This is my story - Own your story

I started writing a post about how much being open and honest has enriched my life and relationships (I will share this post, but just not today).

This is not the kind of blog where I give you all the answers. It's a place to share a journey and hopefully let you know that we don't have to be stuck on the hamster wheel. So maybe I need to get really real. If I can change my life, so can you.

I have suffered from depression and anxiety a number of times. I've come to accept that the rest of my life may be peppered with these afflications. I can’t change that, but I can set my life up in a way that helps to minimise these occurrences and helps me to survive them in the best way I can when they do arise.

My father was a domestic violence perpetrator and I witnessed things that I hope with every fibre of my being my children will never endure. I know that the violence I’ve witnessed is nothing in comparison to others’ stories of horror, but it shaped who I am today.  I think parenting is more difficult for me than most (and I know its hard for everyone) because I worry so much about every aspect of my parenting and every time I lose my temper I worry about the mental scars I’m leaving on my children.

I don’t smack my children and I do everything in my power to not have my kids be afraid of me, because I felt so much fear as a child. Sometimes my kids are disobedient (as they all are!) and I wish they were afraid of me but then I tell myself I’m glad they disobey me, because it means they aren’t afraid of me and it means they have spirit. I’m proud of that and I hope that my children live their entire lives with the spirit they have today and they never feel the fear that has dogged me my entire life.

In this blog I will probably talk a lot about my difficulties in overcoming my perfectionism and inability to stay in the moment. I spent my life fearing failure and rejection and those fears kept me prisoner. 

I spent a long time covering up my emotional scars, but not anymore. These scars have given me strength of character, resilience and compassion. As I write this, I am incredibly proud of the woman I have become and the woman I want to be.

In the last couple years I have changed my life a lot and I’m continuing on the journey. I hope you will share this journey with me and my honesty helps you with your journey.

By all accounts my life has been a "success" if you define success in terms of money and outward achievements. I had a successful career in the corporate world and was earning a six figure salary in my late twenties. I have two highly regarded degrees. I worked myself to burnout.

To me my real successes have been in the years since I left the corporate world and my determination to live a more meaningful life that is not defined by shiny things.

My final point is this: My stories used to own me and I lived a life of fear. Now I own my stories and I’m no longer afraid of them. My stories can no longer hurt me.

*STOP DOMESTIC VIOLENCE*

My sanity was scattered amongst the toys that littered the floor

Let it go, let it go...

Come on, you know the words!

My son could sing the words “let it go” before he could even talk… not kidding. Yes, his big sister was obsessed with frozen as all girls her age are, but more likely it was because we would sing those words (with just a touch of cruel sarcasm) whenever one of the kids had a tantrum about not being allowed to do/have something.

Last weekend I did an Elsa and just let it go.

I’ve been sick for weeks and SO SO tired. Post viral fatigue apparently.

Having done a stint of working full time whilst suffering a bout of tonsillitis followed by a horrible cough, my house was in a state. My lounge room was dotted with little piles of clothes every where - I summoned the energy to fold them, but not to actually carry them to the bedrooms. The floor had almost reached the point where our feet were leaving footprints in the dust (yes that has happened before… but in fairness we were getting renovations done…).

Suffice to say, I should have been doing house work.

Mr Busy wanted to take a road trip with the kids. I very nearly stayed home, but with a view to cleaning the house, rather than taking it easy. My sanity was scattered among the toys that littered the hallway.

However, at the last minute, I decided to let it go. After all, I’m pretty sure I became a parent to spend time with my kids rather than to be a cleaner. I bought a new car (and by new I mean old) several months ago and haven’t taken it for a good drive since. Scary - that means I haven’t been more than half an hour from my house (other than for work) for several months.

So, I slapped on my leaving the house face, and squished myself in the back of the car between the kids, because my mother in law joined us and I let her have the front seat (I'm so kind! But also the only one skinny enough to be jammed between the two kids' carseats).

I'll just put it out there that driving up the Gillies Range to the Atherton Tablelands (beautiful spot by the way!) jammed in a tiny gap between to car seats is not good for someone who gets car sick.

At that time I can assure you, I really wished that I had stayed home and done the housework. I wouldn’t be trying to keep my stomach in its correct spot and I’d actually be achieving something. 

I can say though, the once we reached our destination and my stomach stopped churning I knew that I’d made the right choice. It was a really beautiful day and the air up the tablelands was crisp. We took the kids to see the animal nursery and I loved seeing how proud and excited they were for patting the cows. I think we can learn a lot from kids. My daughter, Princess Sparkle, could not stop talking about how brave she was for patting the cow and happy she was that she’d been so brave. She didn’t hold it back, she wasn’t hard on herself for being worried about it, she was just happy that she did it. What a great way to approach life. If only we could look at those small brave things we do and say “hell yeah, that was scary and I did it and I’m super brave.”

The Gallo dairy has gorgeous food! Delicious lunch and really beautiful scenery. 

The cheeses and chocolate - I kid you not: divine!! I love high quality, handmade rocky road and there's was divine. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. I'd do the vow-worthy squishy trip just for the chocolate. But I digress...

Here’s the best bit about the day: I came home with an outlook on life that was as fresh as the tablelands air. My house was just as grubby as it was before we left, but I stopped stressing out about it. The weekend isn't over yet and we had a great day. What could be more important than that?

So there you go. Sometimes, you need to just let it go and do something fun to remind yourself of why we are actually doing this and come back to your problems with a fresh outlook that makes them look far less problematic.

5 lessons from my first week in blogging

Wow! I think I've learned a lot in the last week. It's been a pretty amazing experience.

Here is a bit of rundown on what I've learned:

1. In order to start a blog you need to just start the damn thing. This is not a joke. As I say in About the Busy Bee - I'm a procrastinator. I started thinking about a blog, then I started reading blogs, then blogs about starting a blog etc. I would probably have continued on researching and planning until I completely abandoned the idea had Mr Busy Bee not said to me, "Shouldn't you just start a blog and see if you enjoy it? You'll work it out if you experiment with it." Brilliant!! So just get out there and experiment.
2. All the websites told me how easy it is to start a blog - it only takes five minutes. Yes, that's true, but it took me a little while to work out how to tinker with the layout. Don't let it get you down if you don't pick it up straight away. I've certainly got a lot to learn, but I'm really enjoying the learning process.
3. Social media helps to get your blog out there, but it also incredibly distracting! I'm not one for social media ordinarily, but it has taken up a lot of my time (as discussed in the blog post: How social media made me anti-social). Keep your eye on the prize. If you want anyone to read your blog, you do have to get it out there, but can you can lose HOURS playing on Facebook and Twitter.
4. Reach out. I reached out to a couple of people whose work I admire, beginner bloggers like myself and professionals. All were exceptionally kind to me and I was flattered that they took the time to give such genuine responses. If you genuinely love someone's work, let them know. I guess we all need a pat on the back occasionally.
5. Blogging is fun! I've had a great time planning my blogposts, playing with pictures and finding like-minded bloggers. I've been pleasantly surprised by the number of people reading my blog (some don't even know me) and that's giving me the courage and inspiration to continue on into the second week. 

So there you go. By no means do I think I've got this thing worked out and no doubt one day I'll look back at these early posts and think they are terrible, but for now I will settle for being incredibly happy that I'm having fun and learning. Surely that is the very best reason to do something.

Bee a role model

Ahh... a word play... well done me!

Today I'm pondering whether we have an obligation to prioritise our health, wellbeing and balance for the sake of our kids and future generations.

As I've indicated previously, I'm a chronic multi-tasker and I run around like a bunny on too much caffeine. That might be because I consume too much caffeine of course, but I think its just me.

I bounce around from one thing to the next doing a lot, but seemingly achieving little, and constantly focussing on "getting things done".

Mr Busy Bee is a keen sportsman, so two nights a week he plays his sport. I don't begrudge it - I admire it. We all know how good sport is for you and as a parent, a bit of time out is invaluable. Certainly, he's a much more balanced person when he gets a bit of exercise.

The problem is, whilst I'm happy to take on a few extra duties so that Mr Busy Bee can play sport and I know he would do likewise for me, I can't seem to prioritise myself enough to do the same. I always find an excuse not to take care of myself - there's no time, I'm too tired, who will do x, y and z?

I focus so much on looking after others, that I don't look after myself.

The result is that I'm often short tempered and grouchy and sometimes I snap at the kids for no good reason (what - me? never!). More regularly than I care to admit, I resent others for the fact that I don't make time for myself.

This seems to be a pretty common theme amongst my friends. I've discussed this at length with my friends - do we do this because our own mums did it? I know certainly my mum was the same, as were many of my friends' mums.

Am I condemning my daughter to do the same thing? Am I showing my son that its more important to his partner to look after him than herself (or himself if the case may be)?

That being the case is it not an obligation to my children to prioritise myself and actively self care? And if I don't maintain some interests of my own, who will I be by the time my children grow up? Already I wonder where my old self went - the fun one that I was before I had kids. The one who loved going out on Saturday nights for dinner and trying new restaurants and wine.

I'm proud of myself for starting this blog because its all about me. It's about me actually pursuing my love of writing, rather than something that has to be done.

So thanks to everyone for reading and giving me the motivation to keep going.

Please share with me how you approach balance and self care. I'd love to hear.

When did we get so wanky?

This blog is not intended to be ranty kind of blog, more of a ponderous kind of blog. Having said that:

WARNING: This post could get ranty

Right. Now I have that out of the way, let's begin.

I took myself off to the shops to buy some groceries. Nothing special about that - 500 litres of milk, 20 loaves of bread, the usual.

Usually I have the kids with me when I shop, so I just throw random things in the direction of my trolley and hope something useful lands in there. Today though, I went on my own. It was BLISS. I didn't yell at a single person. I didn't have to apologise to any complete strangers. Lovely stuff.

However, I actually had time to notice some of the products on the shelf.

The thing that really made me raise my eyebrows was a particularly expensive packet of baby wipes. I could just about buy the aforesaid 500 litres of milk and 20 loaves of bread for the same price as a couple of packets of these wipes. 

These wipes claimed to be 99.9% water and .1% fruit extract. I'm not kidding. 

Firstly - would this not make the wipes a liquid? According to me 99.9% + .1% = 100% liquid. Which, clever marketing genius of scammy wipes, means they aren't actually wipes at all. They are just water with a drop of juice in them.

Secondly - are people falling for the crap? If so, why? I'm not sure that I understand why you would spend a week's groceries on a packet of wipes when you can just buy ordinary priced ordinary ones. 

I get that there are kids with sensitive skin - I have one of those. I spend way too much money on wanky sensitive skinned soap free organic soaps etc for Captain Destroyer (it appears that ordinary soaps etc are his kryptonite). I stick to soap free, extra moisturising wanky products in his case, but have never had to resort to 100% liquid solid products.

For those people whose kids who have even more sensitive skin than my boy. You have my sympathy - spend away on natural products.

But I can't help wondering whether we've gone so far in favour of natural and organic that we've actually just gone a little bit too far. 

In my mum's generation, they weren't even using wipes. If they existed, they were restricted to rich people. My mum used cotton balls and a bit of water. If she was feeling out there - maybe a damp face washer. Get out!! You mean she actually put the water on the cotton balls herself?!! Because if we're paying all that money to essentially put a bit of water on a tissue, could we not just damp a tissue ourselves?

I don't limit this disbelief to parents. I just think we might have gone a bit overboard with the consumerism thing.

If we could just damp some cotton balls (thanks for the tip Mum), we could save a bit of cash, borrow less from the bank, pay less interest and put less in the pockets of the big nasty evil minds behind big banks and "natural" products.

Well now. I think it might have gotten ranty. Sorry about that.

Empty rewards from little sugar coated tasks

I've been reading Daniel Levitan's "The Organized Mind" (2014). I say reading, but that's probably very generous and makes me sound more intellectual than I actually am. It's probably more correct to say that I jump through the book like a bunny that's had too much caffiene - which is probably how I go about most things in my life!

Ordinarily, I'm more of a Marian Keyes or Mhairi McFarlane kind of girl, but I'm trying to shake things up as a better life investigator - expand the mind you might say.

But, I've gone off topic like the caffeine bunny that I am.

I'm a multi-tasker from way back. I've gotten worse as I've gotten older and jammed more things into the limited minutes in my day. When Princess Sparkles was 6 months old I went back to work a couple of days a week and I was still doing my Masters in Business Administration (don't judge me - I'm the main income earner in the family and I was SO close to finishing that damn masters that I don't actually use in my corporate escapee job). There are only so many hours in the day and I had to multi-task like a demon.

Daniel Levitan (The Organized Mind, 2014, p 170) says:
"In multi-tasking, we unknowingly enter an addiction loop, as the brain's novelty centers become rewarded for processing shy new stimuli, to the detriment of our prefrontal cortex, which wants to stay on task and gain the rewards of sustained effort and attention. We need to train ourselves to go for the long reward, and forgo the short one."

That's me!! I'm so addicted to achieving things that I definitely forego the long reward in order to get the kick of "achieving" something. I took the day off work today so that I could write an essay for a competition. It's quite an intellectual thing about addressing gender parity and there is REALLY good prize money. But here I am writing my blog because:

• It will take me most of the day to even get a draft of that essay done, so no immediate reward there
• Most likely thousands of people will enter the competition, so I won't win it anyway (one day we might talk about my self esteem issues, but that's for another day)
• It's intellectual so I have to turn my brain into serious mode and it just doesn't like being there.

So here I am foregoing the reward of actually writing something important that I'm passionate about because I'd addicted to shiny new stimuli and "empty rewards from little sugar coasted tasks" (a great phrase that I'm pretty sure I nicked from Levitan, D, The Organized Mind 2014).

Is anyone else out there out there addicted to "achieving" (ahem... just a little sarcasm there on my part) and multi-tasking? How far do you go with your multi-tasking and what do you do to try and manage it?

How social media made me anti-social this weekend

All I can say is it's a good thing it was a long weekend at my house this weekend!

I'm not a social media person and I don't even surf the web that much. So this weekend has been a bit different for me...

In order to set up a blog I had to do a lot of research on how to set one up and how to actually get people to see it.

That's not too bad in itself, but I'm very distractable! I don't want to think about how many times I've snuck off this weekend to quickly google something (really basic stuff like - how does twitter work?), or to set up an account of some sort.

So I've done my crash course:

• Blog created - CHECK
• Facebook page created - CHECK
• Twitter account created - CHECK
• Worked out how to use all of the above - CHECK (I think!)

Here is the downside - I've been pretty anti-social. Like I said, I kept sneaking off to do these things.

If the aim of this blog is to investigate better living, I'm probably getting off on the wrong foot.

Note to self: Don't let better life investigator blog on how not to be so busy just make me even busier.