I lost myself, when I fell pregnant at the same time I also managed to destroy all the ligaments in my knee, leaving me unable to walk for 6 months alongside suffering from hg (severe pregnancy sickness) I also found out at the time I was O neg meaning I had to be extra careful of bumps and knocks around baby, and so we made the desision to be on the safe side I'd limit what contact I had with my horses as a knock from them could be disaster.
All of these decisions were made from a rational mind, and also from circumstances that made it impossible to do anything but stop, and be.
This was my pre-lockdown lockdown, I spent months puking, not making it to the toilet most of the time, wetting myself because puking and being pregnant meant no bladder control, hopping around in agony and generally not having the best time.
I've been bedbound before, I've been hospitalised for months at a time so I know the routine of being isolated from the world, but this somehow was different, because at the end something massive happened, I became a mother.
And somewhere in the messy pregnancy and the next year of motherhood I lost myself, I spent the first 6 months angry, really angry, I resented my husband for being able to do all he wanted to do and then hated myself for feeling like that, I was broken, in a fog and generally lost.
I tried to make life normal again, I tried getting up before Olive woke up to ride and feel a bit like me, I tried rushing round in any nap she took to do the things I would have normally done, I tired being the most amazing mother, I tried it all, nothing worked, I still felt empty, lost and angry.
Throughout this I had my yoga practice but it was even in that I was always half there and half not, I was trying to fit in in with everything else. It became a chore, something I had to do.
I never stopped, I never slept, I was just firefighting, surviving and lost.
I went to the dr and said I think I'm struggling, there is a connection with mothers that have hard pregnancies and they're ability to connect with the mothering. She took notes and said give it a little while, lets try and get some sleep and see where we end up. Sleep never came. I never went back.
And then lockdown came, at the start of lockdown I was ill, so poorly we made the decision to move in to the farm, I needed support with Olive and I needed to be able to rest, it was safer that way.
What I didn't realise was this next enforced stop was also what I needed to find myself, routine started to slowly form in our lives, the ability to stop and not commit to a million things allowed the basic beat of a daily routine to start to show up, Olive started to nap in her cot, allowing me to rest too, meal times became a little more regular and I was able to start really allowing myself time to find my spiritual practice once more for me.
The first thing I asked the universe......help me untangle this knot of anger that I have tied myself so tightly in.
As soon as I asked, I was gifted, I found the knot start to slowly untangle, I found I could feel little threads of me that had become numb from being so tightly wound start to come back to life.
And then I crashed, my chronic illness flared up and the first thing I felt was resentment, I was just getting somewhere, why now?
But I also knew it was needed, I needed to stop a little longer, to not get carried away and to really feel what was needed. I learnt acceptance within that month of being sofa bound, I released my ego and need for validation. I released my battle against my illnesses that I thought I wasn't having but really was deep down, I was still refusing to accept this was my life.
I lay on the sofa and watched Olive play, I watched her beauty, her life her magic, and in that I started to find myself, the anger slowly started to unravel to make space for love, and I realised I could do this, I had it in me to do this if only I started to trust, to accept every part of me, and to allow all those parts space.
I let go of the need to be super mum, I let go of the need to be everyones best friend, and I made space for us, me, and a simple life.
As I type this I'm heading into my 37 year, it arrived at the same time as the new moon in cancer and as a Bat flew into our house and circled above my head.
The message:
"A bat flying into your life signifies that a transformation of the ego self is about to occur, the end of a way of life and the start of another."
And as I walked this morning I realised, the guilt I had been carrying for years, the guilt of being fully myself had gone. I am at peace with me, and I am home.
