Sometimes I have so many people around me, so much noise kids, tv, music, voices talking. Yet inside there’s still a void. I think to have your whole life ripped out from underneath you with only short notice it throws off everything you thought you knew and everything you thought you were.
Its like a rude awakening oh hey girl you have been shuffling through life working 6 days a week committed to things 7 days a week, you’ve been doing it fuelled by caffeine, debt, and society’s expectations. The universe says STOP rewind- reset- recalibrate. Let’s get you back to YOU join me in the eye of the storm and when the sun shines again, I promise you, you will resurface from your cave and you will be better than before. STRONGER, STURDIER, WISER more fearless an unbreakable force that cannot be matched torn down or triggered anymore.
I GOT YOU HUMAN just stay with me we’ll get there. I’m sorry I can’t tell you how long the journey will be, and the time scale may have to keep changing but bear with me!
So, like so many of us whether I liked it or not out the window went the 6-day working week, social life, commitments, retail therapy, holidays, friends, family and physical contact with anyone other than my immediate family.
It’s crazy hard. I have been on the journey of a lifetime this last year. Like I was convicted and sent to do time in LIFE rehab. Made to work on myself and come out clean to my weakness (not alcohol) just self-limiting belief and living in an emotional cave labelled I’M OK, SMILE AND WAVE.
Can we all just stop pretending we have this filtered fantastic existence if you are not prepared to show your truths you will not attract the right people! You will not be living true to yourself and the further you get away from your true self, the longer the journey you must go on to get back to living as who you really are.
Go ahead put those pics on IG of your beautiful family, your perfect Yorkshire puddings and your pretty new sports car I DO. But please show the other side too! If not for me for the next generation who are watching it and already comparing their life to it.
Let people know when your kids have a meltdown moment or the Yorkshire puddings sink into a puddle of piss and milk or when that sports car breaks down leaving you stranded in pound worlds car park. (you shop at pound world because it’s bloody good value for money, also because the monthly payments on your sports car leave you with 30pence a week to do your food shop). I don’t want to see people sad or fail and there’s something to be said for being positive and all the positive vibes only for sure. But real human connection and relatability, validation that your “normal” comes from being honest with the good and the bad.
The worst thing to feel is that you are failing and everyone else is flying if someone tells you they were where you are now, or they are feeling the same it just feels less. Less hard, less lonely, less of a mess up, less of a drama and fairer. A problem shared is a problem halved for sure another favourite of mine is just sit with me in my sadness when I’m struggling.
Had an interesting conversation with a counsellor before who said its about in your moment of need having someone that will sit with you in your sadness. They also talked about dilemmas, when you give someone else your dilemma and they come back with a quick fix bit of advice. Unknowingly they are just trying to defer from this awkward uneasy dilemma you have just pulled them in to and they want to give u a quick fix and move on. Someone that can just sit with you in that moment and you can dust off some of your dilemma on to them and they will soak it in and share the load.
They are my fav they are real they want to be a part of your life they want to feel what you feel they want to merge souls and fight the good fight together. YOU ARE MY PEOPLE.
People struggle with what to do for someone if they are in a low place or having a difficult time. All you probably need to do is open your ears and your arms and be there.
You know what I find one of the worst things, it’s when people try to counteract your sadness with extreme elation. They put on their clown costume and start acting like Ronald McDonald on crack bouncing around you, smiling, singing showing how happy they are and how great life is! Their most probably trying this from a good place. It makes sense to them that if they show how happy they are it will make you happy and rub off on you, problem solved dilemma closed. We can get on with our lives without any deep emotional ‘crap’ getting in the way.
I’m saying just be aware that, that will work for some people some of the time. But maybe in the initial opening of a dilemma people are more likely to feel heard and comforted by you respecting how they feel and even sitting in silence with them proving you heard them and your going to share the load. Be fully conscious of your words and actions, if you can look for the signs that they are ready to move into the next stage and let you try and cheer them up then do, just look for the cues they give you.
Listening to Ant Middleton in his podcast interview with Steven Bartlett about his personal demons, spirituality and being cancelled Ant said, “you are with yourself 24 hours a day, no one else will ever come close to that… your own company is the most important”.
WOW epiphany moment, people and situations come and go you need to be happy living with yourself first before you can introduce anyone or anything else, you are your own company forever until the day you die. Talk to and treat yourself wisely. Does that feel lonely to you? It kind of does to me. It makes me think on which version of me I would like to be around forever, at which stage of my life was I good company for myself and did I feel good about how I treated myself and my body?
Something to think about and teach our children.
EMBRACE CHANGE AND ADVERSITY. Pre pandemic we were on autopilot, cruising through life not stopping to smell the roses or to assess where we’re at and if were happy with it. Embrace change and challenge I have been forced into change in many situations throughout my life career wise, home life, health, parenting. You must evolve you have to fall face first into the ocean hit the seabed and not stay there too long. Use it to propel yourself back up, start swimming back to the surface ready to dive again this time with more knowledge and strength and an oxygen tank ready for the next fall.
I’ve had a few conversations with people in the past when I’ve struggled with a life changing moment explaining to them, it frustrates me how I haven’t had the same job since I was 18. I think people treat me differently because of it and their response was... More power to you- aren’t you lucky! You didn’t fall into a job straight from school and sit in it hovering, you evolved, you try, you get knocked down and you try TRY again. No one can ever say you don’t get knocked down and get up and try again. THAT sentence was the best thing a friend ever said to me. I remember it when I take any knocks now, I think hold on remember what she said, she said YOU GET UP AND TRY AGAIN and you do so get your arse off the ground and try again!
I whole heartedly can see how things that didn’t work out in my past have pole vaulted me to a place I needed to go to, I had to explore or be put smack bam in the centre of a lesson I needed to learn and keep going through it till I learnt that lesson.
If your off balance not feeling like you’re connecting with yourself and you know you need to assess who you are, make big changes by challenging yourself.
Do something that will be so diverse and challenging for you, that it will strip you back to your foundations and your core beliefs and values will rise to the surface again. It will remind you what you really want and who you really are. It might be as simple as going to a place that’s out of your comfort zone, to taking a solo trip away from everyone or maybe it needs to be physically challenging like climbing Everest.
This is personal to who you are. What’s invigorating, challenging life changing for you will be standard procedure for another….
The one rule is it must challenge you to change you.
In light of this how can we relate this to our children?
We can fight the urge to save them from every challenge in their lives, we don’t always need to show up with a life jacket. Instead show up in the boat but don’t throw them a line. Show up with a lesson or help them find it. Powerful words at the right moment can have a lasting impact a life lesson learnt through their struggles is worth everything. IF you let them fall a bit go through the mud whilst waiting in the shadows this will stand them in good stead in the long run.
WHY? Because they will learn two things
1. The lesson they were suppose to learn from that particular struggle and most importantly.
2.That they CAN do hard things on their own and have the power to come back swimming.
It is one of the hardest things to watch your child or loved one go through something and not take the easy route to pulling them back out with a quick fix. Why is it so hard to not save them? It’s because we care and being in someone’ s dilemma with them and feeling their pain is heart breaking and we want to make ourselves feel better quickly, as much as we do them. But it will do them good.
Clearly certain situations and especially whilst their young we will have to step in, be their voice their saviour it’s our duty as parents and carers! We have more tools to fix it, than them from day one. Just know when there’s an important lesson to be learnt, one that will do them more good than harm to discover on their own. It is as much our job to help them flourish into self-sufficient well- rounded, fully functioning adults of society, as it is to protect them from real harm and pain.
Have a think now remember when you wanted a parent or loved one to save you from something you were struggling with. Remember when they didn’t and at the time you hated them for it whether it be something they could have done physically, emotionally, financially. Now try to remember what your learnt from that when you came out the other side? Do you now know that you can independently face that adversity again and cope with it? If the answers YES, then lesson learnt, they did the right thing for you at the time!
My Mum Mantra🤎
Try this week to resist the urge to quick fix a situation just to make them feel better and make it easier, IF it won’t teach them anything. It could be as simple as not giving in to another pudding demand when they have already had 5 Easter eggs for lunch and dinner. They might learn to do things in moderation and that they can’t always get what they want. They might also not disrupt your afternoon with their extreme sugar rush which would be useful! Sometimes you will not be in the right frame of mind to stand up to it and giving them the chocolate buttons buys you both 10 minutes of peace sanity that day then do what you’ve got to do we’ve all been there! xxx
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