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This blog is based on an article I contributed to Whole Mamas and is a version of the Spilt Milk Yoga chapter The Shock of Birth/Embracing the Learning.  Yoga teaches us that whatever our challenges we can turn them into learning. What makes the difference is our own internal approach. In our responses we can make choices that increase our sense of liberation and love no matter what the situation. We can move through and beyond the struggle to find meaning in our experience. Here I’ll share with you something of my motherhood experience, like I do in the book,…

Spilt Milk Moments – 5 Things You Can Ask Yourself to Turn Burning Into Learning. Spilt Milk moments are a part of motherhood. Sometimes they are BIG and OBVIOUS, sometimes they are small, snagging at your awareness with a little gut-tug of “Oh, something about that wasn’t right.” So can we do something with those moments to evolve our behaviours, to glean a sense of progress amongst the repetition of chores, to choose new responses rather than trip ourselves up on the same old habits and humps? Here are 5 simple self-inquiry questions I shared in a contribution article to…

How are you going with the school holidays? Juggling your kids and other work commitments – feeling guilty that you’ve farmed them out while you soldier on – trying to squeeze in the quality moments you think you should be having but not feeling it? Or perhaps you’ve nailed it, you’ve carved out this time for a road trip, crafting activities, sandcastles and flow, and you’re wrangling sibling fights and domestic tasks like Nanny McPhee. For now. We expect so much of ourselves, we want so much for our kids, and sometimes those things mount up, and under the pressure…

That dark shape in the middle of this picture is a nest. And on that nest is a mother blackbird. And under that mother blackbird was an egg that is now a baby blackbird. We have watched over the last four weeks while the nest and its inhabitants have been thrashed about in the branches, storm-tossed by wind, drenched by rain, and pelted by hail. It is amazing that the nest has withstood the elements and that the egg and chick stayed on board. Through all of the tumult that wee mum has held relentlessly to her task. Alfred Adler…

OWN IT – Applying Compassion I’m trying to do right, but I’ve done it wrong. I kid you not, I just caught myself writing this text to my 16 year old; “My point is I wasn’t ONLY mad at you. I showed up with your stuff. You asked me how I was and I let you know that it does break up my day having to bring you warm stuff…” STOP! What am I doing? I am justifying, ranting, feeling righteous indignation. I have another go. I try to apologise and repair but it gets away on me. “I apologise for…

Spilt Milk Yoga isn’t about the age of your children. It’s about YOU as a human in progress. I wrote Spilt Milk Yoga because I needed a way to give shape and a sense of progress to the mush of reactions, practices and aspirations going on in my head. I have used this Intention chapter numerous times regardless of my children’s ages and for different situations, and my answers are always different. I wrote the guts of this chapter when my children were 3 and 6. Now they are 13 and 16 but I am still practicing Intention. I guess…

Currently motherhood exists outside the sphere of net worth measurements, except as a cost in sick days and maternity leave from paid work, or as a career-stopper for all those degrees that go “nowhere”. Although in the bigger picture motherhood could be seen as adding value, as a solution to national ills, health expenditure and personal and societal heartache, I couldn’t wait for central government to wake up to this before I took action, my kids would have left home by then. If I couldn’t change government approach to social policy I figured I would have to change my approach…

Why is it that motherhood is an anomaly in our social structure? Why is motherhood such an under-mined, invisible asset and not treated like the golden resource that it is? Because it’s value is immeasurable, not able to be monetized? Does it only count if it can be boiled down to its net worth? Perhaps motherhood is outside the box because it was there before the box was built, and the blokes that built the box just took it for granted. Mothering is like the sunset; important, always been there, we need it, we love it, it’ll keep happening regardless….