Grief is love.

Losing someone you love whatever their relationship to you is undoubtedly one of the most difficult things to ever go through.

It’s not the easiest of subjects to ever write about but there seems to have been a lot of people around me experiencing this right now and so I thought I’d share with you the loss that I’ve been through, how I dealt with it and how it’s shaped me.

I always think losing someone around Christmas and New Year must be exceptionally hard as usually the beginning of the year is filled with promise of new and positive things but often life just doesn’t unfold like that and we need suddenly to find a way forward in a situation that seems impossible to cope with.

Losing someone whether it be a family member or friend is an incredibly difficult thing to process and can often feel very surreal. The first few weeks can be especially daunting as you can’t imagine surviving until the end of the day let alone the month.

Grieving is a very personal thing and different for everyone it seems. My first real encounter with grief was when I was sixteen years’ old, we lived in a fairly big house and rented out a room to a young girl, she was eighteen years old at the time and went to our local university. Her name was Sue, she was a twin and her sister was at another university only a few miles away. We became very close and I remember thinking she was the coolest thing ever. She introduced me to football (which I loved for many years afterwards and can still be persuaded when in the right mood…) and we used to sit and talk for hours on her bed about nothing in particular. After living with us for nearly a year, Sue died suddenly within twenty four hours of getting ill, of meningitis. She was admitted to hospital during the night whilst I was in bed sleeping, my mum and dad accompanying her whilst neighbours sat with us and her own parents were on their way to her, although I don’t recall much of this.

Looking back now I think as this was the first time I had ever had to confront mortality, I was in utter shock for probably months afterwards. As a teenager, I struggled to comprehend it all and became very withdrawn, low and scared of my own mortality. I couldn’t talk about it or cry about it. It took two years, a house move, lots of tlc from my family and a few brilliant sessions with a grief counsellor much further down the line, to sort me out. I got there in the end and promised myself I would never hold tears in again. If I needed to cry I bloody well would. No matter where I was or who I was with, it was better out than in.  

As much as this time in my life was very difficult, if I hadn’t been through it then I don’t know how I would have survived the death of my mum that was to follow some years later, when I reached the age of thirty.

I was incredibly close to my mum, she was the most wonderful, beautiful and caring woman. We laughed, we shared stories, so many things that I can’t put into words, we were the best of friends. I never thought I would survive without her in my life.

Feeling thankful.

After mum died from her battle with cancer, I did temporarily lose faith in everything. Grief for me was feeling utter heartbreak and trying to make sense of the world again without her in it. As it turns out, it really is only time that can help with this. I made it my mission to cry whenever I needed to, whether that be at home or at work, or in the supermarket I would often disappear to the loo to have a good cry. This alone I think helped me immensely.

I never wanted people to feel sorry for me as I have always felt utterly privileged to have had her as my mum until the age of thirty. I will always be eternally grateful that I reached adulthood with her by my side. She had a huge influence on my life and who I have become today.  There will always be a little piece of me that holds onto the feeling that she let me (and my sisters) go, so we could fly.

Loss has made me a life crammer

Undoubtedly. Losing mum has most certainly made me a life crammer. I want to do everything! 

Well, maybe not jump out of an aeroplane but I just don’t think my life ‘to do list’ will ever get any shorter! I’ve always tended to want to have a go at it all and being highly conscious of the fact we don’t have forever isn’t a bad thing I don’t think. I am keen to put arguments to bed quickly and am generally good at moving forwards if something doesn’t go to plan. I embrace change and am excited by new opportunities and meeting new people.

Still taboo

When you lose someone, after time, whether that be weeks or months or even years, you can feel like you’re suddenly not allowed to grieve anymore. It's like you should be ‘over it’ and that people just don’t want to listen to your woes anymore.

Well here’s the thing , the real people in your life that care about you will only want you to do what you need to do to make yourself feel better. If that’s cry and scream over a cup of tea with a good friend then that’s what you need to do. My mum died nine years ago now and I still have days when I wail like a banshee with friends and family about the fact she’s not here to see her grandchildren or pop around for a chat and a hug.

I seem to gravitate towards women especially that have lost their mothers. I have two or three very close friends that have lost their mothers early on in life. It’s a great thing to be able to have some solidarity in that. Firstly, you don’t feel so hard done by that you’re the only one, secondly you have people that absolutely understand how you feel.

The reason I wrote this post

I guess ultimately my reason for writing this post is that I wanted to reassure for those in doubt, that there will be a break in the clouds. Nine years down the line and even though the loss is still hugely felt, time allows you to manage your feelings in a different way and you are able to be positive and strong again. Be kind to yourself and put in place whatever you are able to get you through the most difficult days. Surround yourself with people that care about you and want the best for you. 

As this very famous lady said

‘Grief is the price we pay for love’- Queen Elizabeth II.

 And none of us wants to go through life not loving.

Betty X 

Thank you 2016

You were a pretty testing year to say the least and had many moments of playing out in ways no-one could have predicted. You unfolded stories across the globe that were unexpected, revolutionary and for many, truly shocking.

Despite all this I still wanted to say thank you, thank you for teaching me more about myself.

This last year feels to have been massive for me. Massive as far as personal development goes and learning more about the person I am now, today. The last two or three years specifically, I’ve felt a pretty big shift in the essence of me and I think that’s for several reasons. Here are a couple.

Our children are getting older

I have begun to peek out the other side of the totally manic, exhausting and all-consuming baby, early years’ madness.

I have always been very career minded and from an early age the signs of my love for all things creative was there. I went to study Theatre with Media at University and drama school and continued after graduating to work as an actress mainly in the theatre. Gradually over the years I moved into television production which was a crazy, wonderful and exhausting career all at once. Most that work in the arts will tell you, if you are in it, it becomes a way of life, not just a job. It seduces you and to be successful you pretty much need to give yourself over to it 24/7 which I happily did as an unattached young woman in her mid-twenties.

I travelled like a maniac all over the country and the world for a good few years, filming all sorts of people in all sorts of weird and wonderful places, until meeting my now husband. Not too long afterwards we had our first son and my full-time job became caring for our brand new tiny human. It’s certainly called one of the hardest jobs in the world for a reason but it was a job I was over the moon to have the privilege of doing. I must say, if a career in television prepared me for anything it was how to be massively flexible and if you need anything as a new parent it is this. A skill I am still eternally grateful for!

Maybe I’m slightly delayed in this as I’ve a husband that works away often but now our boys are a newly four and six-year-old, I can feel that the woman behind ‘mummy’ is finally making a re-appearance and trying to get back in the zone. I’m not entirely sure who that woman is yet (I’ll keep you posted) but I have for the first time in years slightly more brain space to start daring to think about what I need for me as far as work and potential future projects may go. The downside of this is that after waiting for what seems like an age to get to this point, I am now very excited but impatient and want it all now!

I’ve become tougher

I have. This year all my experiences in life seem to have compacted and somehow made me feel tougher. I won’t go into all those experiences now – that’s another blog entirely -however I’m confident I know what my strengths and weaknesses are and pretty much know the limits of what I can and can’t handle.

It’s rather a nice feeling to know that you can survive many things and are equip with enough skills to get out the other side of most situations still fighting.

~

January - The month of promise

So here we are. We survived you 2016 and we find ourselves in the month where traditionally we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to change, join the gym, dust off the nutribullet and be ‘that person’ that we think we want to be in our head.

I don’t believe in resolutions, it’s too much stress and let’s be honest, none of us need any more of that in our lives.  However, I do think it’s good to have a positive focus for the year. A project you want to complete, a holiday you’d like to take, an old friend you would like to visit or a course you’d like to enrol on. Large or small and whatever my focus is for the year It’s always nice to have got to December and be able to tick it off.

Me Essentials

I march into 2017 having learned what my ‘Me Essentials’ are during this past year.

By ‘Me Essentials’ I mean the things I need to keep me happy and functioning at my best in this busy old life. In no particular order:

·         I am 100% happier, a better person and certainly a zillion times better mother if I have some sort of work or project on the go, even if it’s for only an hour or two a week. I need to feel personally fulfilled, that I am doing something for me and pushing myself forward.

·         Not to try and do too many things at once. By this I mean trying not to cram too much into my day or week. I always end up frustrated with myself as I hate to do things badly and someone or something always suffer when I try. Sometimes less really is more.

·         A bit of a cliché but exercise. It’s obvious but I always feel better and have bags more energy if I’m exercising regularly and with two young boys in the house I need all the energy I can get at the best of times but especially when the other half is away.

·         Family time. Uninterrupted time that features the four of us and no-one else. I’m all for socialising as a family but time as a four is precious and very special to me and our boys.

·         Friends! I love my friends. I’m so very lucky to know such wonderful beings and I need to have lots of contact with them in person (preferably) but failing that lots of interaction via the wonderful technology this century has bestowed upon us.

·         A vague social life. I say vague as those of us with small people know it’s often just not logistically possible to get out socially. I don’t need much but now and again it’s great to go out, drink wine, eat food and laugh -a lot!

What are your ‘Me Essentials? What can you not do without that keeps you a happy rounded person? Do PLEASE get in touch and let me know.

So, thank you 2016. You weren’t wasted on me. In fact, the very opposite.

Betty X

How to be good in 2017 

 (By my eldest son. Age 6)

I thought you would all enjoy this marvellous little list that my eldest son came up with as to how to approach 2017...

Be Nice

Don’t hit

Don’t squirt people with water pistols

Don’t throw toys at people

Don’t tip your food on the floor at the dinner table

Do share with little brothers

Do not whack people with toy light sabres

Do play games with your children

Don’t whinge

Look after your things

So there you have it. Simple, sound advice for the year! Lets hope the world and it’s politicians are listening…

Happy New Year All. I wish you all things wonderful. Be bold, be brave and be kind to yourselves.

Betty X

Be Selfish. It’s ok.

From a young age, we are often taught that being selfish is a bad and negative thing. ‘Don’t be selfish, share, it’s not all about what you want, think of everyone else’s feelings not just your own’

I spent much of my twenties doing what others wanted and it was second nature for me to put boyfriends, friends and colleagues needs before my own. I had a brilliant time at University but frequently seemed to be at parties I wasn’t especially bothered about and socialised with people I didn’t even particularly like. Rarely did I turn down an invite, even though often I would rather have been heating a tin of Heinz macaroni cheese in our communal kitchen and playing my En Vogue CD on repeat.

Now I sit here as a woman in her late thirties, look back and wonder why? Was it because I had been taught not to be selfish as a little girl and interpreted that as also not to put myself first? Or was it because I just didn’t have the confidence at that age to say no, probably for fear of not being liked and included?

By the time, I had left University and moved in with the current boyfriend, I think my ‘putting others before myself’ mentality, had got a little out of hand, to the point where if there had been an actual list for personal fulfilment and daily needs being met, I wasn’t just second or third on the list but didn’t actually feature on the list at all. I had become a people pleaser.

The brilliant thing about getting older is (hopefully) you are lucky enough and open enough, to learn things. Things about yourself, things about others and things about life. You learn why people do certain things at certain times and react in certain ways.

Being young is figuring all this out. If you didn’t go through things that weren’t pleasant and that made you uncomfortable, how would you work out what you really needed in life to make yourself happy? Youth is a time when we should be learning exactly what we will and won't put up with in later years, what we want to spend our time doing and importantly, who we want to spend our time with.

The problem is often, that we can still be figuring this out way into our thirties and for many people it seems to be even later than that. For a few, it’s a never-ending life long battle.

Many of us seem to go through life as people pleasers and we forget about ourselves entirely. We have less and less time as we get older often due to work and family commitments, so spending it with people whose company we really do genuinely enjoy, becomes more important.

I have now realised that what people don’t tell you, is there is actually good selfish and bad selfish.

Good selfish is not being a people pleaser all of the time. It can be exhausting, draining and incredibly unfulfilling. Going to things you don’t really want to go to and often mixing with people you don’t really like, isn’t good for the soul - It’s certainly not good for mine.

It’s more than ok (in fact it should be marked down as essential) to be selfish!

It doesn’t stop you caring about people or mean you need to be rude or dismissive. Too many people associate having an opinion or saying ‘No’ with negativity but It’s perfectly ok to say ‘No, I don’t fancy that’ Or just ‘No, thank you.’

I was always taught it’s good to be who you are and have an opinion but always be mindful of others feelings. Don’t sacrifice your own needs and wants all of the time, you are as important as everyone else.

What has it taught me?

Be brave. If people are offended that is their issue. Real friends and those that care about you, want you to be happy, it’s as simple as that. I have a few close friends, we don’t speak often, or see each other often but I know they have my back and I have theirs. They would do anything for me if it came to it. If I don’t want to do something, they won’t persecute me for it.

I think I may teach our children that there is good selfish and bad selfish and that thinking of others but never neglecting yourself in life, is maybe the difference between an adult that feels in control of what they really want to do and what they feel they should do.

In life, you constantly find yourself in situations where others have to come first, (if motherhood has taught me anything, it’s that) and this just has to be, but on the days when you can get away with it, please be selfish. Just a little bit. The world won’t end but you might just find a whole new liberated and empowered you.

Mirror mirror on the wall…Who am I now? 

(Article written for SelfishMother.com)

Who am I?

What is my identity now I am a mum?

This was something I had never heard any one talk about, let alone the possibility of it being an actual issue for me. Like a whole menagerie of things that aren’t mentioned about pregnancy and having children, my identity after having my first baby was a problem. Probably only a problem to me, but a problem none the less, and one that I wasn’t expecting to have. In fact, it was a thing I hadn’t even contemplated.

You seem to be defined by your baby from the minute you’re pregnant. All people start talking to you about is pregnancy, the bump and then the baby, which is a massive adjustment in itself.  I, like most first-time pregnant women, had been so caught up in the practicalities of making sure we were ready for our new arrival, we moved house, bought all the stuff, cots, prams, clothes, bottles that I hadn’t stopped to think about me at all.

Suddenly a little while after our beautiful eldest son was born, I realised that the issue of my post baby identity was massive for me. Not only had my body changed but I was worried that maybe the essence of me had changed as well?  I was scared and felt a lot of panic about who I was now. I wasn’t working, I wasn’t going out to the same places, with the same people doing the same things. I was in a different world, one that I knew LITERALLY nothing about. The first nappy I remember changing in my entire life was my son’s. I hadn’t heard of CBeebies or Baby Einstein and I thought breast feeding would be relatively simple for me, it’s what mother nature intended and all that - WRONG!

Work and my personal freedom before children, had defined me. Swanning around doing what I wanted when I wanted, nipping out with friends after work for a bite to eat, getting my hair done, saying immediately yes to the work projects that had me flying around the world and having a brilliant time.

That freedom was literally gone overnight. I don’t know if anything can prepare you for that. To say it has been my biggest learning curve and continued voyage of self-discovery is a huge understatement.

This new bundle of baby seemed to have immediately changed me. I remember feeling weird about what clothes I wore, it seemed to have put a strange skew on my fashion sense and clothes choices. Do mums dress like this? Can mums wear this? Can I wear this? I felt clueless.

It took me a good probably 12 months, maybe longer, to feel like I could still be me and finding out what that new version of me did with her day now. Working out it was still me but a new version I guess, was one of the hardest parts about becoming a mum for me.

What I’ve learned

Ladies I can tell you this. In life, there are times when you have to hide your emotions. Keep quiet and bite your tongue, hide your real thoughts to be professional at work and you have many different sides to who you are. The overwhelming thing I remember after having my first baby is wow, there is no hiding the real me anymore. You are so preoccupied with this small treasure that there is no time or energy to be anything other than who you are, the good and the bad in all its glory. You are 100% you. 

The weird thing is, after all that’s said and done, I am a mother but I am also the same woman as before children just on a different path and I am probably more me now than ever before.

So please don’t give yourself a hard time. I wish someone had said to me its ok to mourn your old life and that this new life with your wonderful addition certainly isn’t going to be the same, but It will be the most amazing love filled journey you’ve been on yet. It will also be the hardest journey, but as the famous saying goes, ‘Nothing worth having comes easy’

Enjoy your babies and your children. It’s a new, exciting, crazy chapter and one to be celebrated. Revel in the new fabulous, woman mummy you.

Kindness starts at home

After a week like we have just had I couldn’t let it go without writing down some words.

I don’t scare easily, but this week I have had moments of genuine worry, not for myself, but for the future of my two amazing little boys. What world are we creating for them? They are laughing and playing happily in the background as I type this, oblivious to the worlds greater issues, which is exactly how it should be for a child and that for now, I am grateful for. However, they also currently have no choice in the world that we are creating for them and yet they are the ones that must live in it, which hardly seems fair at all.

I’ve heard lots of people this week say they feel powerless and ‘What can we actually do anyway that will make a difference?’

I must admit, these last few days I’ve also felt pretty small and insignificant as far as changing the world and its politics goes. I am not religious, but, I do wholeheartedly believe in positivity, love and kindness and that the energy you give out you get back in return. I believe that this without doubt starts at home, not just inside our four walls, but in our immediate community as well. Whether you are a role model for a child or not, if we can be kinder, more compassionate and give buckets of love to our closest people, our family, our friends, our acquaintances in good times and in bad this has to be a good start and where we can absolutely make a difference.

If we can stop for a minute, make the effort to have that chat with the lonely looking person in the Supermarket queue, forgive and forget that silly argument you had with your partner a little more quickly, be the one to wave the white flag even if you have to grit your teeth while doing it. The tiniest kindness can make such a difference. Love and positivity breeds love and positivity. This is something we can all do. This is the something that will make a difference and something I’m planning to get better at.

So, on the night of the most super of Super Moons, love each other a bit more than usual, start tomorrow with kindness as your intention. Make those small changes. Small adds up. If everyone did that I can’t help but think we’d be half way there in creating a much better world for all of us.

Women are Warriors and I love them.

We are all life Warriors, fighting our own battles, maybe big, maybe small, maybe joyous maybe painful, but all important to us as individuals and making an impact on our lives.

Today however, I am dedicating Warrior-hood to all the amazing women I know and the lessons I learn from them. I meet many different women, from different backgrounds, with different daily struggles large and small and I tell you what, women astound and surprise me every single day.  Women have an incredible inner strength, tenacity and resilience and the older I get the more I see this and am in awe of it.

I lost my mum when I was thirty years old, and since then I have looked at women, young and old for various life lessons. I have a new-found respect and appreciation for them, their relationships together and what they teach each other, something I don't think I would have in the same way had she still been alive.

Girlfriends, the really good friends, the ones that turn up on your doorstep with bags of food shopping and wine when the going gets tough, when the kids are sick, your other half is unavailable, you're exhausted and you've lost the will to live - these are the women that get you through life's dark days and out the other side. We are very good at recognising when another may need a chat, a coffee, or someone to offer a hand to make their day just that little bit easier. Women pick each other up, they support each other and give each other encouragement. That in itself, is priceless.

Mothers, you are Warriors at their finest. You battle daily for the good of the precious small people in your life, constantly sacrificing your own needs and wants to give them the best that you can give. Fighting to nourish, protect and educate the babies that have created in you the greatest love you’ve ever known. 

From the old lady that chatted to me in passing at the cafe the other day and told me about the grandson she was so proud of and was helping to fund his next college course, to the women I saw at the station the other evening putting her make-up on in her car whilst waiting to collect her teenage daughter. You all inspire me.

I guess I just wanted to put it down into words and say, alone and together we accomplish incredible things. Women of the world, I get you. You are the greatest life warriors and I am exceptionally proud and privileged to be on your team. Thanks for teaching and inspiring me. You are amazing and I salute you.