Tag: self care

bereavement · friendship · grief · Inspiration · parenthood · relationships · self care · self development · self love

A little like you…

The real Kaz4 Comments

I think I got my confidence from you. I’m guessing, ‘cos it doesn’t run through mum’s side of the family. Women on mum’s side are shy, anxious, still strong but worry about the world and what will happen when they’re gone. I have that less, so I guess that may come from you, at least I hope. It comforts me to think I can recognise some of your traits in me.

I’m told you were confident, you could strongly voice your point of view. You weren’t scared to speak up in a crowd and enjoyed a debate or two. Ok, so I can’t quite say that’s me, but what I will say is true, I have a strength and desire to break through this shyness and speak my truth. Maybe I wouldn’t have had that with out you as my dad. Maybe I would just have accepted that this was who I am and sat back.

I like to think It’s from you that inner determination runs through me and I hope now I’m wiser and more confident, you can see that too. I know you loved books, loved to read, poems too. I can definitely say I love the written word too.

I try and remember you from when I was young but the memories are foggy, untrustworthy. Is it a memory or a story I’ve been told about you? I’m unsure. I want them all to be memories but there are only a few of which I’m really sure.

The scent of your roll up tobacco from a Golden Virginia tin box, that you would sit and roll out with, your legs crossed. Dressed in old work jeans but with a shirt that never really seemed to match. Then I remember your smile, when a glimpse of me you’d catch.

I wish my kids got to meet you, damn I wish I had more time with you myself, but my kids would have just flourished with your guiding hand or advice instead. Maybe I would have had more strength to make changes with you by my side but I’ve learnt to harness my own courage and sometimes I just know you are there as my guide.

Almost like you are standing right behind me with a hand on my shoulder, nudging me to be brave, do the hard thing, that’s when I feel you. When I have a choice that is difficult, just willing and whispering in my ear to chose the tough road because that leads to growth and change too.

Telling me to stand strong.

Don’t give up.

Shoulders back, head up and you won’t go wrong.

I’m thankful for the parts of me that are from you. It helps me to feel you are close. Through these rough times I would have loved to have you here with me, to know you were beside me taking care of me but you are within me.

I am your daughter and that is enough ‘cos that means I’m tough!

career · Education · friendship · Inspiration · parenthood · parenthood · self care · self development · self love

High school taught me….

The real KazLeave a comment

That I didn’t “fit in”

The older I’ve become, the more I wonder if we all feel this way in some respect during those difficult teenage years. Does anyone actually feel totally accepted and comfortable in their own skin and social group throughout their teenage years?

For me, my home life seemed “different” to others. My dad had died when I was 8 years old and my mum was deaf. Both of those things made me self conscious at parents evenings. Mum couldn’t communicate like the other parents, dad wasn’t there. Two things that were enough to make me feel I stood out like a sore thumb. In reality, I didn’t. No one really took any notice or cared enough about my situation at home. Everyone has something that makes them feel like they “stand out” or don’t quite “fit in”

On top of what felt to me like huge flashing beacons of difference, I was also incredibly shy and quiet. This again, created for me a huge insecurity that no one wanted to be around me. I was too quiet, awkward, no fun to be around. Of course none of which was true but that narrative took residence in my mind for a very long time. My shyness often led to situations where if I felt uncomfortable or was put in a situation where I was forced to speak up in front of many others I would go bright red in the face. This would exacerbate the more anxious and self conscious I became. I would feel like I wanted the ground to swallow me up so I could just disappear from the embarrassment of my obvious anxiety and discomfort that everyone could now physically see.

Over the years, I learnt to control this red ripening face reaction to my discomfort. I began to realise that it wasn’t as noticeable as I felt it was to others and those who did notice really didn’t care that much. This took away a lot of my anxiety and fear around this happening and allowed me to take control over how I reacted.

What I took away from High School wasn’t really a great education, I underperformed and under achieved. It wasn’t a supportive friendship group as I had a better group of friends outside of school, than inside its gates. It wasn’t a sense of belonging or safety.

For me school was just a somewhere I felt unable to find my place in, I wasn’t really a neat piece of the schools tapestry. I didn’t belong with the cool kids, because I just wasn’t cool enough. I didn’t belong with the nerdy kids, because I just wasn’t nerdy enough. I didn’t belong with the sporty kids, because I was rubbish at sport. I didn’t fit in any box reliably enough, so I existed between them all. Never really making good friends in any but being around for lots of them.

So school really only taught me to feel I didn’t “fit in”.

Inspiration · parenthood · relationships · self care · self development · self love

She remembered who she was..

The real KazLeave a comment

and the game changed.

The biggest sacrifice I made, that I was unaware of doing until later in life, was of myself. Losing myself in the responsibility of being a mother and wife. Getting lost along my journey. Allowing myself to become a version of a woman that forgot about her passions, her true nature and the things she loved.

This wasn’t something I really even knew I was doing because I had such a strong need to be seen as a “great mum” and to “support and care for everyone” that I made that come first and foremost but the biggest lesson I have finally learnt in my 47 years is to always love and cherish myself first. A fear of others criticising me as a parent, especially as such a young mum was definitely a part of what drove me to always be so focused on everyone else rather than myself.

The catch phrase “love yourself first” which often has very little substance to it, is something that is spread around on social media very liberally, but the last few years have made these three words much more important to me.

No one tells you how to be a mum or a wife. There is no guide book or mentor. If you are lucky you have a great role model in your own parents and their relationships with you and each other. That was not the case in my family as my father passed away when I was young and my mum never knew either of her parents so was “winging” it herself.

Being a mum is amazing but I never had the strength, confidence or wisdom to know how important it was to keep my own identity as a person. That unique person that you are, with all the passions, interests, and ideas. The style you love, your core beliefs, the dreams you carry, they are what make you different to everyone else and that is important because you are not just someone’s mum, wife or partner. That kind of authenticity may not seem that important in your 20’s but as more of it is chipped away by the time you hit your 40’s it can feel like you have completely forgotten who the hell you really are!

The kids are growing up and don’t need you as much, your partner may be so used to this person you have become, who looks after everyone else, but has forgotten what is important to that girl they used to date so many years ago. They may actually decide you’re being “selfish” when you want to reignite those joys that you have forgotten about. Or maybe your partner likes the version of you that you have moulded yourself into more. Perhaps you have both grown apart in the process of focusing on everyone else and coming back to yourselves again means your relationship needs to adjust and pivot, which is not easy.

For me that loss of myself feels like the biggest sacrifice I have made and whilst I would never change my life with my kids and my marriage, I will now encourage my daughter to keep her passions, values and dreams alive always. I would hope she will find a partner who supports that and knows that she is not just there to make sure everyone else is living their best life but that they are both individual people who need the space to nurture their own passions and evolve into who they are meant to be whilst still being committed to each other.

I’ve learnt that whoever you are, your happiness counts and it’s ok to put your own needs at the fore front of your life. You don’t need to feel guilty for that. You are the only person in this life that will do that. No one else can or should be relied upon to make you happy. Don’t give anyone that kind of power over your life. When you have kids of course their happiness and safety is paramount but in order for those children to be happy, they need their parents to be happy first.

Period.

Inspiration · relationships · self care · self development · self love

Right person, wrong time…

The real KazLeave a comment

He was supposed to come into your life you know. You weren’t looking and neither was he, but your lives were meant to collide. You felt that spark, the connection, you could be yourself with him and he wanted you to be.

You spent many nights, talking, laughing, listening to music, learning about each others story and the people you are. The thing is the more you learnt, the more you connected and this unexpected crossing of each others paths, became something that you weren’t intending it too.

But life doesn’t make things simple. Once emotions take hold, you can’t pretend they never arrived. If so, things would be easier, so much simpler. If you could put them back in a box and go back to the beginning, would you let it play out the same again? Would you take it so much slower, be more careful with both your battered hearts?

The thing is you are both healing from heartbreak. You are both on a journey that’s at different stages but oh, if you were both in the right place, it would be a ride! You’ve felt it and hope he has too. That knowledge doesn’t help either. Right person, wrong time. That hurts because why would you wanna know that if this was 6 months, a year down the line it would work out? How does that help how you feel. It doesn’t. It just feels like a bad joke. That isn’t funny. Just sad.

Those feelings though, felt right and yes, maybe you both shouldn’t have let the “what will be, will be” attitude take over. The sensible thing, probably would have been to think a little more, take a bigger step back, but when something feels right that’s not so easy to do.

Instead you went a little deeper, opened yourself up a little more, in hindsight, too much, maybe. But you always go “all in”. You don’t do “half-arsed”, especially when it comes to feelings. You give it your all and then some, but that means if it doesn’t work out as expected, you hurt like hell too.

So yes, it seems, you shouldn’t have rushed in, that his heart is still healing and isn’t ready for yours. You are wishing you had reigned it in, just a little, just not given so much of your fragile heart out because now it’s in pieces.

Who knows, maybe, down the road, in a while, you will both be perfectly aligned. The timing, your healing, your journeys will be in sync.

For now, keep living girl.

Life goes on…..

Inspiration · self care · self development · self love

Positive Selfishness

The real KazLeave a comment

When someone describes you as selfish, it feels like a harsh criticism doesn’t it? There’s almost a recoiling of horror that someone could describe you as such. Being described as selfless, is less harsh but as a woman, I can say it often describes a way of living that is likely to leave you, used up, worn and rung out from giving so much to others: time, love and support. So why not work on being self-full? A place where you are making sure you are taken care of first and full to the brim so that you can give and support others without putting your own wellbeing at risk.

Self love is a term used widely and taking care of what you need first by loving your mind, body and spirit is essential for you to be there for others. Loving yourself does not require you to take love away from others, as is often believed, it means that you will be able to give more when you are taking time for yourself. Time for yourself can come in many forms, depending on what it is you personally require in your life. It may mean working out, eating better, meditating, taking time to be alone, doing what you love, setting boundaries or saying “no” when you need to. It may mean working on yourself, journaling, inner child work or therapy to heal your wounds.

Being selfish is described as “concerned excessively with oneself: seeking or concentrating on ones own advantage without regard for others”. Selfishness would mean you are putting others in harms way or last and that you were disregarding what is good for others to focus on yourself but that is not the intention here. The intention, just like the airplane rule of putting your oxygen mask on first so you can help your children, is that if you are full to the brim with what you need, you can do so much more for others.

Being self-full is positive selfishness and is in fact a generous mindset. If there is no water in your own well, you can’t give anyone else a drink either. Your own wellbeing and mental health is incredibly important for the quality of your support to your family. Some people in your life may view prioritising yourself as selfish but could that be because they wanted to be prioritised first, above you? Selfish?

You maybe prioritising others because it makes you feel good about yourself. It may come from a need to be wanted and liked, this may come from a wound within you that needs healing and addressing from your childhood or relationships in the past. If you feel like putting everyone else first, when it clearly was detrimental to what you wanted and your health has been an issue for you in the past, be honest and take a good look inward at why this is. Is it something you need to address from your past?

Or have the people around you made you feel guilty if you don’t put everyone else first? Do you feel pressure to be the glue that fixes and holds the family together, solves problems and keeps everyone safe and well. Who then does this for you?

Start to do this for yourself, show your kids by example that if they take care of themselves they will never be placing their health and wellbeing in someone else’s hands. Remember you won’t always be a priority to others, even those closest to you will have reasons and underlying motives for asking things of you. That is why you have to be a priority to yourself. Learn to respect yourself, take care of yourself and become your own support system.

Your needs matter. Start meeting them.

Choose yourself, so you can then choose to be there for others.

Inspiration · self care · self development

Let go of the outcome

The real KazLeave a comment

Just let go.

Take a deep breath, release it slowly and make a decision to no longer be attached to the outcome.

Can you control what happens? No. So despite the fact that you know how you want this to turn out, you cannot make that happen. There are too many variables. Other people involved that have their own feelings, actions and points of view.

So if you cant control how it plays out. What is the point of the anxiety and worry you are putting yourself through right now? Because it is you that is causing the knot in your chest, you know? The tears you are crying because you are scared, the sadness you feel for what could be and the nights you lay awake playing out possibilities in your head, are all a choice you are making. It’s not the situation. Its the way you are CHOOSING to react to the situation. Its time to choose to let go.

When you finally let go and give it up to the universe, you will give yourself the gift of peace. When you stop trying to control and truly just trust that what will happen is for the best, then you can just be an observer and watch. Slowly untether your mind from the future you have created within it. You cannot predict, force or persuade life to follow that path. Have faith in yourself, your strength, resilience and determination. Whatever happens KNOW you will deal with it, like you always do.

No, I know it doesn’t feel like it now. Now you feel alone, unsure, apprehensive, those tears and that ache in your heart are all consuming. Deep down though, you know, you know you will get through it.

Watch how life always has a way of figuring itself out. What happens right now may seem scary or painful but 6 months down the line you will see it made way for happiness and opportunities you never knew were possible.

So girl, trust the universe.

Trust the process.

Breath.

And let go…..

Bob Marley – Three Little Birds