As I lie here in bed with my laptop on my knees, my 17 year old daughter to my right snoozing, she is feeling unwell, it’s nearly 10am and yes I am still in bed. I feel inclined to pretend I am up, awake, having done a run and meditation, had breakfast, got dressed but none of that would be true. I am here in my jammies and the thought of walking down the corridor to the bathroom and doing my teeth right now seems a bit of an epic.
How we show up is so important for our children and we are shaping who they are to become. I was struck by this thought the other day. I am raising children that will most likely go on to have children and I am modelling for them how to be as a parent. We as parents have a choice as to how we show up and we can change script for future generations. If you stop and think about it that is an amazing thought! I was brought up in
If you are totally overwhelmed with homeschooling or unschooling and what is going on in the news right now, connect up with others. I hear this a lot from parents who are isolated and who are not in connection with other people. I think community is so very important, even if you are physically a long way from any one else. Use the phone, the internet, zoom, whatsapp. Don’t tough it out and isolate yourself, connect up with others and make time to chat. Even if it is for twenty
This applies to everybody. If I am not nice to myself as a mother I am not really nice to anyone else around me. So this means listening to what I need to do for myself. So this can  be anything as simple as making time to jump into a candlelit bath at night, to going for a walk at some point in the day to taking time to meet a friend or cooking something really lovely for myself. Carve out time for yourself and give yourself permission to enjoy
Sometimes, having one or both parents at home means that your finances can run extremely low, resources can totally deplete and this can be stressful. Make use of what you have, this sounds simple but it is true, that the less I have in life, the more I make use of what I do have. You don’t have to spend a fortune to feel good, so even if it means buying something small to pepper up your day or your mood, a nice soap, a candle, a really good book,
I am not good at running, I often think, why I am running? Nothing is chasing me, is it? The truth is when I go running I don’t massively enjoy it, I know people that do but it has never clicked with me. I think if I was hunter gatherer type I might be the one that gets eaten by the lion…So the trick I have found is to do exercise that I actually like. I LOVE dancing and swimming. If there is exercise that you love then find that and
Fear and I have been really good mates, the fearful lady has lived rent free in my head for a long time, in fact the fearful lady over the years has entertained my inner gremlins and had a party in my head almost way back since I can remember. I am not sure when she first joined me, maybe I was a teenager, or maybe it was the day my parents’ marriage fell apart when I was a kid. Or maybe not, it could have been school…who knows, or even
I am not sure that meditation is something that you can teach. For me, it is a way of being, a choice, a state of mind. I know that there are times in my life when I have not done it and times when I have. Times when the spiritual side of my life seems to be on hold and times when it is abundant and flowing. Throughout the children’s lives, I have been a spiritual yoyo, sometimes there is an altar with flowers and candles sometimes there is nothing.
What does that mean anyway? To have power? Power can be a bit of a scary word. Wars have been fought over power. Maybe for me it means that our girls will be able to stand in their power when they are not being treated fairly. To have voices, to be strong women? Yes I want them to be all of that, to be strong and standing tall and equal. How do I do that? I am talking about inner strength and confidence, about the inner drive about that unexstinguishable
After the wood man had dropped the wood, when I was paying him, he quizzed me about our kids schooling. As they all skipped around the van he was curious as to why they were not in school. After I told him what we do, he went on to do mental Kung Fu on my psyche. If his words were a gun, he first shot my knee, then went on to my arm, he did not let his gun drop and I stood there and I took it. He asked