2020 - A Year of Generosity
I woke up on the 1st January inspired to experience more generosity in my life. I already consider myself to be a generous person by nature. The generosity that I am referring to is something deeper - a calling not just to share more authentically with others, but to give more of myself to myself.
I have a beautiful baby girl who just turned 8-months old. She is a treasure to me. We waited and worked through many hard years to have our daughter. She really is our miracle baby. Now that I am finally coming out on the other side of our “fertility journey” I am realising just how much I neglected myself - my true, authentic self - for all those years.
When I was in the trenches of unexplained infertility; and believe me, it felt like war sometimes, I was looking after myself for one purpose - to become a mother. I wasn't, however, taking very good care of my whole self; the me that is defined by so much more than fertile/infertile. I resented my body and my mind’s role in the experience of infertility. I took my supplements and ate REALLY well. I got plenty of rest and meditated to ease the monkey mind, but I was anything but generous with myself.
Through all those years I never truly gave myself the thing I most needed - my own acceptance, my own compassion and caring. There were very few kind words muttered to myself, “you are an amazing woman, no matter the outcome of all of this. You are strong and resilient. Your dedication to this dream of yours is inspiring.”
No, my inner dialogue, no matter how much I tried to shift it in the moment, was much more negative and depended completely on a successful outcome. Now that I am fully aware of this and know how vitally important it is to be generous, kind and loving to myself, especially now as a new mother with all my foibles and imperfections, my practice this year is to turn inward every day and pour some of that delicious unconditional love on myself.
To me this comes through in kind words/thoughts, self-care, quality time with my girl, being brave enough to ask for what I need, including time to recharge with mindful movement (yoga + pilates), enjoying a (hot) cup of coffee in the morning, napping when my girl naps - gosh my cup already feels so much fuller.
What quality defines the year you are creating in 2020?
