Fear, risk, uncertainty and why it’s worth it…

So last week I had a writing splurge. I wrote about those days that we never facebook. I wrote about my hermit habits and my secret eating. I thought a handful of people would read it and they did. Then a few more did, then some people shared it and before I knew it…348 views, 12 countries, 5 continents…brilliant (I thought) then it struck me that my secret eating was out.

A new friend asked me if I had an “emotional hangover”, I sometimes feel like my life is one enormous emotional hangover, but from initial feelings of euphoria I did lunge rather erratically towards fear, shame and a nice healthy dose of paranoia. Something you should know about me is that I was that teenager who saw ‘The Truman show’ and thought that it was my life. I also used to think that my parents paid my friends to be my friends and that I had a strange disorder that I knew nothing about but everybody else did. A giant elephant in the room that was never mentioned.

By and large I am a relentlessly positive person. I sing in public, I smile at strangers in the rain, rap at the gym and recently found myself befriending a widow in Asda car park. But..I am also introverted, insecure, paranoid and fearful. This last week I have been fluctuating between the positive, sunshine and flowers side and the fearful ‘I am so rubbish’ side.

This Sunday I am doing my first triathlon. I am not now and have never been a ‘sporty girl’. I did drama, I love reading, I hate it when people throw balls at me, I do love beach cricket and I did play on our school hockey team but other than that I had assigned exercise (apart from walking and swimming) to an area of life labelled NOT FOR ME. After having two children and a largely sedentary decade I was ready to change, I peeled off that label and started eating better, cycling and went to my first Zumba class. One class became two, I purchased a variety of exercise DVD’S we got an XBOX kinnect and I discovered ‘Just Dance’. Then I got into weights and circuits and interval training. I lost four and a half stone in 18 months and have more or less kept it off.

My lifestyle has changed. More importantly, I have achieved something I thought I never would. 2011 me would say ‘That is not possible’, January 2015 me said ‘I need a new challenge, life is too short too wonder what you can do. I’m going to do a triathlon’. One week before triathlon me is saying ‘Yes. I can do this. I have put in the training, taught myself to run without injuring myself, can swim on my front..pah easy!’ But inside I am thinking, ‘Triathlon? What, now!? Me?! ‘ .

So, I can embrace the risk or I can hide from the risk. My post baby, cake filled stomach will be on display for all too see. I will be slow, I will probably cry but the risk of looking fat or slow or ridiculous is nothing compared to the joy of proving 2011 me wrong. My kids think I am amazing, they will look at me crossing that finish line and dream about what they will do.

So fear can push off. I will not be running alone.

Uncertainty can be out swum.

And after this? Another risk will have to be taken.

Here’s to a life full of risk and the joy that will accompany it.

Being kind to yourself.

Why start writing again now?

A random Thursday where the kids stayed in their PJ’s all day and I ate too much and too secretly yet again..

A day when I hid upstairs as much as I could and binged on ‘the Good Wife’ and splendid isolation, that left me feeling not so splendid?

My sister died in October. It was sudden. It was unexpected. It wasn’t an accident. She just died and life changed.

In the aftermath I felt so lost, so ‘all at sea’ that I found myself unable to concentrate on anything. The super mum left the building and I couldn’t keep on top of anything. A good friend told me over tea and crumpets to be kind to myself.

Be kind to yourself.

I took that advice. I trusted that all the love and time I had poured into my children over the past seven years had built up enough credit. I trusted that my husband could look after things. I trusted that my children’s future wouldn’t be destroyed because we blew off homework and did school reading books rarely. I trusted that the world would not fall apart without me.

It didn’t.

So, I took the time I needed. I retired to bed with Game of Thrones box sets. I ate copious amounts of…well, everything, if I’m honest. I started back at the gym but just swam length after length and took up Pilates.

And it was good.

So extending the kindness that I show my family, my friends, even strangers, to myself was exactly what was needed. Showing kindness to yourself is not to the detriment of other people. By showing kindness to myself I have begun to heal. I have experienced real Joy. A Joy that can only be found when despair has choked you and pain has engulfed you. I have shown my children what it is to love and live and grieve. I have given my husband the chance to shelter me and love me so well and the wee ones have seen that too.

They are more empathetic. They are kinder. They are LESS fearful and MORE determined.

So, why start writing again today? A day when I could listen to the voice that says, ‘you failed today, you were a bad Mother today, you wasted today’.

I am writing today because that voice is a lie. I am choosing, again, to be kind to myself and I want you to extend kindness to yourself as well. We cannot be truly kind to others if we cannot be kind to ourselves.

It is OK to have days like this. We all do. More importantly, we all should. Today wasn’t just a PJ day. It was the day we created ‘bare foot, flip-flop football’. It was the day I finished a great book. It was a day we all needed.

Be kind to yourself. Keep being kind to yourself. Everybody wins.