LIFE & MOTHERHOOD COACH FOR MAMAS IN MIDLIFE

Tag: self-rediscovery

  • The Room Still Wasn’t Right — Until I Added the Sunflowers

    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 here to get the next one straight to your inbox.

    The Room Still Wasn’t Right — Until I Added the Sunflowers

    How are you? I hope you’re well. This week I finally finished something I’d been chipping away at for weeks – brightening our sitting room.

    New curtains were up. I’d repainted two old wicker chairs sage green. I’d made the cushion covers, one set patchwork, one floral with a gingham trim. I’d swapped the pictures on the wall for bright, modern florals. Decluttered, changed the rug. Every piece, in place.

    And it still wasn’t right. Something was missing.

    Then yesterday I put a vase of sunflowers on the table.

    That was it. That was the final piece that lifted the room. It went from nice to somewhere that lifted me, somewhere that made me smile and, well, just, feel happy. And then I thought – that’s not really about the room.

    You can get everything technically right. The curtains hung, the chairs painted, the frame of a life arranged exactly the way it should be. And it can still be missing the one thing that makes it feel like yours. Not more sorted. More alive.

    I’ve been doing a lot of sorting lately – clearing out, taking care of everyone, getting things in order, making sure the structure underneath me and my family is solid. And don’t get me wrong, structure truly matters. We all need that foundation, that security we can build on. But structure doesn’t give you the spark. It doesn’t give you that feeling of aliveness which is unique to you, that makes you you.

    That addition to your life can be small. For me, this week, it was a vase of fresh flowers on the table. A choice, made on purpose, to bring a gentle vibrancy into a quiet, intentional space.

    This week’s reflection:

    Where have you done all the “right” things – and forgotten the sunflowers?

    Have a think about:

    • Your home
    • Your body
    • Your work
    • You, plainly, underneath all of it

    Pick one. You don’t need to overhaul it. You just need the fresh thing, not the renovation. The flowers, not the whole room done again.

    Freshness isn’t decoration. It’s how you know you’re still living your life and not just maintaining it.

    With love and best wishes always,
    Susy

    P.S. If you want a hand working out how to rediscover the spark that’s unique to you, that’s exactly what a Connection Call is for. Reply here and we can book in a relaxed, free, no obligation chat.

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    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 here to get the next one straight to your inbox. The Room Still Wasn’t Right — Until I Added the Sunflowers How are you? I hope you’re well.…

  • 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

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    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 Cancelled the Alarm and Fell Back to Sleep

    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.

    I Cancelled the Alarm and Fell Back to Sleep

    How are you? I hope you’re well. This morning we woke up at 8.30, not 7.30 like the plan. Charlie had school gates closing at 8.40. We’d watched the football final the night before – I’m not even that into football, but “It’s the world final, it only happens every four years, Mum!” so I gave in.

    Ten minutes. That’s what we had, from bed to school gate.

    There was a time I’d have panicked and snapped. A sharp voice before I’d even said good morning. Rushing round the kitchen narrating the disaster out loud – “we’re going to be late, oh my god, come on, come on” – as if saying it faster would somehow get us there faster. The day starting on the back foot for both of us, and staying there.

    This morning didn’t go that way. We laughed about sleeping in – I’d cancelled the alarm without realising and fallen straight back to sleep. We got dressed at speed, walked fast instead of panicking, and got there on time. Nothing about the situation was different. I was.

    Here’s what I’ve come to understand: power isn’t the loud version of yourself. It was never the version who could out-shout the chaos or control every variable so nothing ever went wrong. That’s not power, that’s running on empty and calling it coping. Real power is quieter and much less dramatic than that. It’s the half-second gap between realising something’s gone wrong and what you do next. It’s choosing the joke over the snap. Not because you don’t feel the stress – I felt it, standing in that kitchen – but because you’ve decided the stress doesn’t get to drive.

    Nobody hands you that gap. You build it, morning by ordinary morning, mostly in situations too small for anyone else to notice. Nobody’s writing about the school run or the missed alarm. But that’s exactly where it gets practised. Not in the big dramatic moments – in the ten minutes you didn’t have.

    I still don’t always get it right. Some mornings the old version shows up first, and I catch her halfway through a sentence. That’s not failure. That’s just the gap being a little smaller than the panic, some days. What’s changed isn’t that I’ve become a calm person. It’s that I now know calm is a decision I make in real time, not a personality I either have or don’t.

    This week, notice one moment where something goes sideways – small, ordinary, nothing dramatic. The kettle that won’t work. The message that lands wrong. The plan that changes without asking you.

    In that moment, before you react on autopilot, ask yourself one question: what response do I actually want to have here?

    Then choose it. Not perfectly. Just once, on purpose.

    Write down what happened afterwards, in one sentence. Not “I’m working on my reactions” – something real: “The oven timer went off at the worst moment and I didn’t snap. I just moved the pan.”

    Then build on it, one decision at a time.

    With love and best wishes always,
    Susy

    P.S. What’s one small moment this week where you chose your reaction instead of it choosing you? And if you’d like to talk properly about what’s underneath these moments, that’s exactly what a Connection Call is for – a real, free conversation, no pressure.

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    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. I Cancelled the Alarm and Fell Back to Sleep How are you? I hope you’re well. This morning we…