Tag: happy

Growing up fast – The end of Nursery

This week the small boy finishes nursery, he’s starting to not be quite so small and he’s growing up fast. Heartbreakingly fast. I know it’s all a massive cliché, but where did my baby go? Those precious few months where he was all cuddles and he smelt of milk and love have passed in the blink of an eye. I fall more in love with him every day, despite the various challenges of raising a four year old who is as stubborn and wilful as his parents.

growing up fast

In September 2014 he put on his too-big jumper and toddled off to school nursery. We didn’t know if he’d be lucky enough to get one of the 28 places available in a our local and much sought after primary school at that point, but we felt by sending him we were doing the best for him, and we were right.

growing up fastHe quickly made friends, partly because he knew several of the other children from various playgroups and from church, partly because he’s an easy going, friendly and caring little chap. He settled in fairly easily and his teachers quickly discovered that he has his own stubborn little personality. Whilst dealing with a stubborn person can be frustrating, I am of the opinion that stubborn is good, stubborn is what has got me through the last few years despite considerable physical hardship and pain, so stubborn will see him right, eventually.

It’s not all been plain sailing, one of the boys took against him at one point and for a week or so in the autumn he’d come home and we’d have to check him for injuries, this other child had scratched his face so badly it’s left a permanent scar. The school dealt with it well, which is all you can hope for really and there’s been no further trouble.

Despite this he has always gone to school cheerfully, he wakes up raring to go and spend the day there with his friends and his teachers. He adores them all and I spent a few days volunteering and helping out, so I know what a lovely, warm, welcoming place it is.

In April we were delighted to discover that he’d got a place at the school, so this coming September he’ll be starting in Reception. He’ll mostly have the same group of friends with him, but he won’t have the same teachers, which I think will make him sad for a little while.

He has come on in huge leaps and bounds this year, at the start he was a bit behind his peers in terms of his language development, but since he had grommets put in both ears he’s raced ahead and caught up. I’m so proud of my boy and his growing confidence. Last week he stood up in assembly and spoke confidently in front of the whole school, my eye did a little wee.

growing up fast

He is my pride and joy, the apple of his father’s eye and beyond a shadow of a doubt the very best thing to ever happen to me. This Friday will mark the end of an era, come September he’ll be a schoolboy and there full time. I will miss our afternoons together, but if the last academic year has been anything to go by, he’ll love being there and he’ll carry on loving learning too.

Flower Essences for Emotional Well-Being

I love my local Holistic Health Centre, Healthyspirit. I’ve had a few treatments there, most recently I had the amazing Warm Bamboo Massage, but I go regularly for juices and delicious veggie lunches at their Hub Vegetarian Cafe and to buy candles, supplements and health food from their shop. Last week I booked myself in for a Flower Essences Consultation, I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I’d read a little about the power of flower essences and was intrigued.

I met up with Sharon Curran in the Crystal Room at Healthyspirit. Sharon is a wonderful, calming woman who really (really, really) listens and puts you at ease immediately. She told me a bit about the origins of flower essences and about the work of Dr Edward Bach. He discovered and explored the power of flower essences, leading him to develop his famous range of essences which are widely available today.

During the session we talked at length about what my problems were, we discussed my physical health and how that made me feel (ruined spine, chronic pain, I feel very tired and almost hopeless at times) and my mental and emotional health (dealing with trauma, anxiety and depression, alongside my feelings of incredibly low self worth). Sharon listened to everything I said, we explored some areas in more depth so she could find the right combination of essences for me (she had over 300 in her trusty box).

As a result of our consultation Sharon prescribed me a blend of the following essences:

Grass of Parnassus
This essence strengthens your ability to stand in your full power without feeling apologetic, embarrassed or unworthy. It helps you to see your innate beauty and purity despite whatever else you may have come to believe about yourself.

Inner Child – Self Worth
For loving and valuing yourself unconditionally. This essence will help you develop more self-worth, perhaps by shining a light on where you are being unkind or unloving towards yourself so you can transform your beliefs/habits and thus help you to become more of who you really are, easily and effortlessly.

Gorse
This will help ease feelings of hopelessness and despair to promote new hope and vision for the future.

Olive
This helps those who feel that their reserves of energy are completely depleted and that they have nothing left to carry on with. It helps to restore mental vitality.

Star of Bethlehem
This essence helps to transform shock or trauma of any kind, whether immediate or in the past. It assists the body on an energetic level to mobilise its self-healing abilities.

Sharon made me up a small bottle of my unique prescription of essences. There was enough for around a fortnight for me to take three times a day. The Flower Essences are there to support my emotional wellbeing. The essences are apparently very subtle but very potent in their effect and can touch deep places within your being, helping to balance and restore mind, emotions and spirit.

Sharon is an incredibly inspirational woman, I left the session feeling full of light and love, not a feeling I’ve been familiar with for a long time. During the consultation I shed a few tears, but I feel they were cathartic tears because someone had listened to me and understood me. Since the consultation I have been dutifully taking my prescription, I’ve loved myself a little bit more and I’m trying to let the light into the dark places.

I’d love a series of sessions with Sharon, I’m planning to book another Flower Essences Consultation with her soon. She also offers a bespoke soul coaching service for women which incorporates coaching, mentoring and healing using flower essences. She told me I was a beautiful child of the universe and I am.

Flower essences

For more information about Flower Essences Consultations at Healthyspirit visit their website. You can follow Sharon and read her inspirational tweets on Twitter @SoulCoachSharon.

Goodnight Vienna

I don’t think I could do it. Kill myself. I don’t have the balls. It’d hurt for a start, probably quite a lot and I’ve got family to think about and care for. When I became a parent, I signed that invisible contract which says you’ll promise to forever protect your child from the darkness. Being ill is pretty dark but not as dark as being dead.

I’ve spent much of the afternoon reading suicide notes online and researching methods. There’s lots out there if you want to find it. Pictures of bodies who’ve died in different ways, none of them pretty. Some of them may have lived fast, died young but there’s rarely a good looking corpse. Faces lined with more pain than a lifetime of depression could ever offer.

I’ve got to stop thinking like this. I’ve got to stop lurking in the darkness and listening to destructive thoughts. I’m better than this. No really I am.

Today has been a good day, I’ve been busy, been for a walk with the boy, did colouring in, lots of cuddles. I’ve done some work, played with my blog. a good day. My boy is out with his Auntie and I’m alone which is why my thoughts have turned to darkness.

It’s easy to cut and harm, to bleed a little, to bruise, to scrape away at skin. It’s harder to still your heart permanently and I’m not going to. I’ve too much happiness ahead of me to go that far. I’ve got to believe that and I do. I really do.

I think.