This will most likely be my last blog as, after 11 years, 225 blogs & a book I’m running out of words. And if I needed proof, I really couldn’t decide what to write. Today (18th June 2024) is Finding Joy’s 6th birthday & in a quest for inspiration I read through my journal from the time she was published & these words really jumped out: ‘Maybe it was all about love, Maybe I did love myself enough to do the work & ask questions, Perhaps that was the case all along.’ To be honest reading them was quite emotional (especially as they’d slipped my mind) & I spent some time pondering everything I’ve done over the past few years. The phrase, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” (Søren Kierkegaard) popped into my mind & I realised the one thing; the big thing I’ve learned (am still learning) is the importance of self-love. Everything I’ve done flowed from self-love Looking back, I see that everything I did flowed from self-love. It propelled me to ask for help, to do the ‘work’ to process my childless grief & the loss of both parents, it encouraged me to explore & to follow my curiosity, and most importantly it enabled me to be confident about who I am, tell my story & find my joy. This realisation was quite a shock as, although I touched on self-love in Finding Joy, it wasn’t something I’d consciously considered & … Read more
How do you nurture yourself and how do you play?
I read in the paper recently that a new international study by the Journal of Consumer Research found that “listening to sad music was the best way to recover from … Read more
Speaking with my Authentic Childless Voice (part 2)
A few weeks ago I wrote about how hard I found it to speak openly about being childless, how by not doing so I was hiding my true self from … Read more
Living a Happy life – what do you want; the importance of values?
Here’s the first in my series on tips and tricks to help childless women live a happy life. This week I’m going to discuss values. Basically the more your values … Read more
Today I’m feeling grateful
Last week I wrote about some of the negatives of being childless, and as I write this the sun is shining (albeit briefly) so I feel that it’s a good … Read more
What’s it like to be childless?
In the last couple of weeks, in a quest to really understand what it’s like to be childless I’ve interviewed almost 20 women. I can’t thank them enough for sharing … Read more
Speaking with my Authentic Childless Voice
I know how hard I’ve found it to speak openly about being childless, and I also know that by not doing so I’ve been hiding my true self from the … Read more
Childless or Childfree – what’s the difference & does it matter?
I’ve been using the term Childless to describe myself for over 10 years since we stopped trying to have children and jumped off the IVF rollercoaster. Having read various other … Read more
beliefs guide everything we do
I’m going to talk about 2 beliefs this time; Have respect for the other person’s model of the world/point of view My previous articles have talked about how we act … Read more
