(Beauty in the eye of the beholder)

So… I’m still here at the coffee shop and I’m thinking about the stories we believe about ourselves. When I was a new Mum, with a little baby that cried a lot, I believed I was a bad mother. It was an easy story to believe. Nothing I seemed to do would stop that crying. When I looked around at other mothers they seemed to know what they were doing, their baby wasn’t crying, that’s what makes a good mother……

(Room with a garden)

Unfortunately, when we believe a story, everything we see from then on fits into our story. We make it fit into our story. But the truth is, any situation we find ourselves in can be looked at in numerous ways. For the baby crying we can say…. bad mother, new mother, sick baby, bad food, painful allergy, high temperature, ill-health… which one is true? Who knows? Maybe all, maybe none.

(The east German walk man)

The “bad mother” can’t see the good things she’s doing, she has tied herself to a story. But a story is only something we believe about ourselves and a belief is only an opinion we think is true.

Maybe it’s time to pick up a new story, Mairead.