a daffodil a day

I have been seeing daffodils left, right and centre. Yes, I know spring is imminent.

Our hearts and lawns are defrosting in the glimmers of sunshine that are arriving with more regularity and the sun is sweetly staying for longer visits.

I’ve seen them on people’s shirts, in the homes of people I know and visit, in gardens, shops, on signs and kicking around on social media. I have never really noticed them before, and I don’t particularly have an affection for them as a flower - sorry, daffodils. I mean, they are pretty and all but their sudden explosion into my attention piqued my interest.

So, naturally, I googled their meaning.. first flowers of spring, rebirth, new beginnings. Inspiration. Forgiveness. Creativity. With all that has been happening in my world, this didn’t feel like an accident. Was it a nudge? a reminder? to keep going - because I tell ya what, learning, growing, healing, changing… it ain’t easy.

It’s been a big few years, maybe it has for many, I feel that.

But for me, emerging from the lockdowns of the pandemic, changing jobs, taking time to heal, trying (TRYING) to slow down, taking risks, learning wildly new things and skills, raising kids, nurturing existing relationships while planting the seeds of new ones, losing really important people in my life, learning of big and sometimes scary things that once known, you can’t unknow.

I don’t feel like the same person I was, we are always changing, but there’s been a seismic type shift. I attribute a lot of it to becoming a mother, but also to the isolation and the shifts in the world and those around me on the other side of the pandemic.

Did we all change? I know I have, and what was important to me before has evolved, I certainly have more questions and less answers than I have ever had. And so, on we go.

I feel the universe had set me the task of understanding myself a little better, what I need, love, want and hope for. Finding ways to weave this into my world, making changes, stretching myself (sometimes too far, too soon!) and retreating back to safety.

How uncomfortable it is to do things just because I want to do them. Quite honestly, lately I have been choosing paths and following ideas that are not always understood by my nearest and dearest. I’ve got a lot of loving supporters, don’t get me wrong. But I guess it is surprising when someone who has always done things a certain way then seemingly suddenly, no longer does.

I’m a people pleaser. No way around it. I have turned my hand to many types of work and hobbies, and for the most part learning and honing new skills is something that I both love and thrive on. I have always walked more easily accepted pathways, always listened to others, been told by others what they see me as being good at and then using this knowledge to create my life.

And life is good, great even, but to get to your mid thirties and suddenly realise that I maybe I never really knew what I actually wanted, that my sense of self has been artfully crafted around how others see me and that maybe I don’t know myself as well as I thought.. is a somewhat unsettling and sobering thought.

The realisation that I have always been driven by how other people see me, others pride, their approval or what others see as my gifts and skills has rendered my listening skills when it comes to my own wants and needs, pretty woeful.

When you actually start listening in to yourself, you realise how frustrated and sad you are that you have not been heard for so long. And, that it was you that wasn’t listening all that time.

How the grief sets in when there is the acute (and unwanted) acknowledgement that I had set these boundaries and limits up myself because I kept doing what felt safe and always prioritising what kept me connected and grounded to the people that I love rather than to myself (and this was important, and a story for another day!). I have a lot of compassion for what I have done, where and who I have been.

But then things just stopped feeling good, stopped feeling right and I felt out of balance. And this feeling just grew and grew. I guess we can only quiet ourselves for so long before we’re internally screaming at ourselves for something different.

Motherhood was a bit like a catalyst, it got added into my life and it can never be taken away. It created and continues to create so many reactions in me. And after each reaction, always remaining there constant, but changing things in me at rapid speeds.

A catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction by lowering the activation energy without being used up in the reaction. After the reaction occurs, a catalyst returns to its original state; so catalysts can be used over and over again. The term "catalyst" is derived from Greek καταλύειν, kataluein, meaning "loosen" or "untie".

I was trying on so many parenting types and everything felt a bit off. Trying to be who I was before, but with kids. Trying to do it all. I was either trying too hard, not trying enough, being to strict or having no boundaries. For some reason it had me reaching back into my own childhood for answers and I would keep coming up blank. But I kept poking and prodding, always learning new things and having some hard and some beautiful realisations. I asked and continue to ask, what do I want for my children and what kind of mother do I want to be?

Mothering softened me and unravelled me, in all the best and hardest ways.

The pandemic hit when I was pregnant with my second, and had an almost two year old. In my newly softened and unravelled state, it caught me off guard. If motherhood was a catalyst, then the pandemic and all that came with it was like a barrage of repeated and failed lab tests with a new and unknown substance, and I was the test subject. I did not like it.

The pandemic made my world small, lonely and isolated. I have always needed people, I needed my people. I’ve always been busy, and needed the busy-ness. I was disconnected, and the world we returned to is forever changed. On the last day of lockdown my son was born at home. I emerged from lockdown with two kids and a very tender heart.

I learned a lot about myself, I won’t call the experience a blessing but I will acknowledge that it was an offering. With all the ups and downs that time offered me, I took it up, and always would end up circling back to….me. But now, with a new sense of compassion and kindness for myself, because it was this that I realised I wanted for my kids and that was the kind of mother I wanted to be.

Now I know, that it starts with me, not with them. I ask, what do I want for myself and who to I want to be?

Opening my world up to the work of the doula, of the womb, of our nervous systems, our minds and hearts, to healing and listening. To my own heart, and my own healing. It’s the first time I am following a path that starts and ends with me. Now it hasn’t been a stroll, more like a hike with some steep hills and cliffs; but it has been terrifying and tremendously wonderful at the same time. I trod on.

Back to those daffodils, I think that they popped up to remind me to reflect. With a little hint on what I was reflecting upon.

Rebirth.

New beginnings.

Inspiration.

Forgiveness.

Creativity.