An Autumn Meditation

Stand with your eyes closed and take three gentle breaths in from the base of your spine - visualise the breath coming in from that point (this encourages you to breathe from a deeper place and really use your lung capacity which gets optimum oxygen into your blood stream - great news for your body!)

Visualise roots pushing down into the soil from your feet - each breath out they push further into the cool dark earth.
Gently breathe into your lower back
Visualise yourself as a tree - strong trunk lengthening to the sky
Gently breathe into your lower back

Arms as branches with long elegant fingers stretching to the sun
Gently breathe into your lower back
Visualise the leaves on your branches, fluttering gently in the breeze, beautiful shades of gold, brown, yellow, orange, green
Gently breathe into your lower back
Your roots are strong and grounded in the earth, your trunk is tall and lengthened to the sky, your branches are relaxed taking in the sounds and smells of the day

Now visualise your leaves dropping, one by one they gently float down onto the ground and  as each one falls you feel lighter, calmer, stronger.

Allow all your leaves to fall as you gently breath into your lower back

When they are all gone - just enjoy the feeling of being light and calm and refreshed

Then when you are ready gently notice your breath.... notice your feet...... notice your arms and your head.  Notice the space around you and gently open your eyes.

Lovely.

Freezable Courgette Cake - it's my Birthday!

It's my birthday so I have made a cake... what have I got to put in it????  Courgettes of course - ruddy loads of them so I found a rather fantastic recipe and I thought I would share it with you.......

This makes two 2lb loaves so make one and freeze one - apparently it will last in the fridge for a week.... I think mine lasted about 3 hours....

Ingredients
3 eggs (from happy outdoor, organic chickens!)
275ml sunflower oil
350g caster sugar (fair trade)
350g courgettes (or small marrows), grated
165g plain flour
165g wholemeal flour (I used bread flour and it was fine)
1 tsp baking powder
2tsp bicarbonate of soda
1.5 tbsp ground cinnamon (fairtrade)
175g raisins and sultanas (fairtrade)
150g mixed nuts (I used them whole but you could chop if you like)


Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease and base line two 2lb loaf tins with greaseproof paper. 
2. Measure all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix well to make a thick batter. Pour into the prepared tins. 
3. Bake in the preheated oven for about one hour or until the loaves are firm and a fine skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool the cakes a little before turning out and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack. 
4. Store in the fridge and use within a week or freeze and defrost when needed.

You could ice it with a bit of soft cheese and icing sugar but I don't think it needs it.

ENJOY!

Looking in the mirror... drawing a self portrait.

So this weekend I have been looking at self portraits and drawing myself for the first time. 

Looking into a mirror it could be very easy to get hung up on what you are seeing…but in fact I found it liberating for me to look at my face and see that my proportions are OK, my nose is nowhere near as big as I had thought all these years.  I was so interested in the effects and shapes, the lines and the colouration.  There was a softness to my mouth that I had never looked at before and the colours in my iris were so much more than ‘greeny’.  I really enjoyed indulging in my own face for a day, getting to know me again and what I look like now since having my daughter.

What was my face showing me?  What did I see reflected in the mirror?  Who is this person?

It was a delight to sit and stare, search, scribble and express myself in different ways.

I'd encourage you all to have a go!  Or does the idea of looking at yourself fill you with dread?

I was so saddened by how many of the rest of the group of women sharing this experience with me were so judgmental  so aggressive, so disgusted with their own faces.  Noticing everything that was negative, horrified by their own skin.

Why do we do that? 

If you really can’t bare to look at your face and spend so much energy verbally attacking yourself, what is that doing to you? 

So the thing that I’ve been pondering is …. How could I tell those other women that they were beautiful and that they should be kind, accepting themselves, celebrating their uniqueness and delighting in who they are?

Do people really want to spend their whole life hating themselves?  Noticing all the imperfections?  Envious of anyone or thing that appears to have what you haven’t got?  Is that easier than taking responsibility for yourself and your life?

Shouldn't we all at some point stop and really look at yourself in the mirror – warts and all!?  Look at who you really are and don’t hide from it .  Meet yourself as you really are and be truthful, frank, open.  

Send yourself some love… look in the mirror and give yourself a kiss….I know you will feel better for it. 

The gifts of motherhood

So I'm thinking today that having my daughter has given me an opportunity to look at myself very closely and question everything I thought I knew and what I believed in and who I thought I was.   That's a great gift.

I'm not saying it's an easy thing or a happy thing all the time - I've been to some dark places since having my baby but I do think now that I am stronger and more connected to life.

One of the 'awakenings' I have had is just how much love my own Mother gave to me. How many hours she must have spent watching, nurturing, worrying, loving me.... and although I can't remember those initial hours, months even years of my own life I do have the subconscious awareness that I am loved and that must have impacted my whole life.

To give your child the gift of a deep sense of worth and security in their own skin has to be the best thing you can do - isn't it?  Because all the material/physical gifts in the world, can't ever make you feel whole.

I miss my Mum so very much.  I wish I could tell her how much I appreciate what she did for me because although we had a great relationship while she was alive, I never realised just how special this bond is until I had my own baby.

So this is another unexpected gift of motherhood.... the understanding that life is very short and we must ensure that we don't waste our time on things that really aren't important.   We can look with new eyes on our habits, routines, values, conditioning, beliefs.

We won't necessarily be remembered for the amount of money we had or the value of the physical gifts we gave but, if we choose to give ourselves the time and the freedom to really embody motherhood and indeed our true selves through that process, we will be carried in the hearts of our children and in turn that gift will continue throughout the generations.

Dealing with yourself after you’ve had a baby! Melt down moments and how to cope with them

I’m useless

I should be able to cope

All other mothers can do it

I’m useless – I’m getting nothing done

I resent this crying, sleep depriving thing!… I want my old life back when I was in control.

When a child is born a mother is born – the woman may have existed before but not the mother. 

We live in a very controlled world.  We like things to be ordered, sorted, boxed and most importantly completed.

Society and our collective thought patterns are focused on working toward goals…. I bet all of you have been thinking, about getting through the birth….but have any of you considered what it will be like after the labour and the hours and days and weeks afterwards?

Have you considered it?

Acceptance of the new situation – the new you!

This is a big challenge for some, because you probably have such high expectations of yourself that you don’t even know you have yet!

Creating and giving birth to a baby – being a mother (and father) is going to be the most mind bending change your body and mind will ever go through.  You will never be the same again.

You are broken down, and you will learn a whole new you, a whole new way of being…. YOU WILL BE REBORN and you will learn and develop as your baby grows. It will be a crazy, fantastic, scary, unsettling, completely insane but utterly liberating experience.

But you have to let it happen …. You have to accept the new you or you will forever fight it and that is a burden you just don’t need to carry.

This is very easy to say but in reality it is very hard to do.

Society doesn't encourage it.  “What have you done today?”  Inevitably your mind will say “nothing, I’ve done nothing”… and this will be the beginning of your struggle with what you think you SHOULD have done.  But I want to unpick that with you….

Parenting is a job…. Changing nappies, smiling, cooing, singing, holding, sleeping with your baby is doing something.  You are mothering your baby, you are making it feel loved, you are bonding, learning, understanding, growing with your baby and that is the most important and urgent thing for you to do.  Your role as a mother is the thing you need to focus on.

Baby time – baby’s generally don’t have a set list of things to do in a day or a schedule to fulfill  they just live each moment as it comes, enjoy (or not) each experience as it comes, they aren't planning the next moment or worrying about the last one and this is a great lesson that you can learn from your baby.  

All things must change – Everything changes moment by moment, for better or worse but NOTHING IS CONSTANT so you won’t have this moment continuously, it will go.  This is a great thing to keep in mind when things are tough…. ALL THINGS MUST CHANGE…. Nothing is the same forever so no matter how bad it gets (or indeed how good it gets) it will change.

This is just a short time relative to your whole life that you have been given to enjoy and live through…. So grow, be in it don’t fight it because you will waste your precious energy on something you can’t change and it won’t be here forever.

Babbling, Squeaking and Roaring....

It's amazing to watch my daughter making her first sounds... babbles, raspberry blowing, squeaking  shouting, roaring....... and indeed I realise just how cathartic and enjoyable it is to repeat them after her!  And so this makes me think about why I don't use this sort of communication and release in my adult life.

The amount of things we don't say... what we don't release....  How we are conditioned to keep our mouths shut and not get overly emotional about things.  "Hold your tongue", "swallow it", "speechless with rage" and so on.

I realise that over dramatising one's life is not a productive or useful thing to do but there needs to be a point of release where we are able to express ourselves freely and explore what comes up.  So I started looking into Sound Healing and the importance of sound in our lives..... oh my, let me tell you there is so much information and amazing facts about it all - I think I'm the only one who's been considering this stuff and then I find that there are millions of people who are on that path too... it's great.

So what is the point of this little blog today? - I just wanted to remind you all to let go... enjoy a good ROAR if you need one.... Blow raspberries at your inhibitions and shriek at your 'must do list'!

Life is far too short to miss out on the smiles and happiness - find the joy inside and ROAR it out!

I'm back..... where have I been?
I've been pregnant and have become a mother....... what a beautiful, tortuous, liberating, soul enriching, tumultuous, break you down and build you back up again experience!

I've so much to add that it's impossible to know where to start..... so lets be practical.  The most exciting thing (apart from the baby) is singing..... I've started a singing group for bumps and babies - Little Birds Singing Group.  And I'm soon to record the songs I've been writing and publish my songbook!  Exciting times indeed.  More on that in my next blog.....