BEING A MOTHER- PART TWO- MY 'ADVICE'

My Now Non-Stop 2 Year Old!

I love being a Mum. I did not know that I would be good at it. Which I am pretty sure I am! But you are bound to be good at anything you love doing! The best advice I can give you when you fall pregnant and when your little bundle of joy arrives is… TRUST YOURSELF. You are a Woman and Women have been giving birth and raising Children since the dawn of time! We are built for this! Do not let fear or what ‘other people say’ dictate a single thing. There are so so many statistics about so many different things when it comes to being pregnant, giving birth and raising a child. YOU ARE NOT A STATISTIC. YOU ARE A HUMAN BEING AND YOU MUST DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU! Let me say that again… DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU. Never in your life is it more important to learn to trust yourself, your body and your instincts than it is from the moment you fall pregnant.

The moment you break the news you are pregnant you will have people from all different directions informing you what you should do, what you shouldn’t do and how you should go about doing certain things. Don’t get me wrong, ‘they’ say these things because they have your best interest at heart, but you need to do what FEELS right to you. No one is you but YOU and you have to trust yourself and your motherly instincts because I assure you… those instincts are there! I read all the time about the media, other mothers and even family members disparaging a woman for a choice they have made. The peer pressure you receive as a mother is unbelievable! The statistics that come out about this and about that do not help either. As a Woman in this world who is built for giving birth and you are blessed with free will and a keen motherly instinct and you WILL know what to do. All you have to do is trust yourself.

Once you make a decision. You need to own that decision. If you want to give birth naturally do it. If you don’t… don’t! You will have women tell you how amazing giving birth naturally is (I am one of those :) and then you will have women who tell you how much easier it is to have a caesarean. Then you will read statistics for and against having a ceasar and you will read the media that disparage women who do and disparage women who don’t. Then you get to breast feeding and the debates about- should you, shouldn’t you, what is the best way to do it, how long for, can you do it in public? Then you get to- should you wrap your baby or not and then into different sleeping positions, bassinet or cot, and so and so forth. By all means, use the information out there as a guideline because it really does help but do what feels best for you!

 You and your baby have a special bond that no statistic can put a number to and you will know what he or she wants. Even if you don’t know straight away you will go through the steps of- is she cold, is he hungry, is she windy, etc and you will find out! The best thing I ever did was learn to be calm, patient and trust myself as a mother that I will do the right thing. And… I did and… I do!

Which brings me to… when you have done what is best for you and you have trusted your instincts and have done what works best for you and your baby, NEVER EVER disparage another mother if her way is different to yours. I would never dream of saying a woman was ‘not a real woman because she had a caesarean’ or that ‘breast feeding in public is disgusting’ or even ‘breast feeding is child abuse’ (yes, that one is out there) or even again ‘a woman is not a real woman unless she has had a baby’. It is none of your business what decisions other women make just as it is none of anyone’s business what decisions you make. Too often you see women ‘competing’ against each other or disparaging another woman for the certain way she does something. It has nothing to do with you.

Don’t worry. I am not forgetting my awful judgement about the woman who fell pregnant before me and how I agreed with a bunch of people in their early 20’s who had no children in their lives and were busy with idle gossip, getting drunk, and partying. I could not believe I believed them and that I allowed myself to judge someone else about something I had no clue about. Especially when, in all honesty, I knew better. I just hope that you can learn from my mistake because it is not a nice mistake to make in the first place. Judging other women because they do not do what you do is all too common and it should not happen. We need to show a healthy respect for each other and support each other rather than compete against each other or say 'my way is the right way' because as a Mum, you know there is not one way and the 'right way' is the way that feels right and works in your or your babies best interest at that time.

Having a child is the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my entire life. Every day Beau brings nothing but love, curiosity and adventure into my life! I am 100 times the person I was because, obviously, I learnt a lot and the strength you acquire because you will do anything for this little person is amazing! Children do not wreck your life, not even for a second! Phew! :) It can be overwhelming and incredibly trying, I am not going to deny that at all! There are times when it can be extremely hard! But in all honesty the times that I felt like it was really ‘HARD’ is when I was not right within myself. If you fail at any stage to look after yourself then you will find it HARD. If you do not get enough sleep, if your relationships with your partner and/or other people are in turmoil or if you do not do things to look after YOURSELF and ensure you have some degree of happiness then motherhood will be incredibly hard.

This is another lesson that there is no more critical time to learn. I always tell people that there is no way you can prepare yourself for having a baby- other than starting on the path to learning to love yourself. It is THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT of having a baby. When you love yourself and have a healthy respect for yourself then you will do things to ensure your happiness which in turn makes you a better mother. If you look after yourself then you will be patient, you will be more alert and you will be more likely to trust your instincts. If you don’t look after yourself you run the risk of not enjoying motherhood, of ‘losing it’, of being a lazy parent and worst of all not being the best person you can be for yourself.

Believe it or not I truly believe that that is the only aspect which will make you a good mother or a not so good mother. The evidence of it is all around us. It is so important that we get to know ourselves and learn to love ourselves. If you want the best life possible for yourself and your family, there is nothing more important. There are a number of ways to start on the path that don’t even cost a dime and I personally think the best way to start this is to examine yourself, get to know you. What do you want from life? What do you enjoy doing? If you need any help doing this I have a brilliant questionnaire that helps you get to know YOU so feel free to email me and ask me for it if you like! Casey.lee.evans@gmail.com

I hope this blog has helped you in any shape or form. The main things I hope people take away from this is:

1:Go easy on yourself! Don’t do what I did because I missed out on the amazing experience being pregnant can be!

2:Do what is BEST FOR YOU.

3:Trust yourself, your body and your instincts!

4:When you make a decision OWN IT and never mind what ‘they say’ or what the ‘statistics are’.

5:Be patient and calm otherwise you will allow yourself to get overwhelmed and to help you be patient and calm you need to…

6:LOVE YOURSELF. Why wouldn’t you? You're amazing.

Stay fabulous!

CLE

THINKING OF THOUGHTS

There is nothing in this world that is 'nothing'. The only reason we might consider something as 'nothing' is because we have not found a way to measure it yet. Simply put- anything in this world we can perceive with one of our 5 senses we have figured out a way to measure. For example- sound, which we perceive with our ears, can be measured a number of ways with devices that we employ and are expressed in units according to what we measure eg. a 'decibel' is the power or intensity of the sound or a 'sone' is a unit of perceived loudness. 

So, there is no such thing as nothing. Even when we wave our hand gently through the air, though we cannot perceive the air with any of our 5 senses, the air is not nothing, it is a combination of gasses made up of different chemical compounds. Every corner of this earth has something in it. Scientists have never even created a ‘perfect vacuum’, they have only ever managed a ‘partial vacuum’. However, even if every single atom and particle could be removed from a volume, it would still not be "empty" due to vacuum fluctuations, dark energy, and other phenomena in quantum physics.

Now we know that there is no such thing as ‘nothing’ if we look at what everything is made of… from the chair you are sitting on, to the computer you are reading this on, to the eyes you are using to read these words… it is all made of the exact same thing- atoms. That is right, your right hand, when broken down, is made of the exact same thing as the right leg of the chair you are sitting on. The difference between the atoms in the chair’s right leg and your right hand is its state of vibration.

Which brings me to the title of this note… ‘thinking of thoughts’. If there is no such thing as ‘nothing’ and every single ‘thing’ on this earth is composed of atoms at different vibrations then- what is a thought? A thought must be a ‘thing’. Something we can measure. Dr Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone, spent a lot of time studying vibration and what he hypothesised was that thoughts can be measured and are at a state of vibration somewhere between sound and heat. Dr Bell says

“Suppose you have the power to make an iron rod vibrate with any desired frequency in a dark room. At first, when vibrating slowly, its movement will be indicated by only one sense, that of touch. As soon as the vibrations increase, a low sound will emanate from it and it will appeal to two senses.

At about 32,000 vibrations to the second the sound will be loud and shirll, but at 40,000 vibrations it will be silent and the movements of the rod will not be perceived by touch. Its movements will be perceived by no ordinary human sense.

From this point up to about 1,500,000 vibrations per second, we have no sense that can appreciate any effect of the intervening vibrations.

After that stage is reached, movement is then indicated first by the sense of temperature and then when the rod becomes red hot, by the sense of sight. At 3,000,000 it sheds violet light. Above that it sheds ultra-violet light rays and other invisible radiations, some of which can be perceived by instruments employed by us.”

Dr Bell goes on to say that the gap between sound and heat (40,000 vibrations per second to 1,500,000 vibrations per second) is so vast and considering there is no human sense that can recognise the vibration, there is something there that we are yet to discover just as we did not know that ultra-violet light was there until we found a way to measure it. Just as radio signals are broadcast through the air and we cannot hear them until we use our radio to tune into the frequency. Napoleon Hill, one of my all-time favourite Authors, believes that our thoughts vibrate even higher- well past ultra-violet light at 3,000,000 vibrations per second.

Thoughts are seemingly nothing that originate nowhere but we do know that that is not how the world works. Are thoughts the one and only exception or are thoughts things that have their own vibrations and electrical impulses that we send out into the world and when you delve even deeper what is the cause and effect of these thoughts? Do thoughts send out messages to our surrounding world through our brain, through our skull, into the gases and bring back to us what the equivalent of that thought and the power and rate behind the thought was thinking? That was a mouthful. After everything you have just read… what am I talking about? Yes, of course, you might know it as The Secret, The Law of Attraction, Karma, God, Allah, Good Things Happen To Good People, Like Attracts Like and so on and so forth.

Thinking about thinking took me all afternoon and had me read everything from how light is formed, to what electrons are composed of, to how light bulbs and batteries work and back to atoms! To think about thoughts from a scientific and measurable point of view was pretty cool so I thought I should share!        

HOW TO BE PERFECT!

I have my moments just like everyone else... those moments where you feel like it is just a bit too much and you just want to give in or give up. The days where you feel like the world is against you and you just cant see how things are ever going to get better. The days that you are so busy looking down that you cant see the brilliant light at the end of that tunnel. In the past year I have had a couple of those moments. I am 24 years old, unemployed and a single mother of one. To be honest I never thought I would end up here and if you confronted my old school buddies and asked who was the least likely to be in this position they would say me. I always envisioned a person with such a description to be barefoot, pregnant, no bra, a cigarette in one hand and a Bundy Rum in the other. I’m not that girl. When I saw those two little lines pop up on that plastic stick I was terrified. I was ‘off’ with my on again off again boyfriend when I found out. I quickly called him, crying into the phone, and told him our news. He was over joyed at the idea of being a father, he promised he would change his unruly ways and said we should get back together and go through this as a couple... so we did. Six months after our beautiful son was born we split. Now what does this story have to do with being perfect? It was my beautiful son Beau who actually helped me realise the true meaning of being perfect. For those of you who have children know the amazing power a child has over you as soon as they are born. The love that en-captures you is completely out of this world and is something that you do not know you are even capable of feeling. This love is something so divine and pure and it grows with every little breath they take. You could forgive them anything, you would do everything in your power to protect them, accommodate their every need and help them on their way to happiness without even blinking an eye. I used to be obsessed with the idea of perfection. Everything I did and everything I said I used to do it with 'what other people think' in mind. Everything I did had to be perfect in such a way that if it wasn't I was not happy. I was not even happy if I missed out on my 'projection of perfection' by even a millimetre. I used to make myself sick with worry, I was never satisfied and I stayed in situations where I shouldn't have just because I believed in an awful and stereotypical definition of perfection. I am not perfect. No one is or ever will be. But I strive for perfection every day. Here is the real definition of perfection that you should live by... perfection is: doing your best. That's it. You have to come to a point in your life where you realise you will never be perfect because as you grow and change, your idea of perfection will change also, so you just have to keep striving for perfection but at the same time understand that you will never get there. Throughout your life you will continually grow as a person. You will come across circumstances and situations every day that teach you life lessons and if you are wise you will learn from them instead of feeling life is against you and continuously looking down and failing (or even in some peoples case refusing!) to see the light. You are constantly expanding your knowledge and being educated so something you considered perfect a year ago might not be perfect to you now because your goals have gotten bigger and your mind has expanded in such a way that it has also changed. Perfection is SUBJECTIVE. Take what you think your 'perfect' life would be and strive for that every day. You might change your mind in a year but that's fine! Mine did! I went from the idea of perfection being a working woman who would use her 20's to buy a house and make money which would help support my husband and I when we decided to have children in our mid 30's! Now my idea of perfection is being the perfect Mother, provider and role model to my son! Circumstances changed and I have learnt and grown. Not all ideas and goals change as drastically but remember there is no such thing as a perfect anyone or anything. Its just you striving to do your best at any given moment. I truly believe that if you know this it takes away a lot of the pressure and the illusion of what people think is perfection disappears because what is perfect is that you try your hardest to strive towards the things you believe are good and the things you want. That is perfection- doing your best. As one of my all time favourite authors, Don Miguel Ruiz, Says “your best will change from day to day because as we all know we have good days and bad”. Hence doing your best means doing your best in your situation and emotional state at that time. Now I understand this... I am no longer sick, lethargic or have headaches from constantly disappointing myself because I am not perfect. I love my life and my son and I am enjoying the ride and learning from the lessons and educating myself on how to be the best I can be. That is my idea of perfection. When I do have my moments of 'hopelessness' I look up and see the light which reminds me that I am stronger than I know and that these lessons are to be learnt from and let go which helps me in my continual life education so I can keep on striving for perfection! I hope you now also have a better understanding of perfection and you untie the knots that hold you to the old idea, release yourself to the winds of life, embrace yourself flaws and all and do the best and be the best you can be at any given moment. Now that is the true meaning of perfection. Stay fabulous! X
CLE

Just Say Me

After watching a hilariously funny episode of my new favourite 'mindless crap' tv show The Secret Life of an American Teenager titled “Just Say Me” I was left thinking and intrigued by the idea of masturbation. In this particular episode, based around a bunch of strangely intelligent and articulate teenagers including a teenage mother, a Christian girl, a 'slut' and their boyfriends that trapse along for the ride, the girls discuss how having sex has got them into so much trouble. It got Amy pregnant at 15, it got Grace kicked out of her Christian celibacy group and Adrian uses it as a tool for revenge, which she apparently regrets. So they decided instead of worrying about sex with boys any more they would masturbate but instead of calling it the ugly 'M' word they decided to call it “Just Say Me”.

It was so strange to see it on tv as it was something that was rarely talked about by anyone until Sex and The City certainly threw the topic of female masturbation into the mainstream and to be honest I'm quite glad they did. It opened up women to the idea that it was ok to 'just say me', men do it and it is common knowledge that men do it, so why cant women? I love the 'rabbit intervention' episode of Sex and the City, it is hilarious and there was nothing smutty or vulgar about it. Yet in saying this and the steps that female masturbation has taken up the 'topic of conversation' ladder it still seems to provoke anxiety in men and women alike. The Oprah Winfrey show did a segment on educating women on the benefits of feeling sexually alive, and calling attention to masturbation's role, biochemically and emotionally. It received terrible reviews, degrading and chastising the women who were brave enough to talk about their own masturbation experiences on the show and this was in 2008, ten years after the SATC 'Rabbit' episode opened up the topic to the world.

The psychoanalyst behind womensrealities.com Joyce McFaden did a study in 2008 and she stated that

“Women still experience guilt and shame around masturbation. 70% of the respondents to my study felt guilty, and 80% of them were never taught about it as a normal aspect of human sexuality - with a surprising 4/5 of those women being under the age of 35 and raised by mothers of the post feminist era. 88% of them reported a strong desire to hear other women's thoughts and feelings on masturbation, with most of them responding yes and absolutely emphasized with one to three exclamation points.”

After further delving into the topic I found that not many woman masturbate but a lot of women actually want to. The trends seem to be they either don't know how, they think it's 'gross' and should be left to men (haha!), and quite a large amount of women admitted to assuming that they should be passive, naive, and dependent when it comes to sex as women are never really taught otherwise.

I was 17 when I bought my first vibrator. I basically just bought it to show it off to my boyfriend at the time who had never made me orgasm and to tell the truth I didn't even believe at that stage that girls could orgasm! After playing around with it for six months I decided to lie down and see if the female orgasm was a myth or not. Much to my surprise it was no myth! Sex education at school covers how to put a condom on a banana and mothers rarely broach the subject with their daughters. But times are changing and women need to realise masturbation is just as natural as sex and allows you to have a better and healthier understanding of sex. If you keep it taboo and quiet, that is when it becomes unhealthy. Sex is an even playing field for both men and women we just need to be more open about the topic and realise that you should be empowered in the bedroom not the opposite.

So for the women out there who are not sure about it here are some of the known health benefits of masturbation:

• Eases some of the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome
• Relief from menstrual cramps
• Muscle relaxation
• Helps you to fall asleep
• Promotes release of the brain’s opioid-like neurotransmitters (endorphins), which cause feelings of physical and mental well-being
• Reduces stress
• Enhances self-esteem.

Some of the known sexual health benefits of masturbation include:

• Solo masturbation is a safe sex practice that carries no risk of sexually transmissible infection and unwanted pregnancy. As part of lovemaking between two people, it is known as ‘mutual masturbation’.
• Sexual tension is released. Masturbation allows a person to express their sexuality by themselves and is valuable if, for example, they don’t have a partner or if sex with their partner isn’t available, or if they want to (or have to) abstain from sex for any reason.
• Being familiar with your own sexual responses allows you to better communicate your wants and needs to your partner.
• Masturbation is a popular treatment for sexual dysfunction; for example, women who don’t orgasm can learn by masturbating.

If you would like information on how to 'just say me' or even to improve your technique the appropriately named Clitical.com has a truck load of information from your anatomy to moral issues to technique. It really is a perfectly natural body function it's not like your taking a mood enhancement drug to reach a level of stimulation... this is what these specific parts of your body are specifically for. It's not wrong if you do do it and it's not wrong if you don't do it. If you like it, great! If you don't, don't do it. It all comes down to personal choice!

CLE