Well “Happy New Year” to you all! I hope (should you desire) that you are slowly moving into 2008 without too much rush or haste.
Simon and I took the boys to Queensland this year for Christmas to visit my family. We then headed to far north eastern Canada for a dear friend’s wedding.
As a mother it was quite a fascinating experience having time away from the boys. We had ten days in total, including almost three days of traveling each way, all of which felt like an eternity! I managed to cry for most of the first 17 hours of flight, which was fairly amusing for Simon and the air hostesses. Fortunately we then had a day’s rest in Vancouver and I managed to pull myself together for some serious “retail” therapy. Oh what a delicious distraction!
Then with another day of flying and some very ‘intense’ landings during serious snow storms, Simon and I realised that we needed to find a deeper sense of inner peace. This trip was obviously a lesson in trust, another lesson about surrendering to God’s divine plan.
I tried to find peace in the uncertainty of not knowing whether God’s plan was in fact, that Simon and I would crashland, forever then remaining preserved under inches of ice and snow (apparently this was the heaviest downfall they’d had in years). Or perhaps this holiday was a time for us to reconnect with each other and our baby within, who was relishing in my undivided attention. It is hard to believe that we are now just over halfway through this pregnancy.
Most days/weeks, through gratitude and meditation rituals, I do consider the fragility of life, however when you are so far away from your children your mortality rattles at your very core. I sat with the knowledge that should anything happened to the boys we were literally days away from being able to assist and be with them.
I decided to sit with these fears rather than denying them. I examined them and brought each of them fully into my awareness. I then bundled them up and handed them over to Source. This was an amazing process and enabled me to re-divert my energy to enjoying more fully our time away by being more present. There’s no denying that at times this was particularly tricky, as my heart would often flip as I’d think of the boys and long to be with them, at that point I would hand over my concerns again.
The irony of the situation was that the boys were almost completely oblivious to our absence. We’d ring and they could hardly draw breath whilst explaining to us the fun they were having with their cousins. The little buggers didn’t even ask for us once! Life is so humbling.
The beauty of not having our children interrupt our every thought process whilst we were away, meant that Simon and I had plenty of time to talk about our vision for the next few years. We had had such a busy 2007 that it was great to have time to re-calibrate and consider the areas we wished to take in different directions.
In particular, we decided that we wanted to be more conscious about where and with whom we extended our time and energy.
We also commited to moving at a slower pace and with more awareness than the previous year.
As Buddha once said “There is much to be done therefore we must proceed slowly.”
What are some of your commitments for this New Year?
It is a wonderful exercise to take the time to consider where you would like to be twelve months from now.
Good luck and blessings to you all in 2008,
Jennifer Barham-Floreani
(Bach. Chiropractic, Bach. App Clinical Science
Registered internationally, no longer practicing as a chiropractor in Australia.)
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