Category: Personal story and reflections

Personal story and reflections

Wants and needs

It’s early in the summer holidays and already I can sense how the change in routine is impacting both my five year old and me. He’s been demanding – alternating between, “what can we do now?” and, “can I have a snack?”, usually while I am still cleaning up from the last activity/snack/meal we had.

And I’ve been feeling homesick. Well, I say ‘homesick’ but it is actually a mix between genuine homesickness for my small beach hometown in Florida; nostalgia for said-hometown circa 1989; and holiday wistfulness now that I tend to experience the place on holiday.

Sunrise in my hometown
Feeling homesick for my hometown, especially the beach

The prolonged heat wave we’ve enjoyed in Britain all summer creates a sensory reminder of Florida, and at first I thought that was the main cause for this mood. But I could sense something else at play.

I did some reflective work today to help me centre. A combination of breathing meditation, paying attention to my body, and journaling conjured snapshot images and sensations: drinking an iced coffee in my favourite beach coffee shop…the feeling of a storm about to break over the ocean… the feeling of a good full body massage.

Amid the random assortment, a truth surfaced: pleasure can act as a gateway to purpose if I know how to listen to myself. Continue reading “Wants and needs” →

Personal story and reflections

Rethinking my relationship with my anger

 

I’ve been reading Russell Kolts’ brilliant book The Compassionate Mind Approach to Managing Your Anger, and I have just had a big perspective shift.

One of the attributes of the Compassionate Mind approach is non-judgement, which includes not classifying emotions as either good or bad. They just are. Continue reading “Rethinking my relationship with my anger” →

Personal story and reflections, Practical tips, Recipes, Self-help and coaching, Uncategorized

Dinner on the table – tips for busy parents

I think we’ve all been there: you’re walking in the door with your kids coming back from the nursery or childminder’s and a full day of work. You’ve got your bags and your kids school stuff (often with an oddly-shaped-but-extremely-fragile-and-difficult-to-carry craft project your kid made at school – what’s up with that?). You walk in, throw the stuff down, set the baby down, help the kid get his shoes off. All you really want to do is sit down and have a cup of tea and five minutes to yourself but you also know you needed to start dinner about five minutes ago and the baby has started chewing the legs of the furniture for good measure (no? just me?).

Continue reading “Dinner on the table – tips for busy parents” →

Personal story and reflections

Letter to my second son

 

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To my second child,

Even as young as you are, I can see your individuality. I know you, love you, and relate to you, in ways different to your brother.

As a second child, and a second boy, you may at times feel less special or less loved. You are absolutely not less of anything.

It’s true that I am a different mother to you than I was with your brother. I knew a bit about changing nappies and breastfeeding. I knew a bit more about what kind of mother I was before you were born, so prepared slightly differently.

Continue reading “Letter to my second son” →

Personal story and reflections

What’s the point when the memories fade?

Recently I’ve been thinking about memory and its fallibility. Yesterday I looked through some notes I had made when my eldest was younger and realised how many things I had forgotten. Like the day when he became upset and clingy as my husband was getting ready for work and when my husband turned one way to go to work and I turned with our toddler in the other direction to go to nursery, my son cried “Daddy! Daddy!” until his voice echoed off the surrounding buildings. Or how my son’s first word besides “Mummy” and “Daddy” was “apple” – which at first he always pronounced with a big buildup of “ah-ah-ah-ah-apple”.
And I thought how my youngest son, now nearly seven months old, won’t remember anything from these days of his life. It will be a couple of years before he’ll start to remember anything, and when he does he’ll be like all of us, at the mercy of memory and only able to retain certain things. Whole chunks of all of our lives are lived and then forgotten. And it led me to think, what’s the point?

Continue reading “What’s the point when the memories fade?” →

Personal story and reflections

Rediscovering lost arts

As one of the most natural parts of life, raising our young tends to revive some innate skills and tendencies. Though I believe these “lost arts” are entirely natural, they can be jarring or unsettling as they appear somewhat suddenly in our unnatural world.
So in this post, I want to name and celebrate some of these lost arts.

Continue reading “Rediscovering lost arts” →