Mindfully Stylish 🌷

Lying in my bed at night, I hear the Canada geese calling across the marsh flats, and a blackbird, unsure from the lights along the road if it is morning yet, sings it’s charming warble at the stars…

The traffic made the sound of ocean waves as each car passed by. As the hot Summer night set in, I watched the comforting darkening, first pink then dusky blue, of the late August sky and there I lay, truly witnessing, for the first time in my life, my ability to hold my body ~ gently, tenderly, as the softest mother would. I thought of all it had been through, of every time I had abandoned it or stuffed it full to numb the pain. I wept tears of deep compassion and promised myself that tomorrow it would be different. Tomorrow I knew what I was doing. I was meeting a friend from work and we were going to visit a nature reserve that I could see from my window but had never been to. She said it was very beautiful. It was the weekend, and tomorrow would be the hottest day of the year. I had a whole two days to nurture and tend to myself before I had to reenter the world I was trying to run from.

My friend didn’t know about my realisations from the night before when we met, and the title of this post is deliberately misleading. Because I am not talking about becoming a biological mother with a baby. I am talking about something that applies to all of us, pregnant or not, regardless of gender, and that is our ability, our necessity, to be our own mothers. My therapist calls healthy coping mechanisms ‘Big Mama Bear Energy’, the kind of strong, powerful embrace that scoops you up off the ground and into your own arms. 

The Summer of 2023 will forever be the Summer I found the Mother in myself. And She held me gently. What is the very softest towards yourself that you can be? It’s here that true change can really be seen. You have to love yourself so fiercely that even the parts you feel others will judge, or that you judge yourself, are surrounded by a warm embrace. I am still getting there, but I know that there is the deepest of peace in this place… 

Some of the ways I practise Big Mama Bear Energy:

1. Cook or treat yourself to a quick and easy nourishing meal, something hot and comforting ~ mine on this day was a freshly baked vegetable focaccia pizza slice from the Poco Sicilian eatery on Kirkstall Road…

And my favourite Grapefruit sparkling water by San Pelligrino, which I have only been able to find here.

It was heaven.

2. Bathe or shower with your favourite care products ~ add x10 drops of Organic Rose Essential Oil to a bubble bath and soak like the royalty you are. My favourite (and I’ve tried a few) is by Roots Aroma, linked here.

3. Listen to a podcast or audiobook read by someone whose voice is warm and calming. You can search for what you want to listen to on Spotify or Audible, it could be your favourite book from childhood or a novel you’ve wanted to read for a long time. It could even be a book on healing, something you are going through at the moment. If that calls to you, I recommend Tara Brach’s Radical Self-Acceptance and anything by Anne Lamott, all found on Audible.

4. Treat yourself to a fluffy hot water bottle and curl up in bed in your cosiest clothes with an ASMR artist on YouTube ~ some of those I turn to most nights are: SemideASMR | DajaASMR | The Angelic Alchemist | Nefertiti ASMR | emvy ASMR

And the one I am talking about here today ~ getting yourself outside to be held by the greatest Mother of all, Mother Nature. You could check out a nature or wildlife reserve, a park or garden, or simply lay your back against the trunk of a tree. Wherever you go, I recommend getting your bare feet on the Earth…

Soil and Soul. They are often the most powerful ingredients for rebirth.

In Love&Light, FS XOX