A few weeks ago we were due to go a good friend’s wedding. It was going to be the first time we had gone out without the baby and because I was so happy they were getting married and I knew it would be really special I was really looking forward to going.

Then on the day before the wedding, disaster struck. I went to bed feeling not quite right and spent the night with an upset tummy.  The next morning it continued. As well as not feeling well, I started to think into the future about the wedding about how I may not be able to go and this made me very upset. I could have taken some pills to help (how can I put this delicately) stop my ‘ailment’ but I felt I should let it ‘run’ its course (tee hee). Alongside this I started to have thinking about it being more than just something that could be solved by taking something to stop it – to being a bug that could be passed on to others despite none of my family having any sign of having it. This made me think more about the future and not going to the wedding, thus feeding my upset.

This continued until my mum arrived to babysit and / or help look after the kids if I wasn’t well. She is someone for whom if there were a gold medal in being a trooper she would win it and break all records in doing so on an ongoing basis –(and I mean that with the greatest, love respect and admiration). She told me to take the pills and see what happened so I did and I felt better, and before I knew it I was at the wedding having a great time. Yes I had to drink water and could only eat bread and potatoes but that was enough for me because I could imagine what all the great food and cocktails tasted like so could enjoy them vicariously.

What struck me about this experience and has continued to strike me over the subsequent weeks as I’m beginning to approach a crossroads in my life- is that all we can we ever do is live in the present and do what we know to do in any given moment. Looking to the past in certain directions and then thinking about why things happened to us that we weren’t happy about can only ever lead to pain. Looking to the future is the unknown so can lead to thinking and feelings of insecurity and anxiety. So being in the present is all there is.

I truly believe in the power of ‘mind’ – and when I say ‘mind’ I mean the force behind life. For me it’s the trust that things work out the way that they do and as they should irrespective of what we do and how we think about things. Added to that I know deep down now that we all, I included have all we need to do what we need to in life. We just have to trust it and go with it rather than let it get clouded, obscured and at times oppressed by thinking in our heads that tells us differently. At times over the last few weeks I’ve lost sight of this and upset myself with thinking about the past and got anxious about my future but deep down I know it’s there. All I can do is do what I know to do in any given moment and that’s all any of us can do.