Nurture21

It's been notoriously hard this last year . 'Unprecedented' is perhaps one of the most frequently used words of this time. Circumstances that none of us saw, none of us anticipated, none of us wanted. This mind blowing disruption has thrown itself at our feet like shattered glass from a car crash. We all feel bruised, we all feel weary, we have all had enough. The pull to get back to seeing people we love, doing the things we love and just being 'normal' is enormous and we all feel it, we all need it. We all grieve that which we have lost and it can be argued, 'we' will never be the same people again.  But what about our children? This generation of brilliant people who have had to adapt this year perhaps more than any other group of people. For children growing up in these times it has been a unique, challenging and difficult experience. Our children have had to learn and grow up in ways no other generation has ever had to. We have asked so much of them and...

Imagine for a moment that you have to stand in the shoes of the woman you have been the most critical of in your life. The person that if you're honest - you've judged. The person you promised yourself you'd never be. As you stand in those shoes, you start to see her life from a new perspective. You start to see the reason she is the way she is, why she does things the way she does. You see her hurts, her struggles, her insecurities - but you also see her successes. Do you think your opinions of this person would change? Do you think that you might be less quick to judge the next time you see her and her life doesn't meet your high (or low) expectations and standards? I'm ashamed to say that for me, there have been quite a few fellow women throughout my life that I've internally sneered at, criticised and judged. I didn't sit around with a clip board marking them, I didn't openly arraign them. But I did draw conclusions about them, I did satisfy myself ...