On this Mothers Day in our part of the world, I wanted to share a couple of ideas as to what can help us mothers as we strive to do our best for our children. I'd like to start with a small anecdote.
This past week, a dear friend of mine posted a picture of her bruised and blue finger on Facebook. She'd caught it 'between a rock and a hard place' as she said. I immediately commented, 'See, this is what happens if you don't have Weleda Arnica ointment to hand.' She replied that, strangely enough, she'd just recently bought some. So she applied it and today has posted an update on the finger. The improvement she describes as 'miraculous'.
As I wrote in my book, I don't know how any mother survives without arnica ointment. If applied very soon after an injury has occurred (never to broken skin, though) it takes pain away and prevents bruising or eggs on the head. Now, there's a balance to this. We don't want to molly-coddle our kids, but we don't want them to suffer unnecessarily. So we need to sense when they need a little doctoring. Having said that, I always apply arnica ointment whenever there's a blow to the head. This is likely to be often when your baby grows into the toddling stage. You don't want lingering harmful effects when it comes to the brain.
But help doesn't always have to be so tangible. There's that biblical quote about lifting up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help. This is usually misinterpreted to mean help comes from the hills. Instead, it's a question.
At the moment, I'm re-reading a book by Adam Bittleston called 'Our Spiritual Companions'. He writes so beautifully about the archangel Gabriel and suggests that parents can get help from him. But how to connect to this great beaing? Adam Bittleston writes, 'through your feelings'. That's interesting, isn't it, when so much of what we read in the way of parenting advice is connected more with our heads than our hearts? So, to feel what your child wants and needs, and be open to subtle intuitions.
He also provides another key as to how we can connect. This is via gratitude. On this mothers day, when we turn loving thoughts in gratitude towards our own mothers, it seems to me that's totally apt.
