Teddy turns 8 next month, yep 8, where did that go!
He’s been my greatest teacher, and continues to give me many gifts. As I sat on the couch with him yesterday I said to him ‘you and Dad are my greatest gifts.’
To which he said – ‘which one do you like better?’ LOL
How do you answer that?
My sister got a great technique where she wraps in age, gender or location when describing a person ‘you’re my favourite 8 year old nephew who lives in Hervey Bay’. Which means all her nieces and nephews are her favourites because no matter where they live and what their age, she can describe them all uniquely.
My reply to Teddy wasn’t as smart, but I did say that whilst Teddy didn’t exist without his Dad – there’s a dependency – he has been my most transformative because without him I’d possibly still be doing what I was doing which was great, but my soul wanted more.
To find more I had to find myself, and I was lost. I didn’t know who I was beyond a wife, mother, daughter, sister, good employee etc.
I didn’t know that it was safe for me to create things, that it was possible for me to share my passions with the world and survive. Of course I knew people doing these things but I wasn’t one of those people – they were different to me, that wasn’t me, I couldn’t be like them – or could I?
Now 8 years on I’m still transforming, every day it seems, and I’m now comfortable knowing that I’ll always we transforming – even if within that comfort, it feels hard.
When I look at what was hard, it’s not hard any more, and that can only happen when we allow time and space, and keep moving forward.
Hard was not waking up happy. Now I generally wake up content and sometimes really happy, sometimes I wake up tired, but generally I find gratitude and kick off my day.
Hard was not feeling like myself. Now I’ve given myself permission to be me, in all the dark and sunny places, even if it feels scary sometimes.
Hard was wondering ‘is this is?’ Because boy I hated ‘this’ place. Now I love my life and you can too.
The key to finding yourself and finding what lights you up is tuning into your body, into your intuition and taking one step at a time.
My first step was being kind to myself. Rather than beating up on myself with my inner critic, noticing the voice was there and then asking ‘do I really believe that?’ The answer was generally no, or a variation of no.
I thought the life I was living was my reality, but can I let you in on a little secret? We get to create our own reality and that doesn’t mean I’m drunk by 5pm because nothing matters. What it means is I get to think whatever I want about my life and no one else can do anything about it.
Even though I was thinking ‘I hate my life’, somewhere in me I knew that life could be better, so I went on the hunt for better and I’ve certainly found it.
And it all started with kindness, then tuning into my intuition because it was always there – I’d listened to it before (its why I got pregnant in the first place), and despite me losing myself through my journey with Teddy, I also found myself through my journey with Teddy. What a beautiful gift that is.
And you my beautiful friend can find yourself too. Life doesn’t have to be hard, there are gifts within every adventure. Even though you might not be able to see them at the moment I promise you they’re there.
Keep tuning into you, keep doing the things that light you up. You don’t have to have all the answers, just be your beautiful self and keep moving forward xo
