together my whole life. I found my voice to talk about these things, to engage in conversations of the heart. I was surrounded by other new mums, many first-time mums like me, and the more we connected and spoke openly in the group, the more I started to see the picture I had been creating.
Everyone around me was struggling on the inside just as much as I was and what had always been a very personally driven goal of healing, all of a sudden, I was seeing the impact of generation trauma all around me. Women were struggling with the same challenge: breastfeeding difficulties, relationship difficulties, finding themselves having emotions and acting in ways where they didn’t even recognise themselves anymore, sleep issues, not knowing how to manage their children’s emotions, not knowing what was normal. They felt like a failure as a mother and their relationships were filled with challenges. It felt like we were all winging it and that’s just not how it should be. Nature doesn’t work this way. Something is deeply wrong and I was determined to work out what this was and find a way to solve it. I was on a mission to make things happen and bring a level of healing we have all been seeking: inner peace!
I had to find a way to piece all of this together so that I could see the bigger picture with clarity and figure out how we can begin to heal our broken mother lines. From this point on, the mother-daughter relationship became the focus.
I dedicated my personal study for 15 years, exploring many healing modalities, personal observations, courses, trainings, lived experiences and work with women. I finally was able to piece together what my mind had been trying to solve since that 7-year-old girl inside me made a promise to become a cycle breaker and heal.
The innovation: what was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
I started to realise that what I had actually pieced together throughout those 15 years was quite a unique programme to support and guide other women. I jumped into trialling parts of my course and I was honoured and blown away by the responses. What I had created was having life-changing results for people. It was giving them a sense of grounding and clarity they hadn’t had before. It was helping them see their ancestral mothers’ lines through a healthier lens and improving relationships or boundaries around them. My work was changing people’s lives and I honestly couldn’t believe the responses!
This was real…. I had created something, I felt ready and excited to bring my work to the online world so I could share my knowledge and realise my life’s mission.
The biggest breakthrough for me was when I realised that what was a very private and personal, lifelong study, so I could gain a deeper understanding of generational trauma, human nature and connection, could actually help others….This feels like my soul’s work coming to life.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family life?
My partner and I live in Devon, UK, with our 3 sons and two dogs. We also home educate our children so I am with them all the time. Finding healthy balance between work and family has definitely been a learning curve over the years!
Back in 2017, it felt like our family was in total chaos. My eldest son’s mental health was really suffering, we were fighting with all the different education departments to ensure he received appropriate education, our middle son was recovering from a life-threatening condition, Erythroderma, red raw skin failure which covered his whole body, and I was also running a holiday property management company in Cornwall, which was growing continuously. Oh, and we had 3-year-old too! Life was busy and I was feeling completely out of control, juggling endlessly to keep everything for everyone moving when internally, I was crumbling and felt like a failure as a mother and a business owner. But who was going to step in and fix everything? No one, it just kept spiralling out of control and felt like my relationship with my children and partner was suffering.
My heart was breaking and it seemed my family was too.
We had managed to get away for a family wedding in 2018. I was having my hair done at the campsite we were staying on and I started receiving emails and calls from my housekeepers, one issue after the next and then something inside me snapped. I couldn’t keep breaking myself and feeling like a failure. Being a mum was the most important role I had ever taken on, so in that moment, I decided I was done!
Within two months I had handed over the 45 properties I managed to the housekeepers and closed down my business so we could commit to this new journey of home education.
We sank into a much calmer pace of life. We started moving slower, being more conscious, having healthier time together to talk and begin to heal the wounds that the previous 5 years had caused us all. We embraced the home education lifestyle and decided we wanted our other two children home with us so we could all experience this new lifestyle we had found together. Our children started to find their natural rhythms throughout the day. We started to see them coming back into themselves, their personalities began to shine through again and we started to find comfort and inner peace within our family home. My heart was healing as I saw my family healing around me.
During this time, my partner and I also went on an incredibly deep healing journey together, unravelling the wounds deep in our own past, removing trauma bonds that had sat hidden in our relationship for over a decade and both of us truly feeling seen for the first time in our lives. We healed our childhoods through our relationship and I felt whole and seen right to my core for the first time in my life.
Finding this depth of connection has brought such deep healing, not only to ourselves and our relationship, but to our children and future generations. To discover this level of safety and comfort in a relationship is life changing. I have found the inner peace my heart has been seeking since I was a very young girl.
So, I have gone from living a life of chaos to a very gentle, calm family existence.
As I begin my journey of bringing my work to the online world, I know what both calm and chaos feels like, so this is my opportunity to create something that continues to bring balance and works for the whole family.
