Missing mojo

Lately I have really lost my spark. I just feel so fatigued and drained and I am struggling to stay positive in my daily life. Not sure what happened its like E got to the 12 month mark and I have suddenly hit the wall. I feel like I have been investing all my time and energy into this little person and while I understand bringing up a human being is of utmost importance I also feel like I have made the mistake of not leaving any room for my wants and needs. And because it has been a while since I have been living for me I feel like I have forgotten how to even go about getting what I want out of life.

One of the things I find most difficult about doing things for myself again is figuring out new ways to do this. I don't have hours on end to contemplate, process and act on what I want. As a result everything is in a bit of chaos. I don't have goals like I used to,  for example when I worked the aim was to make money and get through the day without wanting to kill someone (I worked with extremely sleep deprived difficult people ;-)) Then on the weekend my aim was to let loose and have fun. I also had aspirations with my fitness and got to the point where I was working out daily. Last but not least I had aim when it came to my spirituality I knew that I was working towards becoming a more peaceful, grounded version of me.

In walks my old friend perfectionism, because I have a desire to do things a certain way and I have this certain set way figured out in my mind, instead of trying to do a little bit of what I want or figuring out another way I throw my hands up in the air and think "well if I can't do it properly then I won't bother doing it at all." I feel stuck in this old mindset and right now I can't see a way out of it. The way I have done things for as long as I can remember is such a deep rooted habit that needs to be broken.

I am fast realising that if I don't figure out a new way to balance my life then this dark hole I am dancing around is going to swallow me right up. Problem is right now it feels like to get in some decent me time as well as look after E I have to go hard and become insanely busy and becoming insanely busy is just as bad for me.  

So what to do? Anyone got any ideas? What did other Mum's do? I need some inspiration to get me going and I need to rebuild the way I do things. 

30 Day Self Care Blueprint

30 Day Self Care Blueprint
I have just signed up to start this 30 day online course to define my needs and learn to care for myself a bit more. Very excited!

Inspiration

"This is the century you want to be born in. I know that some of you would have liked the chance to see Jimi Hendrix or John Coltrane in their element, but this is the century where mankind actually gets it together, or it doesn't. And young people can be the ones to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Its worth educating yourself, travelling as much as possible and questioning everything all the time. Young people should be radically curious. The world is a wonderful place full of awesome, friendly people. The only mistake you will make is to be afraid of it." Henry Rollins, taken from Frankie magazine issue 46, Mar/Apr 2012

A letter to my son the night before he turns one

My beautiful boy how did this year go so fast? It feels like only yesterday when I first met you. Everyone told me it would go quickly but I didn't really believe them until now. Now I wish I could go back for one more sleepy newborn snuggle, one more breastfeed where your eyes are closed and you are dreaming of milk, one more time where you would fall asleep on my chest.

Gone are the days of long snuggles on the couch. Now you try to jump out of my arms to explore the world. You are so full of joy and life so innocent and loving and you are the most precious thing in the world to me.

I am excited about what is to come I can't wait to watch you grow. To hear you speak a sentence, to take your first steps and to be a big brother (one day) and all the thousands of other moments we will share.

Thank you for keeping me grounded, bringing me endless amounts of happiness, teaching me to let go, be strong yet flexible, and most of all reminding me everyday to live in the moment.

You show me what life is truly about and provide me with a deeper meaning and truth to everyday life. Gratitude fills me to the brim because you are in my life. I love you little man with all my heart, body and soul.

Happy birthday
Love Mum mum

Seven excuses mums like to use for putting themselves last (and a few retorts).

Seven excuses mums like to use for putting themselves last (and a few retorts).

This week I am re blogging from another site as recently I realised I have been using many of these excuses to not get things moving for my own reasons. I have put off my aspirations and am now starting to feel a niggle to do things for me a bit more. Enjoy.

L xox

Fabulous to the very end

Again my family has been rocked by sad news. In the midst of a happy occasion we were told that Sunshine Granny had passed away. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I have never had news given to me that felt so sudden and shocking. I felt like we had no warning and I wish I could have said goodbye. Instead I'm going to write down my goodbye and know that Dawnie will hear it wherever she is.

What I know about Dawnie is probably not as much as others but this is what I do know:

I know she adored fashion she was always immaculately dressed whenever we saw her. Even when it was a casual lunch Dawnie was dressed to the nines. She would have furs on if it was the slightest bit cold, always had on something bright and cheerful and of course the jewels. Never have I seen so many beautiful rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings and shiny trinkets and you would be guaranteed Dawnie would have as many on as she could. Her hair was always done and her make up perfect. I always felt special because she would get so dressed up to see us.

She loved her puppies. Her beloved Benji and Belle two Maltese pups. They weren't exactly the most disciplined of dogs and they certainly ruled the roost but she told me many a time that they were her babies and she didn't know what she would do without them. They slept with her every night snuggled up and were her constant companions. They were such a positive thing for her.

She loved my son as well. She was always so excited to see him. Clapping and laughing and bringing him gifts. Exclaiming how beautiful he is. She was the same with all her great grandchildren and any baby that came across her path. She delighted in everything that they do and had many stories of when she was a young mother in Papua New Guinea.

The woman was an incredible cook so many delightful treats were shared around Dawnie's table and she loved to feed you. She always had a satisfied look on her face when others were eating her food. Her cakes and cookies were divine and I was envious of how she was such a natural.

She was so many things to so many people, she was kind and generous and she loved life. I will never forget the twinkle she had in her eye, especially when out of the blue she would say something cheeky.

She told me many times that she needed to hang on and stay alive so she could see the babies (her great grandchildren) grow up. I know you wont get to be on earth to see them grow, but hope you can see them wherever you are Dawn. We will miss you very much, you were a very special person with a big heart, you were always thinking of others. Rest peacefully and know that you will remain forever in our hearts.

Love, Lucy, Chris and Edward x 

How to develop courage

• Say one thing about yourself or express one genuine opinion every day.
• Next time you catch up with a friend, tell him or her about a challenge you're dealing with in your life. 
• Practice looking people in the eye when you speak to them.
• When you make a mistake own up, apologise.
• Ask someone for what you need or ask for help instead of forging on by yourself. 
• If you meet someone you enjoy being with, be the one to ask them for a coffee instead of waiting for them to ask.
• Get out of your comfort zone and try new activities through which you meet new people.
• Offer to take up a challenging project at work that stretches your skill level. 

5 ways to cultivate compassion

1. Be kind to yourself. Start and finish the day gently. Give yourself this gift every day.

2. At the end of each day, have some quiet time during which you dwell on what you've done well that day.

3. When you make a mistake stop your critical voice and remind yourself that its ok, you don't need to be perfect.

4. Do one self nurturing thing every week (every day is even better.) It might be a massage, a bath,  wearing a favourite outfit, or cooking a lovely meal.

5. When you look in the mirror, really look. Acknowledge the vulnerable yet beautiful person looking back at you. 

The power of vulnerabilty

Just read the most amazing article about vulnerability in our every day lives and how crucial it is to move us closer to our authentic self. Being vulnerable is the key to true connection with a fellow human being, by exposing your perceived imperfections you allow love to flow. You open yourself up to someone else and show them everything, the good, the bad and the ugly and guess what happens? The other person opens up in return and there you have it genuine connection! Such a powerful tool.

We have a dilemma inside of us which is why vulnerability feels so uncomfortable. Many of us feel embarrassed or ashamed of our perceived imperfections, we want to hide them but to have connection with another person we need to be vulnerable so we have an internal too and fro. People cope with this dilemma in many ways, firstly they become perfectionists. By being a perfectionist we control every last detail of our lives and therefore we believe we are controlling others perceptions of ourselves. If we have everything 'just so' then others will see us a certain way. This is an exhausting approach to maintain. You can see how this puts up huge barriers around you and others don't feel they can get the sense of who you really are behind all that perfection.

The second method is to blame others for having faults, then we become involved in helping others with these faults. We immerse ourselves in others issues and give our time and energy to these issues thereby avoiding facing our own internal conflict. You can spend a lot of time being involved in others problems and not your own.

The third and most common strategy people use is to numb their vulnerability. We eat, drink, medicate, work, spend, shop and entertain ourselves all in the name of avoiding those uncomfortable feelings. As the article points out, "we are the most in debt, obese, addicted and medicated adult cohort in US history" and the same goes for Australia. Problem with this is that you cannot selectively numb and you effectively end up numbing all your emotions including the pleasant ones. On a personal note I can say if I am having a challenging day I find myself wanting to engage in a lot of these activities, shopping being my weapon of choice. However I find no matter how hard I try to avoid them, the uncomfortable emotions come out one way or another so I am slowly learning to process them rather than run from them.

So what can we do to cultivate vulnerability? There are three particular personal qualities that can be encouraged to allow our vulnerability to shine and invite the human connection we crave. Courage, compassion and authenticity.

Courage means to accept ourselves as we are and be willing to be imperfect. Then we need to take this further and show our imperfections to the world. We don't hide. We keep taking the risks to step forward into friendship, family and intimacy. To have love and belonging you have to feel worthy of it.

To encourage feeling worthy we need to develop the second quality, compassion. Compassion not just to others but first and foremost to yourself. This starts with the littlest of things; is the voice in your head kind to you or are you letting it get away with being a tyrant? Do you take time out to listen to yourself and how you feel or are you just relentlessly pushing yourself? Once you practice self compassion it opens the gateway to living in the moment. It frees you from the exhausting task of constantly living in denial and allows you to just be. As a Mum I think we are so caught up in the well being of others we sometimes forget about the most important person, but we do our whole family a favour when we are compassionate to ourselves because we all know when Mum falls apart everything falls apart it is crucial to be kind to yourself.  

The last quality to cultivate is authenticity. Letting go of the person you try to be and just being who you really are- warts and all. How liberating is that? Here is where vulnerability becomes powerful, once you show your true self to others they cannot help but to love and respect you and feel a deep connection towards you. Revealing your true self can be scary and uncomfortable but like all things in life once you move through these hurdles the rewards are endless.

Enjoy the adventure of being vulnerable, experiment with it and see how it makes you feel and how it changes the dynamic of your relationships, new and old. It feels a bit weird at first but I promise its worth it, trust me I reveal my vulnerability nearly every week in this blog and it has been incredibly rewarding!

With love
L xox  

Reason #267 of why I love Chiropractic

The last few days this story has been nagging at me and begging to be told so I was compelled to sit down this morning and write it. As most stories that involve babies do it does contain a little bit of poop talk but not much I promise!

So Eddie's poo's had changed colour and consistency and this had been going on for a few weeks, I thought it was just teething but clearly after some time realised it was not. Then he started to get more and more agitated and stopped sleeping longer than 3 hours at a time during the evening and no longer than 40 minutes during the day. After 6 nights of this I was at my wits end so took him in to see Chris's colleague as Chris was booked out and sometimes you need somebody who is not part of the picture. 

Cary quizzed me about what had changed in the last few weeks in terms of diet the two things I figured out were the organic yoghurt squeezies that he had been loving and some wheat products. Cary looked him over and found a neurological pattern (my husbands practice utilises a technique that works with peoples neurology rather than symptoms alone, called Neuro Impulse Protocol) that indicated, yes he was being aggravated by sugar and gluten. He did some adjustments and sent me on my way also mentioning that 2 grams of sugar is the maximum a child should have in a day. 

I got home and looked at the packet of yoghurt and realised in horror that it contained 8 grams of sugar. Wow talk about mother guilt!!! Anyway that night instead of waking up every 3 hours he only woke once. Then the following day he had a 2 and a half hour long nap in the morning and an hour and a half long nap in the afternoon. 2 and a half hours!!! He has never, ever, ever slept that long during the day! Even when he was brand new he only slept 2 hours at a time. I finally got sleep again and changed from being a crazy lady in to a not so crazy lady. He has now gone back to his usual 1 wake up per night. This is not the first time chiro has saved my sanity either. I am eternally grateful to my husband and his colleagues who have soothed my upset baby and brought things back to normal over and over again. I will always tell others how amazing chiro is. 

Thank you to all the healers out there changing peoples lives for the better every day.

L xox    

So today I am going to be brave

So many Mums around me of late have been sharing their journey's and have been very brave in opening their hearts and telling about the challenges they are currently facing and have faced in the past. For this reason I have been inspired to be brave and share my story.

Several years ago I had a breakdown, a full scale head first dive into a deep, dark, black hole. I was completely incapacitated, I was in a state of full blown anxiety and could hardly step out of my bedroom let alone my house. I lived in a personal hell where I couldn't sleep, eat or function. I lost 7 kilos which if you know how slim I am already was not a pleasant thing. I could not function in the world and I wanted it all to end. The effect it had on my family and partner was profound but I was powerless to stop it.  I was capable of only living in my own small box barely keeping my head above water. Eventually I was taken to hospital and then to a psychiatrist who told me I had clinical depression and had suffered from a mild form of it almost my whole life and I had finally reached breaking point. I started medication and became stabilised again but really this was only the beginning of my journey.

The feelings that I experienced when I was in this place are very hard to describe. Words just don't seem to do it justice. Despair. Helplessness. Unworthiness. Darkness. Really these are just scraping the surface. The way you feel when you are depressed I would not wish it on anyone. It is something you don't want to feel even for one minute of the day but you can't escape it, awake, asleep, watching tv, reading, talking, eating, drinking every single daily activity is saturated with these feelings. There is no respite. For these reasons depression is also utterly exhausting. You feel like you are living a double life with how you feel inside and how you seem on the surface. It is like you are in the middle of a crowded room screaming and nobody takes notice. You are lonely even when surrounded by loved ones.

I have vivid memories of saying to Chris over and over why is this happening to me? And avidly wishing that depression was something you could just get removed like a faulty organ. I would have given anything to make it go away.

I want to write about depression because not enough people talk about it. Mental health is a mind field, people are very uncomfortable talking about it because they can't bare to think about it happening to themselves. People with mental health issues already have so much to cope with and it makes me sad that there is such a taboo surrounding this topic as really when someone is suffering the last thing they need to feel is ostracised.

Depression did take a lot away from me all those years ago but now I look at it as a gift. It truly has given me so much and made me the person I am today. It pushed me to my limit but in this dark place I found so much, spirituality, how strong I can be, and the ability to empathise and never pass judgement on others going through similar experiences. I read my first book on Buddhism on one of my darkest days and I am forever grateful for that. Depression forces me to strive to be the best I can be, I need to be vigilant in taking care of myself, exercise, eat well, and practice mindfulness. Otherwise it creeps back. I see it as a motivating force and nowadays the black dog and I are more friends than enemies.

The medication is a story in itself that I won't go into today but I am happy to say that after years of working my ass off I am not on medication anymore. I have much gratitude for the chemicals that saved my life but as my husband so eloquently put it they provide a floor so you don't fall into that place but they also enforce a ceiling that means you can only go so high. It got to the point for me where I felt restricted by the medication and I knew it was time to come off them. Not as easy as it sounds but I am very proud of myself for coming so far.

My last words on this subject is to practice kindness to one another. You never, ever know what someone else is going through beyond the mask they project to the world. Everyone is doing the best they can possibly do at the time, with the resources they have been given. There is no shame in falling apart and getting help. I hope my story helps others feel that they can ask me about any of the things I have been through and know that their story is safe with me. I want my story to inspire others to get help if they need it and stop living in denial. If you aren't coping in daily life for longer than two weeks or so that is not okay. Every single one of us has a birthright to be happy, peaceful and fulfilled don't deny yourself that. Life is simply too short.

Websites I found helpful: http://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/
http://www.beyondblue.org.au/index.aspx

Love to all
L x