In my experience, there are two situations when life can feel overwhelming. The first, is a burn out, where you’ve been applying yourself so fully, that what you probably most need – is some rest.
The other type – is when life is demanding a lot from you, and you consistently feel unable to meet your obligations. You start procrastinating on important and unimportant things. You try to avoid life. Things just keep piling up. And before you know it, you find yourself in a s***storm that you don’t feel you can handle. That’s the type of overwhelm I would like to talk about today – mostly because, that’s the type of overwhelm I’ve been dealing with. Fun.
I made a decision that something needs to change. I have been implementing these 4 practices that I am about to share with you, into my life for the last 2 weeks, and I’ve noticed such a beautiful transformation in my inner resilience and in how my life feels.
So if you find yourself feeling overwhelmed and underprepared – these 4 steps can help you get back in the driver’s seat of your life.
I have been so nervous to take this step, and so nervous to share this here with you – but I hope you like it! I want to make videos for you about the things YOU care about and things that matter most to YOU – so please do let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions for videos you would like me to make. I promise I will do my best for you <3 !
I find myself stumbling rather ungracefully into the new year. I stepped back into my routines of daily life here in Toronto with a sudden thud. I feel out of sorts, and I just can’t seem to get a grip on anything. They say there are years that question and years that answer. 2018 was an answer. 2019 is a year of question, I can already feel it. Things feel unsettled and haphazard. I completed a mandalam of 40 days of shambavi maha mudra in the early new year. I had expected that it would bring me to a more centered and grounded space, and yet to be quite honest with you, everything feels blurry and confused. I have to believe that the practice gives me what I need most for my spiritual growth. The last time I had completed this mandalam, I discovered I was pregnant and then went on to lose my baby, which ended up being a significant and poignant, but no less beautiful occurrence in my life. Perhaps what I need most for my growth right now is a more potent dose of life, rather than something slow and grounded and centered.
Today I woke up in peculiar kind of way, with a surreal sense of the swiftness of time passing.
I am 28 years old now, slowly inching towards 30. It occurs to me that in two years I will take these 10 monumental years, package them neatly into what I will from that point onwards refer to as “my twenties” and file it away.
I am by no means a minimalist – I like and have a lot of things – but I am trying to be more conscious about my relationship with “things.” These are some of the guidelines I try to follow in my life.
Have the least number of a certain thing that you can
I aspire to have the lowest number of a certain thing that I need/want. I do this by frequently taking an inventory of the things I own and always trying to whittle it down to what really matters, what I really love, what I really use and what truly brings value to my life.
I’ve been lightly looking into Vedic astrology these days, and I have come to see that both Venus and the Moon have a strong influence on my life. Venus is the mother of creativity, she is the force that sends sparks of inspiration to me. That’s how inspiration feels to me – little sparkles that I try to capture and write down into a long list of ideas that I want to bring to life one day. Some days these sparks seldom come, other days it feels like I am on fire. I’ve noticed a true and deep connection between my inspiration and my spiritual practice. The more consistently I maintain my spiritual practice, the more my day is filled with fireworks. I write in my blog much more when I am connected to my practices, when I am living my truest, most authentic life.
When I was pregnant with Reya, I attended the high risk maternity clinic every 1-2 weeks. During one of these appointments, as I walked down the hallway, I saw that the door to one of the examination rooms was open. Inside, there was a couple; the woman was sobbing into her hands, her husband’s eyes were dark and wet, and he was holding her.
I felt that woman’s pain that day, and I will always feel her pain. Because I was her, not too long ago. And I am coming to realize that no matter how much time passes, I will never be too far from that pain. The pain of losing your child.
I seem to have come down with the flu. I’m disappointed because I had so much work I was supposed to do today and now the thought of reading a textbook and answering question banks seems a little out of my reach for now.
Instead, I thought, maybe I should curl back up in bed and write to you. It’s been a while, and I am sorry for that. This whole year has been such a big beautiful mess. I haven’t much felt like myself a lot of the time. More like – carving a new/old self out of whatever remained after my daughter died.
One thing I have been throughout this year, however – is present. Life forced me to be. I can’t be anywhere else but now. I can’t be any way else but this.
I am pregnant again. I had shared the news of this pregnancy a few weeks ago on instagram, so this may not be new to you.
But it has been 28 weeks of growing a little sister for Mia.
I have thrown myself back into studying, so that has made it a little more difficult to find time and energy to write. But I have missed you so.
After doing my first ever monthly favourite post (May Favourites 2017), I had planned to do one every month, but each month I kept thinking “I don’t have enough favourites for this to be a wholesome post.”
And now I feel like there’s TOO many. How did that happen? My husband often says I’m an “all or nothing” kind of girl. So here are ALL my favourites from this summer.
But…before we get to that, I have a big favour to ask you all.
The Butterfly Awards
I was nominated for International Author/Blogger for the Butterfly awards – a UK based initiative to raise awareness about baby and infant loss, and that provides tremendous support for families who have lost their baby. I don’t feel deserving for such nomination, I don’t think I am an adequate spokesperson for such a earth-shattering experience. I don’t feel strong, I just feel like I had no choice. But in sharing our story, I was held by so much love and for that I want to give something back. Maybe you have followed our story through my blog over the last few months, or maybe you know someone who is going through the loss of their baby and it would help them to know that they are not alone.
If you would like to read my profile that is up for nomination, and send a vote my way by clicking on the red love heart on the page, I would be very grateful.
Their website has so many articles that help to prepare you to meet your baby who has died. I remember in the days after realizing that our daughter would die, I felt so alone and so afraid of what was to come. I felt like I was the only one in the world that this had happened to. And I didn’t know what to google, I didn’t know what to search for. But I had so many questions, and so many fears.
But here, there are posts to prepare you for everything to do with meeting your stillborn baby. There is an article to prepare you for how your baby may look at different gestations – I know that was something that worried me a lot at the time (she was the sweetest little thing I ever did see). There are posts on planning your birth, coping with the physical and emotional pain of a labour that will not give you your living baby, knowing your options on how you can spend those few cherished hours with them after they are born, and how to say goodbye and to go home with empty arms.
I would like to raise awareness for resources like this for those who walk this path of baby and infant loss. It is not easy, but we are not alone. Since then, I have made friends with so many mothers of angels, and many of whom have gone onto have their precious rainbow babies. There is a lot of sadness but there is also so much hope.
Thank you for reading, thank you for supporting me, and thank you for your vote.
Let me know if you have voted, or if you have any problems placing your vote. I know that some people have had some troubles with it not going through.
My babygirl’s feet.
Now, back to my summer favourites!
—Beauty & Fashion—
Green hair
98% of the time I am drawn towards natural long dark hair. 2% of the time I want to dye my entire hair some outlandish colour. This summer I decided to indulge in that 2%. Why not.
Life has been floating by. I stopped writing and I stopped taking photographs. I just couldn’t find it in me. I think there was too much to feel and be a part of lately.
After Mia’s due date passed, I couldn’t quite come back from it. The day itself was as difficult as I had anticipated, but there was a heaviness in the weeks to follow that made life slow and tired. I feel forever changed, touched by death.
I spent a short time with my parents in BC. One afternoon I said to my mother “I am to you what Mia is to me. You must love me so much.”
My mom just smiled.
Slowly, I find myself coming back to my words.
And I wrote something about my daughter. It was too big to be a poem, and too small to be a story. So here it is, rough, but loved – a little piece of writing from my heart.
I waited for you, for a very long time, since the beginning of the winter, since the beginning of time. You promised you would come one summer, and that one day we would meet, one day we would fly together, and my heart would be complete.
