'You can’t pour from an empty cup'. 7 very wise words.
It’s been a crazy 19 months or so. Covid, looting, unknown fears, known risks, keeping children calm, and so much more.
Many of us are feeling chronically fatigued.
Depleted.
Exhausted to our core.
Overwhelmingly underwhelmed.
But you're not alone.
We live in a world filled with such pressure to be, be, be.
We walk around like ticking time bombs, many of us scarily close to breaking point.
Most of us merely going through the notions - never faltering, never admitting defeat or the insane possibility that we may not be coping.
We look to the Internet for almost everything, inevitably losing that connection with our neighbour - forgetting along the way how healing a spontaneous cup of tea and chat can be.
We’ve lost the sanctity of knowing a cup of sugar or 2 eggs can easily be borrowed from next door. Because we live too perfectly to ever run out of sugar and eggs in the first place. It’s as if we run a high-functioning operation instead of a family household.
Needing help is seen as weakness- through our own eyes, mostly.
We micro-manage everything, constantly told what we do is wrong, how we eat is wrong, words we use are wrong. Super-human parents fill our Facebook feed, glam moms have it all together on school runs.
Stop. Breathe. Talk.
Talk to anyone who’ll listen and you’ll soon realise that ‘perfection’ is something created almost entirely by societal expectations.
Perhaps it’s time to explore the reality that ‘just getting on with it’ isn’t always possible.
Our children though. They need the perfect parent, right? Wrong.
What better an upbringing than one that teaches a child that when Heroes fly too high, even they might fall.
Vulnerability is often the purest form of beauty.
And in those quiet, defeated moments it’s ok for our children to know that we sometimes need them more than they need us. It’s more than ok.
Be kind to the body that holds you, and mindful of the heart within you.
Everything that’s broken can be repaired and remember, even bottomless cups must be re-filled.
It’s not easy to hold so many feelings and thoughts and ‘To Do’ lists and schedules and goals.
Please, just talk.
Let it all out - break down, meltdown, dance, sing, scream.
Ask for the sugar. Borrow those eggs.