LITTLE NIBBLES

WHEN TASKED WITH WRITING THIS ARTICLE I THOUGHT, ‘SURE! I’M A GOOD PSYCHOTHERAPIST, I CAN WRITE AMELIORATING WORDS AROUND THE SUBJECT OF MOTHER’S GUILT.” HOWEVER, A DAY BEFORE DEADLINE, I FIND MYSELF IN THE MUDDIEST QUAGMIRE OF MOTHER’S GUILT I HAVE, TO DATE, EXPERIENCED.

Who am I to be giving advice? I feel awful. All due to an entirely avoidable incident between the family dog and the beloved guinea pig. Long story short. Bad dog. Guinea pig shrouded in flower sand buried. I knew the dog wasn’t trustworthy, I thought the secondhand hutch a tad dubious and when my child had a hunch to check on her piggie, I held her up with IDK... some inane, mumhassle nonsense.

We can recognise feelings of guilt and loss. Yep. We can acknowledge those feelings.

Dear Little Nibbles, Thank you for teaching me these lessons. Shine brightly my star. I love you.

We can notice when guilt is irrational. I haven’t ruined my child.

We can accept there are things beyond our design. Motherhood doesn’t come with a diarised schedule of life-defining moments. I won’t know it all.

We can hold ourselves with selfcompassion. I do the best I can with the resources I have. I’ll learn, forgive and grow with kindness and grace.

Little Nibbiles

by Anna Kristina

Anna Kristina is an intuitive healer, mud-pie maker, musician and mother of one. Her exboyfriend called her ‘blunt as a spoon’. And she is. She wrote a song about it. She’s a get-to-the-heartof-it kind of person. Upon putting a 20 year career in arts and events on hold to raise her child, she realised what a ridiculously tough gig motherhood was and promptly fell apart.... like, really.... In the process of putting herself back together she wrote lots of soul-searching articles and was published, became fascinated with the law of attraction and won a load of prizes. All fantastic, but didn’t fill all the gaps, so she went in search of more meaningful, longer term solutions. That’s when she discovered Processwork, a shamanic, Jungian dream-based modality of holistic counselling and psychotherapy which she trained in and now blends with her intuitive gifts and creativity to provide a mental wellbeing service that aims to make digging in the dirt much less like digging trenches and a bit more like digging for treasure. She wants you to know that therapy is awesome. She wishes she’d done it sooner. Honestly. Just do it.