Joyful Friendships and Joyful self care - being intentional about experiencing joy

 Aware that the year is coming to an end and that I am two months behind on my posts about my joyful year I have implored myself to open up my laptop and get to work telling you about my joyful focuses for October and November.

As you may remember every year I choose a "word of the year" which acts as a focus and motivation to shape the year ahead.  I use the word to inform my attitude and my actions and I try to think about it's meaning and context in my life. 

Each month of this year I have focused on a different aspect of my life and how "joyful" can influence that part of my life.  In October I chose "friendship" as my monthly focus.  

For a while I had been in a bit of a dark place with regards to friendships, still mourning the loss of some of my closest friends when we moved across the country, and still others moving away, I was starting to feel like no one liked me or my children and I ended up closing ourselves in a bit.  I made it seem like we were busy with other things, but we weren't busy, I was just sad and lonely, and feeling like I wasn't a likable person.  

Luckily (by the grace of God) I decided to claw my way out of this hole I have got myself into, rather than languishing and becoming depressed, and change my mindset and attitude.  I decided to put myself out there again and work harder on my friendships.  I wanted to experience joyfulness in my friendships.

So I committed to going to our groups and meetups whenever we could instead of making excuses and I arranged some meet ups with old friends.  Just the action of doing these things really helped and gave me joy.  Seeing people, making connections and talking to other women all helped me feel better about myself and my capacity for being a good friend to others as well as drawing good friends to me. 

The climax of the month was the Baptism of my two youngest children.  We invited the Godparents who are good friends of ours, some other friends and family and had an absolutely wonderful afternoon together, it warmed my heart so much to be with such special people who had all come to encourage and support us. It was so special. 

November brought a self-care focus.  Self-care is something I am notoriously bad at. I find that there is a little part of my brain which likes to be a martyr and as such feels a strange sense of righteousness in wearing myself to the bone.  Clearly this is not good, it's not what God wants, it's not righteousness at all.  So I made small changes to that in November.  

Self-care is a difficult thing for mothers as so much of our lives require sacrifice for others, it is easy to believe that we don't deserve self-care, or that it is selfish.  But we all know it is important because it helps us be the best versions of ourselves which is what our family deserves. It's a win-win situation.  

The climax of my "Joyful self-care" focus was a visit to "Float in the Forest" which is a flotation tank centre near me.  My sister-in-law bought me a voucher for my birthday and I finally cashed it in.  I spent a blissful hour floating in the dark in a pod of very salty water and took myself out to lunch afterwards where I sat in a café reading a book, eating a delicious lunch and feeling very much like Carrie Bradshaw! It felt so good to spoil myself and really relax.  

 

One of the things I realised over the past two months of joyful focuses is that to have a more joyful life takes intention.  It hasn't just happened because I said the word, it's taken action from me, it's taken work, commitment and planning.  I had to plan my date with myself at the floatation centre, I had to organise the Baptism, I had to make the decision to join meet ups and actually go there.  This year "Joyful" has been my rudder but I have still had to paddle the boat forwards. 

Now we are in December and I am focusing on my family enjoying a "Joyful Christmas".  I'll be sad that this word-of-the-year has ended because it's been so wonderful, but I will reflect on that another day. 

Joyful Body

 As you know my word for the year this year is "Joyful", for the month of May I have decided to focus on working towards a joyful body.  

I cringe slightly at the word "body"; it feels fleshy and like restriction.  But this month isn't about criticising my post partum body or restricting my food intake to try and force my body to comply with beauty standards.  Yuck.  No, this month I am going to focus on nourishing my body, treating it like the gift from God that it is, treating it like it really is a temple for the Holy Spirit and a part of me that I want to last and be healthy for a long time. 

This month I will turn 40.  what an amazing gift to have lived to see 39 years, to have grey hairs on my head and a few unwanted hairs sprouting from my chin!  I love this bit in Diana Gabaldon's book "The Fiery Cross" where Jamie is admiring Claire's greying hair, he compares it to his mother's who, he says: ""...hadna one grey hair...[because she died young]...to see the years touch ye gives me joy Sassenach," he whispered, "for it means ye live."" My grey hairs too are a sign that I have had the privilege to live long enough to acquire them. The Bible even praises grey hair as "a crown of splendour, it is attained in the way of righteousness." (Proverbs 16:31.)And who would I be to argue with that?

I am so thankful to my body for what it has achieved over the past 39 years, grey hairs and all, especially the last 10 or so years of growing, birthing and breastfeeding babies.  I think it's in pretty good nick! But it needs a bit of a pamper, I have given a lot to others with my body and it feels right to spend some time giving back. 

But before I go into how I am going to create a "Joyful Body" in May I want to reflect on April, whose focus was "Joyful Home".  I feel like I already know what my word of the year for 2024 will be as I have felt like "home" is far too big for one month and it could easily be my focus for a whole year, it's been such a lovely thing to focus on.  My goals with "Joyful home" were to finish off some bits and pieces round the house that had been neglected and to work on improving the atmosphere by renewing our rhythms, routines and traditions.  I am pleased with some of the progress I made, but what I didn't get to work on was the atmosphere of the home, if anything it was worse this month than usual.  Bank holidays, extra days off work for my husband and too much chocolate definitely put the month out of whack, getting into good rhythms, inserting new traditions and spending time refining the atmosphere of our home felt like an impossibility, there were too may arguments, too much friction, too much screen time and too much overwhelm for me.   

However it wasn't a total loss as I did make improvements to the physical home that we live in.  I bought some frames and put up some beautiful Hannah Dunnett prints that I've had for a while, I ordered some photos from our old house to be printed and put them in a big frame that I bought before we moved, I emptied a couple of stale old boxes full of papers and other junk that I still hadn't unpacked from the move, I bought a new rug for the living room and I finished the dining room off.  Little things, but things that have been hanging over me and meaning to do for ages and I feel a sense of accomplishment in having achieved them.  I also had a bit of a spring clean, which, shall we just say, is ongoing, and I might even change the name to summer clean, or just all year round clean.  Cleaning seems never ending.  

So onto May and "Joyful Body".  First on my list of things-to-do is to purchase some multi vitamins, my poor neglected body hasn't had to benefit of multi vitamins since I was pregnant and it desperately needs some. I buy Pregnaplan from Cytoplan, not because I am pregnant but because I am breastfeeding so I still need to be careful about the quantities of some vitamins I am taking. Their vitamins are made from food so they are better absorbed into the body than synthetic alternatives, I don't get paid by them or anything I just like their vitamins.  I am also going to get some nice moisturiser, I used to use a lovely cream made from natural oils by a company called Akamuti, but in a bid to be frugal I have been using plain coconut oil,  I want to treat myself a bit so I am going to buy them again.  Again not paid just enjoy the product.

Obviously my diet needs an overhaul, we have been eating far too much processed food, and I am coming to believe that the main cause for ill health and overweight is processed foods and overuse of seed oils.  Just this weekend as a treat we bought some vegan squirty cream to top my scones and jam and I had a peek at the ingredients (maybe I shouldn't have!) The first ingredient is water, fine, second in ingredient is fully hydrogenated palm oil, third ingredient sugar, followed by a whole host of unpronounceable additives.  I think I probably won't ever eat this stuff again. It's not real food and I want real food.  I'm not sure what I will replace it with at this point but my goal is wholefoods because I know this is healthier and likely better for the environment. 

   

We have been trialling gluten free for the past two months in a bid to improve my one year olds skin which has been plagued by eczema almost since birth. His skin is currently hugely improved but gluten hasn't been our only change so I will add in the gluten this month and see where we are.  Being able to go back to eating gluten will improve our diets hugely because I have been relying on gluten free versions of our usual foods which of course means lots of additives.  Gluten free bread has about half the fibre, protein and carbohydrates of wholemeal bread per 100g so the nutritional benefits of eating wheat are clear.  I have not experienced any health benefits from cutting out gluten so I see no reason to continue restricting if my baby's skin remains healthy, and I'm looking forward to making my own bread again.

This poor body of mine is in dire need of some exercise, although I am always on the go, I haven't done any intentional exercise since I was about 12 weeks pregnant and I know it's time to start again.  I'd really like to start jogging again, I used to love it but had to stop because of back pain, but I would like to ease myself into it again and see how I do. I also need to get back into doing some stretches and exercises to improve my core, I feel like I have no muscle function at all in that area, when I bend over it feels like I am only using my back muscles to stand up again which is likely causing me back issues, so core exercises are another thing to do. All this I will find very challenging to squeeze into my schedule.  Home educating 4 boys takes up virtually all my time and I get very little free time, and this little I do get I usually spend doing what I am doing right now...writing. So carving out some extra time for exercise is going to be tricky but I will see what I can do. 

Seeing as my brain is a part of my body I probably ought to do something to improve that too. My poor old brain is very fuddled at the moment.  Possibly the hardest thing about being a parent and especially about having them home all the time, and especially about them all being boys (this is scientifically proven by the way, not gender stereotyping) is the high level of stress I experience for long stretches of time.  This isn't the kind of stress I used to experience as a teacher in a secondary school which was more pressure and time related.  This stress is to do with my brain constantly being made to believe that something dreadful has happened and it's a big emergency and I have to rush and save my children from a life threatening disaster.  Let me explain, I don't know if this is unique to boys, or unique to my boys, but they do very alarming things and make very alarming noises which signify either real or fabricated emergency.  Unfortunately my brain can't distinguish between the two so is almost constantly on high alert and is regularly being injected with cortisol and adrenaline thinking it is going to need to send my body into fight mode to rescue my children from some terrible foe, or some sort of horrible accident.  Sometimes it is a horrible accident or emergency, like a child jumping from a high height and breaking his foot, or accidentally cutting himself with a whittling knife, or getting himself so stuck in a tree that I have to saw a branch off, or disappearing in a busy public place (I could go on).  And sometimes it is fabricated such as one child won't let the other have the TV remote, or a fight breaks out on the trampoline, or someone doesn't like the dinner I made, or doesn't want to go to the group we are supposed to attend and they scream like they are being murdered. My brain can't tell the difference so is constantly stressed, there are studies that show mothers of boys are more likely to suffer from dementia in later life because of the higher level of stress that boys cause, (read about it here if you like) and since no one else is going to bother to take care of my brain health I need to do something now to protect it for later on. But what to do?  Well diet and exercise can mitigate some of the effects of stress, I think I also need to try and do some sort of meditation (cringe) and dedicate some time to prayer.  Again carving this time out in my busy day is going to be difficult but I need to try for the sake of my future health. 

  So I think that's about it for now, May is my favourite month of the year so I'm looking forward to taking care of myself a bit this month.  If you got this far, thank you for reading,  do you have a focus for your month?  What is your word of the year? How is it going?  Consider this your reminder to reflect on your word of the year, why you chose it and what you want from it and also don't forget to take some time to take care of yourself, you matter too in this busy life, you care better for others when you are well cared for yourself. 

 

Word of the year for 2023

Well hello there, long time no see!

2022 has, in one word been nuts.  Utterly mad, chaotic and crazy.  I had a baby and that's pretty much all you need to know. 

My word for 2022 was grace.  I was to give myself grace on parenting, art, creativity, home ed, my home, and I did.  Giving myself grace was supposed to mean forgiving myself when I couldn't achieve everything that I wanted to,  grace was supposed to mean forgiving myself when I did not achieve perfection, and it was supposed to mean resting in the moment rather than frantically trying to do everything. Grace did all these things for me, whenever I started feeling like I wasn't doing enough, wasn't good enough I reminded myself that this year I would give myself grace.  2021 was a stinker, bad pregnancy, covid, my husband nearly dying, and numerous hospital visits, slow progress on our house and umpteen other unfortunately events meant I was all out of energy and motivation.  Grace was what a needed for 2022. 

And I did indeed give myself grace, I gave myself grace in abundance, I totally and utterly clocked off from trying, the grace I was giving myself started mean that I became a bit lazy, I started to give myself excuses for doing the things that I should have been, could have been and wanted to be doing. For much of the year grace ended up meaning not trying too hard at anything. And in the end this was not the goal.  

Although I did feel a degree of peace in not putting a lot of pressure on myself to achieve, I have ended up looking back and feeling like the year still very stressful and chaotic and I've ended up feeling a little bit disappointed with myself, and and that's not a nice feeling.

It was back in November that I realised the word I needed for 2023.  It had been in my mind since my baby was born at the end of December 2021.  Joyful.  He was born at home about 20 minutes before the paramedics and midwives arrived, just me and my husband and it was perfect.  When he was born I felt the most exquisite joy wash over me and I began to laugh! His name means joyful. 

Unfortunately thinks went bad after that, and joy wasn't something I could access for quite a while.  

But I am so ready for joyful in 2023, and I'm excited to find out how I can make all aspects of my life joyful.  I'm going to explore joyful eating, joyful dressing, joyful home school, joyful marriage and joyful parenting to name just a few.  

As I prepare for the year ahead I have been turning to the Bible to inform how joyfulness can influence my year and there are two things that strike me most.  First, joy comes from Christ and second joy in not dependant on circumstances. I will talk more about this in the year, but those two factors are going to be infused into every aspect of my word of the year and I'm really excited to experience the year unfolding with joy at the heart. 

Do you have a word of the year?  I'd love to hear what it is a why.