Grandbabies

It's interesting how we can look back and reflect on things in our life and see the relevance or the connection to things that are going on in the now in the moment

But that’s what life is, isn’t it?

Moments, reflections. experiences and emotions. As I’m writing my life reflections, I am feeling the memory of my first grandchild being born. It's odd to reflect on this when emotionally there was a lot of stuff going on physically, I was going through menopause at the ripe age of 40 the relationship between our grandchild’s parents was tumultuous and chaotic.

Perhaps that’s why this particular moment has surfaced to show the joy and gratitude of this event.

I remember the night he was born we sat at the hospital waiting it seemed like hours but after a rushed C section he had arrived Happy healthy and pink.

Oh! how gorgeous he was it was love at first sight his eyes were piercing like they were looking into your soul. I wanted to take him and hug him and never let him go.

He was perfect!

After we returned from the hospital, I felt myself soaring through the night sky up into the stars with joy and pure love, I was so grateful for this tiny being, I felt like I would burst with joy and gratitude, I could feel the energy of my soul flying it felt like my body could not hold my spirit. I had to fly with joy.

Reflecting back I can see how it's true that in the middle of chaos and turmoil, Joy and unconditional love can be the chalice that fills you to overflowing, showing you that the rest is but a speed bump on the path and if you focus your attention on the bump then you miss the joys that are all around you.

Seeing this now I feel the connections to so many things in my life always using the excuse I don’t have the time I can’t do this or that always focused on something other than the moment.

As part of the bigger journey, I now see so many missteps, so many dead-end paths of musts and shoulds.

So many lost moments of joy and freedom in knowing that at the end of life nothing much matters except the connections you have with others.

So much fomo and grieving for what was and should have been.

When I honestly reflect with truth and facts, I see how much I have thought the grass was always greener in someone else’s yard.

The joy of my grand babies’ births was something I hope you get to experience it’s like nothing I ever have before. It’s different to the birth of your own children It's full of magic and pure joy.

It's one of those moments fully embedded into you forever.

But even after all of this, I began to suffer from anxiety and to be honest a sense of shame and fear, which left me feeling emotionally paralysed and afraid to work, afraid of people or sometimes to even leave the house.

What I see now from this vantage point as I enter into my wise years is how I tried to desperately fit in and hang onto things that in truth I never really felt like fitted me or felt worthy of having.

Not feeling good enough to receive the good things in life. I see how I was trying to control outcomes and change things that weren’t meant to be.

Reflecting on how I stepped in to look after grandkids when I honestly would have preferred to be working and adding to our nest egg, fear stopped me but I also felt as though I was meant to be with the ones I have looked after, I see how my connection with them is strengthened by that connection and how much love I feel oozing off them.

The biggest reflection is the anxiety and seeing how I was never really meant to be still for long, not meant to stay in one place but chose to out of fear, not trusting that moving and following what I felt would lead to a life lived not a life of hiding in the shadows and becoming a hermit and the shame and guilt I have carried around for 2 decades.

How all of these actions have led to disease in my body which is now cured and has taught me a lot about myself and others.

As my reflections continue, I know this story will unfold in some amazing insights and stories of things showing up at the right time in the right way but not the way I envisioned it.

Learning to let go and surrender is the biggest lesson of my life.