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Sometimes I wish I could give up.

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Sometimes I wish I could give up.

  Dear friends, family and followers, Sometimes I wish I could just give up.   And I bet you wish I would too sometimes… ;-)   Give up going on and on (and on) about the climate crisis.   Stop banging on about taking climate action.   Quit posting things on social media that make my friends feel anxious, overwhelmed, panicked, uncomfortable, stressed.   I know I seem always happy, always confident, always positive, but there is part of me that is simply desperate to give up. To just stop. To walk away. To no longer feel the despair, the...

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Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week 2021

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Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week 2021

2009   Looking at the picture of me as a brand new mum, with my eldest as a one-day old newborn, emotion floods right back in, like an unexpectedly large wave.My eyes well up because I see that (obviously) inexperienced one day old mum with a teeny tiny brand new baby, and I remember her numbness alongside the love.I’m still not fully reconciled with the state of my mental health post birth. I never really worked out where I fell. I felt empty and robotic much of the time, but similarly I could find happiness and joy in things.I cried...

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#tbt One from the Archive: world mental health day, fear & stacey dooley

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#tbt One from the Archive: world mental health day, fear & stacey dooley

(First published on The Contented Calf website on Thursday 11th October 2018. We were approaching being back in the UK one year, and I was thinking about my own mental health) With yesterday being World Mental Health Day, the @socialmums #SocialMumsOct challenge topic being Fear and me watching @staceydooley’s Fashions Dirty Secrets, it seemed like this post should be a combination of all three.  Mental Health is something I’ve been learning more about over the past few years. It is indeed a strange beast, because everything on the surface seems to be more than OK. I truly lead a very privileged life, essentially...

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#tbt One from the Archive: i could have danced all night… and still have begged for more.

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#tbt One from the Archive: i could have danced all night… and still have begged for more.

(First published on The Contented Calf website on Wednesday 14th August 2013. I'd just spent a week attending the London Amateur Ballet Summer Intensive, and I was buzzing...) In the words of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady: I could have danced all night!I could have danced all night!And still have begged for more…. I could have spread my (swan) wingsAnd done a thousand thingsI’ve never done before. I’ll never know what made it so exciting.Why all at once my heart took flight. I only know when he (actually, they - the rest of the London Amateur Ballet Summer Intensive Company, that is) Began...

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#tbt One from the Archive: i’m leaning in – to work, and motherhood

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#tbt One from the Archive: i’m leaning in – to work, and motherhood

(First published on The Contented Calf website on Monday 17th June 2013. My youngest was approaching 15 months and 3YO was soon becoming a 4YO and heading to primary school. And so I was starting to think more about work again.) It’s funny how in life sometimes things come together at the same time isn’t it? For me this has come in the form of reading Sheryl Sandberg’s excellent book, Lean In, and attending the first ever Mumsnet Workfest this weekend. Although I’d heard her name, I first took more notice of Sheryl Sandberg when I heard her on Woman’s Hour...

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