How We Suffer When We Believe The Stories We Tell Ourselves

I WAS SITTING OUTSIDE on a warm, sunny autumn day, attempting to meditate. It was a day that was supposed to be filled with celebration, but here I was, crying my eyes out, my heart breaking open. I had suffered with an inner restlessness for days, avoiding the emotions that wanted to come up and be acknowledged. When I now finally sat down to feel them, they welled up in such intensity it was overwhelming. But I stayed with the process, as I knew I had to face this inner turmoil that was bubbling up to the surface.

- Cissi Williams

In my mind’s eye I was transported back in time to the day when my eldest daughter was born and how, from the moment she looked at me with her piercing blue eyes, my life would never quite be the same. I remember being so surprised that she would calm down with just the sound of my voice or the touch of my hand, and that she even knew instinctively how to breastfeed. She knew how to be a baby, how to have a relationship with me, and I had absolutely no idea how to be a mother.

It dawned on me when she was born that I had no roadmap to follow and no one who could guide me. I had been through a dysfunctional childhood, causing me to leave home when I was 18, to get as far away as possible. I spent five years travelling around Asia, in search of the pieces of myself I had lost when I was growing up. Eventually I learned to love myself enough to be able to be with someone without running away, and I settled down in England. And now, here she was, this beautiful little princess. I was not prepared for the overwhelming love I felt for her, or how I would gladly give up my life to keep her safe. But I had no clue how to best be there for her.