Worried about Mother’s Day? Here are three things which will help.

It’s Mother’s Day next week in the UK, every shop is full of it, there’s posters outside every restaurant and it seems like every aisle in the supermarket has present ideas.

You want to hide.

You want to bury your head somewhere and not come out until it’s all over.

Me too.

I’m afraid I have some bad news for you in that I don’t have it completely figured out yet. I’m getting there and I’ll share some strategies that work for me and if you have other things that work for you we’d love to hear what they are.

Mother’s day is just like Christmas in that it reminds me of what I don’t have so I use similar techniques to get through it and my three top tips are:

1. Listen to your self-talk.

I’ve written previously on the importance of being kind to yourself so I won’t go over it here. This week I’ve been thinking about the importance of listening closely to the language you use, as the wrong words can keep you stuck particularly in your self-talk. Here are a couple of examples;

What comes to mind when you say ‘I always struggle with Mother’s Day…. ’?

For me it brings a picture to mind of a long drawn out struggle stretching from the past way into the future.

Now contrast that with ‘I have struggled with Mother’s Day…’

This is different, yes was a struggle in the past and there’s a question mark about if and how far it continues into the future (by the way, did you notice the blog title?).

The language you use can keep you stuck or move you forward so my first tip is to listen to your self-talk. When you use language that puts difficult things into the past and positive things into the future (I will..) it will make a positive difference to your life.

2. Avoid places you know will be full of families.

My guess is you did this at Christmas and I think it’s easier to avoid families at Mother’s Day. You know that on the day every place of worship, pub and restaurant will be full of families and they will walk round the park afterwards so my advice is to think where families might be and go somewhere else!

Where could you go?

I’m not sure what we’ll do this year, in the past we’ve had a lovely quiet walk in the country, a picnic lunch then a meal when we got home, other years we’ve stayed at home.

3. Focus on what you have not what you don’t have. 

There are many things in your life to be grateful for, yes there are.

Stop for a moment and think of three people you are grateful to have in your life and three things. Could you spend Mother’s Day with any of the people on your list?

I’m grateful to have my Husband, my Dad and my friends without children (you know who you are) in my life.

My three things are the daffodils and hyacinths that are coming up in the garden even though I don’t remember planting them, the mug I bought in the Yorkshire Dales which reminds me where I grew up and a new cork board which I am going to love using, once it’s on the wall.

If you still have your Mum I would encourage you to include her on your gratitude list because take it from me you’ll miss her when she’s gone. And remember she will also be hurting for you.

Over to you

Please share any tips or things you do that help you to get through Mother’s Day.

If you find this daunting or you’re not sure what action to take, I’d love to help you. You can book a complimentary session via my online diary or leave a message on my contact page and we can spend 20 to 30 minutes to get clarity on how we can work together to create a life you love.

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