Healing the Whole ...

Having a child is the most selfish thing you can do. Raising a child is the most selfless. I thought a lot about becoming a parent. I had plenty of time to. I lost twins when I was 28, another baby at 29, and finally had my precious beautiful little girl when I was 31. I had medical intervention in 2011 in order to carry her. I spent a year thinking about whether I should or not. Thinking about why I wanted to be a mother so badly. My daughter likes to tell that story. She's the hero in it. The strongest baby who survived. Resilient even before she was born. When I was a child I was given pain to deal with but not the strategies to cope with pain. As a result, I still struggle to deal with difficult emotions. I have learnt as an adult that being sad is ok and it will pass. That it doesn't mean the world is ending. My daughter already knows that. And she is five. I firmly believe the most important part of my role as a parent is to build her resilience through love.

Recently I was approached by a friend for advice about his ex wife. He asked for my help and yet when I told him what I thought he fought it. Telling me that what I was telling him to do wasn't fair. My heart was firm. Love her. Care for her. Do what is best for her. She needs you to put her first. "I won't get it back", he says, "it's always me that has to flex." Yes. And it will be over and over and over again. Because that's what love is. It keeps no record of wrongs. He messaged me later to tell me what I had said felt like an attack. As if I was saying his relationship with his ex-wife and his children was transactional. I wanted to say that was because in parts it was. If his focus is the well-being of his children then loving their mother is just as much his responsibility as financially providing for them. The mental well-being of children is so dependent on the mental well-being of their parents. I speak from painful painful experience w

I am frightened of a lot of things. I have got much worse as I have got older and especially since having my daughter. I am fearful not fearless. I cannot cope with hearing about bad things happening in the world. I don't watch the news and only read the local newspaper. I cannot watch the soaps or dramas. I can't bear to see how awful human beings can be to one another even in fiction. I am scared of anything that could bring harm. Heights is probably the big one that most affects my day to day. My daughter knows how frightened I am of everything. We make a joke out of it as she soars high on roller coasters with my Dad or my nieces and nephews and I stay a quivering wreck at the bottom waiting for her safe return. So last year when my friend asked me to loop the loop in a tiny plane over a local airfield, I was not keen. As well as fear, I suffer with motion sickness and have thrown up on planes, trains, automobiles, (and boats!) many times in my life. But it was for a char

I struggle with my command of our oral language when it really matters. As an English Literature graduate I could write all day about my feelings, but when it comes to speaking about them I am reduced to drivel. What I say very often won't make sense even to me. I am not sure why this is but I could hazard a guess that it is because I never learnt to talk about my feelings when I was a child. I wrote a lot about them, mostly through stories, but I never shared them out loud. I think I was about 7 years old when I remember feeling sadness and immediately knowing I had to hide it. The times we lived in perhaps. Certainly now I encourage my daughter to talk to me about any and every emotion. Especially anger and sadness. The difficult ones. And through her, I am learning to talk about my feelings. Not in great outbursts which can often be too overwhelming for the poor recipient; but in little snippets here and there to different people. Trusted people. People whom I hope won'

I have recently written a book to share a snapshot of my personal development journey (available in print on www.sarahwindrum.co.uk and digitally on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B077DVD5R2) I had written all of it by the end of 2016 but I spent six months struggling to find a nice clean conclusion I was happy with. Because there aren't any of those in life. As anyone who has undergone any significant period of personal change will know, it never truly ends. You learn strategies and you keep applying and adapting them .... forever. I struggle most when I prioritise either my heart, body, or mind and neglect one or more of the remaining trio. The key to my happiness is acknowledgement and awareness of all three and their needs. And from there follows a lifelong attempt to balance the triad as best I can. I have come to accept it will never be truly balanced. I find I always need one more than the others to tackle a specific challenge or moment in time. But as long as I chec

If someone were to ask me which of my skills I use most often I would say my ability to translate communication. And I don't mean from Japanese to English. I mean from operational to visionary. From technical to creative. Often from male to female. Always from mind to heart. I am on the Board of a regional organisation that controls a substantial devolved budget from Central Government. Those meetings are a constant process of translation for me and at first I wondered why I left them so exhausted. I have to translate the language of other Board Members back into my own, work out how I want to respond, and then translate my native tongue back into their language before I speak. All the while ensuring I keep listening and translating to others so I don't miss anything. As well as the fact the majority of the Board Members are male, it is also a translation from corporation to entrepreneur. From practical to creative. I am everything the rest of the Board is not. And that is bo

My sister-in-law writes a travel blog. It's a really good read. Her and my brother have a real sense of adventure. They travel to exotic places and do exciting things. Safari. Scuba dive. I read the blog and see the photos and wonder why I have no desire for the same adventures. I realise now it's because when I travel I'm not an adventure girl. I'm a comfort girl. As I write this I am sat in a little cafe in Copenhagen in Nyhavn. I am sitting out on the street enjoying my second pot of coffee. I came to this area yesterday so I have my bearings and know exactly where I am and where I want to go next. I feel comfortable and at peace. No sense of agitation. Reflecting here has made me realise how little I feel that comfort in my everyday life. I push myself and my boundaries most of the time. I have grown accustomed to the feeling of discomfort most days. At work. Out running. Even at home I am usually doing something. I only sit to watch a film with my daughter. I r