Begin Again

Purpose. It’s a big deal. What’s your PURPOSE in life?!

EEEEEK! It makes my head hurt!

There are courses, personality tests (Enneagram 4 over here!), and so much content all about it, all over the Internet.

I watched Soul the new Disney Pixar movie and wept as I related to the character of 22 who apparently couldn’t find her ‘spark’ – her purpose.

One of my biggest struggles in my life, has been finding my purpose. I have an ongoing, relentless, internal narrative of ‘what shall I actually do with my life’. It’s a non-stop saga inside my head. I always thought it was my own specific malady. LOL! But actually I discovered this is a big ADHD trait. (I was diagnosed a month ago or so).

Like all ADHD traits, it exists for everyone on some level, but people with ADHD seem to suffer with this more than others. It interferes with my life. It causes me to act impulsively, to lay awake at night, to get angry, to spend too much money, to quit things. It’s just STRESSFUL!

They say make your passion your purpose. But I have so many passions. So how do I turn just one into my purpose?

The ADHD diagnosis was a bit like when the tabloids declared that Kate Moss does COKE! I.e. It wasn’t that surprising, but it kind of was still hard to process, for me anyway. It’s helped though. A lot of stuff makes sense now. And I am less hard on myself as a result of it. Especially when it comes to the searching for purpose stuff. Now I stop myself buying that course or starting that new thing. I wait it out, as often the thing becomes less shiny and attractive after a week or two.

ADHD itself became a passion when I was newly diagnosed. And it still is. I love to listen to podcasts and read about it. Especially as I am not the only one in my family with it. It runs in families too so I am constantly playing spot the ADHD trait in my family members!

Sobriety is another passion of mine.

Since I last blogged there has been mostly sobriety with a few periods of drinking again (“surely I can just be a ‘normal’ drinker if I keep to a few rules…” *throws out rules after a bad day, 3 drinks in*). This was followed by a renewed commitment (thanks to a fabulous sobriety coach called Mandy Manners and her community called Love Sober) as The Lifestyle Choice for me.

Becoming sober led to me embracing Wellness… yoga is a huge one, but mainly it’s Essential Oils that have been my daily, HOURLY, tool – to go inward without it being too painful; to give me permission to rest; to provide a focus when I need it, a support to lean on when I struggle. I am IN LOVE with Essential Oils and always will be. So I became a Wellness Advocate for doTERRA. I am learning so much about them, and plan (one day) to become a qualified Aromatherapist and help women with their self-care using oils. See what I mean? So many passions!

Self-care. That’s a big one.

I started Mumfully, a self-care community for mums. It was really popular and took off, quickly. Then realised I was basically neglecting my family and had to press pause. (Mumfully followers, please note, this is only a hibernation – I will be relaunching again very soon in a more small and manageable way.) And I can’t wait. Self-care is my passion, my go to. My centre. It literally has saved my life and it’s so needed for us mums. The future of the earth literally depends on the health and wellbeing of our mothers – these are the people raising our future leaders. What could be more important than that?!

As part of Mumfully I actually took a Holistic Life Coaching qualification. I haven’t gained my certificate as I don’t think I wish to practice as a coach – yet anyway. However it has gifted me with some skills that I can use in leading my self-care community. And it helped me come to terms with my own self-limiting beliefs that were feeding my psychological reliance on booze. It helped me just going through that coaching process on myself.

That just about brings me up to date. And now I’m here. Just before Christmas I took time out from any and all ‘work’ and was just Mum again. And I loved it. I am still loving it.

I guess my purpose is… being Mum. Being me. Just me, with my truth, my experiences and my passions. And all I can do is share them with the world.

In Soul the new Disney Pixar movie, a soul-in-the-making called 22 can’t seem to find her spark, her purpose (which will enable her to be given a chance to live). Not even the great geniuses of the world can help her – Ghandi, Freud, Mother Theresa! Eventually she becomes a lost soul, “someone who becomes so obsessed with something they lose their connection to life”. She is obsessed about her apparent ‘lack’ of purpose – so much so it has made her insane, a lost soul. But then the main character, Joe, points out to her that a spark is not about having a single purpose, like playing piano, or tennis, or making art. Rather, it’s about living your life – it’s boring bits, it’s unhappy bits, it’s glorious bits. All of it. Your purpose is just to be YOU.

So here I am. Just enjoying my regular old life. I have many passions. And they may change. In fact they WILL change. But I love to connect and share my passions with others. So I guess that’s what my purpose is, right now.

My friend once said, when I was fretting about what direction to take my blog in, “it should just represent where you are, right now”.

So the blog and YouTube are still about me, Rachel. But there’s a little update. It’s about my Sobriety journey. It’s about Essential Oils. It’s about Self-Care. And it’s about Family Food, always. Always with the food!! My beautiful new header reflects this fresh ‘direction’.

I read this poem in a kids’ poetry book the other day. I thought it really encapsulated that amazing ability we have as humans to start afresh every day. It’s so exciting that we can do that. God knows, I have done that in my sobriety so any times.

So here I am, with my blog, beginning again. I’m excited! It’s great to be back. AGAIN!

New Every Morning
 
Every day is a fresh beginning,
     Listen my soul to the glad refrain.
And, spite of old sorrows
     And older sinning,
 
Troubles forecasted
     And possible pain,
Take heart with the day
     And begin again.