Awakening out of a period of depression is like the dawning of spring.  Things look different, lighter.  You notice things that you’d stopped noticing – a bird fluttering in the sky, the shape of the clouds, how young and innocent your children sound as they play.

Depression is such a common condition and comes in so many guises.  You can be depressed and not even know it until your head lifts and your heart registers that it has been absent from life.

One thing I have realised doing the work I do is that depression is extremely common for mums; either post natal depression or just a general sinking beneath obligation, expectations, that hopeless feeling of lacking strategies to cope and an endless distancing from you and the things that set you on fire.

It is extremely important to place focus on ourselves as mums and our own self care, but in reality this is often our last priority.  It is for this reason I began the Happiness Habit.  I invited other open and inspired mums to join me in reaching a more peaceful state of being in 30 days.  The first group is about halfway through and I have to say I am feeling an incredible difference.  I use a life-sensing wearable and even that is recognising the difference!  My mood indicator has moved from consistently low to calm for the first time since I started wearing it.

As I shared in my last blog I have been experiencing a deep transition of releasing painful memories and uncomfortable feelings in order to get a place where I am ready to receive the true beauty of life and all that it has to offer.  In the second half of the Happiness Habit, we start to receive.

What I have realised through doing the Happiness Habit is that maintaining this sense of peace and calm this requires embodying that message that I preach to others – you can’t pour from an empty cup.  We have to invest in ourselves daily to be happy, healthy and positive.  When we are not OK it affects every part of our lives, especially #beingmum.  We have a responsibility to make sure we are the happiest and healthiest we can be to be the best mums we can be to our children.

Look out for my next blog from a very special lady, Amy McAuley who will share why she believes it is not selfish to fill up your own cup and explains how everyone else benefits from the FILLED up YOU.

I will leave you with this…

Don’t slip into the darkness

Much love x x