Dear Kids (A reflection from a greying Mama’s Heart)

Dear Kids

Whilst no parent has all the answers and whilst this mama is constantly, still learning, know this for sure:

1. You are never alone
2. Travel is the best teacher
3. “No” is a good word. Use it often. It’s particularly lovely when there’s a dead silence and you offer no explanations
4. “Please” and “thank you” never goes out of fashion
5. Water heals. Oceans. Tears. 2 litres a day
6. You have a built-built in “people” radar. Please listen to its beep beep beep when something feels offish
7. Sleep is medicine
8. Play, play, play. Never stop playing
9. Less sugar, less screen time, more grass, more laughs
10. God is inside you and no one one has a special hotline that you need to go through
11. Betrayal is painful. Nothing can prepare you for that kick in the groin
12. Go out and explore. You can always come home to cry
13. Try and remember who you were before the world started pinning its labels on you
14. Your body is beautiful. Exactly as is. Explore it. Admire it. Treat it right and it will reward you so much
15. No one knows it all
16. Blood makes you related. Loyalty makes you family
17. Believe in magic. Those who don’t, never find it
18. Your word is your honour. Do what you say you will. Always
19. A grateful heart is a magnet for miracles
20. Give freely. Of what you have. Of your time. And quietly please
21. No one likes a show-off
22. Learn to listen. To God’s voice in the early morning. To yourself. Certainly to people who you trust
23. Shortcuts never work
24. People will forget what you say but they will never forget how you made them FEEL. Be kind
25. Books, music, thunderstorms and tea are good for lonesome days when you need your mama
26. Abundance and prosperity are your birth right
27. Look beyond the labels of race and religion, gender and social standing. How people treat people from whom they need nothing is where you should focus your scoring and grading
28. Jealousy is when you count other people’s blessings instead of your own
29. Love does not need to hurt
30. Speak your truth. Even when your voice shakes
31. What sets your soul on fire? Go there
32. Learning is constant
33. Messing up is okay. Intentionally hurting someone never is
34. You teach people how to treat you
35. You may have one “true love” or many or even none. Remember that you are whole anyway
36. You have a story that only YOU can tell

 

xoxo

Mama

 

© Aluta continua, as they say.  A Heart Full of Stories, 2017

A Prayer Answered

If you have ever lost someone you love, you will know that it sucks the life out of you.

 

Standing at the shore, I let my heart break. The pieces fell hard and wave after wave picked up a piece and took it away. Completely centred, I stilled myself more, allowing the feelings to come and the waves to go.

 

Softly, the tears fell. Softly too, the waves came in perfect rhythm.    

 

My prayer that morning was a simple one :  I asked that the same one that made the waves, the same one that made my sad heart, would hold my mother in tenderness as she traveled back “home”. She had just passed away and the smell of her still followed me everywhere.

 

Looking back at the footprints and with the sound of the waves getting more and more faint, I realised that the prayer was not only about my mother. It was also about me. For me.  I needed her to journey well, so that I could journey well too.  My happiness was contingent on it.

 

Knowing for sure that my prayer was answered, I began to walk back to the boardwalk.  The connectedness I felt to the ocean, its rhythm and the creator of it all was not for me to try and understand in that moment. (Or perhaps ever!)

 

Instead, I bowed my head for a second in gratitude, delighted that there are undoubtedly magical moments and miracles on the most ordinary of days. Indeed when we’re silent and centered, plugging into the rhythm of the divine flow is not only necessary, it is completely instinctive. A rhythm most divine.

 

 

Ask me, I know.

 

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2017

 

Aluta continua, as they say.  Allow me to wish you a million opportunities on the most ordinary of days to plug into the magic and surrender to the rhythm that sustains us all.