April – Happy Easter

April is the month when we are celebrating Easter.  What does Easter really mean to us?

Some use it as a time to connect with family and enjoy copious amounts of chocolate.  While others perhaps use it as a time of reflection.

Easter in the church is all about new life and the resurrection of Jesus

I would like to invite you to think about what new life you want to create this month or this year?

Is it to start your family?

Is it to extend your family?

Is it to grow your own food – sowing seeds in the warming soil?

Is it a new job?

What is it for you?

Every year for the past several years I start to sow seeds to grow my own food. (I had an allotment for a few years, now it’s just my back garden).

I often then think about nature and how it always delivers for us.  We sow seeds in all areas of our lives and see things growing including the seed of knowledge and ideas.  Already the blossom and fruits are beginning to show themselves.  Look at you and see what is growing!

This scenario happens with fertility too.  Sometimes its starts with just a thought and a little action – then in 9 months later there is a baby.  Simples, well sometimes yes, but sometimes not at all.

Do you feel like giving up?  May I suggest that you don’t?  There are many many different ways to help those that are struggling to conceive. 

I have in past blogs touched on some of the issues that can impact fertility:  So let’s take a look at Stress this month as it Stress Awareness Month

STRESS

We have all heard about stress and how it can be detrimental to our health but what actually happens.  Stress is not the same for everyone!  And sometimes it is something so silly that it can tip you over the edge. 

A little story

“I was working in a very different job many years ago and thought everything was OK. I was sitting one evening enjoying a cup of tea as you do and watching TV.  I put it on the side table and my cat jumped up and knocked it off.  What did I do?  I sat there and bawled my eyes out why? I have no idea why I was crying I just sat staring at the cup on the floor and the whole cup of tea that was seeping into the carpet!!!  It took a few minutes for me to come back to reality and clear up the mess and make another cuppa!  I was then OK!

The reason we break down with stress is often a silly one but what it is doing is allowing the emotions to be released.  Do you hold in these emotions or let them out?  Crying, punching a pillow, going for a run, singing, screaming are all valid ways of letting out emotions.  Do you have a positive way to release your stress?

One thing I would say is never holding back these emotions as letting them out will serve you better and any emotion you are feeling is valid and OK.  Acknowledge it, allow it to flow.

Other ways to avoid putting yourself under too much stress are to:

1. Limit your working hours to, at most, 10 hours a day
2. Keep at least 1½ days a week completely free of routine work
3. Make sure you use this free time to cultivate a relaxing hobby, do something creative, or take exercise, preferably in the fresh air.
4. Try to adopt a relaxed manner.  For instance, walk and talk more slowly.  A useful idea is to act ‘as if’ you were a relaxed person, almost as a game.
5. Avoid obvious pressures, such as taking on too many commitments.
6. Learn to see when a problem is somebody else’s responsibility, and refuse to take it on
7. If you have an emotional problem, you cannot solve alone, seek advice
8. Concentrate on one task at a time, and focus all your attention on the present
9. Learn to say what is on your mind instead of suppressing it.  You don’t have to be aggressive – just to state your point of view clearly
10. Listen to what other people say to you, and about you
11. Look long and hard at all the stresses in your life.  Make a list of them.

Set out to find a positive attitude to things, which can’t be changed.  If change is possible – take action.  Don’t let things wear you down.

Today I refuse to stress myself out about things I cannot control or change