A Mothers Day Reflection

Ooooof I don't know whether it's the Mother's Day effect (complicated feelings) or just hormones but this ones coming straight from the heart today.

Back when my twins were little, I think I felt like I had something to prove. Being young, doing it solo, I held this strange belief that being a good Mum looked like giving them my entire self and forgetting my own needs.

I remember on my first night out when friends babysat, I stood on a piece of glass in a bar that went straight through my shoes and I ended up in hospital getting stitches. it was an unlucky rather than drunken accident but sat in A&E not being able to get back to them, I just sat and wept telling myself I was an awful mother.

On my way home from that weekend in London I was so exhausted from being in Chelsea and Westminster hospital all night, I forgot to pack extra bottles for the car ride home. We got stuck in awful traffic on the M4 and the boys screamed and screamed. I pulled off at a services and had to cool boiling water in the winter air - when the silence eventually fell as I held two bottles simultaneously and fed them - once again I wept and wept.

I cannot tell you how close I was to calling social services to come and get them from that service station.

Everyone told me I just needed to get through the first year, I felt like I was drowning in motherhood but simultaneously hopeful of the future my boys and I had to come.

But when we finally did make it through that first year - life threw a thunderbolt.

Alfie's diagnosis with SMA shattered our world. Being told he would just have a few short years to live sent my body into a shock that still makes me shake even typing about it now.

Why am I telling you this?

Because I started this journey at rock bottom. I wasn't ready, I wasn't motivated. There was just a small ember in my fire and I knew I needed to fuel it to fight.

That journey wasn't pretty and it wasn't linear. There were tears and tantrums, but I kept showing up for myself and piece by piece I started to emerge from the cloak I had been living under.

And somewhere along the way I realised something really important.

Looking after myself wasn't selfish. It was the very thing that allowed me to keep going.

It's also the reason The SHE Collective exists.

Not because life ever gets easy, but because having strength, support and somewhere to come back to yourself makes everything else feel a little more possible.

And that’s really the heart of The SHE Collective.

Not chasing perfection.
Not trying to become someone else.

Just helping women slowly find their way back to themselves again.

One of the things I hear time and time again from women inside this community is:
"I finally feel like myself again."

And honestly, there are few things that mean more to me than that.

Tomorrow we’re starting the next Spring Into Action group inside the app.

It’s simply five days to help you get back into rhythm if things have felt a little off lately.

Nothing extreme.
Just a place to begin again.

If that little ember in you is there too, we'd love to welcome you in.

You don't have to do it all at once - just start somewhere.

Ro x