Thank Hu

Hu - Universal Oneness

About 8 years ago, somewhere on the other side of my experience with depression as a young mother, the overwhelming worry that somehow this might have, in some way, impacted my daughter was at the front of my mind. If I think about it now, I want to hug old me and tell her that this, all of this, will eventually make sense.

At the time, the concept of gratitude had started to make its way into mainstream thought, recommended by psychologists as a key ingredient in the mental health toolkit, and also as a way of helping children as they navigate the challenges of life. The idea was to talk (conversation being key) to your children about things you are all grateful for each day.

So, being a new mother desperate not to fuck up as a parent (because goodness knows we were… and still are… being told all the ways that is possible) I decided that each evening I would lie with my two-and-a-half-year-old at bedtime and we’d chat about things we were thankful for. You might think asking a two-year-old to do this is a bit ambitious, but her perspective was precisely what was needed.

I will never forget, the first night.

Me: “Leah, what are you thankful for?”

There was a confused pause.

Me: “Let’s think of something you are happy you have in your life. I’m grateful for you. What are you thankful for?”

Leah: “Umm, lamb chops.”

While this response may horrify anyone who is vegan (I personally don’t eat lamb chops today), please hear me out.

Here was a child who had just had her favourite dinner with her parents and she was thankful for it. She could have spoken about toys or anything really, but in that moment, the experience of eating this meal was right up there. And that’s how children roll really. I’ve had conversations with parents who are worried they are not giving their children enough activities or enough to do, but at the end of the day, I think their needs are simple… a delicious meal, a delicious hug or even something as simple as lying on the grass with you listening to the sounds that you both can hear. Connection.

And I suppose things like this, positive experiences, are easy to be thankful for.

A meal, a loving message from a friend, a gift, being able to buy healthy food, a home, a bed…

A few years after that lamb chop moment, however, I had my aha. I was writing notes and wrote:

Depression is hands up the best thing that ever happened to me

I know that’s not what a lot of people who have experienced depression, or are experiencing depression. would say, but in embracing the decision to find out why I was feeling that way, and surrounding myself with people who wanted to support me on that journey back “home”, I discovered what that depression wanted to show me. In doing that it has completely shifted my world view of what depression even is. That journey ended up as Mother Earthed. And when I started it I told myself that if it helps one other woman then my work is done.

Over the past few years that thankfulness has gone deeper. I even began to feel thankful for the people who I felt let me down, judged my parenting choices, or criticised me, at points on this journey because their opinions actually catalysed some of my biggest revelations and growth moments.

I was thankful for the nurse who told me what birth she predicted for me. And I was thankful for the birth that didn’t go so easily. It began a journey to remembering what birth should feel like.

I was thankful for the person who once told me: “Being a young motherhood is the loneliest time, and that’s just the way it is.” It began a mission to debunk that.

I was thankful for the women who told me that home birth was crazy. It confirmed that you should never take advice from people who aren’t walking your journey.

I was thankful for the mother at the baby shower who looked at me breastfeeding and said: “You are not normal”. It reminded me that I did not come here to be “normal”.

I was even thankful for the individual who plagiarised my writing without acknowledgment. Why?! Because, when I dried the tears and stepped back from the initial anger and disappointment, I could see that it was in fact the universe saying: “Don’t you see! You are doing it! Just keep going.”

I was thankful for all the doors that had just refused to open for some reason. And the doors that had closed.

And the more I could be thankful for what was, the more I became thankful in the present.

Thankful for the child jumping on me while I am meditating.

Thankful for the sticky fingers.

Thankful for the messy toy room.

Thankful for tantrums.

Thankful for the little boy knocking matcha latte all over my laptop. (TRUE STORY and there were so many lessons in that).

Thankful for the cancelled flights.

And that’s what it comes down to… the message behind the messenger, or the message in the emotion and whether you’re willing to listen.

A friend recently reminded me of something that I apparently told her about 15 years ago at her wedding. It was this:

We need to understand that where people are in their lives will lead them to behave in their own way, and it’s not actually how they behaved but rather how you expected them to behave that upsets you.

Does that mean you lower your expectations of people or life… or yourself? Heavens no. Does it mean that you should be okay with being treated badly, disrespected, taken advantage of, or being abused mentally, physically or emotionally? No. It means understanding that other people or experiences are where they are, or they were where they were, to show you something or to ask you to see something in yourself that you needed to see. The emotions that may come up from it… depression, anger, sadness, fear, guilt, envy, smallness are simply manifestations of a deeper need, or belief in your value. When you operate from a space of knowing there will be a lesson in this that you will be thankful for, the conversation changes. Listen, and know that dropping your energy to a lower vibration won’t help you, them or anyone else really. It’s not about them. It’s about whether I can see the message in this for me, as uncomfortable as it may be, and realign in myself so that I can grow from it, and know that I am where I am for a reason.

I am.

Thankfully.