LIFE & MOTHERHOOD COACH FOR MAMAS IN MIDLIFE

Tag: grief and joy

  • Peace Didn’t Wait

    New here? This post is adapted from my weekly newsletter, Rediscovery — sent every Monday to women over 50 finding their way back to themselves. Sign up to get the next one straight to your inbox.

    Peace Didn’t Wait

    How are you? I hope you’re well. This week, I sat at our table in the sitting room with a coffee in my favourite mug, “relaxing guitar music” playing quietly on Alexa, and I felt beautifully at peace. Charlie was outside on the bench in the garden, waiting for his blue hair dye to take hold, sun on his face.

    Nothing was happening. Nothing needed to happen. And it was one of the loveliest feelings I’ve had in a long time.

    I made a vow there and then: whatever happens in life, I’m keeping hold of that feeling. That sense of peace is my anchor now.

    Because life can be tricky, can’t it – for all of us, no matter how fortunate we are. There will always be moments of upset, challenge, and stress; we’re either in one now, waiting for one, or just come out the other side of one. But if we can hold onto that feeling of peace underneath it all, it doesn’t stop the difficult things happening – it just means we have somewhere steady to stand while they do.

    For me, this particular moment of peace came at a complicated time. My stepdad’s memorial service was two weeks ago. He would have been so proud of all that was said about him and I miss him. It’s left a quiet, hollow kind of absence in our family that I’m still getting used to. Grief has been sitting alongside me these past weeks, quietly, in the background of everything. And then, in the middle of all that, came this: a coffee, some guitar music, my son and his blue hair in the sunshine.

    Peace didn’t wait for the grief to finish. It just arrived, right in the middle of it, and asked to stay. That’s something I’m learning slowly: peace and hard things can exist in the same room together. You don’t need one to be over before you’re allowed the other. Peace can be interrupted too – by the people and situations around us. Unresolved tension, things left unsaid, small frictions that don’t get sorted – they have a way of quietly chipping away at whatever calm you’ve built. I notice it much faster than I used to now.

    I notice when something outside me is pulling at my peace, and I ask myself: is this mine to fix, mine to release, or mine to simply let pass through?

    This week’s action

    Notice when you feel at peace, and notice what you were doing when it arrived. It’s rarely the big, planned moments – usually it’s something small and ordinary. If you can’t remember the last time you felt it, that’s alright. It doesn’t mean it’s out of reach for you.

    Sit somewhere quiet, on your own. Close your eyes. Breathe in, and be aware of that breath filling your lungs. That’s often where peace starts – not in a grand gesture, but in one honest breath.

    Find out what your personal, unique anchor is. For me, right now, it’s gentle guitar music. For you it might be birdsong, a walk, a craft. Experiment with what is yours.

    With love and best wishes always,
    Susy

    —

    by

    Susy Rosemary
    in , , , ,

    New here? This post is adapted from my weekly newsletter, Rediscovery — sent every Monday to women over 50 finding their way back to themselves. Sign up to get the next one straight to your inbox. Peace Didn’t Wait How are you? I hope you’re well. This week, I sat at our table in the…

  • I Didn’t Choose My Rest. My Body Did.

    I Didn’t Choose My Rest. My Body Did.

    How are you? I hope you’re well – and if you’re not, I hope you’re allowing yourself to actually rest rather than pushing through it, which is exactly what I haven’t been very good at.

    I’ve been ill all week. Coughing, low energy, out of action. And the strange thing is, I haven’t minded it.

    I didn’t choose to stop. My body did it for me.

    I’ve been at home all week, clearing my stepfather’s house – going through decades of his and my mum’s things, deciding what to keep, what to give away, what to let go of. It’s been hard. It’s also been the only reason I had the time to find what I found.

    Cards. Lots of them. From my mum to Chris, and from Chris to my mum. Years of them, full of warmth and silliness and real, uncomplicated love. I sat on the floor of that house reading them and I thought – I’m so glad they found each other.

    If I’d been well, I’d have been at work. I would never have had the time to sit with that.

    Then a few nights later, coughing too much to sleep, I came downstairs in the dark and found the electronic piano we’d finally made room for – the one that had been sitting in a garage for over a year. I sat down and played. Badly, made-up tunes, nothing that would impress anyone. But it was fun, it was my creative side being free.

    I haven’t had a piano for a couple of years. Music has always been part of who I am, and I’d let it disappear or at best, not be a big enough part of my life. It’s so easy to let things go whilst you are busy holding everyone and everything together.

    Two things happened in the same week. Grief, in the form of someone else’s love letters. Joy, in the form of playing the piano in the dark. Both true. Neither cancelling the other out.

    Here’s what I’ve decided, with a cough and a coffee: I’m done waiting for illness to give me permission to stop. I shouldn’t need a chest infection to sit on a floor and read love letters, or to play a piano that’s been gathering dust.

    Peace isn’t what’s left over when everything else has been done. It’s not what you get to have once you’ve earned it through exhaustion. It has to be chosen – on purpose, before your body forces the issue. I know I’ve said that before, but I simply have to keep reminding myself, and perhaps that’s you too.

    This week’s practice:

    Pick one thing you’ve been waiting for permission to do – rest, play, sit still, say no to something. Don’t wait for illness, or a crisis, or someone else’s blessing.

    Choose it on purpose, this week. Notice how different it feels to choose it versus having it forced on you.

    I’m not someone who’s worked this all out and is now reporting back from the other side like some shiny guru online. I’m doing this in real time, same as you – coughing, surrounded by the drawers that still need sorting, tinkering on a piano in the middle of the night. But paying attention, and listening to what I actually need – that’s rediscovery.

    With love and best wishes always,
    Susy 🌸

    Ready to go deeper? If you’d like a hand working out where you need freshness in your own life, book a free, no-obligation Connection Call.

    —

    by

    Susy Rosemary
    in

    I Didn’t Choose My Rest. My Body Did. How are you? I hope you’re well – and if you’re not, I hope you’re allowing yourself to actually rest rather than pushing through it, which is exactly what I haven’t been very good at. I’ve been ill all week. Coughing, low energy, out of action. And…