Ep 25 - Kirsty Cooke – Freedom Over Stability
This episode is a bold, heart-led conversation with Kirsty Cooke about choosing a life beyond the default path we’re taught to follow. Kirsty shares her lived experience of prioritising freedom over safety, designing a life guided by values rather than fear, and raising children outside systems built on comparison, competition, blame, and shame. Together, we explore what it means to take 100% responsibility for our choices, to release the need for external approval, and to reclaim feminine power through self-trust, nature, and conscious parenting. This episode is an invitation to question inherited rules, soften into self-leadership, and remember that real stability is created from within.
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"I wanted to live life on my own terms, without the fear, just following my own heart."
Kirsty Cooke
Wisdom from Kirsty Cooke in Episode 25
“I really always did have that kind of free spirit.”
“I was responding to what my heart wants rather than the fear.”
“My parents never put any shame or fear or judgment into me.”
“I really knew in those early days of toddlers, I knew that my kids wouldn’t go to school.”
“It seems to become easier and easier to follow your heart and know what your values are.”
“My deep belief is that systems don’t actually serve us.”
“I believe that parent as first teacher is the best thriving start for those little humans.”
“I’ve never been wanting to do things just because other people are doing it.”
“It’s not about what you’re saying Yes to, it’s all of the thousands of things you say no to.”
“I am actually the most important person in my children’s life, not just now, but for the rest of their life.”
“You never are caught in that trap of that endless loop that never ending insatiable need to want an outside approval for what you’re doing.”
“Freedom means not doing something just to pay, not renting my life out to build someone else’s dream.”
“There’s so much bullshit around what it is to be feminine.”
“We accumulate identity subconsciously.”
“I’m nothing and I’m everything.”
“Women being complex… mostly complex and that is why we are so fucking amazing.”
“We have set up so many rules for ourselves that something has to happen in order for us to feel good. Be curious about the rules you set for yourself.”
“Take your shoes off and just stand in the grass or touch a tree, or go for a walk or sit outside in the sunshine.”
“We’re the only mammal species that stops playing in adulthood.”
“Give love, feel love, be love, love.”
Key Themes Explored
Freedom Over Stability
Choosing heart, values, and self-trust over the “safe” default path.
Kirsty shares the value of choosing freedom over the socially accepted path of safety. She defines freedom not as rebellion, but as living on her own terms and not “renting her life out to build someone else’s dream.”
Freedom is not something you arrive at later, it is created through decisions made in the present. When choices are guided by values and self-trust rather than fear, stability becomes internal rather than external.
Unlearning blame and shame through 100% responsibility
Through her parenting stories, Kirsty describes how deeply blame and shame are ingrained in our conditioning. She talks about how every instinct in her has wanted to shame, lecture, or rescue, because that is how most of us were parented. Instead, she chooses to let her cbildren experience the natural consequences of their actions, supporting them to take full responsibility without punishment or humiliation.
Blame and shame keep people small and dependent. Taking 100% responsibility, when held with love and calm boundaries, builds capability, self-trust, and resilience. Growth happens not through being rescued, but through being allowed to own choices and learn from them.
Expanding Identity Through Feminine Principles and Nature
Kirsty reflects on how early leadership models pushed her into “acting like a man” in order to succeed. She describes a gradual return to feminine principles, using nature as the teacher, where strength and softness coexist, effort gives way to flow, and identity is no longer narrow or fixed. She speaks about consciously expanding identity beyond labels and roles, allowing complexity rather than apologising for it.
Identity does not have to be inherited or limited. When women allow themselves to be both powerful and soft, disciplined and playful, they reclaim a fuller sense of self. Nature reminds us that growth does not require force, it requires trust, presence, and allowance.