We’re being spoken to all the time, and our role is to listen.
We don’t though, and that’s ok – yes it’s ok because the messages will keep coming until we can create the space to listen, to trust and to apply.
The voices come from all around us:
- Our higher self that’s speaking to us through our intuition
- Our partners who tell us ‘it’s ok to have a nap when Bub’s sleeping’
- Our parents who tell us ‘you don’t have to sit and chat with me, I will cook your dinner, now you go and take that walk. I’ll be here when you get back’
- Our friends who put their arm around you and you put your head on their shoulder and close your eyes
- Our babies, when they look at us and we know we’re their world and when they’re 7 and they say ‘I believe in you Mum’ and they write it on a poster so you can put it on your wall.
- Our bosses, who genuinely want to know if we’re ok
Sometimes the voices are disguised though.
They’re disguised because of our own thoughts.
We think:
- I have to do the washing or there’ll be a bigger pile tomorrow
- If I don’t walk now, I won’t have time to do it later
- I can never make up for the sleep I didn’t get last night, so there’s no point trying
- My husband doesn’t understand how much I’m struggling with everything since having a baby, even when he says he gets it
- Everyone means well but they’re not walking in my shoes
What else goes through your mind?
But what if when our husband said ‘go and sleep, I’ve got this?’
Or when your girlfriend said ‘I’ve made you a lasagne and I’m going to drop it over tomorrow – but you don’t need to be there, it will be in an esky at your front door.’
Or when your parents said ‘we’re baby sitting on Saturday night at our home. We’ll come and get bub at 5pm, and drop her back at 8pm’ (perhaps if bottles are an option – that could be a sleep over!)
You actually allowed those things to happen?
Initially I pushed back, I didn’t need help, I could keep going.
Then I burnt the candle at both ends – I can have my cake and eat it too – have a baby sitter and go out for a lovely dinner and everything will be amazing.
Sometimes they were both amazing and sometimes they weren’t.
Sometimes dinner wasn’t worth the effort – either the company or the food.
Sometimes I’d come home to house that I needed to clean and tidy.
And when those things happened that’s when I created a new rule – it had to be good food and good company, and if it wasn’t I said no. Also, the baby sitter was clear about the rules, and if it was a free baby sitter, then I knew I had to let all my expectations go. I had to be prepared to come home to a bombshell and spend the next hour tidying and cleaning.
If I didn’t I would have stood still and I wasn’t going to do that.
But what I’ve also learnt over my parenting time is, Chris often knows what I need before I know.
He’ll say ‘family time is important and we need to block out that time’ or ‘you need to get off your phone, you spend too much time on there’.
I had all the excuses or ‘thought’ I was doing enough, but I was barely scraping through and sometimes there was good reason for that and sometimes there wasn’t.
When I started showing up for myself, in showing up for my family, and when I listened to what I was learning, then everything started to change.
So the next time your partner, husband, wife, mum, dad, daughter, son, sister, brother, friend – whoever, suggests something to you, stop and think about it first because it might be the message you’ve been waiting for xo
