Tag Archives: parenthood

Books, Life, sketchbook

The transformational power of a book

Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead was one such transformational force that changed my life when I read it in 2013.

Sometimes in your life you happen to read the right book at the right time. and when that happens, there is a transformation. Up until then in my career there was a lack of women role models…

…and therefore no awareness of possibilities for the working mother.

Through her stories I understood it’s possible to have a career and be a mother, that workplaces can provide support structures, and so can the people in your life.

And that’s how I stopped holding back and took on the opportunities coming my way. Hope, optimism and possibilities – that’s how Lean in inspired me at a crucial time at a moment in my life…and I leaned in towards discovery.

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Life, Reflection, sketchbook

Parenting, and your sense of self

parenting

Transcript

Getting out of your comfort zone always brings with it a loss of identity and the last one for me was becoming a parent. Suddenly you’re thrown to the deep end, everything around you, losing the floor beneath your feet. Not only your body, your hormones, your sense of time and also your relationships, your mental makeup, your creativity and your sense of self. Everything you knew how to do, suddenly becomes harder. On non-existent, like creativity. Or sleep. It’s easy to hide behind the baby – but you really owe it to yourself to get it back or you might lose it forever. 18062017.

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Life, sketchbook

Tomorrow is our permanent address

While going through my archives, I found these pages from a 2004 journal. The brown boy and I had just gotten married, and I was resisting all the extended family’s combined pressure on me to start propagating the species.

In this angry book it seems that while I did not want to have a baby, I knew all about the details of bearing one. What a know-it-all I was.

2004-baby-12004-baby-22004-baby-32004-baby-4

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