It’s 2020 and we are kicking off a New Year and a new decade!

This is a time where people normally set their goals and resolutions. Personally I love doing this but it also can come with a sense of anxiety and pressure that we need to establish these fundamentals. Instead today I want us to do something a little bit different. Today, I invite you to please grab a chair and join me here at my table for a few minutes.

This table is not the kids table, it’s the adult one and even if you feel uncomfortable… it’s time to take a seat.

Our operations manager reflects on the bumps in life

My table has scratches and dents. It is worn but it is warm and welcoming. No frills are needed here. Here you will find compassion and kindness, grace and humor. You will find love and wisdom sprinkled like scattered salt.  It’s the place where for the next 12 months we are going to look to cut away the things from ourselves that no longer serve us and stick a fork into the things that will encourage and inspire us on this year.

Let me share a quick story that led me to this entry. This Christmas season a funny thing happened. For the FIRST time in history, I got to join the “Grown Ups” table!

For years now, all the family cousins and I squeezed in at the “kids table” for family gatherings. As the years turned we would longingly cast our eyes at the elders. They always had the crystal, the fine china… the silverware! They would cast grinning looks from over yonder – it was like they had their own secret code and only the elite (or in fact the elderly) could be a part of it. I was mesmerized for years!

It didn’t matter that we when we came to the kids table that we were tots but we were now grown adults and our passage of rights was still not ready for us to join. My eldest cousin finally made it to the proverbial place in his mid-forties and we all laughed when he squeezed in the corner space of the table. I think the elders took pity on him… he had grey hairs now after all. We called him Prince Charles that day!

As I sat at the table on this momentous occasion, I took a moment to reflect on the past decade. It was a messy one for me with many life changes including a divorce and dealing with mental health challenges with person’s close to me. In this time I won some battles and lost some as well. I had a lot of growing to do and life didn’t seem to want to play nicely for a lot of it. I experienced incredible disappointments but I also lived through some of the most beautiful experiences too. I learnt first-hand what it is to be on your knees and I know what it is to find the courage and faith to get back up when you have no idea how to.

Adding life lessons to your quiver usually doesn’t come in the easiest of times.

A reflective look at life and IVF

But today, today I challenge you to look at your “life table”. Look around in your space and ask yourself the following questions:

  1. Who are the people seated at the table with you?
  2. What are you consuming and putting into your body?
  3. What conversations are you having?
  4. Can you be your true and authentic self in this space?
  5. Is this space a place of judgement and shame or is it a place where you can safely grow?

When you come to the table you automatically win in two areas.

One is that to show up, you have to be intentional to be a part of the gathering and two, you had to make it a priority to yourself to simply pause and be there. Success!

If you have intentionally showed up today and joined me in this space, welcome to my table, I lean over and squeeze your hand.

Perhaps you are at the table today because you are trying to get pregnant and the messiness of IVF and infertility is becoming too much. Perhaps you are kicking off the New Year and you have no idea where you are going and what you are doing and that brings fear to the surface. Perhaps you are at a stage where you know you can only see as far as your next step and to be asked to do anything more than this is simply too much to ask.

But that’s the joy of this table, you can put your bags down and lean back and just observe and when you are ready to jump in and participate you can. No judgement, no shame.

The challenges of IVF and support for patients going through it

No matter where you are on your journey today I hope you look at yourself in the mirror and know that everything you need is here in the now. You get to decide who has the absolute honour to be at your table. You get to decide what you will consume that brings you to be your best. You get to decide who you are talking to, you get to decide the internal chatter that is happening in your own head. You get to decide if you are comfortable in your own skin… and you also get to when it’s time to make a change to any of the above.

We are going to get to know each other a lot better this year and I am truly looking forward to our connection.

Happy New Year!

 

Rachel xo