What’s your immediate response when you read, “Do you listen to yourself?”
Years ago, I didn’t listen to myself at all.
And nowadays, I listen to myself a LOT!
Here are a few examples.
I have a very dear friend who comes over once a week to hang out with us. They are also a homeschooling family. I’m so grateful that we are friends, because my daughter and her daughter LOVE hanging out together, her son and my son LOVE hanging out together, and she and I LOVE hanging out together!
And we have a friendship based on absolute compassionate authenticity.
The other day, we were at a homeschooling event and she’d been talking to the other parents whilst I kept an eye on our boys at the park.
I was sitting on a blanket in the middle of doing my accounts, which I hadn’t done for a while.
I was really in that particular thinky zone of accounts!
And she came over to hang out with me for 15 minutes before she was going off to do something else.
In the past, I would have stopped what I was doing, and always prioritised contributing to her.
But I listened in to myself, and I knew that it would take a while to get out of that numbers zone to get into chatting zone and I REALLY wanted to finish my accounts.
And so I told her that I’d love to connect with her, but that I really wanted to finish what I was doing first.
And I did, and she sat with me whilst I did, and did her own thing.
And later, after she’d done what she had wanted to do, we had a lovely time together.
I find that having this friendship based on each of us being absolutely authentic with what is truly alive in us brings a lot of emotional safety.
We’re both able to ask for what we want, knowing that the other will never say “yes” if it isn’t a yes!
I find this self-listening and authenticity in all areas of my life nowadays and I am astounded, because I used to be full of self-judgment, ignoring my own needs and preferences, and would ‘should’ myself about all kinds of things!
I didn’t think I would ever be able to be compassionately honest about what I wanted and didn’t want.
This even shows up in the clothes I want to wear.
When my ex-husband and I split up 6 and a half years ago, I had a deep deep passion for deep dark night-sky blue.
I got rid of all my other clothes and only had blue and cream in my wardrobe.
It was clearly an outer reflection of my inner state.
And in the last year, that’s clearly been changing. I’ve had more and more interest in all patterns and colours.
And in the last few weeks, I’ve had a longing to wear pink again (which I wore ALL through my thirties and then haven’t worn much of since!)
And I’ve had a sense of being repelled by dark blue.
So I’ve been clearing out all the blue.
Time for that phase of my life to go. It’s the end of that era.
Me putting on blue clothes would mean not listening to me.
It might seem a small thing; the colours we wear; but for me, it isn’t.
What we wear, what we eat, who we hang out with, how we spend our time; all of these are important.
This shows up in my creative endeavours too.
My Love Being a Mother Course was the course that I wrote that led me to online courses.
And in the last 6 months, I’ve had this clear inner sense that it had finished. (and interestingly, the branding colours for that course were exactly that night sky blue!)
But I was SO reluctant to let it go.
I loved the material, and I loved seeing the changes that mothers who had done the course had talked about.
And so I ran another live round, which is coming to an end. And it was clear, in the few sign ups and in the quiet FB group, that it really had come to an end.
We are coming to the end of the 16 weeks live round, and a couple of weeks ago I had a creative download.
Yes, the course had come to an end.
But the material didn’t need to.
Instead of costing $330 and including an ongoing FB group, FB lives, ongoing encouraging emails, audios and videos and written material and meditations, I had an idea to make a really streamlined version.
And that’s what I’ve been doing in the last couple of weeks, behind the scenes.
I’ve made a concise version of the material, reduced and changed and updated the self-reflections, included the audio meditations, and made new meditations based on the Divine Mother or Inner Loving Mother.
And it’s all ready.
It’s the Love Being a Mother ebook and Meditations.
And instead of AUD$330, like the course was, it’s $50.
So, if you had been thinking of doing the LBAM course but time or money or commitment put you off, then you might be interested in the LBAM ebook and meditations.
Here are the chapters:
Oh yes; you probably noticed that I added a whole load of PINK to the dark blue (-;
Chapter One is all about the cultural beliefs that we’ve acquired about being a mother and valuing ourselves and what we do and what we need.
Chapter Two is all about self-punishment, and why it’s old-fashioned and doesn’t work!
Chapter Three is all about how to differentiate between moving feelings and flowing feelings, and why that’s important.
Chapter Four is all about listening to, and acting on, what you want and what you need!
Chapter Five is all about loving your child’s feelings, and what you can do to help yourself if you find some of their feelings particularly hard to love!
Chapter Six is all about doing what you love, and why that REALLY helps your child/ren.
Chapter Seven is about – shock – having FUN as a mum/mom!
Chapter Eight is all about connecting compassionately and celebratorily (I just made that word up) with other mothers, whatever their parenting paradigm!
Oh, and would you like to know about the audios? After each chapter, there are two audios. The first one helps support you make changes on a deep inner level.
The second one is me speaking words that The Divine Mother or your Inner Loving Mother might speak to you about the subject of each chapter.
The reason I LOVE this material is because it’s the basis of what I’ve used to get to where I am now, valuing myself to be authentic about my needs and values and what I care about.
And I also LOVE that some of the mothers who did the course had profound shifts.
For example, Julie Tenner went on to create Nourishing The Mother with her friend and colleague Bridget – you may know about their amazing podcast, events and online courses.
Julie said:
Sarah S found herself having way more fun, enjoying time with her son even more, and feeling deep compassion for herself and others…
And Penny made some huge life changes, and went on to create her dream business; Birth, Baby and Beyond.
If you’ve done other courses of mine and you’re wondering whether this will suit you, please feel free to email me and ask me (I sometimes take a while to respond!)
If you want to find out more about the ebook and meditations, click on any of the memes above or the image below.
And whether or not you sign up, I invite you to listen to yourself even more than you do now.
Love,
Marion
xxx