Fifty Reflections

If you are reading this post on the day of its release, I am currently tucked away in a cottage somewhere in the beautiful Northern Irish countryside. 

There’s nutritious food, a hot tub, lots of fresh air and a spectacular view. My oldest friend and her husband will be there all the way from Germany. We met as babies, our mothers were best friends then and we’ve been close ever since. There used to be three of us, almost inseparable through our teens and early twenties but the third member of the trio is not at all keen on air travel.

She’ll be there in spirit, I am sure of it.

Gerald and Lena will be there, too and we’ve invited our closest friends here in Northern Ireland to join us for dinner at the cottage. They are a beautiful family who have watched our baby grow into the gorgeous young woman that she’s become. I’ll never forget dinner at their house when Lena was just a few days old, they loved our little baby as soon as they saw her and they have been a solid presence in Lena’s life ever since.

They had their own baby a good bit later than us and now we have the pleasure of watching their child grow. 

It’s my fiftieth birthday today and the people around my birthday table are all very special to us. We have a bond with all of them, ties that can’t be explained.

These are the people outside of my immediate family (and the person who gave me my first birthday card this year) who make me feel safe in this world. 

What is it that holds people together over decades? How do you know that you can call on a friend no matter what?

In my experience the proof is in the pudding and the only way you’ll know is when you call on someone for the first time or when you are being called on. 

Will they hold space for you unconditionally? Will you hold space for them?

Half a century on this planet has taught me a lot about myself and about other people. My relationships have changed over the last decade or so, mostly because I have changed.  

My priorities have changed.

I have embraced yoga into my life and yoga has the tendency to help you see through the bull***t and tidy up your act.

As a result I am the happiest and most content I have ever been in my life and in hindsight getting here was so simple. 

Not easy.

But simple.

All I had to do was 'Be Here Now' as often as I could muster and show up for myself, that's it. 

My business is thriving, I wrote a bestselling book and I am supporting women in integrity with myself and, most importantly, in true service to them. 

I wondered if I could come up with fifty reflections for my birthday blog to share some of my most impactful insights.

What has helped me thrive and grow the most?  

What brings me happiness, love and light?  

I started a list and it just felt boring to try and list and number the thoughts that were popping in (and, let's face it, FIFTY is a lot!). It didn’t make for great reading either. I realised that there was a theme, a pattern to my thoughts and each time I tried to bullet point a particular pearl of wisdom I came back to the same conclusion:

Happiness is inside of you.

You alone are the source of your own happiness.

Nobody can make you happy.

No thing can make you happy.

Finding happiness is not complicated but it takes bravery, it takes the commitment to be true to yourself no matter what. Despite the simplicity of it, it is challenging and sometimes even painful to implement. There's a lot of letting go, a lot of loss. 

Loss of your sense of identity for instance and also losing some of the people who don't like the new you. You'll find out whose friendships are true and unconditional. 

The catalyst for my greatest upleveling in the last decade was admitting to myself that I wasn't happy in my job. In fact it was the only area in my life that caused me regular grief.  I loved working with pregnant women and I loved attending births but I just felt out of place in the NHS. It was never because of my colleagues, ever, in fact there are so many of my former colleagues I still have so much fondness and love for. I respect what they do every day, their commitment, and I miss them dearly. I miss the sense of solidarity that forms among health care workers, too. No, it was never about the people. It was the realisation that midwifery in its true sense had been hijacked from women long before I was even born. It was  the double standard that is embedded in the policies and the lip-service and gaslighting (for example: 'you've got a right to informed choice' aka 'we inform you of what's on our limited menu and you chose').

So I founded Essentially Birth in 2019 just in time for getting locked down a few months later. This meant that the business had to have an online element to it if I was going to make it work and so I had to pivot. I had so much to learn, I was way out of my comfort zone. 

I remember being told that authenticity was key to a successful online business. My biggest block here was that i couldn't really say what I wanted  for fear of being reported to my regulator but also for fear of showing my true self to my former colleagues. How could I do both, shifts as a midwife and also express my admittedly radical thoughts publicly?

I was trying to think my way out of it.

Should I just let the business go?

I decided to take the plunge, put all my savings on the line and enrol for a three-month coaching program that I still value as one of the best investments I have ever made in my life.  

There was a significant and life changing aha-moment during one of the coaching sessions. I was struggling with some challenges I was experiencing with putting myself out there as a business owner. I was very emotional and tearful that day, struggling with some criticism I had received on one of my online platforms. I just felt like I was never going to get anywhere. I was hurt by the criticism and I took it very personally.

My coach asked me: 

‘Are you your business?’

The answer was immediate.

‘No! No, I am not my business.’

‘That's right, he said, you are not your business. Who are you?'

I hesitated. Seems like an easy question to answer but it really isn't.

'Is there a time that you remember knowing with absolute certainty who you are?’, my coach asked.

Exactly what I needed to hear. Again, the answer came immediately in the form of an image and I just wept.

I saw myself on top of the Cave Hill here in Belfast looking down into Belfast Lough. 

Up on that hill I am not 

‘a midwife’,

I am not 

‘an aromatherapist’,

‘a yoga teacher’

‘a body worker’, 

‘an entrepreneur’. 

I am not 

‘a mum’,

‘Gerald's woman’

and I am not even  ‘Nicole’

On top of that hill I am part of creation, part of the universe, part of the way of things. This is where I know with every cell of my body that I am bound by Natural Order and that surrendering to it is the only thing that can ever set me free. Up there I know everything because I know that I know nothing. Up there I am pure LOVE. 

I couldn’t say much through the stream of tears other than  ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’

During that moment I realised that any unhappiness I ever experienced was created by my attachments. My suffering came from being attached to ideas of myself and ideas and expectations of others.

I understood that letting go of attachments and following my heart would be the key to getting my business off the ground and finding happiness (and a solid income) in my working life, too.

That sense of being an empty vessel, a channel for love, was the place to tap into for making decisions. I call it ‘asking my body for the answer’ because somehow it feels as though my body provides me with a sense of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ once I have emptied my mind and let go of any expectation and attachment to who I think I am. 

As I peeled down each layer of who I thought I was, I came to know the essence of myself and, as new agey as this may sound, I truly believe that there, at our very core,  we are all the same. All of us are vessels for pure love.

We all have that spark, I have seen it in the little souls I have witnessed coming into the world over the years.

Everything feels so much easier now. Of course it is impossible to go through life without any attachments and I certainly don’t feel fluffy and blissed out all the time. There are tough days and there are good days, there are days when I feel fully in flow and others when I feel thoroughly stuck, but ever since this moment with my coach I know how to forget, even for a moment, who I think I am and access who I really am. And who I really am usually knows exactly what to do next!

Here are five insights from my initial list. Some are less, some are more profound and they are not in any particular order:

1. Sock companies have a lot to answer for!  Who the heck figured it would be a good idea to sell you a pack of five pairs of socks that are essentially the same but the heels and toes are a different colour? I have no doubt that this adds to the suffering of thousands of people!
2. Cleaning the house is such a chore! I tend to put it off in favour of writing, reading, or cooking but when I do dedicate my full attention to it, the outcome is pure magic! Cleanliness really is godliness!
3. Food is a source for health and the simplest foods are often the most nurturing and they leave you feeling fantastic! Here’s my favourite red cabbage and apple slaw that lasts for a few days covered in the fridge and can be a great snack that transports well for a work lunch: Shred half a red cabbage and grate two apples into it. Add three spring onions and a couple of sticks of celery (finely sliced). Make a dressing from half a lemon, three tablespoons of olive oil, half a teaspoon of maple syrup, a clove of garlic (minced), some salt, pepper and half a teaspoon of oregano and pour it over, crumble a few walnuts into it and some feta cheese or feta cheese alternative (find my recipe for vegan feta cheese at the end of the blog). 
4. Humour is vital. Laughter is medicine. The ability to laugh about yourself will enhance your experience of almost anything.
5. Nature is perfect in a way that nobody has fully understood yet. Humility and grace towards the unknowable of life will ultimately ensure our survival as a species. I am committed not to mess with it. 

What makes you happy? Why not send me an email to let me know? Looking forward to hearing from you at [email protected]

As promised:

Vegan Feta Cheese

280 g extra firm tofu no need to press
100 ml melted refined coconut oil (it’s important that it is refined, otherwise there’ll be a strong coconut flavour, measure AFTER melting)
2.5 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1.5 tbsp apple cider vinegar
¾ tbsp nutritional yeast
¾ tsp onion powder
⅓ tsp garlic powder
Generous pinch of dried dill herb (important for flavour!)
1-1.5 tsp salt

Just put everything into a blender and mix it until it is creamy (I like it a little grainy so that it feels like feta).

Please note: You will need a blender! I almost defunct my stick blender trying to make this, the tofu is pretty tough! This keeps in the fridge for up to 7 days. Fabulous crumbled over salads but also on a sandwich with some cucumber or peppers.