I am privileged with living in a city and part of the world that benefits from all the necessities. I have a roof over my head, food to feed me when i’m hungry, a duvet to keep me warm, hot water to cleanse me and clothes to shield me from the cold. I have public transport to take me from A to B and a job that provides me with income to secure access to the above.

How can i make use of one of these today. By sharing. By sharing my clothes with the cold outside. By sharing my food with the hungry outside. By sharing my sleeping bags with the homeless outside. By sharing my happiness in smiles with strangers who may have had a bad day.
If humanity were to share as mother earth shares her gifts with us, then we would be in a much better place than we are now.

I enrolled for a charity called rhythms of life on Wednesday. Yesterday was my first shift doing food distribution with them. I do a lot of charity with the homeless in my spare time and I am always, always so touched by how polite and grateful so many of the people queuing up for food are. I also noticed, a lot of the people were actually quite fussy with the type of food they like, and I was told that during the day, the people on the street will eat whatever they can as it is all they can get. However, when we offer them a choice, they will be choosie. And I thought…why the hell not. We get to decide what we want to eat, why can’t they. We are all humans after all. And I loved that I was offered the gift to give these people that choice. 🙂

To my mother. We don’t always see eye to eye and our relationship isn’t the most ideal mother/daughter relationship but she has done so so much for me that I am grateful for. I would tell her how much I appreciate what she has done for me. Even though I wouldn’t always use her approaches to certain issues, I know that she comes from a place of love for her daughter and that regardless of my momentary anger, I can see clearly that she only wants what’s best for me. I would tell her that I genuinely and truly love her. It’s an unconditional love (we probably wouldn’t be in each other’s lives had we not been mother and daughter in all honesty). I would tell her that her sadness is my own, because she is my mother and I am her daughter. I would tell her that I am happy and grateful that she is my mother

Everything. From the moment I wake up to the moment I am overtaken by dreams. I am currently reading a book called ‘the compassionate mind’. There are several exercises in there that the author invites you to partake in which will benefit your mind, body and spirit in every day life. One of the exercises I am excited to try is ‘pretending you are an alien for the day’. You make believe that you are from a planet or darkness. Where there is very little to experience, and you have come down to earth discovering all these new things; colour, smell, light, taste…etc etc. It seems like such a fun activity to try 🙂

Unfortunately, someone I exclude from my life a lot is my mother. Not as in I don’t see her, I see her all the time. But our relationship whilst I was growing up and since then has been turbulent. She is a very negative and pessimistic woman due to experiencing quite a lot of hardship during life…therefore takes a completely different outlook on things than I do. It can be hard to remain positive around her and I get very frustrated at times as i’m very much a keep positive regardless of the situation and outcome person. Saying all this, she is a lovely woman and all her negative points come from a place of pain. And I love her and cherish her, no matter how hard it is to show her.

Because of our relationship as I grew up, I learnt to emotionally disconnect and put up an emotional barrier to her which makes our conversations and interactions slightly awkward. But I must try and overcome this, for both of our benefits. I will include her in as much as I can.

Ah Susan, reading that has made me all emotional…haha what a softie I am. (Now there is a trait I share with my mother… however I unfortunately hide mine from my mother – a consequence of a turbulent upbringing. She thinks I am a big hard nut. Little does she know, I cry at all Disney films haha)

I love your term ‘helicopter mum’. I would most certainly be one, without a doubt. I have an image of a mother hen, covering her offspring with her big feathered wings.

Well done on being such a beautiful mother figure to your children dear Susan x