SOLD: Beautiful Happyzine

While some days it doesn’t seem as if I achieve anything (as the mother of this good news website, plus one gorgeous three year old and one Golden Retriever), actually I do.  Even today, as I slumbered, good stuff was happening elsewhere in the Happyzine world. Gaibz the great edited my newly written e-book.  Rebecca May the gifted writer and passionate permaculture student managed to post a blog about the birth of her (very) newly delivered daughter!  Yes, I know that when I relax, good things unfold elsewhere.  And now, onto the subject of rest

We most definitely live in a culture where ‘rest’ is frowned upon.  I mean, come on, why take a pill for a headache so that we can ‘soldier on’, when our bodies are delivering us the pain messages that insist we simply need to relax.  And why take those strange pills that make us forget we have the flu so that we can carry on, on, on, when actually our bodies are very politely requesting us to take to our beds and enjoy a day or two of sweet slumber.  I mean, I know whey we do carry on, there are many reasons: making money being right up the top there at the top of the list, and I’m suggesting that it’s OK to rest sometimes, in fact, in the long term it’s much better for us.

As I build up Happyzine, I’m doing it with the intent to maintain life balance at the same time.  While I don’t begrudge myself the occasional days of intense work, if my son’s taken care of, in general I work at working sort of part-time around being a Mama.  I never intended for Happyzine to become a full-time job for myself, and though this intent comes at a price – perhaps Happyzine could have grown faster – the benefits are far more glorious: I get to build a close bond with my son, and I get to maintain my happiness.  This whole part-time work thing requires one key quality: patience.  Major Patience.  Closely followed by: Persistence.  Big time baby.  I think a part-time day of work is more than enough, in fact I often visualize myself reclining in the sun-shine with a smile on my face whilst money miracously appears in my bank account.  Yes, I’m setting up passive income streams.  Primarily so that I can enjoy the highly delicious aspects of life: parent-hood, holidays, breathing and eating.  Ok, the last two don’t require a passive income but you know what I’m getting at.  Serena Star-Leonard (my business coach) has just started an online business course for people who want to create this life-style, and once I achieve it, I’ll probably write an e-book about it.

Anyway, back to the now, for weeks I’ve been keeping my immune system just strong enough to keep my body healthy, despite continued signs that it needed a really good rest.  As my son lapsed into his cold, requiring much tending, I stayed well.  And I pondered the message I received just after Kahu was born, that our kid’s health are often a reflection of our own health.  While I didn’t join my son in his deeply snotty state, I continued to feel the need for more rest then usual, and not just a sleep-in (though that would have been grand!), more along the lines of a deep, slumberous hibernation.

And then yesterday was melt-down day for me, I watched my thoughts becoming less and less rational and I couldn’t seem to figure out how to return them to their usual state.  I kept snapping at my beautiful, much adored son, and then apologizing profusely.  This was a sure sign that I needed to slow down. I diligently turned up for playcentre duty (after a night of tending to my coughing son, at the highly unsociable hour of 9.30) and found that people kept looking at me sympathetically and taking over my chores.  Then I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a droopy faced, red eyed lady, who could have sworn she looked perfectly normal but in fact looked as if she’d just gotten out of bed, even though it was nearly mid-day.

So today, son safety with father, I took to the soft, safe haven of my bed and dreamed for hours and hours.  I was in and out of all number of strange situations that made perfect sense in the dream state and not much sense when awake.  I’m not one of those people who sleep that easily in the day, I generally want to be ‘catching up’ on all manner of tasks.  So when I got a good four hours in, I was impressed.  And now I feel much better, and am relishing a good feed of fruit.

Congratulations Rebecca May on the birth of your daughter and I wish you all a long, relaxing sleep.

365 Days of Fun and Chillaxation (as I raise my gorgeous son and grow my good news website to a subscription base of 100,000 people).  The Low Down on this Blog.

Check out yesterday’s blog.

Tags: sleep