Become the mum you want to be

Motherhood can be challenging, stressful, and painful.  But it is also, for many women, one of their greatest sources of joy and achievement.  This Mother’s Day Weekend, become the mum you want to be:

• Follow your own heart.  Let go of advice, judgment and criticism and, instead, follow your own heart.  Get in touch with what really matters to you as a mum.  Think about it this way: in 20 or 30 years’ time, when your children have all grown and the challenges that you are currently facing are long gone, what kind of mother do you want to have been?  Is mothering for you about being supportive?  Or kind?  Or loving?  Put those values at the very centre of your parenting.
• Find the joy.  Notice the moments of joy in your life as a mum.  Joy is your heart’s way of telling you that you are on the right track.  When you are following your own heart you’ll find moments of joy and deep satisfaction even when life is stressful.  Think to yourself:  what am I doing now that matters to me?  What does this joy tell me about my values?
• Don’t take the inner critic too seriously.  We all have an inner critic – a noisy inner voice that lists everything we are doing wrong and everything we ‘should’ be doing.  We can’t get rid of our inner critics.  But we can stop taking them so seriously.  You don’t need to listen enraptured to everything your inner critic says.   You don’t need to fight that inner voice either.  Instead, you can let the inner critic talk on while you get on with living your life.
• Don’t be derailed by others.  Other people may have different values to you.  They may have found different strategies that worked for their children, or that worked in their circumstances.  You have every right to mother your way and in a way that works for you and your children.
• Fill your life with little things that matter.  Start now by doing something small that matters to you.  Do you value being an affectionate mother?  Give your children a cuddle.  Do you value being supportive?  Well, then pick a little act you can take today that is supporting your children.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Apply it in your life:  What kind of mum do you want to be?  What small steps can you take, today, towards being that mum?