Category Archives for "Ladies Lounge"

A Message To The New Mum In The Café

I was recently sitting in a café and my heart broke a little.

Surrounding me, were my three little peeps, in various stages of drawing, reading, eating, arguing, fighting, whinging…..a pretty normal scene for any mother with a 9, 7 and 5-year-old.

My heart was not breaking because my kids where being, well kids. No my heart was breaking as I over-heard a conversation between a mother and daughter. The mother, was doting on her 6-month-old grandchild, who was looking ever so cute in a high-chair shoving bits of food into her mouth, giggling and being all sorts of adorable.

The daughter, looked exhausted. The daughter was lost, bewildered, disappointed, ashamed, inadequate, disheartened.

I know what this young woman was thinking because I ‘know’ stuff, particularly what people are feeling. I sense it. I feel it. Sometimes in my physical body. Sometimes as just a sense of energy / emotion overwhelming me. It is not uncommon in my treatment room, when working 1:1 with clients for my eyes to well with tears, my throat become constricted, my voice hoarse with emotion, my heart aching (I’m personally not a fan of this, as it often REALLY HURTS).

Is it weird?

A bit. But it is something that has developed gradually (with ease and grace….just the way I like it!) and therefore it is something that I have got quite use to. Sometimes I know my clients get a little weirded out, when I ask particular questions seemingly from nowhere, or start to weep a little or grab my chest because the intensity of the emotion is so painful. And while it’s a little intense at times, I have quite wisely been guided by mentors to create clear boundaries around when this ‘gift’ is on and when it is off, so to speak. And most of the time it works really well.

I go into my treatment room and start working with clients (face to face or via Skype) or into a workshop and start facilitating and it immediately gets switched ON. And when I leave those spaces, it is OFF. So when I’m in the school playground dropping off my kids or picking them up, I’m not feeling or knowing other mothers, teachers, children’s ‘stuff’. When I am with my friends, I’m just being a friend, when I’m with my family I’m just being the sister, daughter, aunty etc that I’ve always been.

The truth is, I don’t want to ‘know‘ or feel everyone’s stuff. I know other people who walk down the street and they are acutely aware of what complete strangers are feeling. To be honest, I don’t want this! It is far too overwhelming for me. And unless I can help them in some way, it is pointless me knowing and feeling their ‘stuff’.

And then there are days like the day, when sitting in the café, somehow I ended up deeply connected to the conversation at the table beside me.

Again truth be told, I would have much preferred to have read my book, chatted to my kids and enjoyed my coffee. Yet, the fact that I was so in-tune with the young mother adjacent to me, told me there was something I was to take from this experience. And so, I sat there acutely feeling the pain of this young mother. I could see she adored her baby girl, and that she found comfort in the fact that her own mother was engaging so heartedly with her daughter. And at the same time, I felt her shame.

Shame that she does not connect with her baby girl in THAT way. The way she dreamed she would. The way she believed all other mothers do.

‘No’, I wanted to gently tell her. ‘It’s not true you are not alone. Not all mothers have that deep connection to their baby. Most mothers struggle at some time or another.’

I glance at my babes around me. My babes, who are babes no more. And I remember those moments of struggle. I recall my own times of struggle these days.

Yet I KNOW that these moments pass.

They come. They go.

They are but moments in time, with emotions attached to them. And as the moment passes, so does the emotion. Well this is how it works for me now. But it wasn’t always this way.

I remember the days when the emotions all rolled into one.

I remember the days when the moments all rolled into one.

I remember the days when it felt like the struggle will never end. I previously wrote about that here.

And I want to reach out and tell her all of this because I sense the anguish and despair overwhelming her. I sense her fear. Fear that she is failing this whole mother thing. Fear that she is failing her daughter. Fear that she is just failing life and a rising panic because she doesn’t know how to change it.

And as she tells her mother about how she hadn’t slept for more than 30 minutes at a time for the last week, because her baby girl had been so unsettled, I can feel she is craving support. She is needing support. She is scared that she can’t do this alone, that she can’t hold it together much longer. I feel her shame again. Shame because she is getting angry with her baby girl. Yelling at her baby girl. Shame that she resents her baby girl for throwing her life into disarray.

And her mother misses it all. She doesn’t hear her. She doesn’t really hear her.

She misses her daughters silent shameful plea for support and instead unwittingly reinforces her own beliefs;

‘Oh, it’s normal, she’s just going through a stage.

It doesn’t get any easier you know.

It’s just being a mother.

It’s the hardest job in the world’.

It is these sort of beliefs about mothering, that end up creating so much stress for mothers. Beliefs that are passed down from well-meaning family members; friends and society in general. Combine this with the beliefs that are carried within the energy body from ancestors and past lives, then the programming can become deeply embedded and difficult to ignore. They contribute to the feelings of mothers being trapped in a vicious cycle. The vicious cycle of being a mother, that is so contrary to the one the social media world tells us is all ‘smelling roses’ and loved up moments. And this inconsistency creates huge feelings of inadequacy within mothers.

It is THIS reason I include teaching REFRAMING techniques in my Emotional Energy Reboot Workshop for Mums. Our thoughts moment to moment create our experiences. And when mothers have thoughts like these that are holding them in a negative space and continue to create further negative experiences, then any tool to bring them out of this is an essential for all mothers!

I like to think of thoughts as simple vibrations that we project out into the Universe. And according to the Law of Attraction, these thoughts, whether conscious or subconsciously held, attract the same vibration. I feel a real sense of concern when I think of mothers thinking ‘It doesn’t get any easier’ day after day. That must feel like a life sentence! And anyone who is thinking that it is not going to get any easier than no more than 30 minute stretches of sleep at a time, must feel like it is a life sentence of pure torture.

I found it so hard to sit there with this young woman’s feelings and knowing her struggle, yet feeling so powerless to help her. Over the last few years, I have learnt to create boundaries and I have learnt to respect others boundaries. It was not my place to help this young woman. But I know that I was in this situation and feeling it so intensely so that I would be reminded of the importance of creating workshops and tools to help other mothers who are finding the whole experience a bit – or a lot, tough!

As I left the café and walked past this young woman, with my three little peeps in toe, I couldn’t help but gently place my hand on her shoulder and tell her that ‘it does get easier and I think you are amazing.’

It was nothing but maybe it could be enough.

Enough to break the limiting thoughts.

Enough to break the emotion cycle.

Enough to break a moment in time.

Enough to plant a seed.

Enough to create hope.

My next Emotional Energy Reboot Workshop for mums is on Saturday May 20, find all details here. It’s my way of helping other mums navigate motherhood with more calm, confidence and connectedness.

And for any mother reading this, I just have to tell you a few things, and I want you to repeat these to yourself daily – all day every day if you need too!

You are amazing (I am amazing)

You are valued (I am valued)

You are important (I am important)

You are loved (I am loved)

You are an extraordinary mother (I am an extraordinary mother)

You are getting it right (I am getting it right)

You are heard (I am heard)

You are seen (I am seen)

You can do this (I can do this)

You have got this (I have got this)

You are not alone (I am not alone)

I love, honour and respect myself exactly as I am.

Here’s a printable copy just for you!

Daily Affirmation for Mothers

If you would like some more Affirmations to help you through your day, make sure to subscribe to my mailing list for a free set of Affirmation Cards (your sign up is right at the bottom of this page).

The Greater The Struggle The Greater The Reward?!?!

The Greater The Struggle The Greater The Reward…..Really?

Really?

So, I’m in the middle of a hot power yoga class the other day when I thought ‘this is just insane-I’m sweating profusely and my muscles are screaming to stop and OMG I love this. I couldn’t love this more….because I know the more I’m struggling the better it is for me, the more I will get from this class – the greater the reward!’

Yes!

Yes, hadn’t I read a quote only earlier that morning saying ‘I’m grateful for my struggle because without it I wouldn’t have found my strength’.

Yes, the more I struggle the more I gain.

Yes, the greater the struggle the greater that reward.

Yes, this is so true, I told myself. As I had religiously told myself for years!

And then, as I rested momentarily in downward dog, I had a life changing moment of clarity (as you do!).

The moment where my inner voice said ‘NO. NO. That is not truth. You do not have to struggle to earn your reward.’

And so began 20 minutes of internal conflict between my mind (my ego) and my soul (my inner wisdom) while I (my physical body) innocently tried to distract itself from the internal conflict with diligently performing sweaty yoga positions….as you do!

The more my mind or ego said, ‘No but if you work really hard and struggle then you will really earn that reward’, the more my soul patiently affirmed ‘It does not have to be that way. It is not meant to be a struggle.’

But it’s the way I had always done things – I struggle but I achieve and then I feel I have really earned that reward. Like my study for my HSC and Uni exams! I would study for hours / days / weeks at a time even though part of me knew I didn’t need to, but I knew if I had worked that hard and really sacrificed and struggled then I would really have earned those good marks!

And then the heavy emotion of grief set in, as the realisation came to me ‘what if I had listened to that inner voice that said you don’t need to study any more, you don’t need to work 14 hour days, you don’t need to be stressed and exhausted and your adrenals fatigued to achieve your dreams / your goals’.

Hmmm what if I had listened to the idea that I could have achieved and been rewarded by working from a place of ease and grace rather than a place of struggle!

Oh what a waste of energy and a waste of joyful life experiences!

And I quickly realised that I was still creating periods of struggle in my life just so I could earn that reward.

And then I decided no more!

I do not need to struggle to be rewarded.

In fact, the less the struggle the greater the reward, because the reward is not in the end result, the reward is in the ease, grace and joy of the experience in getting to the end point….THAT is the reward.

I do not want to get to the end of my life (or the end of another day for that matter) and say ‘Great. I did well. I ticked all the boxes. I achieved what I wanted or needed to achieve. It was a struggle and painful and joyless but at least I got there in the end.’

No. No. No.

I want to get to the end of each day and go ‘wow that was easy and joyful and graceful and it doesn’t really matter if I ticked all the boxes or not because my reward was in the experience of each of the moments that made my day not the end result’.

There was a lot of conditioning that had created this belief in me and I had probably affirmed it to myself for the last 40 years!

And so there is a lot of energy to be ‘undone’ and it will take time to change my behaviours around this, but my first step was aligning myself to a new belief that the less the struggle the far greater the reward. And every day I will choose ease and grace and joy in how I experience my life.

Because I do not need to struggle to grow.

I do not need to struggle to help others.

I do not need to struggle to inspire others.

Nope! I choose to inspire others through living my life from a place of ease, grace and joy!

And all that downloading happened in just one very hot, amazing and life changing yoga class!

How we experience life really is a choice.

Are you choosing to struggle through life or live it with ease, grace and joy?

Finding ME

As she lay curled in the foetal position, she murmured the words ‘I cannot do this anymore. I cannot get out of bed. I have nothing left’. Her confused and concerned husband stood there holding the baby, with a toddler clinging to each leg, not knowing what to do or say. And as she turned away from her beloved little family, she sadly wondered what had happened to her.

Who was she?

What had happened to her life?

Where had she gone?

When did she loose herself?

Why had she become so lost?

How did she become this person?

And in her numbness and exhaustion, she grieved the loss of the passionate, spirited, intriguing and inspiring girl that she once was. That she was, before she became a mother.

Was it possible to ever find her again?

That mountain seemed too huge to even contemplate climbing and yet she would move that same mountain for her children if she had too.  So powerful was her love for her children.

She just couldn’t climb it for herself.

Oh, the grief that filled her in that awareness – that there is not enough of me, for them and me.

How can there possibly be enough for both?

For that love, that deep maternal love, that one cannot comprehend until they experience it, compelled her to fill their cup with all that she had, while leaving her own empty. And this was to be to her detriment. And to her children’s.

How had the pure joy and magic of becoming a mother a mere four years previously been replaced by this?

Three babies, a miscarriage, an interstate move with no friends or family close by, a resignation from a once loved job, unexpected acceptance of a full-time ‘stay at home mummy’ gig, a hard working husband, a traumatising home break-in in the middle of the night and the passing of a beloved father, which had not been fully grieved, distracted by little people and their needs.

A lot had happened in those four years. Far too much to experience from a depleted state of being. Far too much to experience with an empty cup.

I AM NOT COPING.

Those life-changing words, simply stated to her GP, became a public declaration of her vulnerability, and were the key to finding herself again. In reclaiming and reconnecting to that passionate, spirited, intriguing and inspiring girl that she had inadvertently lost somewhere along the way. Somewhere in her motherhood journey she had lost the essence of ME, replacing it with her love for others. And while she had convinced herself that that was enough, she finally listened that morning as she laid curled, frightened and empty in bed, that it clearly was not enough.

She realised you cannot be enough to others, if you are not enough within yourself.

You cannot love others fully, if you do not first fully love yourself.

And so began the path back to herself. An extraordinary and exciting journey of discovery of her true SELF. An endless journey, because there is always more to explore, more to grow into, more to become.

I AM THAT GIRL.

And within 2 weeks of speaking those powerful words, Kinesiology had found me. And as I found myself sitting in a classroom only days later, without my babies surrounding me for the first time in years, I breathed and allowed myself to be taken wherever this ‘Kinesiology thing’ took me. This ‘Kinesiology thing’, which I didn’t really have a clue about and had seemingly quite randomly stumbled across and yet I couldn’t shake the deep sense of intrigued and inner knowing that I simply had to study it.

As I sat in my course on that first day, feeling like I had discovered a treasure, I knew it wasn’t really about me. I knew I was learning so I could help other women, who like me had lost themselves. I knew I was learning so that I could help them find their way back to their true self, or ideally teach them how to hold onto their true self as they enter motherhood. For when we hold onto the essence of who we are, there is no need to go searching for what you have lost, instead you can use all that extraordinary energy on expanding who you are into the most magnificent version of your SELF – and that is the greatest gift that you could ever give yourself and your children!

Four years later, almost to the day, since I couldn’t get out of bed, I sit here typing these words, interrupted by morning kisses, cuddles and declarations of love, from my now 8, 6 and 4 year olds. My heart is filled with gratitude for where my moment of despair, my moment of pure vulnerability has taken me. And I am filled with love for myself, for allowing myself to courageously let go and go where this journey of self-discovery has taken me.