Motherhood

Reading this passage about the ugly duckling, with lots of reflections on motherhood and being different, I am having visions of all of the people I know, personally and clients, who struggle with motherhood... It is undoubtedly THE hardest job in the world, and without knowing yourself I can imagine it is infinitely harder...

I find it incredibly hard to stay silent when I see parents who are still seeking their own childhoods having babies, knowing from my own experience the amount of sacrifice and selflessness it takes to raise children... I just wish I could do some really intense work with them to get them ready, though usually there is a very relaxed attitude about it, until they have to start giving things up... Even just sleep, or time...

For the other circumstances mentioned, I think in terms of community, if you are feeling vulnerable as a mum, reach out! You would be surprised the lengths people will go to to throw you a float if you let them know you are drowning... Whether that's helping with the children, or chatting, venting, releasing or going deep into the crux of your feelings...

As a community, whether we have children or not, giving mothers a place to release, offering whatever help you can, is the best thing ever... If you don't know what to offer, give some options
'I'm happy to watch your kids while you rest, to go to the park with you all, to take you out while your partner (or whoever) looks after the kids?'
Relief comes in many forms... With more support less Mums would struggle through the times they find the hardest...

Women Who Run With The Wolves - Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Smudging cleansing

Nothing like a smudging and a reiki clearing to clear negative energy... Am available to do these, Melbourne and south east/east...

giving each other space to grow

I was talking to my aunt about this on the weekend, I feel like people (myself included) hold on to these ideas about who each other are based on things that happened years and years ago... Most of the relationships I have exceed ten years and really most of us grew up together, so it is very easy to remember their actions or attitudes from 15 years ago and use it in how you estimate them now... I do sooooo much work around this, I really believe that we all need to give each other the space to grow and change, not hold each other to things long past...

Personally I feel like people have very severe memories of me, an awful teenager, scary 20 something, and don't see the work that happened as I approached my mid 20's, and continues to happen... Half of my struggle is getting people that knew me before to recognise that I have left a lot of the anger behind, and while I am still not keen on the general public, I certainly don't act as though I hate all humans... And while I don't have as big a struggle with my close friends and family, there are still these moments where I can see them remembering something that isn't accurate today, and it sucks...

As humans who want to see humans of the world wake up, let's give each other that space, a safe space to grow...

Babies

This is so funny because it's true... When you have a baby, I'm assuming this is the world over, from that first moment everyone, including you, is trying to see who the baby is more like... From looks, both of my kids are fair like dad, blonde hair, white skin, blue eyes, while I am of Maltese descent, olive and dark... I get asked if I'm the babysitter more than I would like... As they grow its in the talent, they draw well, must be artistic like dad, they are really caring about others, maybe they will work in the care industry like mum... I hate it, and as they got out of babyhood, I stopped doing it, because I feel like it is really important for them to forge their own paths... I need to know that we didn't assume and act on this idea that they will follow either of our footsteps in their future... I want to see them grow into their own ideas about how to be in the world and how to finance being...

Women Who Run With The Wolves - Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Mental blocks

I always find in exercise my mental blocks are way harder to crack than my physical blocks... For years I couldn't get my head around going over 5kg either side on any track in body pump, 2015 saw me almost double it... I added between 1-4kgs per side to every body pump track, and I feel much stronger for it!

With yoga it's the same thing... For years I have had it set in my mind that I can't do this lunge twist, mentally I was 100% certain that my body was simply too thick, big, to get my arms around backwards... I decided this week that I was going to try, in all this time I never tried, and I did it, it was easy 😂 I crack myself up the amount of power self talk has!

Photo from http://studioyoga6.com

Allies

All that talk about allies yesterday, I'm still listening to Another Round and they are trying to get Tracy a date... Trying to describe who is the right kind of guy, and they are saying no racists, no homophobes, just basically a good human... Which leaves it open to your definition of good... What is a good person to you?

Growing up I thought good was someone who basically doesn't hurt others, kind to others maybe? Now my list has grown, and maybe I'm excluding a great deal of the population in my growing terms of definition... The other day on facebook, I saw someone referring to themselves as good people, and by my childhood definition, they are, they don't hurt anyone, maybe a bit superficial but that's their life choice, but I see them using slurs that I detest (spastic, gay, the n word), does this make them not good? For me, probably, in the sense that I wouldn't want my kids around that... But maybe it's just lack of education? And with simple challenges on this vocab it would all change?

To me, as a grown woman, good people not only don't hurt others, but go out of their way to make other people's lives better, they educate themselves, they take action, they are on a journey, whether they acknowledge that or not, to make the world a better place to live in... It may be a judgey definition, but as much as I try to not judge, I'm an INFJ, it's natural...

Treat others well

I have been listening to Another Round podcast obsessively lately, it's uncomfortable because they talk a lot about race, and I am uncomfortably aware of white privilege... Heben and Tracy were talking about allies in the most recent episode I listened to, I find the term strange... I do consider myself an ally to the LGBT+ community, people of colour, refugees, and of course women's rights, overall I guess you could say that I believe that all humans deserve equality, regardless... But I hesitate to use the word ally, because none of the work I do, or words I speak on those topics are about me...

Then I stumbled on this, which reminded me about the book I read which compared sayings of spiritual leaders, and I love it...

Ultimately life is about being a good human, doing what you can to rise up others... I don't need a label for that... It's action...

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