Spring Newsletter
New beginnings
Last year I enjoyed Katherine May’s book about the restorative power of Winter and whilst I would love to quote so much from it, this quote resonated with me this winter.
“We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.”
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
As you may have read in my last post, I lost my mum in February. She was such a joy and despite the fact that she was 99 years old, there was no reason for her to go, no illness, condition, nothing. She was managing her own affairs, living independently with a companion at breakfast and lunchtime when she didn’t have family or friends visiting.
Then she had a few falls at the end of November, went into hospital, moved to respite care and then home again in late January where she was delighted to be. But sadly she had a much more serious fall in February and died in hospital a week later.
Over those difficult months I found Katherine’s words really comforting, reminding me to rest and take time for myself as the leaves fell revealing my bare bones of grief. This has served me well since her passing as I take life slower, more calmly and being quiet, spending a lot of time on my own. Nothing much is being done. I’m journalling as I find that very healing. Perhaps you do too.
I’m experiencing so many emotions. I feel angry that she died as she did, having had a preventable fall. Preventable because she refused to have an overnight carer. Since her passing, friends told me that sometimes you have to overrule a feisty mum who resists having her independence eroded but I failed to realise this. So it is anger with myself.
I feel extreme sadness at no longer being able to call her daily to chat about everything and anything. I miss her humour, the funny things she said and did, her fascination with ChatGPT, her relationship with Alexa (mostly getting annoyed because Alexa didn’t do as she commanded!) and her amazement at how technology made life so much easier.
Alongside this sadness and anger though I also feel a sense of relief and freedom from the daily worries about her, not knowing if the reason her phone was engaged for hours was because she’d accidentally sat on it or because she had had a fall and been unable to use her Carelink device.
This new freedom feels like Spring.
This feeling is like an opportunity to prioritise myself knowing I don’t have to worry about Mum any more. She is with Dad and my children are grown up and have their own lives to lead. My husband and I started our family very soon after we met so we feel this is now our time to enjoy our hobbies and new freedom. But for me, what does this actually mean?
We have just returned from Switzerland where I would normally have ski-ied but I felt I needed to take time for myself and not feel I had to keep up with a group. Instead I walked. I did a different walk each day and enjoyed the views, the sounds of the birds, children playing, skiers passing me by, stunning mountain views and the snow on trees. I was able to think about Mum and cry whenever I needed to. It gave me time to also think about what my ‘Spring’ would mean in terms of my own new beginnings.
Many people my age are retired but I do not want to give up doing what I love doing.
So what are my plans?
Of all the things I love, working with teens is my passion, especially working with the more complex issues of trauma, suicidal thoughts, self-harming, eating disorders, addictions and other similar conditions. I also love working with women who have experienced, birth or early childhood trauma, mother issues, sexual abuse, trauma, abandonment or relationship issues.
I am not planning to work with younger children and have colleagues I will refer those clients on to or I will work with the parents who I can help with changing limiting beliefs, behaviour or communication that is not proving effective.
I have a number of books I have almost finished writing or updating - Engaging NLP and EFT for Early Years, Children, Parents, which I will complete as frankly it seems rather lazy not to! But I am not going to write any more books. I will focus on selling off my stock of books so that I won’t need to allocate a room in our new small house in which to sore them! I’m including a link to my bookshop her in the hope that you’ll help me with that!
I enjoy recording podcasts and have been very negligent over the months I was focused on my mum so I will get back on track with that. here is the link if you use Apple podcasts but it is available wherever you usually find your podcasts. It would be great if you could let me know what topics you’d find most helpful. My recordings are from my books and the feedback I get from listeners is that they like the bite size chunks of helpful tips, especially being busy mums, they may not have time to read my books.
As EFT tapping is such a great skill to learn to help kids with anxiety, anger and generally regulating emotions for all the family, I have recorded a great many videos on my YouTube channel which I know mums find very helpful. Here you’ll see exactly how to tap and what to say. You can also get free tapping diagrams on the Free Resources page of my website of course.
The other thing I will be continuing to do and probably focusing a lot more on, is passing on my skills and knowledge to other mums through my training programmes. I absolutely love to see how my students take their training and develop it further adding their own qualities, skills, passions and desire to make a difference in this world where children and teens struggle so much.
Goodness, as I look back through my plans it doesn’t look much like slowing down does it?!
If you’d like to follow me on my Spring journey and learn more about how to support your children and teens please subscribe here. It costs nothing at all.
The paid subscription is for my students, who get this version free and for those who work with children and teens who want a practical ‘how to’ for coaching, teaching and working with child and teen clients. It works out at £5 a month. This includes worksheets and instructions for specific NLP or EFT exercises and activities.
I have written two textbooks for professionals and for parents who want a deeper understanding and practical tools, these are linked below
Understanding children and teens
